“Really? How surprising.”
“Last time I visited you and Jenta, I asked you both to leave Skaelington. This time, it’s not a request. I’m afraid your time in Skaelington has come to an end.”
She hesitated. Then she said, “I see. Poked the bear but good this time, did we? Where is Jenta?”
“She’s fine. She’s with Damrick.”
Shayla took a deep breath, then put her head back against the seat. “She’s with Damrick.” She let thoughts flow through her mind. “I suppose that’s where she wants to be?”
He said nothing.
“Are we going there, too?”
“Where is that, ma’am?”
“Wherever they are.”
“No. With any luck, they are already sailing away from this island.”
“Headed where?”
“I do not know. It’s safer for them that way. I have arranged another boat to take you back to Mann.”
“With you, I suppose?”
“Yes, ma’am. I hope that’s acceptable.”
After another long moment’s reflection, she looked down at her hands, then up at Windall Frost. Her eyes were clear, her expression open. “I have done all I could. I tried to break the rules, but they have broken me.” She spoke with no bitterness, but as someone who had thought it all through over a long period of time. “Jenta is with Damrick Fellows, a person of her own social stratum. And I am going back to Mann with no place, no position, no possessions, no family.” She rubbed a thumb along her fingertips. She smiled. “And the calluses were finally gone.”
His look was compassion laced with regret. “You don’t need to believe this, Shayla. But I admire you more than I can say.”
“Thank you for giving me permission to doubt.” Then after another moment, her head held high, she said, “Sir, I have treated you poorly. I have made…serious errors of judgment. But I ask you, if you could see fit, would you allow me to return to my old position? I promise that I will cause you no more trouble.” A tear welled in the corner of one eye, and she made no move to hide it, or to wipe it away.
He shook his head. “Mrs. Stillmithers, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I understand that you are fleeing Skaelington with only the clothes on your back, having faced up to the pirates here and thus put yourself in peril. You not only have my protection, you also have the thanks of all those who work to rid the seas of the scourge of piracy. I would be honored if you would stay in my guesthouse. It isn’t much, but it’s yours for as long as you wish it. I can only hope you will not find the accommodations too modest for a lady of your stature.”
Shayla remained silent as they rode through the darkness.
Conch stood in the streets outside the Cleaver and Fork, a loose ring of men around him. Six bodies lay strewn at his feet. Two were shot with spent pistols now lying on the paving stones, four were run through with the bloody sword he still held in his hand. He looked around, caught Mazeley’s eye.
“Who else helped ’im?” He raged.
Mazeley shook his head. “I can give you more citizens, Captain, but I doubt they’ll know any more than these whom you’ve already…questioned.” He gestured with an open palm toward the corpses of the random, unlucky dead.
Conch bared his teeth. Then he raised his face to the heavens. He held his arms out to his sides, dropped the sword. It clattered onto the stones. “Ye’ll pay fer this, Damrick Fellows! Ye’ll pay with blood! Ever last man, woman, and child that sides wif ye, I’ll quarter and burn ’em! I’ll see yer head on a pike! Ye stole my woman, and if ye harm one hair on her head, I’ll ram ye—”
“He won’t harm her, Captain.”
Conch stopped, stunned by the interruption, the gall of it, the confident tone of it. He turned slowly and looked behind him. It was the skinny priest, the one the Hant had cut up. The robed figure walked forward. Conch’s men moved aside, aghast at what they saw.
“What’d ye say to me?” Conch asked him.
The hollow, empty eyes seemed to bore in on Conch Imbry. Yet the scarred, marred face, yellow with jaundice, carried no expression. “He married her. I officiated as they pledged their lives to one another. Damrick and Jenta Fellows are man and wife.” He held out the letter from the Church, which had been left with him by the fleeing couple.
Conch walked up to him, grimaced at the disfigured face. He grabbed the letter, read it, threw it aside. “He forced her.”
“No, Captain. You did. All your life you’ve set yourself against man and God, forcing your will on those around you. ‘But do not be deceived. God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap.’ Your time is at hand, Carnsford Bloodstone Imbry. Repent while you still can.”
