by Steve Goble
“Grew up near there,” Spider answered.
“I spent many years there when I was younger, lovely town. Mister Carpenter, I would love to know more about this wondrous vessel’s construction, and I shall be begging some oil and other items from you, I dare say.” The man’s voice was soft and fluid, like a viola played quietly. “I am a hobbyist. I must tinker, you know. Always tinkering.”
“If you’ll show me how your clock works, I’ll show you all about the capstan and rudder and pumps and all else you wish to see,” Spider said. “When duty allows, mind you.”
“Of course, of course. If we see a calm day, we can rig up the clock long enough for a demonstration, I suppose. The captain might appreciate seeing it at work, too. The clock amuses him. Or always has, anyway.” His voice trailed off, and Abigail reached out to touch his hand. They both sighed.
Wind bore a cloud of pipe smoke between them, and Mr. Fox coughed. Spider turned toward the source and noted Sam Smoke walking past. The pirate did not notice Spider, though; his leer was anchored on Abigail Brentwood.
At that moment, Little Bob rose from the hatch with a duffle strapped over his shoulder. “Damn and blast! It is unfair, damn it!”
Wright’s voice followed him. “Fair is what the captain says is fair.” Wright emerged and stood by Bob, pointing toward the rail. “Off you go.”
“A million curses, damn and blast,” Little Bob grumbled, but he obeyed. Hoots and cheers accompanied the small man as he descended.
“Good to see him go,” Spider said. “He’s lazy and poor company, a true burden aboard a ship.”
“And cruel. I can’t abide a man who is mean to animals. My father loves that silly cat,” Miss Brentwood said. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “He says he cannot sleep without it in his bunk. I probably should not reveal that to you gentlemen, as a captain is supposed to be like God aboard his own ship, I hear, but it is true, and I am glad to see him take joy in something.”
“It has been difficult for him since your mother passed,” Fox said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “He is trying, you know.”
“Yes,” Miss Brentwood said. “This voyage surely will help. He has missed the sea.” She glanced over her shoulder and sighed at the sunlight dancing on waves. “I have seen it, of course, a million times. But I have never been upon it, not since I was a little girl, anyway, and I scarce remember that. It rolls and moves, the sea does, like a living thing. Quite beautiful.”
“Beautiful, yes,” Nicholas Wright said, rushing by on his way toward whatever task he needed to oversee next. “I wish I could show you all of it, Miss Brentwood.”
Spider noted a blush from the girl. “Do you, now?”
“Aye,” Wright said. “Lovely islands, one of them your father told me of a while back, and I’ve seen it since. Like Eden. You would love it. But we shall not come close to it on this journey. A pity, really.” He smiled, then rushed off.
Spider suddenly felt like an eavesdropper. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said. “I will get back to my work.” He nodded clumsily, then turned to leave. A raised voice behind him, though, stopped him in his tracks.
“You, I hear, are to give the reading on Sunday? Not I, but you?”
“No offense is meant,” Fox said. Spider turned to see Mr. Fox staring into the dour face of the same preacher who had presided at the gallows as Dobbin’s soul passed into the next world. “The captain asked me to do it, and so I shall. He and I are friends. I am certain the captain did not mean to slight you.”
“Are you even ordained?” The minister spat it as much as he spoke it. “Are you qualified?”
“Well,” Fox said, smiling, “I have mingled with the Society of Friends, although I remain stubborn and disagree with them on a few points, and I have studied much on my own, but no, I am not ordained. It is the Lord’s book, however, and he is surely qualified. I shall merely be reading from it. I am more than able to do that. But say, I do not think the captain would be averse to a sermon as well. A brief one, as there is much work to do, of course, and we shouldn’t keep the men from it longer than necessary.”
The dour man stood a bit taller. “The Lord’s work is more vital, I think, than anything that needs done aboard ship, especially on the Sabbath. I would happily provide some expert theological guidance to accompany your . . . mere reading.” Spider got the sense that the man had to force himself to even look upon Rufus Fox.
