by Liz Tyner
But the bland stone could resemble many other women. And perhaps that was why she’d been created. A woman to have no features of her own, except maybe a nose too much in the way. She’d have a connection with all the others who might peer upon her.
He realised he’d been staring at Thessa, but she watched Stephanos.
‘One hundred piasters,’ he offered, but when he looked to Stephanos the man’s eyes had changed. He’d watched Benjamin’s perusal of Thessa’s face. The dark glitter in Stephanos’s glare wasn’t greed. His fist clenched and he spoke quickly, until he paused with force. His next words chopped the air.
‘Bariemai ta Agklika.’
Thessa spoke. ‘He is sick of English. He has no intention of parting with the statue.’ Thessa’s eyes darted from Stephanos to Benjamin and then back to Stephanos.
Benjamin gave Thessa a smile—a smile Stephanos could see. Benjamin controlled his temper. ‘As you wish.’
Benjamin took a step to the side and looked at the disturbed earth. He crouched down a moment, examining the stone profile, trying to imagine her in a museum. He shook his head. She couldn’t be worth much. Some men did get all lathered over broken pottery shards though, so he could be wrong. He stood.
The statue stared up, blankly. He moved to examine her from other angles—noting the not open and yet not closed mouth. When he squinted, he could imagine challenge in her face.
But perhaps he imagined it because he felt the challenge in himself. He wasn’t certain his older brother hadn’t concocted the journey and involved Ascalon as a test to see if their infant brother could finally follow through on a task they felt worthy of their family.
Benjamin had not been very old when the tutor suggested to their father that education would be wasted on the boy. The man had left his post, saying he couldn’t teach such a child. Benjamin knew everyone in the family agreed. Even he agreed. He couldn’t keep his mind on anything in a book.
His next tutor had been given instruction not to spare the rod and the tutor took it as a boon. From daybreak until well into the night, Benjamin was forced to keep his face in a book. So he determined to forget everything the man taught him and sometimes he swore at the man because he knew the punishment was coming anyway and he wanted to get it over with.
University had loomed and he’d heard the stories Warrington and Dane brought home from Oxford. He’d thought he would die to be confined with all the tutors. So he’d done the sensible thing and had run away from home. The first time hadn’t been well planned and he’d been brought back. The second time had not been so simple, but he’d been twice as determined.
His father had slapped Benjamin so hard when they’d found him that Benjamin had crashed into the wall and broken a lamp. He still had a mark on his shoulder from the glass. He’d been relieved the light hadn’t been lit because oil had dripped from his hair. As far as Benjamin knew, their father had never touched War or Dane in anger.
They almost didn’t find Ben the third time he escaped—and looking back, Ben was surprised his father had even looked after the words they’d had—but the older man paid well and coins spoke. His father hadn’t brought Benjamin home, though. Ben had been sent to live with Gidley’s father, his punishment to work at the docks. His father had said his youngest child had to learn what it was like to toil without coins.
He’d worked in a dank, dark warehouse, moving out everything from whale oil to dried animal skins. He’d learned to live with the scent of death around him.
And now, when Stephanos moved behind him, the whiff of death touched Benjamin’s nostrils and he listened for the slightest shift, and he watched the two sentries, knowing he’d be able to tell by their expression if Stephanos moved to attack from behind.
He needed to get off the island—and take this mocking statue with him. And soon. Not only for his ship, but also to stop the feeling of disturbed things better left alone. And some of those things were inside him.
He should leave the stone woman. He should go back to Warrington and say he’d failed. He could keep his ship and still sail under the auspices of the East India Company. He wouldn’t own Ascalon, but he wouldn’t lose it. If he lost both the contract and the offer from Warrington, he’d be unable to pay the men and would have to sell his share of his vessel just to fund another voyage. He damned sure wasn’t going to say he’d failed.
Stephanos spoke again, to Thessa, and Benjamin wished he’d at least paid attention to the tutor during the Greek language lessons.
‘My sister,’ Thessa said to Stephanos, ‘wants the rocks. As a gift to me, a wedding gift, give them to her.’
Stephanos’s response was guttural—sharp, erupting with the force of Vesuvius.
Thessa answered. Her right palm went out, fluttering towards the disturbed earth, her voice choking with her emotion. Her eyes darkened. Benjamin could not understand the words, but he could understand the raised tones and pleading hands.
Stephanos had made a tactical error. He had refused to give his beloved’s sister something the former viewed as waste.
Stephanos took a deep breath and planted his feet firm. Thessa closed the distance, stopping less than an arm’s length in front of the Greek. Melina’s name was mentioned several times. Thessa pointed to the stone and to her own chest.
The Greek’s words were short, terse, to Thessa. His eyes moved to Benjamin, obsidian-black. He stared at Benjamin, muttering under his breath.