Conch looked at him as a king might look at a jester who has made a joke at his lord’s expense. “Repent?”
“Yes. I can forgive you for all you’ve done to me. If a man like me can do that, then certainly God can forgive the rest.”
Conch laughed. He looked around at his men. They did not seem to share the joke. He turned, walked back to his bloody sword, picked it up. He hefted it in his hand, feeling its weight and balance as he returned to where the priest stood. “The Hant’s poison been addlin’ yer brain.”
“No. It’s been killing my body. My mind is clear.”
“And so yer sayin’ straight? Ye can forgive me?”
“I’m saying I will forgive you. And so will God. But you must repent.”
Conch thought a moment. “Ye married my woman off to my enemy. Way I see it, ain’t me needs forgivin’. It’s you what’s done me wrong. The question ye should be askin’ is, will I forgive you?”
As Conch drew back his sword, Father Dent bowed his head. The sword tip penetrated the priest’s robes just above the rope of his belt. The hilt struck his belly so hard that it doubled him over, forcing wind from his lungs in a great, sudden rush. Then Conch’s sudden jerk upward forced blood from the priest’s mouth and nose. He choked on it, his body trembling, and he coughed up more blood.
Conch pulled the sword free. Father Dent was still on his feet, but doubled over. With his left hand, Conch raised the man’s chin with two fingers, an almost gentle move, straightening him upright. He watched the priest’s face flush as he struggled to breathe. Then Conch put a hand on the back of the priest’s head, and bent him over again. Raising the sword high, its point aimed downward, he drove it with both hands hard into the priest’s back, through his ribs, piercing his heart. The priest fell to his knees dead. Conch left the sword there, a foot of blade visible between the hilt and the robe.
“I forgive ye,” Conch said to the lifeless, kneeling body. He leaned down. “Ye see, sir, I would a’ held a grudge had ye lived. Now yer dead, and yer deed is punished, I can see fit to let it pass.”
He stood up straight and grinned a crooked grin. Now his men laughed out loud, in solidarity, obedience, and relief. Conch pulled the sword free from the priest’s back and tossed it, clattering, onto the street. He then grabbed the dead man’s elbow with two hands, and pulled him upright, turning into him, twisting the limp arm across his shoulder, and stood up straight. The bloody priest now dangled like a gruesome rucksack. The pirate captain carried his burden to the Cleaver and Fork and kicked the doors open. Inside, he laid the body on the bar, and walked back out.
“Burn that place to the ground,” he ordered. “I never want to see it again.”
“Why, Damrick! Welcome back!” Ryland stood from his desk as Damrick entered his cabin.
“You seem surprised to see me.”
“Not at all,” the smooth businessman answered. “Why should I be surprised? Did all go as planned?”
“No, actually. It did not.”
“No? What happened? All went as planned on this end.”
“Someone told Conch Imbry that our target was the Cleaver and Fork.”
“Really? How could that be?”
“Hard to know. Unless it was Motley.”
They heard f
ootsteps above on deck. The anchor winch clinked in a metallic staccato.
“But I gave Motley the information we agreed upon. I told him you were planning an attack on the Shalamon.”
“Did you?”
“Of course!” Ryland was indignant. “I’m sure he believed me. I was shot dead on account if it, for all he knew. Of what do you accuse me?”
Damrick looked away, shook his head, looked upward, looked back. “You make me tired, Ryland.”
“Tell me what happened!”
They felt the ship heel gently to port. They were under sail.
Damrick walked to the bunk and sat heavily. “I really should shoot you.”
Now Ryland was alarmed. “Shoot me? But what on earth—?”
“Just shut up. I don’t want to hear it. I know about the letter.”
“What letter?”
“Stop. Please. The letter from the Church to Conch Imbry. The one you were carrying to him in secret, to tell him he could marry your son’s wife.”
Ryland glanced at the floor panels.
“Yes, the one you hid here.” Damrick scuffled the rug away from the floorboards with a boot. An iron ring was fitted flush with the floor. He grasped the ring and pulled it open. “Are you smuggling, too, Ryland?”
