by Sally Watson
“Awake?” it asked. “Can you hear me?” It was certainly not the bloodless voice of Captain Narramore.
Jade made a small grunting sound intended to indicate that she was and could.
“Hurt?” asked the figure.
Jade’s grunt this time was thick with derision. What a stupid question! As if anyone couldn’t tell, for goodness sake!
“I’m sorry you’re awake,” said the voice, sounding sincere.
Jade considered this, frowning into the sheet that was hampering her breathing. She herself felt very regretful to be awake, because it was so much more uncomfortable than not to be awake. But why should the Velvet Breeches be sorry? It sounded ominous, somehow.
“Why?” she croaked suspiciously.
Velvet Breeches seemed not to hear. “Brace yourself,” he commanded.
“Why?” Jade croaked again, vainly trying to roll her eyes far enough sideways to see the face atop the silk shirt.
“Because I’m going to put something on your back, and it will hurt like murder,” replied the voice simply.
It seemed an eminently reasonable answer to Jade. “Oh,” she said, satisfied, and braced herself. The voice chuckled. Then fire touched her back, spread over it, shooting the pain up the scale out of red and into yellow-orange and gold and saffron. Presently she fell back down the well again, thankfully.
When she slowly rose to consciousness once more, it was night and she was alone in pain that seemed to beat her down into the bed. She felt much better. Whatever else had happened, she had passed her own test; she was sure of that. Now it just remained to come to terms with the pain. It was no use fighting against it: that made it worse. The trick, she had begun to discover when she was quite small, was to accept it, absorb it unresistingly—and relax. Perhaps this didn’t actually make it hurt less, but it did make it much more bearable.
Jade set her teeth once, and then began the business of relaxing. Jaws—fingers—hands— She could do it! She was beginning to feel almost her old cocky self again! . . . Well, almost. . . .
She slept at last, and awoke to morning and the same tall figure, still only a section of shirt and breeches. “Thirsty?” asked the same voice. Jade, able now to take some interest in things outside her own body, was positive she had never heard it before. Who was it, then, and where was she? At sea, certainly: that was clear from the movement of the ship, but—
Deeply puzzled, she grunted assent and tried to roll over.
“Careful! Here—” And a hand lifted her from the bed just enough so that she could drink the cool water proffered by a matching hand. Jade drank avidly, and then paused, staring at the hand. A small strong hand, with slender tanned fingers and wrist. Jade frowned, thought backwards and listened in her memory to the voice that went with it. Then she twisted her head and eyes once more in a determined effort to see more.
“You’re a girl!” she discovered, accusing, and was rewarded with a rich low chuckle.
“I know,” agreed the voice affably.
Jade wriggled in impatient but injudicious curiosity, caught her breath with pain, and found her voice again. “But who are you? And where are we and how did I get here and what’s happened to Domino and Joshua and that Rory MacDonald, and where’s Captain Narramore?”
The Velvet Breeches chuckled again and obligingly propped Jade slightly sideways with pillows, so that she could see that she was in a blue silken cavern formed by the hangings of the four-poster bed. Just in front of her eyes was a tall and rather beautiful young woman with a mane of blazing red hair, who was looking amused.
“The young man’s in about the same condition you are,” she remarked. “And you’re both on a pirate ship, if you want to know—and a lucky thing for you we came along when we did.”
Jade thought back to the recent nightmare, and the confusion and noise at the end of it. That was it, then! A pirate attack.
“Well, it would have been a great deal luckier if you’d come a little sooner,” she pointed out in a voice of deep reproach that drew another chuckle from the red-head. “Please tell me what happened to Joshua and Domino! My slaves! They were locked up in their cubbyholes.”
The lovely face grinned. “Oh, those! Banging and yelling like furies, they were. They’re all right. Locked up to keep them from killing the Pearl’s crew, and still banging and yelling by all accounts.”
“Well, let them out at once,” Jade commanded faintly. (It was astonishing how exhausted she had already become!)
The red eyebrows went up. “You’re very despotic for a completely helpless captive,” she observed.
