by Cate Cain
Jem’s mind raced. “Please, sir – anything but going back to the hold. My friend can’t go down there again. I … That is, we could pay for our crossing. I have this …” He reached into his shirt collar and pulled the golden medal over his head. “It must be worth something?”
Trevanion reached forward to take the chain. He turned the medal over in his fingers and his head shot up. His grey eyes were now hard and suspicious. “Where did you steal this from?”
“I didn’t. It was my …” Jem thought back to the moment before the party at Goldings when Sarah had given him the medal. “It belonged to James Verrers of Goldings House and I am his nephew, Jeremy – people call me Jem.”
Trevanion frowned. “Are you lying, boy? Tell me the truth now or I’ll call Grimscale back and let him deal with you.”
“No – it’s true. My mother gave it to me.”
Trevanion’s eyebrows shot up. “And her name is …?”
“Sarah, and her father was Edward, Earl Verrers. He fought for Parliament in the war, but my mother and Jamie, my uncle, sided with the old king. And the new king is my …” Jem faltered. If Trevanion didn’t believe him to be the real owner of the medal, he certainly wasn’t going to believe that King Charles was his father.
Jem pushed a hand through his thick black hair and his next words tumbled out in a desperate rush. “Please, it’s true. My mother’s name is Sarah and the medal was my uncle’s, but he’s dead. We live at Goldings House. I’m not lying – the medal is mine now. I …”
Trevanion raised a hand. “Slow down, boy. I believe you. I knew your uncle – we served together. Jamie Verrers wore this, always.” He paused for a moment and weighed the chain in his palm.
Jem’s mind flooded with questions he didn’t dare to ask. The man standing in front of him had actually known his uncle? He was amazed and desperate to know more about Jamie. Trevanion sighed and handed back the medal. “You must keep this. He was a brave man and a loyal friend. When he died it was me who sent this to your mother – that’s how I knew her name. But I thought she too had …” He stared hard at Jem. “How old are you – both of you?”
“I’m thirteen and Tolly, my friend here, is … about the same. We don’t know for sure, do we?
Tolly shook his head. “No, sir.” He glanced at Jem who nodded encouragingly. “I was taken from my land after six great floods and then I lived in London through seven great frosts. I believe I am of Jem’s age.”
Trevanion stared into Tolly’s eyes and frowned. “Remarkable!” he muttered.
“Sorry, sir?” Tolly was confused.
The captain shook his head. “Nothing, it is nothing. You bear a passing likeness to someone my daughter was … is fond of – Tam, her companion.” He drew a deep breath. “Now, what to do with you both?” He looked from one boy to the other and nodded as if he had made a decision. “You are tall, strong lads – that’s something at least. You’ll work as crew – hidden from Madame de Chouette in plain sight. It’s the best I can do. She does not seem to relish the day, which should work in your favour. Keep your heads down, keep your noses clean and we’ll see …”
Cleo wriggled in Tolly’s arms, freed herself and jumped to the captain’s desk, plonking herself onto the middle of the unfurled chart. She held her head to one side and stared boldly up at Trevanion. Jem saw him smile for the first time. “Does the little beast have a name?”
“She is Cleo, sir.” Tolly reached forward. “Come here, girl. Not on the map.”
Trevanion watched as Cleo leaped from the desk to perch on Tolly’s shoulder. “My daughter, Jane, is just a year younger than you two. She also loves animals. I gave her a little dog for her last birthday and she called it Bella. That was before …” His face clouded and the lines across his forehead deepened. “You may be the son of an old friend, boy, but nothing alters the fact that you have been found stowing away on my ship. What are you doing here? Was it some sort of game – a Twelfth Night dare?” He raised the golden instrument from the edge of the map so that it curled back into a roll. “Well?”
Jem looked at his feet and wondered how much to tell the captain. “It’s no game, sir. We … we think our friend is hidden here. We came on board and thought we could scour the ship before it sailed. But we got trapped in the hold and then …”
“But why on earth would you think your friend is aboard the Fortuna?” As well as bafflement there was something else in the captain’s voice – perhaps fear, or was it disgust?