“No. That’s…for personal protection.”
“To hide yourself. From whom? Pirates? Or from me?”
“Look, I don’t even know what that letter said. A churchman gave it to me. It was addressed to him. What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to tell me about it. But you didn’t, because you’ve been doing Conch’s bidding. You told Motley we would attempt to rescue Jenta at the Cleaver and Fork. Admit it.”
Ryland blew out his cheeks. “I didn’t,” he lied. “Maybe Conch was there in force by coincidence, I don’t know. I’m just glad you survived.”
Damrick stared at him.
“I’ve risked everything to side with you. Don’t you see that? I feigned my own death for you!”
“You did that because you can’t resist playing both sides. Dying for his cause, you’d be beyond suspicion. Doing what I asked, you’d convince me of your loyalty. Conch wouldn’t hunt you down, and neither would I. Once there was a clear victor you could proclaim your loyalty to whichever one of us was left alive.”
“I’m sorry your plans were foiled, Mr. Fellows. But I could never have planned all that out in advance. You have a very devious mind.”
“It comes of following a rat down a rat hole.” Damrick stood slowly, then grabbed Ryland by the collar at the back of the neck, and propelled him roughly up the stairs.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m not going to do anything to you. Conch may not be able to say the same.” Damrick shoved him out onto the dark deck. The ship was already out of the cove, nearly to open waters. The moon was rising, huge and golden, on the horizon.
“You didn’t think this one through carefully enough, Ryland. Can you swim?”
“You’re putting me off my own boat?”
“Yes. Can you swim? Now would be the time to tell me, if you can’t.”
Ryland raised his chin and tried to straighten his shirt and jacket, but Lye Mogene and Murk grabbed him, held his arms tight. “I have been loyal to you.”
“No,” Stock said, walking up to Ryland, putting his young face into the older man’s. “I wasn’t hidin’ below deck, but was just inside the door. You tol’ Motley the truth. I heard it. You was supposed to lie.”
Ryland sneered at his captors, but did not struggle against them. “The boy lies. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll have no problems with the Conch.”
“Won’t you?” A woman’s voice.
Ryland’s head spun around, and his eyes strained into the dim light. But he recognized the source. “How did you…?”
Jenta stood at the rail, leaning back against it, both hands on the polished wood. “Hello, Mr. Ryland. Please give Conch Imbry my regards when you see him. I’m afraid he won’t be very pleased.”
“Dear Lord.”
“He might even be a bit angry,” Damrick added.
“But not with me! I tried to help him outwit the lot of you rabble,” he added, defiant now in defeat.
“Yet he was outwitted in the end. And so were you. You helped us, rather than him.”
“I did no such thing.”
“But you did. If someone as cunning and disloyal as you told me I should go to a pub and leave my ship unprotected, do you know what I’d do? I’d do just what Conch did. He doesn’t trust you, Ryland. He thinks you’re working with me.” Damrick walked over and stood beside Jenta. She put her arm through his.
Ryland could not hide his disgust. “So it’s Damrick now? Why you worthless little lowborn—”
He was stopped by Lye Mogene’s fist, which struck him squarely in the mouth. His head snapped back, his hair flopping into his face.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Lye said to Jenta. “Din’t know he was gonna say that, or I’d a hit ’im sooner.”
“It’s quite all right,” Jenta said. “He’s said worse things to my mother and me.”
“He has?” Lye asked, astonished. So Lye hit him again. Runsford’s knees trembled as quivering hands came up to fend off further blows.
“That’s enough!” Damrick ordered. He pulled Ryland’s hands away from his face, looked into his eyes. “Are you all right, Mr. Ryland?”
“Yes,” he said with disdain, jerking his hands free of Damrick’s. “Leave me be.”
“As you wish.”
And Damrick leaned down, wrapped his arms around Runsford Ryland’s waist, stood suddenly, and tossed the shipping mogul over the rail.
Jenta took in a sharp breath; Stock, Lye, and Murk all laughed aloud as the splash rose, white in the dark night, and disappeared.
“Will he be all right?” Jenta asked, looking after him.