“I want to see them,” whimpered Jade, closing her eyes against a rush of weak tears.
“Oh, all right,” the young woman agreed with tolerant good-nature. “If you’ll stop fretting and get well, so I can ask you questions. You fill me with vast curiosity, girl. And by the way, did you still want to know who I am?”
Jade roused herself enough to consider the matter, and found that she already knew. “I dare say you’re Anne Bonney,” she observed without surprise, and went to sleep.
This time she was restless and hungry when she awoke, and might even have considered herself nearly well had it not been perfectly clear that she must be suffering delirium. For beyond the bed-hangings she seemed to see a queen’s chamber. It was obviously a queen’s chamber! What other kind of room would have distracting carved mahogany woodwork inlaid with gold and silver and mother-of-pearl? Or walls composed of equal parts tapestry and gold-framed paintings and mirrors? Or a high-backed throne? Or rich fabrics and jewels and gold plate scattered carelessly around?
On the other hand, what queen’s chamber would contain a bit of jungle? Or what jungle would contain a chamber concert? For a monkey chattered above her head, and parrots shrieked and jabbered, nearly blanketing the sweet high notes of a flute somewhere.
And palace and jungle and concert all rocked gently to the long roll of the sea.
“Rmff!” said Jade incredulously, and waited to lapse back into unconsciousness.
Instead, the flute stopped, the parrots squawked anew, and there was an eager movement just beyond her range of vision. She rolled over a trifle—and saw the patient figures of Joshua and Domino, sitting side by side, watching her with the fixed expectancy of two infants waiting for an Easter egg to hatch. They looked comically out of place amid the piled wealth of the queen’s chamber. Jade giggled feebly, and then winced.
Everything in her delirium answered at once. The monkey chittered, the parrots swore and flapped around the room in a frenzy of bright feathers, the ship heaved itself over a particularly large roller, the blue hangings were swept completely aside, and the two dark faces stared down at her with boundless reproach.
“Risking your life that way!” scolded Joshua. “You ought to be spanked, Missy Lanie!”
Jade grinned wryly. “I was,” she reminded him.
Domino glared, vanished briefly, and reappeared with a bowl which she held like a weapon. “You lock me in!” she stormed and shoved a spoonful of turtle soup into Jade’s mouth. “Not let me help!”
Jade swallowed the soup and eyed Domino impenitently. “That was my adventure,” she said tartly. “If you— Oh! I didn’t even think of asking you if you wanted to escape with them,” she realized, chagrined. “Did you? I’m sorry, Domino!”
Domino relented slightly, regarding Jade with a respect that was new. “No escape; free now,” she announced, eyes gleaming, and watched with subdued glee while Jade tried to puzzle it out. Nothing at all seemed to make much sense just now.
The red-and-blue parrot flew across the room, lighting on the back of the throne. The green-and-yellow parrot screeched. A huge yellow cat leaped up on the bed, sniffed doubtfully at Jade, and condescended to curl up beside her. And the flute bounded lightly into the room and halted at the bedside, held by a willowy man of uncertain age, who crowed elatedly at the sight of her.
“Tiens, you wake yourself at last,” he twitter
ed. “I shall myself tell chère Anne, but at once!” And he vanished. Jade, blinking at the spot where he had been, considered the theory of delirium again.
“That was Pierre,” said Joshua reassuringly and not altogether with approval. “He’s a pirate, and also a hairdresser, tailor, cook, actor, stage-designer, and flute-player. And stop laughing, Missy Lanie; it can’t be good for you.”
“It isn’t. It feels terrible,” Jade admitted, hiccupping painfully, and falling straight from mirth into fretful weakness. “I do wish you’d tell me things,” she chafed. “Was that really Anne Bonney with the red hair? How can Domino be free if we’re all pirate captives? What happened to the Pearl—and Tom Deane—and the captain? You’re being horrid on purpose!”
“Pearl sink; Captain him dead,” Domino reported with relish. “Me not kill,” she added regretfully.