Jem didn’t know what to say next. How could he explain Tolly’s visions? “We … We had good reason to believe, sir, that she’d been kidnapped and taken to a ship with this name.”
“She?” Trevanion snorted and shook his head. “There is only one woman on board this ship and I doubt very much that she is your friend.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“So, you two came aboard late then, that it? And the captain’s doing your poor mother a favour?”
Spider scrubbed vigorously at the icy deck. Beside him Jem kept his head down and gave a grunt of agreement.
“I can’t see why we didn’t come across you earlier, seeing as how you’re to be bunking down with us in the bilge box. And you weren’t in the line-up for Madame the other morning, were you? I s’pose you had one last gentleman’s meal with the captain and Mr V? Mind you, Ned’s happy as a dolphin now that he’s been sent up to billet on the mess deck. It was his lucky day when you arrived.”
Jem grunted again. The more he said to Spider about their sudden appearance among the crew, the more difficult it would be to stick to the story Captain Trevanion had ordered Grimscale and Master Valentine, the ship’s second-in-command, to put about.
He and Tolly were introduced to the crew at first light by Master Valentine as distant acquaintances of the captain’s family. Master Valentine, a young dark-haired gentleman mariner with merry eyes and a constant half-smile, hadn’t questioned the captain when he “explained” their situation. Jem’s mother had fallen on hard times, Trevanion said, and, as a favour, he had agreed to take the boy and his companion on with a view to training them up for a career at sea. They were to learn the ropes.
“From the bottom up,” Grimscale told the assembled ship’s company. “There’s no job too difficult or too lowly for these two. Remember that.” He’d been furious when Trevanion revealed the plan, but the captain had stood his ground, ordering the master mate to follow orders.
Jem rubbed his frozen nose with the back of his hand and glanced ahead to the prow where Grimscale was in conversation with a couple of the older deckhands. The hulking man laughed loudly and dipped a pewter mug into the grog barrel. Then, as if he was aware of Jem’s gaze, he turned and raised the mug like a toast, twisting his thick lips into a cruel, mocking grin.
Spider nudged Jem’s elbow. “I’d keep clear of him if I were you. He’s not Swale-born like the most of us, including the captain. Truth be told, I don’t rightly know why Captain T took him on, though I’spose it was mortal hard to get a crew together at such short notice – and in winter too. I know that’s one reason so many of us signed up – not much work in Swale for a sailor in the wintertime.”
The boy sat back for a moment and scanned the busy deck. “Best sailors in the country, Swale men. For all that it’s small, it’s got a mighty reputation amongst them what know. Where you from?”
“London. We’re both from London.” Jem kept scraping at the ice and didn’t look up.
“Your friend don’t say much, does he?” Spider pointed his scrubber at Tolly. “Nice little monkey he’s got there. Chloe, is it? Lots of sailors like to bring a pet on board. Pocket brung a mouse with him last time – kept giving it half his cheese. Thing was as round as an apple by the time we got to port again. Animals don’t always last the going, though. Not when rations get low.”
“Cleo. Her name’s Cleo,” said Jem. He looked over to where she was perched on the side of the ship watching her master work. Her tail was curled tightly
around one of the ropes leading up into the rigging. Jem’s eyes followed the cat’s cradle of blackened ropes zig-zagging high above him. His stomach heaved.
They’d been hard at it for the last two hours, starting from the stern end at the back and working forward to the prow. Over to the left – the starboard side, Spider called it – Tolly and the boy called Pocket were also down on their knees scraping ice from the timbers. Cleo had taken an instant liking to Pocket and he was clearly very taken by her. Unlike Spider, Pocket was a sturdy lad with cropped blond hair that stood upright on his head. Although he’d only known him for a few hours, Jem already knew Pocket’s main interest in life was food. He talked about it constantly, loudly describing his mother’s meat pies in such loving detail that one of the older crewmen asked him to “muffle it” because it was “making his guts rumble”. Pocket was first in the queue when the biscuit barrel was opened at noon, but Jem saw him slip crumbs to Cleo when he thought no one was looking.
