Quintspinner

by Dianne Greenlay

  He mulled over his options. There were only two. Refuse her and have his actions be revealed to the captain, and then his flesh and bone would be broken under the force of the lash. Or accept her terms, and after being caught with her, hope for nothing worse than his body being broken under the force of the lash ….

  William stood unmoving, engulfed for a moment in the beauty of Tess’s features. Her lashes, long and sultry, framed her eyes, and William was certain that he could smell a faint wisp of tonic tinged with cinnamon on her breath. The stern expression had left her face, replaced by a softer countenance. Her demeanor suggested more of an inquiry forthcoming now.

  “Will you?” she asked and reached out to him. The facets of her ring’s emeralds twinkled as they caught the smoky light. Her fingertips rested softly on the back of his hand, sending an exquisite sensation of sparks up his arm again.

  Maybe some things are worth dying for ….

  William leaned over and withdrew his knife from the lid of the spice box.

  “Yes, of course,” he heard himself say, while simultaneously a quiet voice in his head whispered a timid third option. Maybe, if I’m very careful, I’ll get to spend time with her and not get caught, I’ll escape the captain’s torture and death sentence, and–

  His gaze fell upon the deep gouge his blade had made in the wooden lid and froze there, just as Mrs. Hanley’s generous bosom appeared next to Tess’s shoulder, announcing the impending and enthusiastic arrival of the rest of her.

  And Mrs. Hanley will strangle me on the spot.

  “What’s keepin’ you, child? Oh! Hullo, Mr. Taylor!”

  Surprised by the sound of her grandmother’s voice, Tess spun round, her skirts nearly knocking the woman over.

  “Oh! You startled me!” Tess exclaimed, reaching out to steady her.

  “Hah!” the effusive housekeeper grinned and patted her own ample rump. “The dark’s truly a maid’s friend then, if’n neither of you was able to see the size of me comin’ at ya’!”

  Dark enough to hide you perhaps, but light enough to show the fresh scar in your spice box thought Tess, her eyes following William’s petrified line of sight.

  “So, did ya’ get the mint sprigs?”

  “Uh… no, we, that is, I was delayed just now ….” Tess’s voice trailed away as her thoughts scrounged madly about for an explanation.

  “Eh? What’s this?” Mrs. Hanley had spotted the gash in her trunk.

  “It was me,” William quickly confessed. “It was from where my knife landed.”

  Tess stared outright at him. His courage is admirable, I’ll say that for him! Outshone perhaps only by his honesty! She touched her grandmother’s arm and cut William’s confession off.

  “He threw his knife at something that was here only a moment ago!” Tess interjected. Not really a lie, she told herself. My hand.

  Mrs. Hanley peered more closely at her precious small trunk. “Hmmph!” she snorted, “t’was probably a rat, I’ve no doubt!” She wrinkled up her nose in distaste. “Foul stinkin’ brutes! An’ so many of them, too! There’s gettin’ to be more an’ more of them, the longer this damnable voyage takes! They’re all over the place! Breedin’ like–well, like rats!” She looked up at Tess and shook her head. “The doctor has diagnosed several cases of rat-bite fever in the men, too! An’ us stuck on this floatin’ hole, with nothin’ much to help them with!”

  She leaned in towards Tess and William and lowered her voice in a conspiratorial tone. “Mind, I’ve got a bit of roots an’ such fer the cure, but just enough fer those of us who matter!”

  She smiled at William and nodded, “So ya’ go on an’ keep tryin’ to kill them, I say!” Turning to Tess, she added, “I’m thinkin’ I’ll mention it to Dr. Willoughby, that it would be some good fer ya’, if ya’ was to have a wee blade of yer own, for yer personal protection against such horrid, filthy creatures! If the doctor’s in agreement, an’ I don’t see why he would object to such an obvious matter concernin’ yer safety, perhaps Mr. Taylor here could arrange fer a dirk–lady-size ya’ understand, now–an’ would make sure that ya’ knew how to use it without comin’ to any harm of yerself.”

