Fires of Delight

by Vanessa Royall

  “What is happening?” she asked him. “I thought we were sailing to Newport?”

  “Forget Newport,” he said quietly, shaking his head and looking at her with sympathy. “It is out of the question now, because we pursue Chamorro.”

  “Raise the flag!” Jean ordered then. Selena had thought it odd that, up until now, Beaumain had not flown a banner. But she was far more bewildered by the sight of the ensign itself, a huge, blood-red piece of silk upon which, diagonally from top left to bottom right, were the shapes of three creatures in white: a camel, an elephant, and a serpent coiled, ready to spring.

  “What does the banner signify?” she asked Rafael.

  He lifted his shoulders, a small shrug. “Of all God’s lower creations,” he said, “those three remember forever people who have done them ill, and they will wait for the right time to take retribution. The camel is mean by nature. We all know about the elephant. And in certain parts of the world, the snake is even used to accomplish the revenge of one human being upon another. An article of clothing is stolen from the victim, and placed inside a cage or wire basket with the snake. Then the basket is placed over a low fire. The snake remembers the pain of the fire and the smell of the clothing—it might be a scarf, or a glove, or just a cravat—and then he is set free in the quarters of the victim. It is deadly, and quick. There is no escape.”

  Selena shuddered. Jean Beaumain, for all his good humor and frank directness, was being consumed from within by Satanic passion.

  Yet she had to admit, retribution was something that she had also sought, and on occasion she had obtained it. Few things in her life had given as much satisfaction as slitting Darius McGrover’s throat.

  “Some of us also need revenge,” Rafael continued, as if reading her thoughts. “It may be that we are among God’s lower creatures too.”

  Quickly, Selena analyzed her predicament. There appeared to be no way that she could rejoin Royce now—already the Liberté was slashing full sail eastward into the Atlantic—and there were mundane matters that demanded attention.

  “Rafael,” she said, “these are the only clothes I have.” She gestured toward the togs Penrod had given her. “Is there something else, perhaps more suitable, on board?”

  He inspected her inadequate costume. “There are some bolts of fabric in the hold, I think. Do you sew?”

  “I am neither designer nor couturier, but I have done most everything in my time. I could at least try.”

  “All right,” he agreed, “I will bring you what you need. But for the time being, come with me.”

  To Selena’s surprise, he took her back into Jean Beaumain’s cabin, opened a door which she had not previously noticed, and led her into a surprisingly spacious wardrobe. Jean’s clothing hung there on wooden hangers, and next to his belongings were dozens of dresses and expensive gowns.

  “Whose are these?” Selena asked.

  “I do not wish to say, but take several. They will be of use while you prepare your own.”

  “But Jean will notice that I am wearing them. Maybe it would be better not to.”

  Rafael shook his head sadly. “As long as we are in pursuit of Chamorro, my friend will notice nothing.”

  With a vague feeling of guilt, and something else that she soon recognized as jealousy—for she had, against her wishes, developed a certain proprietary regard toward Jean—she inspected the garments. They belonged to a rather tall woman apparently, but what seemed unusual was that they were of two vastly different types. Half were expensive, elegant, slinky and deliberately provocative, with long slits running up the skirts, bodices plunging toward the navel. The others were well-made, but modest of design, garments of subdued color and pattern. She chose two of the latter, one of pale-blue linen with a floral print, another of solid burgundy cotton, well-made and eminently serviceable. She also selected the least provocative of the other type, a white silk, flowing garment, high in the throat and tight at the waist, that exuded the scent of some rare and disquieting fragrance.

  “Best return these when you have no further use for them,” Rafael suggested. “Now, there is an empty cabin amidship on the port side, where you can live and work.”

  “Fine. Thank you so much.”

  “I am doing it for you, but also for my friend. I do not know how long you will be with us, but I think that you will be good for him.”

  Selena appreciated the compliment, and said so.