Joshua took up the tale with a quelling glance at the blood-thirsty Domino. “Mr. MacDonald’s getting better, and Mr. Deane and most of the crew have joined the pirates,” he told Jade with obvious pleasure. “They aren’t a bad lot at all, you know, Missy Lanie. They set the rest of those poor slaves free right away, on the Cuban coast. There’s plenty of wild jungle there, and they’ll settle down and make a new life.” He scowled at her, reproving. “So you see you just wasted your effort and the skin off your back, pulling a mad trick like you did.”
His words plunged Jade briefly back into those hours of anguished fear, and she closed her eyes for an instant, not at all ready to remember that. Later, but not yet.
“What about the others, and the Plomleys?” she whispered, more to change the subject than from any deep concern.
“Them put on ship go England,” Domino broke in, ebullient.
And at that moment the parrots began screaming and a small monkey leaped unexpectedly across the bed and into the arms of Anne Bonney, who materialized there quite suddenly with Pierre beaming behind her. The whole improbable setting was beginning to seem so normal that Jade wasn’t at all surprised to see that warlike and ferocious pirate now dressed in a rich flowing gown of turquoise satin, studded with pearls and amethysts. “How are you feeling, Prize Prisoner?” she asked conversationally.
Jade rolled over another inch or two. “Am I?” she demanded, fascinated. “What will you do with me?”
“That depends,” retorted Anne, looming. She was built just like Domino: as tall as a man, slender, full-breasted, junoesque—and distinctly formidable. She narrowed hazel eyes and suddenly looked what she was: a pirate, who had committed theft, assault, arson, and murder. “Don’t you think you ought to be just a trifle alarmed?” she suggested, menacing.
“No,” said Jade with sure instinct.
Pierre clapped delighted hands, the cat lifted its head and yawned, and Anne laughed. “So much for my reputation as a female ogre! And as for your Domino—”
“Belong me!” spat Domino, looking ready to dispute it with violence. “Free now.”
Jade looked at Anne. “Is she?”
“That’s up to you, surely,” said Anne, surprised.
“Is it really?” demanded Jade excitedly. “I’ve never been allowed. And I’ve been trying to free Joshua ever since I was ten.”
“Well, who’s to stop you now?” Anne laughed again. “That’s one advantage of being outlaws. We make our own laws—and fairer ones, usually, than the ones we left behind.”
“Well, thank goodness!” said Jade, sighing deeply. “That’s settled, then.”
Joshua looked dazed; Domino, pleased but neither astonished nor grateful. Why should she be grateful for what she had considered to be her natural and inalienable right all along?
“All of you out!” Anne commanded suddenly and masterfully. “I’m going to take a look at your back, young Melanie, and then go look in on your friend Rory. Let’s see. . . . Mmmm, yes, you’re healing very well indeed. You’ll always have scars, I suppose you know? In a minute you can go back to sleep.”
“But I want to get up,” protested Jade, more from principle than conviction.
“Liar!” retorted Anne. “Hold still, I’m going to hurt you again.” And by the time she had finished, Jade was glad enough to lie still and rest, and do a great deal of thinking.
There was a great deal to think about. The world had turned upside down, and she with it. In her weakened state she had so far accepted it all as a small child does, without surprise, because all things are equally new and astonishing. But now she felt like a ship, battered and driven wildly off course by a storm. And she must stop drifting and try to start navigating again.
But it was hard not to let her thoughts go on drifting, in unison with the long soothing pitch of the ship. The jeering hawk-face of Rory MacDonald floated before her closed eyes, unbidden, unwanted, baffling. Why had he behaved in that extraordinary way? He, with his blatant scorn for slaves and girls. It was equally crazy that he should have tried to free the slaves, and that he should have accused himself in that idiotic way when it was suicidal to do so, and no help to anyone, even if Rory MacDonald had wanted to help anyone—which seemed highly unlikely from all she had seen of him.
Finding no answer at all to the puzzle, her thoughts gave up the struggle and drifted her right into sleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Queen Royal
On a brilliant day, with fresh trade winds, and a school of dolphins cavorting and frolicking alongside the Queen Royal, two invalids appeared on deck. Clad in sailcloth breeches and very loose shirts, they looked pale, interesting, composed, self-conscious—and strongly determined not to move too abruptly or back into anything. They met on the quarterdeck, and regarded each other with what could only be interpreted as hostility.