If Fox noticed the man’s disgust, however, he gave no indication. Fox bowed. “I was counting on God to do most of the real work, but will accept your help as well, Reverend Down, I surely will. I shall broach the subject with the captain at the first opportunity. We shall have it settled by Sunday morning, and no doubt we all can breakfast on righteousness.”
The Reverend Down nodded. “Very well. Thank you. I shall want to go over any points with you beforehand, I dare say, to assure that the message is . . .”
“I plan to do no more than read the Good Book, Reverend. Any message the men get will be from that, and thus from the Lord, not from me. Sola scriptura. I am just a tinkerer who can read, and not so arrogant as to assume more than that.”
The Reverend Down licked his lips and furrowed his brow, as though trying to determine whether he’d been insulted or not. Spider wasn’t certain of that point, himself.
“Of course,” the minister said finally. “Very well. Mr. Fox. Miss Brentwood.”
He nodded and walked away briskly.
“A very short sermon,” Spider said. “I like very short sermons.”
Fox and Miss Brentwood laughed.
Spider took a quick glance at Port Royal. In the morning, they would sail away from this city, and if there was any luck in the world, he would never set eyes on it again. He would be with Em and his son.
It is best not to depend on luck, though, he decided. It is best to keep an eye out for trouble and eliminate obstacles.
He went to spy on the pirate Sam Smoke.
5
“I love a man who puts away his tools properly.” Rufus Fox shielded his eyes from the lowering Caribbean sun and leaned over Spider’s shoulder.
“Hello, sir. Aye,” Spider said, tucking a hammer into its slot in the tool chest, glad he no longer had a long beard to dangle in his way. He had cut it quite short. “Treat them well, and they will serve you well in return.”
“And what are you working on here, John?”
Spider, kneeling on the weather deck, looked up at Fox and squinted in the sunlight. Redemption was heading east, with Port Royal and the Palisadoes far out of sight. The ship was tacking close to the wind and had been all day. The going had been slow, with much gentle rocking and creaking of masts. Fox looked a tad green in the face and wet with sweat, but he smiled nonetheless. He had a gray blanket wrapped around his shoulders, despite the tropical heat.
“Are you unwell, Mister Fox?”
“It would seem I have yet to acquire sea legs, John. But I shall not spend this voyage in a bunk below. There is simply too much to see and learn up here. And the hammock, well, it sways with the ship, too, so no real respite there, in any event.”
“You will grow accustomed to a hammock, sir.”
“Oh, I do not know if I believe that.” His lips tightened at the thought.
“Well, then,” Spider said. “Just mark, sir, there is an entire ocean there, should you need to spew.”
The cook, Lazare, had treated them all to an excellent plum duff for breakfast and baked flounder for supper, and Spider had noted that Fox had seemed to enjoy a great deal of both. Spider, kneeling on the deck, was in a dangerous spot should Fox’s food come back up, so he muttered a silent prayer.
“I have made use of the sea once already, friend John,” Fox whispered, pulling the blanket tighter against him and leaning closer. His breath bore the evidence of his statement, and Spider struggled to prevent a wince. “Do not fret. I shall certainly remain in control long enough to avoid any unseemly breech of
courtesy.” The man tried to smile, and Spider chuckled.
Fox pointed toward the contraption on the deck. “What is this you are working on?”
“I am making a target, sir,” Spider said. He knelt beside a contraption of wood, like a very small boat, with a rectangle, about a yard square, of pine planks mounted on its mast instead of a sail. The planks were shoddy, the worst Spider could find, for he had determined not to waste a scrap of good wood on this foolish project.
He’d painted a red circle in the center of the square, a small one, because he was equally loath to waste paint.
“Well, not making a target. I have made a target, I should say. I am finished. That’s the bull’s-eye, there. One of our distinguished guests requested it. I finished my essential duties, you see,” Spider said, rising and spitting overboard, with a glance aft at the huge lowering sun, “and so now have time for frivolous ones, or so the master tells me.”