“We got to get the crust off, see?” Spider was saying. “Otherwise we’ll have a man slipping overboard in no time. And none of us can swim – sailors can’t as a rule. Only thing is, this time of year, the ice comes back as soon as we’ve scratched it off.” Spider rubbed his red-raw hands together. He was tiny – a twitching knot of bony arms and legs topped with a leathery face that was old beyond its years. He wore his lank brown hair tied back at the nape of his neck and a thin golden hoop glinted in the lobe of his right ear.
“Beats me why the fancy Madame’s so keen to make the crossing in winter. Never been done before. Money’s good, though, ain’t it?” He winked at Jem. “You’ll see your poor old mother right once we get back.”
Jem thought guiltily of his mother back at Goldings, no doubt frantic with worry. “Er … How long … How long will it take to make the crossing?” Jem put down his brush and folded his arms across his chest, thrusting his numb fingers under his armpits for warmth. “Three days? Four? A week at most?”
Spider laughed and threw his own brush down. It clattered and skidded a little way across the deck. “Blimey, you’re a puddle-duck, aren’t you? A crossing to the new colonies – over the wild, wide Atlantic – takes at least two months, probably more at this time of year.”
“The new colonies?” Jem was horrified. “I … I thought we were crossing the Channel to France. The passenger, she’s French, right?”
Spider nodded and grinned. He had a gap between his front teeth just like Ann’s. Jem felt a wave of panic rise from the pit of his stomach as he thought about her. They hadn’t even had a chance to look for her yet.
“That’s right.” The skinny boy stood and went to retrieve the brush. “She’s French true enough, but she’s going to see her estates in the northern colonies – urgent business. Says she couldn’t find anyone in the Pool to take her, so she came to Swale and bought herself a captain and a crew. The Fortuna is her ship, that’s why we sailed from London.”
Spider knelt beside Jem again and waved the brush at the carved black timbers. “Now, she’s a funny old thing – a real giantess. I’ve not seen one built quite like her before. Not in Swale, anyways. Must be foreign. Like that odd fellow with all the skulls in his hair – you seen him yet?”
Jem shook his head as Spider continued. “They say he’s called Mingan. He’s served before with Captain T and word is that he’s a good shipmate, even if he looks a bit peculiar. This time he’s going home to his own people. Ned reckons they don’t wear proper clothes like we do – just animal skins. What do you make of that? Primitive, that’s what I call it.” The boy paused to wipe a quivering bulb of snot from his nose and bent back to the task in hand. “Anyways, the Fortuna will likely be his last ship.”
Jem felt something twist in his gut – there was something ominous about the words “last ship”. He looked up to take in the details of the vessel more closely. In the clear morning light he could see hundreds of figures carved into the creaking timbers around him. Faces and animals curled in the blackened wood, and sea creatures with looped tails, clawed hands and jagged fins. He turned round, assessing the square hatch in the timbers leading directly down to the stinking crew’s quarters, above which lay a finely carved set of broad steps, more appropriate to a great house than a ship. These led up to a wide quarterdeck where there was a doorway to the passenger’s accommodation.
Jem gasped and dropped his brush. Above the doorway there was a ghastly gilded mask with staring eyes. The face was surrounded by serpents which coiled down either side of the doorframe, fanning out into elaborately twisted knots and golden curlicues across the coal-black timbers. In the dead centre beneath the mask, the arched wooden door was like a gaping mouth. He’d seen something very like it before – at Malfurneaux Place.
“Pretty, ain’t she?” Spider laughed again, but Jem felt the skin on his back prickle as he remembered Tapwick, Cazalon’s steward, using those very same words.
Spider slid Jem’s brush towards him. “Catch on. I reckon we’ll know every knot and every wormhole in these timbers by the time we make land. If you want my opinion, I reckon it’ll take a lot longer than eight weeks. We’ll have to go far down south and up again to avoid the floating islands.” Spider cocked his head to one side and squinted up into the sun. “I could be wrong. It won’t be a bad thing if we get more days like this and there’s a good wind up. The sails have got a bellyful. I’ve heard we’re already making good time.”