Jade at once opened the attack. “You! Why did you do such an idiotish thing?”
Rory MacDonald, his face bonier than ever, grinned ferociously. “And you weren’t a blithering cork-brain?” Jade blinked, recovered. “Yes, but I— You didn’t do anything, or if you did it wasn’t worth mentioning. I was the one who let them out.”
“Aye, and you mucked it up nicely, didn’t you?” He mocked her expression. “I’d have got the whole lot away, and no wounds to give me away afterwards, either. Little fool!”
“Fool yourself,” Jade returned inadequately. “And anyway, that doesn’t explain why you made that silly melodramatic confession that nearly got you hanged and didn’t help me a bit.”
His eyes flickered, either because she had touched a vulnerable point, or possibly because he guessed he had helped her, quite accidentally, just by being a challenge. He used all his unfair height to look down on her.
“Didn’t do it to help you,” he informed her laconically. “Why should I?”
They were leaning on the taffrail now, staring down at the wake of this huge ship and at the curveting dolphins. Jade looked up sharply, freed by this remark from the suspicion of a hateful obligation. “Thank goodness for that!” she exclaimed with a relief that nearly shed her dislike. “But why did you, then?”
“None of your business!” He looked almost embarrassed, scowling at the empty horizon with his black brows almost touching. “Did it for me,” he added with deep reluctance, and sneered down at her. “You wouldn’t understand.”
But Jade, staring at him with perfectly circular eyes, didn’t notice the sneer. Was it possible that he had a code, too? Unable to believe her own conclusions, she tilted a mocking smile at him.
“Well, I never did suppose you were the chivalrous sort.”
“No!” He curled his lip. “Rotten stuff! If you want to help a friend, that’s one thing. Or someone who’s helpless and can’t help himself. But why should anyone be babied and pampered just because she happens to be a girl? A human’s a human. Ought to be treated that way. No whining, no special treatment, no—” He seemed to be groping for words, scowling heavily still, belligerent. “Any female with a grain of self-respect—like my grandmother—would stand on her own feet and drink her own brew and not ask an
y favors. The way you did,” he conceded grudgingly and with an air of astonishment.
Jade was gazing at him enthralled. “Go on!” she urged. “Why didn’t you ever say things like this before, instead of being nasty and horrible? We could have let the slaves—” She stopped as something struck her. “But— If you feel that way, why do you despise slaves? And if you despise them, why were you freeing them? You don’t make sense!”
Rory made a sudden movement of his shoulders and stopped at once, not quite wincing. “Makes perfect sense,” he growled. “Can’t stand slavery, but I can’t stand spinelessness, either. They don’t have to submit to slavery. Nobody has to submit to anything. You can always die. You can usually fight first. If they all did that, slavery would die too, and what’s left of Africa could be saved.”
He stared bleakly out over the dark-blue sea, where the wind was blowing spindrift off the tops of the waves in a shimmer of rainbow foam. His face was as ugly and craggy as ever, the nose as big and crooked, the eyebrows as shaggy. His wide mouth was thin with disillusioned idealism, and stubbornly uncompromising. It was a wonderful face! Jade sighed, filled with companionship. Why, he was part of herself: banging at the same walls; filled with the same anger; damning the world’s eyes, and bursting with pity for the wretched and oppressed, and hating the weakness that made them submit.
“If only everyone were like Domino,” she mused, her thoughtful gaze on one particularly cheeky dolphin, who was unmistakably putting on an act for their benefit, rolling a merry eye up at them now and then to see if they were properly impressed. Her own ordeal came back to her sickeningly. “Or like us,” she added without false modesty. “But I suppose—” She hesitated, tentatively offered her radical new idea fresh from trial. “Perhaps some people can’t help not being brave?”
But Rory wasn’t having any of that. “Then they ought to learn. That’s what life is, a school for courage. The only defeat is surrender,” he proclaimed with the air of discovering this for the first time in the history of mankind.