  Before Tess could recover from the shock of her grandmother’s statement, the housekeeper examined the gash in her spice box once more.

  “Looks like the first part of me letter,” she announced, fingering the edge of the small straight cut. She looked up at William. “Would it be too much to ask, Mr. Taylor, if ya’ could finish this into a proper ‘H’? On account of that’s me letter,” she added with a wise nod of her head. “Or even maybe carve the whole thing fer me? Hanley?”

  Tess noted William’s hesitation was misread for an impending rejection, because her grandmother quickly added, “Perhaps I could exchange a service fer ya’? An’ I wouldn’t expect it to be done fer free, ya’ understand?”

  William continued to stare mutely at her.

  “Perhaps, well … would ya’ be needin’ anythin’ repaired or sewed up, like?” she asked hopefully.

  William fingered the bare blade of his knife. A deal had been struck.

  Spurred on at the insistence of both captains now aboard the Mary Jane, surviving sailors, marines, and passengers alike fell into busy daily routines. Captain Raleigh lorded over those whose duties it was to sail his ship and therefore the men under him kept the vessel’s decks, riggings and sail cloths clean and orderly.

  Captain Crowell, with his military background, continued to be in charge of the ship’s defenses. Almost all of the remaining men from the Argus now found themselves taking on training in weapons and warfare. The tall blond captain seemed outwardly as unperturbed and in control as ever, but inwardly, he despaired over the loss of the ammunition and guns that his own ship had carried. He himself had checked the stores on board this new ship, the Mary Jane, and had been alarmed at the relatively small amounts of gunpowder and cannonballs contained in the merchant ship’s hold. Most of her cargo space was packed with boxes and casks; some were supplies for the ship’s journey, but a large section was destined to be unloaded at Port Royal.

  Only he and Captain Raleigh were aware of the contents and value of this cargo. Tea, fine cloth, tools with which to build, and weapons with which to defend oneself were packed within the many crates and barrels. Of much greater value was the stained glass; the dismantled pieces were being carried safely within barrels of molasses. Such beautiful glass pieces were intended to be fashioned into windows to adorn a new church that was to be built and dedicated to the King. As well, several crates contained ornate religious artifacts fashioned from precious metals and decorated with jewels; all had been blessed by the archbishop before their departure from London. Such items, back in England, would have been valuable enough there, but were precious enough to the British subjects already in the West Indies settlements that their arrival was eagerly awaited. Precious enough that the merchant ship had been assigned their naval escort.

  And now, the effectiveness of such an escort had been destroyed, their defense lying scattered, encrusting on the ocean floor.

  Nevertheless, routine and busyness kept the men occupied and prevented complacency and boredom from setting in among the crew. Captain Crowell was well aware that idleness, if allowed for too long, would result in the availability of both too much grog and pent-up energy among the crew. In the life of a sailor, such a combination was always a sure recipe for brooding and fighting among themselves. Therefore, even those with no previous aptitude for weaponry were assigned to artillery and fighting drills.

  John Robert and William attended weapons practice, initially as a fulfillment of their duties upon the ship, and then as a way of showing off their skills to the others, reinforcing the impression that they were not to be challenged in any sort of confrontation. Both of them were given a wide berth by the hands on the Mary Jane, interacting with her seamen only when forced to.

  William’s keen eyesight would have ensured that he had the makings of an ex
cellent powder marksman, had the marines and newly conscripted sailors-turned-infantrymen been actually allowed to fire powder shots at practice targets aboard. As it was, the scarce ammunition was being hoarded, to be kept for future use, should a real threat require it. The men went through the cleaning of their guns in minute physical detail, while the guns’ loading and firing was done entirely in pantomime.

  Target practice with knives was a different matter, however. Knives, as weapons, could be easily retrieved from the targets and reused. William quickly established dominance with both his accuracy and speed.