Spider tried not to sneer as he explained; the guest who had made the request was none other than Sam Smoke. The pirate had disappeared into his quarters the night before, thwarting Spider’s plan to spy on him, but Smoke had emerged in the morning saying he wished to relieve his boredom with some gunplay. Spider thought it a silly idea, but Nicholas Wright had pointed out that Sam was a paying guest, and told Spider to indulge him when time allowed. Spider had kept himself busy all day, which was not easy, because he had gone over Redemption very thoroughly before she set sail. He had managed to find some busy work, pretending to sharpen tools that already had perfectly good edges, but he could not put off Smoke’s request forever.
He pointed at his handiwork. “The idea is to float her behind the ship, I suppose, and waste a good deal of shot and powder, not to mention time and effort, shooting at it.”
“I see,” Fox said. “Sturdy-looking vessel, though apparently sized appropriately for Thomas the cat.”
Spider lifted the target by a large eye hook in the top of the mast, grabbed the hull, and inverted the tiny craft. “Rudder here keeps the target square on to us, you see.”
“Indeed, yes. It is to be towed?”
“Aye,” Spider said. “We shall attach a line here.” He pointed to a hook at the tiny boat’s prow. “She’ll ride in our wake, smart as paint, and keep her target aimed at us. If you’ll do me a favor and grab that coil there”—he nodded toward a rope—“we will lug this aft and let Mister Lawrence start his ruckus.”
“Mister Lawrence?” Rufus Fox closed his eyes tightly for a moment, then fixed Spider with a stare. “The unpleasant fellow constantly surrounded by a wreath of smoke of his own making?”
“Aye.”
“I did not appreciate the . . . gaze . . . he directed at Miss Brentwood.”
“Aye,” Spider said. “Not to worry, sir. The lass is well liked by the crew, and the cap’n well respected. I have no doubt lads will stand in line to slice off Mister Lawrence’s balls if he misbehaves.”
As soon as he said it, Spider’s eyes opened wide. Sam Smoke’s presence aboard had rattled Odin, and that fact rattled Spider enough to make him speak like a boor to a paying passenger. “Pardon, sir. Crude sailor talk. Please forget . . .”
“Nonsense,” Fox said with a wink. “I have several implements quite suited to the emasculating task, if anyone should have need.” He hefted the coil of rope and slipped his right arm through it. The coil held down one side of his blanket-cape while the other side whipped about in the breeze. “Shall we go?”
Fox headed aft but stopped short. A tall, slender man stood in his path, arms crossed and eyes staring angrily from a dark face. “That man might hurt Miss Brentwood? The smoke-wreathed man? Is this what I hear you say?”
“We do not think he wants to harm her, Hadley,” Spider said. “He may be smart enough to not try anything with her father on board. But feel free to hurt him if he is not smart enough.”
The man nodded sharply and dropped a hand to the knife in his belt. “I will watch him. He will not hurt Miss Brentwood.”
“Very well, then,” Spider said. “We’ll all be on the lookout for trouble from that fellow. Shall we head aft, Mister Fox?”
Fox nodded, letting out a deep breath after Hadley moved on.
Spider pointed toward the ladder. “This way, sir.”
“That man seemed very protective,” Fox said.
“Aye,” Spider answered. “If all the wagging tongues aboard Redemption speak truth, Hadley was a slave, not the cap’n’s slave, though. Cap’n would not own one. Anyway, a while back a wheel broke on the girl’s carriage, and Hadley was on some errand or another and noticed. He come over and fixed the thing, they say, and he impressed Miss Brentwood with his work and manners. She told her father that Hadley ought not be a slave, and the cap’n went and bought the man. Set him free, gave him a job here on the ship, learning the ropes.”
“Wonderful,” Fox said. “I have known the captain a while now, but never heard that story, nor met the young man.”
“Hadley lives aboard Redemption, has for weeks,” Spider said. “I do not think the cap’n wanted Hadley around his home too much.”
“Oh?”
“I believe Hadley has an eye on Miss Brentwood, or would if he could.”
“Really?” Fox stopped, turned, and watched Hadley haul on a foresail line. “He seems strong enough to give any rivals trouble.”
“Rivals, I suppose, but the real problem is the father. Cap’n will hire the man, but that’s about it.”
Fox turned back toward Spider. “I see. Hadley, being black and poor, that is the objection.”