“But we’ll be stopping to take on supplies before we start the actual crossing, won’t we?” Jem struggled to keep the sound of panic out of his voice. “We’ll go into a port on the south coast? Maybe Plymouth?” He did a hasty calculation in his head, wondering if it might be possible to make a thorough search of the ship in what, two, maybe three days?
“Ah well, that’s interesting too, isn’t it?” Spider started to scrub again. “We’re not making any stops – another of Madame’s orders. Our feet won’t be touching dry land again now until we reach the new colonies. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve got webbed feet by then. Look sharp – Jem, is it? Old Grimface is on his way over.”
Jem followed Spider’s lead and started to scrape furiously. As his hands scratched across the icy boards the skin of his knuckles tore, but he didn’t feel a thing. All he could think about now was the fact that they were trapped on the Fortuna and were likely to remain so for weeks. It was all his fault. And what if Ann wasn’t on board? As Jem pushed the horrible thought away his mother’s face swam into his mind. He paused to wipe some stinging sea spray from his eyes.
The boys shuffled forward on their knees and worked the stiff, flat brushes into the icy deck. A pair of heavy boots came into view just beyond the tips of Jem’s black, curly fringe. There was a cracking noise as Grimscale crouched beside him.
He flinched at the fetid smell of the man’s groglaced breath. “I’ll be keeping a very close eye on you and your friend over there. Remember, one mistake and I’ll be ready.” The man kicked the brush out of Jem’s frozen hand and laughed. “You might want to ask little Spider here what a keelhauling is. Just so that you’re prepared.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“And then you are tied up with your hands behind your back, lowered over the side and dragged underneath the ship from one side to the other. It probably takes about two minutes altogether, depending on who’s pulling on the ropes. They draw lots to see which members of the crew take that job because no one in their right mind would want it. But Spider says it’s not drowning you should worry about. No, it’s the fact that the barnacles covering the bottom of the ship rip the skin off your back as you’re scraped under the hull. He’s never seen a keelhauling, but he reckons no one could survive it. It’s like being flayed alive. And he says if there are sharks in the water and they get the scent of blood …”
Tolly winced and raised his bandaged hand. “Don’t – I can’t hear any more. It’s disgusting. How could anyone invent something so cruel?” He drew his cloak about him and tu
cked Cleo deeper into the folds.
It was the first time Jem and Tolly had been able to speak properly all day. The knife-sharp air was salty on their faces as they huddled together halfway along the main deck. The Fortuna groaned as she rode the waves, rising like a bucking horse and then plunging down again into frothing, churning water. Jem gripped the rail to steady himself as the vast black ship ploughed forward.
It was late, and apart from the watch stationed high above in the lookout, all the other shipmates were making themselves as snug as possible in the gloomy warren of spaces below the deck.
“Have you managed to pick up anything at all – even the smallest whisper?”
Tolly nodded. “Ann’s here on board with us. I’m certain of it. I keep seeing what she’s seeing and feeling what she feels. She’s frightened and confused. She’s in a grand room, finely furnished with a wide window – and beyond the glass there’s sea.” He spoke without looking at Jem and his breath fugged the air. “But I can’t connect to her. She doesn’t know me. She can’t hear me. It’s as if I … we have been wiped clear from her mind. We know she’s not in the hold and we’ve seen all the crew and their quarters – so that means she must be up there.” He pointed at the steps to the passenger quarters. “But the crew aren’t allowed into that part of the ship. Only the captain is permitted to speak to the passenger and there’s a guard. Look.”
Jem stared at the golden Medusa mask over the entrance to the grand cabins. Just below, in the shadow behind the broad steps, he could see a little point of glowing red. Someone – probably the guard – was smoking a pipe.
He shivered. “We must be careful, Tolly. I can’t stay out here for long. Spider says she – the passenger, I mean – has given orders that no one is to go about on deck at night without permission after the watch has gone up. She didn’t even want to allow that, but the captain insisted because of the floating islands. Do you know what they are?”