  Rafael took her to the cabin, which was small but cool, and later brought a bolt of navy-blue silk, scissors, needles, thread, and thimble.

  Outside, on deck, the chase was going on, through the afternoon and into the gentle evening. All hands were in the sails, milking every morsel of speed from the taut, aching white sheets of canvas. Selena lay for a while on the small hammock in her new quarters, thinking of Royce, trying to send her thoughts to him through the invisible air. Somehow, these thoughts must reach him; he must come to her. But try as she might, concentrating, listening with an intensity so fervent she thought her heart might break, no hint of a message came from him to her.

  Finally she arose, and before settling down to the unfamiliar and painstaking task of making a dress for herself, she tried on the other three.

  The two conservative garments fit her a bit loosely, but were exceedingly, comfortable and—she thought—handsome. The white gown, however, was quite different. While it fit her perfectly, it gave her the unsettling feeling of being encased in ice, or a shroud, a most disquieting, alien, yet strangely compelling sensation. The longer she wore it, the more she felt that way, less discomfited than bewildered.

  So she took it off and set to work.

  She had decided to make a blue dress based on the pattern of the burgundy-colored one that she had selected, but the task proved even more tedious than she had imagined, and by twilight she had scarcely begun. Fatigued and suddenly very hungry, she debated for a moment, decided that she needed something dramatic to lift her spirits, slipped back into the white dress, and went up on deck.

  The mysterious, compelling, uninterpretable sensation returned directly she had put on the dress.

  Jean was no longer in the crow’s nest, but standing on the bow of the Liberté as it knifed silently, remorselessly, at incredible speed through the water. He did not appear to recognize her.

  “Here, Landa,” he said, or something that sounded like “Landa”—she guessed it was some obscure form of address from the Côtes du Nord—“have a look through the spyglass.”

  He handed her the instrument through which he had been peering, so excited that he almost dropped it. Selena held it in both hands, found the quarry on the far horizon, and adjusted the powerful magnification.

  She saw a large three-master of white or whitish-gray—the multihued twilight made it difficult to tell for certain—perhaps five miles ahead of the Liberté. All of her sails were out, and she too was travelling at great speed, but it was clear to Selena that Jean Beaumain was gaining.

  “I have him this time!” he exulted, in that strange world of his obsession. “It is a Beaumain wind for sure. By dawn he will be under my guns.”

  “What will happen then?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Why, when Chamorro sees that he cannot outrun me, he will swing about to fight. But I have more cannon and better cannoneers. Then if, God willing, he lives through the shelling, I will board his ship and take my trophies.”

  “What trophies?”

  “Oh, Landa, you know, you know! Don’t trouble me now, all right?

  “Beaumain wind,” he repeated, talking to himself, “please, God, Beaumain wind…”

  He was in another world. Selena gave back the spyglass and stepped away from him in fascinated dread.

  “Is he all right?” she asked Rafael, who had been watching the two of them.

  “As well as can be expected. It is like a fever.”

  Selena hoped it was a fever she never caught; it was too primordial, too all-consuming.

&nb
sp; Rafael had ordered the ship’s cook to bring food from the galley and up on deck, so that the sailors might remain close to their work. There was a long night ahead. He settled down next to Selena, seated against the railing. They ate peppery swordfish chowder, black bread and butter, and each drank a mug of rum-spiked tea.

  “If there is a battle,” she asked somewhat anxiously, “what do you think the outcome will be?”

  “All I know is that it will be a fight to the finish.”

  “Are you eager for it?”

  “Not for myself, but for Jean. We have all made a vow to him. The depravities of Chamorro must be ended, and Jean’s soul put at peace.”

  That sounded reasonable enough to Selena, from what she’d learned about Chamorro, but there was also something called the peace of the grave. It did not sound at all satisfying to her.