“He won’t drown, if that’s what you mean.” They were but a hundred yards past the beach. Ryland sputtered to the surface behind them. Then he swore. Lye Mogene swore back.
Then Ryland turned and swam for shore, as Success sailed without him.
Ham’s pirate audience cheered and laughed, pleased with the trouble Ryland had in store.
When they calmed, Dallis Trum spoke up. “But I don’t get it. How did Damrick know Conch wouldn’t go to the pub, when that’s where Motley told him to go?”
“Well, it’s like this,” Ham answered. “Damrick had worked it out so that Motley would not be trusted.” The rest were quietly amazed. Ham seemed actually to be answering the boy’s plain question, and giving a plain answer.
“But wasn’t Ryland really working for Conch all the time?”
“He was and he wasn’t. There are men in the world, young pup, who won’t choose a side. Which is why your pirate captains all require a blood oath, so’s no man will be tempted. It’s why the Gatemen did the same. Mr. Ryland, though, he never swore such an oath. But let me tell you what’s happening in Ryland’s head as he sits on that sandy beach all by himself, his nose and mouth bleeding and stinging from the salt water, his own ship sailing away into the night. He’s got the whole ocean spreading out before him, and the moon coming up bigger than the sun, bigger than anything on earth, and that ship, his own ship, Success, just dwarfed by it, swallowed up in it, floating black like a shadow, impossible to tell if she’s coming or going. And he’s thinking about all his choices. He’s contemplating how he might have made a different choice at that card table, and thrown everything away to save his son, and be sitting on a beach beside Wentworth watching that dazzling moon, but able to appreciate it, to enjoy it, because he did what he should have done. And though he’d be poor and living on coconuts, he’d be in better shape than he is now. Because now, he’s trying to figure out how he’s going to ever get his business back when Conch thinks he’s dead.
“And the more he thinks about how he can explain it all to the Conch, the less he likes his stor
y. He can’t claim that he’d been straight with Motley, because then he can’t explain why he isn’t shot dead, or at least got a hole the size of a musket ball square in his back. No matter what he says to the Conch, professing how true he is, the very fact that he’s still alive tends to argue against him. To prove himself trustworthy, you see, Ryland has to actually be dead. And no matter how he works it around, it always comes back to that. Only a dead Runsford Ryland can be trusted. So it’s not a happy stretch of beach on which he sits.”
Ham stopped and puffed, his pipe crackling. He waited as his listeners thought through that little conundrum.
“What does he do?” someone finally asked.
“He can see only one way out. Runsford Ryland then and there makes a very grave decision.” Ham puffed his pipe again, the draw crackling the tobacco again.
“What’d he decide?” another asked, practically pleading.
“For that answer, you need to hear the rest of the story.”
When the groans died away, he continued.
Delaney ran a hand over his head, and it came back to him wet with sweat. He wasn’t sure why he’d started sweating; it hadn’t gotten any hotter. Cooler if anything. The reeds were quiet now. If his audience of Hants were there, they were being particularly polite. The Chompers, too, were quiet, swimming easily. Hovering. Waiting. Nothing much had changed at the pond, except for the shadows that kept deepening. There were just the last little rays of sun lighting up the forest canopy now, way at the tops of the trees. Maybe it was that the air had gotten more dense or something.
Or maybe, maybe it wasn’t the air at all, or anything in the world here, but rather something in that story that got into him and made him sweat from the inside out. Maybe what Ham said about Ryland, sitting on that beach regretting. Watching his ship sail off into a full moon.
Delaney felt for him, all of a sudden, even though he’d been a blaggard right along, and even though when he’d heard Ham tell the story the first time, he’d felt nothing but glee. But now it seemed…Ryland seemed…a whole lot like Delaney. He didn’t feel scorn or contempt now, didn’t feel at all superior. He felt just the same. Ryland had a full moon, and Delaney had a new moon. Ryland had a beach and an ocean, and Delaney had a post and pond. Ryland was trying to figure out how to keep from getting dead because of Conch, and Delaney was trying to keep from getting dead on account of mermonkeys. But how did that make him different? Both of them were blaggards.
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