  Because of his brawn, however, John Robert was chosen by the gun captain to be ‘Number Two’, the man in charge of positioning the cannon’s gun barrel. Although all of the large cannons aboard the Argus had been lost with her sinking, those fitted upon the decks of the Mary Jane were ‘four pounders’–heavy enough, with each weighing around eight hundred pounds–and it took several strong men to maneuver each forward into place.

  During the drills, each six man gun crew competed against the others, moving as quickly as possible, rolling the huge iron cannons forward into their dockings and securing the wheeled trucks with breeching. These were massive ropes which were looped around the cascabels at the back end of the guns and in turn, were attached to the ship’s sides, in an effort to limit the cannons’ recoil when the great guns were fired.

  John Robert’s scarred face, slurred attempts at speech, and lurching gait provided ample fodder to feed the cruelty of such men–men who had been raised to survive in a world that had no mercy for any perceived weaknesses. He responded to their jeers and taunts with roars and frequent slams of his powerful fists against the sides of their heads, his frustration boiling over into physical actions. Nevertheless, reluctant admiration for John Robert grew among the gunners, as he quickly became adept at heaving the cannons into position.

  No one on board could match his brute strength. The uncoordinated movements still plaguing him as a result of his head injury vanished with the intense efforts required to position the monstrously heavy guns. His reputation as a fierce and disfigured warrior spread among his shipmates, although none had actually seen him in any kind of real confrontation since the skirmish between him and Cook had occurred.

  That event already felt like years ago to William.

  He rarely thought of his mother and sister anymore, nor of the grisly find of his brother’s body stiffened upon the ground. Sometimes memories of them threatened to invade his thoughts, but the pain that the recollection of them brought was still too acute for William to deal with. He wondered how his father dealt with such thoughts. Wondered if his father even had such thoughts.

  His Da’s lack of speech was nearly as frustrating for William as it was for his father. Many times when William ached to hear his Da’s opinion about something, the big man’s features would tighten and his brows would knit together in a fierce scowl, as he clearly understood the questions but could emit no intelligible answers. He often ground his teeth together in exasperation but most times spat out no more than a defeated grunt.

  William stared into his father’s face. The thickened ridges of scar tissue from the burns twisted in angry tangles across his cheeks, mouth, and forehead, leaving only those familiar blue eyes untouched. They stared back at William, full of unsaid emotions and thoughts. William’s throat tightened as he read the unspoken plea in his father’s eyes. How he yearned to have a conversation with his father again! If only there was a way to replace his Da’s injured tissues ….

  It was possible to substitute a man’s missing limb with a wooden peg to walk on–Mr. Lancaster was learning to do just that with one that William had fashioned for him out of a scavenged piece of wood from the Mary Jane’s carpentry supplies–or an iron hook to replace a man’s grasp when fingers or hands were missing, but there was no substitute part, William noted forlornly, for a man’s missing speech. Not even with hours of practice in vocalizing simple words with his Da’ had they made any real progress.

  More than anything, William wanted to ease his father’s mounting inner anger and frustrated sadness. Wanted to pierce his lonely and silent world and forge a bridge back for him. But how to do that?

  The answer came serendipitously one day, in the form of one small goat.

  “Do ya’ ever watch that damned goat?”

  William stood quietly behind two sailors and overheard them in conversation. “The way she watches the big goon, I mean?”

  “Yeah,” his fellow ship mate shook his head. “Never seen nothin’ like it. Ya’d think she thought he’d birthed her himself!” and the two of them doubled over with coarse laughter.

  For as large and fierce as John Robert seemed, his ongoing attachment to the doeling was entirely out of place. The burly man appeared larger than ever in comparison to the elfin kid who frolicked and trotted at his heels, behaving in much the same fashion as William had seen dogs do with their masters back in his village.

  The way Lucas used to with–Stop it! he scolded himself. Focus on what’s here and now. You can’t change what’s happened.