  Finishing her meal, drinking another mug of rum and tea, she began to feel as she had when she’d first donned the dress, enclosed, different, somehow disembodied and exalted at the same time. A certain languor crept through her body as well, which she at first attributed to the rum, exceedingly pleasant and…strikingly familiar. With a start, against all reason, Selena realized that she was becoming physically aroused. Realization fueled the condition, and in another moment the fire of need burned in her loins.

  What is this? she wondered, her mind working even as her body wavered.

  It was dark now, and she glanced to see if Rafael had noticed anything.

  She could see his eyes from the flickering light of the deck lanterns, and was stunned to observe the expression in them. His eyes were hard on hers, inviting, suggestive, alive with the brew of evil and night.

  Before she could speak or move, his arms were around her. His mouth hunted for her lips, up her throat, across her burning cheek, and she felt his hands at her breasts.

  Yet even as she experienced these things, and savored the sensations attendant upon them, she saw the two of them as if from above, as if she were standing outside herself, looking down and laughing.

  “Rafael!” she gritted, as with all her strength she twisted away from him and leaped to her feet.

  He stared up at her for a moment. “What happened, Selena?” he asked then, embarrassed. “My God, I didn’t mean…I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t know what happened either,” she answered truthfully. They separated in considerable puzzlement. Selena went back to her cabin.

  Yet the feeling of passion, the need for satisfaction, not only lingered but increased. Selena lit a lamp, paced from door to porthole and back again, fighting an overwhelming need to put her hands upon herself. Presently, a demon, a beguiling satyr, the image of Royce Campbell slipped naked into her mind. It was as if her hands were upon him, he inside her, the pressure building. In a torment of heat and need, she pulled off the white dress.

  And instantly began to regain her equilibrium.

  Selena was not a woman who had ever felt uncomfortable with passion. She had, ever since coming to know physical love, savored it, sought it, invented ways to heighten its delight.

  But this time the sensations had been wildly different, more than simple abandonment, bordering on the corrupt and depraved.

  The dress.

  She had thrown it carelessly onto her hammock, and there it lay now, white and deadly, appearing almost to move, almost to be alive in the flickering light of the lamp.

  It had to be the dress.

  Yet what was the garment but pieces of silk sewn together in order to enhance the female form? A dress, discounting particulars of fabric, workmanship, and expense, was only a dress.

  Wasn’t it?

  Gingerly, she picked it up, and although her fingers touched only silk, the garment transmitted to her the aura of some sleek, living thing. It was like stroking a lazy cat and feeling the crackle of static electricity on one’s fingertips.

  Experimentally, Selena ran her hands over the fabric of the two other dresses.

  Nothing.

  Then she again picked up the white gown and began to examine it thoroughly, even turning it inside out. Running her hands along the stitching, she found, at the hem, a small, curious piece of embroidery.

  A dot and a circle within an elongated oval. Selena did not know what to think. The embroidery, moreover, was amateurishly done, not remotely comparable to the worksmanship of the dress itself.

  Upon inspection, neither of the other dresses possessed this symbol.

  Yet how could a few stitches of thread explain the powerful but inappropriate physical sensations she’d experienced while wearing the gown?

  Selena knew, intellectually, that they couldn’t. Yet they had. The lessons of Davi the Dravidian returned to her again: “There are mysteries in this world far deeper than mind can ever plumb.”

  She did not want the dress in her presence any longer, so slipping into the burgundy garment, Selena left her cabin, proceeded to Jean’s quarters, and returned the white gown to its hanger in the wardrobe.

  As she left the chamber, swinging the door shut, she was certain that she heard—subliminally, as if in another dimension—a sound of laughter. The laughter had a musical quality to it, outwardly pleasant, unthreatening, as if a good joke had just been played on Selena. Yet beneath this ostensible amiability, there was also an inexplicable, fathomless malice, a mocking, triumphant spite.