“Aye. Cap’n helped him more for his daughter’s sake than for Hadley’s, I reckon. He treats him well, but . . .”
“A pity,” Fox said, his face brightening as though he’d just had a pleasant thought. “Romeo, thwarted by parental concerns.”
“What, sir?”
“A rather famous story, John. Of Romeo and his Juliet, would-be lovers kept apart by feuding families. Surely, you have heard of it.”
“Names sound familiar,” Spider said.
Fox gawked. “It is Shakespeare!”
“That name sounds familiar, too.”
“Well,” Fox said after a gulp. “Perhaps we can do a presentation. It’s a play, you know, a very famous one. We do not have a script, of course, but I know it well, and I know Miss Brentwood adores the play. I am no match for the Bard, naturally, but she and I might work something, provide a little entertainment! It would make the journey less tedious.”
The man halted, suddenly lost in his own mind, staring up the ladder.
Spider grinned, having decided he liked Rufus Fox. The man had hardly balked at the idea of a black sailor aboard. Spider had sailed with black men many times on pirate ships; indeed, a good many fellows who escaped slavery had nowhere else to go, and some relished the thought of preying on merchant captains as an act of revenge. The dangerous work of piracy also meant manpower was always in demand, so a pirate ship often brought together men of many hues and many cultures in order to assure there were enough hands aboard. Spider had learned that men were just men, and they fought to live, or fought and died, much the same way, whatever color their skin might be.
A merchant vessel was another thing entirely, though, and Hadley’s presence on Redemption had riled more than a few crewmen. The captain had made it clear he would put up with no nonsense, however, and Hadley worked twice as hard as any man aboard. The man was learning the trade of a sailor, but he had helped Spider with some woodwork, too. Hell, Spider thought, he’d make a better carpenter’s mate than Hob.
Anyway, it pleased Spider that Fox did not seem terribly worried about a black crewman. “Have you and the minister settled your differences, if I may ask?”
“Heh,” Fox said. “The good Reverend Abraham Down fears, I think, that I shall lead a good many of you poor souls astray with my uninformed and unschooled approach to theology. He professes contradictory things, in my humble opinion. First, he teaches
that the Bible itself is sufficient for a man’s salvation, with no need of priestly embellishment. Second, that it somehow matters a great deal whether it is he, Abraham Down, a trained theologian, or I, something of a devoted, but enthusiastic, amateur, who reads from the Bible. He seems to believe my mere reading of it will somehow be far inferior to his reading it and explaining to us all in great detail what it means, according to his doctrine.” Fox laughed. “I plan only to read it aloud, I swear. I can hardly hope to improve upon the Author’s work. A greater author even than Shakespeare!”
“I am no scholar, sir,” Spider said. “But they say it’s the Lord’s own word. I suspect it is worth reading.”
“You have not done so?” There was nothing judgmental in Fox’s tone.
“Can’t,” Spider said, suddenly aware that he had been wasting time. “Never learned my letters.” He started up the ladder to the quarterdeck, the float target held off to the side.
“You climb ably, sir,” Fox said, “and may I say for a small man you have a goodly strength. Oh, and that is the mizzenmast, correct?” He pointed toward the rearmost mast, rising between the two hatches leading into the captain’s cabin.
“Aye, Mister Fox.” The man had spent considerable time the day before asking Redemption’s hands about masts and capstans, backstays and topgallants. “Climb a lot as a sailor,” Spider said. “And swinging a hammer builds muscle, I suppose.” As does swinging a sword and fighting for your life, he thought. He’d done a lot of that in his day.
“Indeed,” Fox said, following him up. “We all have our gifts.”
As they crossed the quarterdeck, Fox stopped at the large hatch and peered down through the grating. “Ahoy, Captain Brentwood!”
Spider winced and shook his head. “No, sir,” Spider whispered, taking Fox by the arm. “That’s for hoisting stuff in and out, and giving the cap’n some air and light, but we don’t bellow at him through it.”
“Oh,” Fox said, somewhat mortified. “I did not mean to break ship rules.” Even as they walked away, the captain’s voice rose from below. “Good day, Rufus.”