Like pebbles bouncing down against the side of a rock outcropping, Benjamin’s thoughts banged against his skull. Stephanos shouted so strongly his words spat into Thessa’s face.
Flames of anger scorched Benjamin’s gut. He wasn’t aware of his movements. They were no more planned than his heartbeats and he had his knife in his hand before he knew it, and he tugged Thessa behind him as he stepped towards Stephanos.
Thessa screamed.
She tried to wedge her body between them, but Benjamin’s shoulder kept her back. Stephanos’s blade now pointed towards Benjamin’s stomach.
The sharp tip didn’t concern Benjamin. He fully intended to leave the blade in Stephanos’s hand. That would be a safe place for the weapon after Benjamin had removed the man’s arm.
Benjamin shouted, warning Stephanos from Thessa, but he wasn’t sure what he’d called out.
The other two men, Stephanos’s guards, only now snapped to awareness.
‘He wasn’t hurting me,’ Thessa gasped out to Benjamin.
Benjamin stood ready to resume his task. ‘His words... His hand on the knife...’
‘He said no harmful speech.’ Her hands were clasped on Benjamin’s arm, trying to hold him back.
Stephanos spoke again, words low, direct and to Benjamin, but without translation. Thessa turned to her betrothed, speaking rapidly, soothing. Stephanos shook his head, but stepped sideways, not to increase the distance, but to keep Thessa from between them. She moved, not letting the manoeuvre work.
Benjamin turned, keeping her at the edge of the fray, but he knew he could not do well with one arm secured by her and against three men. ‘Back away, Thessa,’ he hissed, pulling himself free.
Her eyes were wide, pleading. ‘Stephanos believes you are not to be trusted with me and he thinks you are going to take me when you leave, as you did my sister.’
‘Warrington took her. I didn’t.’ He watched the Greek and the two others who now surrounded him.
‘Your ship.’
Her skin must have paled because her eyelashes and hair looked darker. Her face lighter. Hair escaped her bun and draped around her face.
And if Stephanos was concerned with the possibility of her leaving on Ascalon, then Thessa could be considering it. Benjamin waited a heartbeat before answering. ‘You could.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Leave with you?’
She didn’t have to sound as if she’d bitten into a biscuit weevil.
Stephanos’s response bit into the air, but the Greek didn’t move.
Benja
min stopped. ‘Thessa.’ And when he heard the tone of his voice, the breathless way he’d said her name, he felt a shard of fear go into his heart. He’d never heard himself speak so. But his voice stilled everyone more quickly than a command.
Sable eyes stared at him. She brushed back the hair which didn’t want to stay restrained.
‘You should come to England with me,’ he said. ‘Your sister, too.’
Stephanos slipped the blade higher. His minions waited for a command.
She shook her head. ‘That soil is tainted. Full of men who leave their families in search of nothing. The land is far from my true sea.’ Her eyes followed the path towards her house. ‘This land is my spirit. My mother’s grandmother was born here. My ancestor’s bodies made the soil of this land. Their blood has been turned back into the sea. Better to die here than live any place else.’
‘Your sister, Melina, is happy in England.’
Lips closed, she murmured disagreement. ‘She may be. She rarely swam and was our father’s daughter. I am different. I am of this land.’ She shrugged.
‘You could return here if you didn’t like England.’
She tilted her head sideways, eyes challenging. She shook her head. ‘Stephanos...he understands.’
The Greek swaggered while standing still.
Benjamin realised his error had been much larger than Stephanos’s.
Stephanos’s mouth darted up into a victory smirk. He spoke, and his accent was heavy, but Benjamin needed no interpreter. ‘You have the rocks, English. From me. I will take your sad price. Tomorrow bring the coin and I let you dig.’ He looked at Thessa, his eyes bright. ‘But I have the woman.’
Ben remembered how he’d seen her clothed the first time he spotted her. Breasts pressing against the garment slicked to her skin. Clothing shimmering down, outlining the swell of her bottom. The juncture so hard to take his eyes from, and then, the disappointment. Legs. Legs, graceful, trim and perfect. And not what he’d imagined. At first. Then he’d been relieved. A man couldn’t bed a mermaid. But a woman with legs—oh, that could work out.
Especially if the woman had risen from the sea with the grace of a goddess. Her legs would wrap around his hips quite well.
And now he would have to leave her. And someone else who didn’t deserve her would touch her. But then, he doubted he deserved her either.
*
When he stepped on to the planked deck of the Ascalon, Benjamin felt the comfort of being home, but also a sense he was losing as much as he gained. But the men on board were his true family. He kept them alive. They kept him alive. Every day at sea they saw the same sights, ate the same food, lived the same lives. And the sailors respected him. He’d never felt this close to his blood family.