  William could see that the tiny goat obviously appreciated his Da’s reciprocal attention. And why not? Everything pleasurable in her life came from the man–food, water, clean stall, and grooming. In fact, since her rescue from the Angus fire, Gerta had imprinted on John Robert, as nearly as a goat could do. His Da’s few distorted syllables were entirely acceptable to the little animal, and she responded to his grunts and snorts as easily as a young child would have obeyed a parent.

  Gerta was sprightly, William had to admit, in spite of her progressively reduced amounts of feed. Provisions, this far into the journey, were becoming sparse for all aboard the ship, livestock included. William had come to realize that goats were the preferred animals to take along on such a journey as they consumed far less forage than cows and horses, and perhaps more importantly, especially to the one in charge of the livery shit pot, they produced significantly less volumes of liquid and solid waste than the larger animals did. Livestock waste management was always a concern on a ship.

  Besides being more compact, goats usually provided a good source of milk for the crew on ocean voyages. Had she survived the fire, Gerta’s nanny would have fulfilled that role, but Gerta herself, having never had offspring of her own, produced no milk. She had become useful in another way, however, perhaps in an even more important capacity.

  Gerta predicted oncoming storms.

  Sensitive to barometer changes or perhaps blessed with a keen sense of smell for rain, Gerta’s behavior was as predictable as any of the familiar signs of oncoming inclement weather.

  “Look! It’s her ‘fussy dance’, Da’. Do you see that?” William laughed at the doeling’s display. She stomped her delicate front hooves in a furious rhythm on the deck and punctuated the maneuver with a series of short snorts that sounded for all the world like a human sneezing. “Rain squall’ll be coming up shortly, then,” he remarked and checked the skies for telltale cloud masses developing anywhere along the horizon. “I’ll tell the captain.”

  “Ya-a,” his father replied as he scooped the small animal up, and set her up on the top of a large crate. Gerta loved to be on high surfaces and had climbed nearly every available solid surface on the ship.

  William watched his father as the man produced a simple boar-hair brush from his waistband satchel and began to groom his young charge, patiently brushing the tangles out of her silky coal black coat until it shone. Such tenderness was in direct contrast to the gruff demeanor Da’ showed toward crew members.

  In her friskiness, Gerta attempted to rear up and butt her head against Da’s stomach. John Robert instantly grabbed the goat’s legs and flipped her onto her side, pinning her firmly to the crate top with one hand.

  “Na-ah-agh!” he admonished her and waved the index finger of his other hand back and forth. The kid lay still, her eyes locked onto John Robert’s hand. Slowly, he lifted his other hand from her ch
est and she jerked her head and neck up as though attempting to right herself.

  “Na-ah-agh!” he repeated with another wave of his finger. Gerta lay back, perfectly still except for the impatient flicking of her tiny tail. His father grinned at William and then returned his attention to the goat.

  “Wah-ap!” he commanded and curled his fingers into the palm of his hand. In a flash, the she-goat was back on her feet, calmly rubbing her head against his leg, as if to assure her keeper that she bid him no ill will at all for his discipline he had inflicted upon her. William gawked in amazement, stunned by a revelation.

  Hand signals. Of course! It was the very answer William had been searching for.

  The crowding aboard presented the happy opportunity for sailors to observe their female passengers more frequently and from a much closer vantage point than normally would have occurred. Encouraged by Captain Crowell, Smith began to pick up skills in navigation, and a lesson in learning how to use a backstaff provided William and Smith with the ideal cover. Holding the instrument up to shoulder level they took turns staring at the horizon through its slits. It was perfect luck that Tess and Cassie Willoughby often stood at the railing directly in the sightline between the backstaff and the ocean’s distant edge. Navigation practice took on a whole new level of concentration at such times.

  “Gawd, she’s a beauty,” Smith murmured under his breath. “Have ya’ ever seen such beauty all in one place? What I wouldn’t give to be able to touch her skin an’ hair, just once.”

  “It’d be the last thing you touched,” William countered good-naturedly. “Haven’t you seen the doctor’s collection of sharp–very sharp–cutting tools?”