  Awakening on the following morning, Selena knew at once that Jean Beaumain’s wind—or his god—had failed him. As she lay there in the hammock, covered by blankets, the cabin tilted first to port, then to starboard, in addition to the pitching, plunging motion of the Liberté herself. Glancing out the porthole, she saw roiling, gray-black clouds, heard the cold, angry howl of a storm wind.

  On deck, Rafael handed her a raincape, apologized again for what had happened on the previous evening, and bade her keep her hands either on the railing or on the ropes that, for safety’s sake, had been strung from stem to stern. The seas were quite heavy, but the ship was in no danger, at least not yet. Clouds and mist, however, had diminished visibility to less than half a mile. Selena smelled rain.

  “Chamorro weather,” commented Rafael resignedly. “The man has the very devil’s luck.”

  Jean Beaumain’s nemesis had disappeared into the mountainous folds of driving waves, the valleys of spume-flashing mist.

  “Where is Jean?” she asked.

  “At the bow, as he has been all night. He won’t move. He is drenched and shivering; the men and I fear he will become ill.”

  “Would you see to it,” Selena asked, “that hot tea and food are brought to his cabin? I’ll see if I can convince him to go below.”

  Rafael gladly agreed. Holding on to the ship’s railing, Selena made her way slowly to the bow of the ship. All except two small sails had been furled, and these were merely to give the vessel a bit of stability and maneuverability in the rising wind. All hope of pursuit was over, yet this fact had not seemed to dawn on Jean.

  “Landa?” he said doubtfully, glancing briefly at Selena as she stepped up beside him.

  He seemed to have aged ten years in the space of a night, and Selena was instantly alarmed. She had to persuade him to take shelter. Spray from the waves, which even as she stood there washed up over the prow and soaked her feet, had drenched him to the bone. His blond hair was matted, pressed to his head like a skullcap. His clothing, even the raincape, stuck to his flesh. And his fatigued breathing came in labored snorts, sending white clouds of vapor into the air.

  Still, he held the spyglass and peered off toward the horizon, where he had last seen Chamorro’s ship.

  “Give it up for now,” Selena said gently, slipping close to him and putting an arm around his waist.

  “But he’s there! He’s out there! Here—” He handed her the spyglass. “Look!”

  She accepted the glass but lowered it to her side. “No, he’s not there, not now, and neither of us can see him anymore.”

  “Yes, he is!” Jean maintaine
d, trying to grab the spyglass. She held it out of reach and used her body to force him away from the bow railing and back along the deck. He took one step, then another.

  “I must remain here and watch him,” Jean protested vaguely. “He is a master of ruse and deceit. I cannot let him out of my sight, now he is so close to me.”

  Rafael and Louis and several other sailors were watching silently near the base of the mainmast, mutely applauding her efforts.

  “Chamorro can’t go anywhere in this storm,” she explained patiently. “When the weather clears, he’ll be right there on the horizon as before. No ship is as fast as yours. We’ll overtake him.”

  She knew, of course, that a storm can blow ships helter-skelter. There was no way whatever of predicting where the Liberté or Chamorro might end up. But Jean’s vengeful fever underlay his need to believe.

  “Yes, he’ll be right there when the clouds roll away, won’t he?”

  There was a light of renewed hope in his eyes.

  “Yes, he will,” Selena affirmed.

  She walked him as far as the main gangway, where Rafael came to her aid. Together they managed to get Jean belowdecks and to his cabin. He looked around his quarters as if he had never seen them before, as if map table, compass, sextant, charts, all of these, things were artifacts of some ancient, long-dead civilization. It was while trying to help him wrestle free of the sodden raincape that Selena realized Jean was burning with fever.

  “Get me towels and blankets right away,” Selena told Rafael. “And compresses to put on his forehead. Bring some rum as well; it can’t hurt.”

  “Landa, Landa…” muttered Jean, as Selena slipped off his rain-soaked shirt…and cried out in horror.

  Branded into his flesh, across the width of his broad shoulders, was the name