Gid leaned against a mast and stared back at the island.
Benjamin couldn’t help it. His eyes darted to Melos.
‘I figured you’d be cozenin’ up to Thessa tonight.’ Gidley stepped beside Benjamin. ‘Wonder if she changes form in moonlight? Not every day a man gets to look so close at a mermaid.’
The cabin boy ran up, footsteps thumping the deck and his reddish, dark hair flaring out behind him—at least the part of it not falling across his eyes. He stopped short, in a way that only a lad who has no meat on his bones can halt. ‘Capt’n? You seen a mermaid? A real one? One with fish guts and everything? Did you save her for me to see? Or did you let her go back to the sea? What colour fins—’
‘No mermaid, Stub. Just a woman.’
‘Awwww.’ Stubby’s shoulders dropped. ‘I been wantin’ my whole life to see a fish woman. I’m the only one on this ship not never, ever seen one.’
‘They are fables, Stub. Yarns,’ Benjamin said.
‘You never seen a mermaid neither?’ Stubby asked. ‘For real and true? Old as you are and you never seen one? Not in all your years?’
Benjamin eyed the boy. ‘I’m twenty-seven. Not a grandfather. I’ve not seen everything in the world.’
‘Twenty-seven...’ Stubby muttered. ‘I can count that high, but that number be too long for me to put on paper.’
Benjamin changed the subject. ‘Gid. You were to teach him numbers and cut his hair.’
‘I couldn’t find the scissors,’ Gidley answered.
‘Go,’ Benjamin commanded to Stubby. ‘Get the scissors from wherever you hid them.’
‘I suppose I can hunt ’em down.’ Stubby left, and his feet would have lagged behind him if he’d left any more slowly.
Benjamin looked at Gidley. ‘You know the tricks he pulls...’
‘But the little whelp didn’t—’
‘We are the only true parents he has.’
‘I know. But he be squirmin’ like a weasel and sayin’ how his momma liked his hair long and...’
‘You will cut his hair and keep it from his eyes and teach him to use a flannel to at least clean his face.’ Benjamin’s voice thundered. ‘And his ears.’
‘Yes.’ Gidley’s head dropped just as Stubby’s had.
Benjamin turned back to the sea. He clenched his fists and beat the railing like a drum. ‘You have to be a good example for the boy.’ He waited. ‘You must tell him the difference between truth and yarns.’
‘Yes.’
‘And I don’t care if you never see a clean face in your mirror the rest of your life, he needs to have some proper ways. We have to teach him. He has no one else.’
‘Yes.’
‘And if you give me any grief on this, you understand—Cook will be teaching you to read the Bible and every Lord’s day you will lead the men in prayer.’
‘Cap’n. Men don’t like to be forced to pray.’
‘I will tell them it is your idea.’ He smiled.
‘Yer would. I’d ruther yer whipped me in front of all the men ’afore I had to learn readin’. And it’s hard to say writin’ is the devil’s work when the Good Book is filled with it. But all it looks like is little worms moving around on paper to me.’
‘I assure you. Reading can be learned even when the words are mangled. If it means putting your fingers over the letters and hiding them so you can make the others disappear while you figure out the one, it can be done.’
‘A lot of work just to read the Good Book when I already figured out which rules I’ll follow and which I won’t.’
‘Do not be teaching the boy the same commandments you taught me.’
Gid’s voice plumped into a self-satisfied rumble. ‘You admit though, Capt’n, mine’s a lot more pleasurable.’
Ben grunted.
‘And speakin’ of pleasurable,’ Gid said, ‘we havin’ any females with us on the trip back?’
‘No. I gave Melina’s sister a chance to sail with us and she refused.’ The words scalded his insides.
‘Well, they both be gettin’ a fine dowry, ’cept I noticed I didn’t see you leave with it.’
‘I had other things on my mind.’ He glared at Gid. It was hard to put fear into a man who’d been like a father to him. Gid had taught Ben everything he knew about sailing. ‘I don’t want any of the men on the island taking the funds from the women. And they appear to have no one to watch over them.’
‘That’s the idea of dowry. The woman marries and the man gets the funds and the apple dumplin’s,’ Gid said. ‘Don’t see as how you can change that.’
Ben did not like the idea of Stephanos getting the dowry. Or anything else.
‘I’ll give them the funds in the morning, before I get the stones. I’ll tell Thessa the details of it and make sure she knows she does not have to marry the Greek toad just because he is constructing a home. She can use the funds as she wishes.’
‘She not be real likely to turn down a man buildin’ her a house, ’specially if he tells the chickens which way to scratch on this island. You be best just givin’ it straight to him so no one be takin’ it from her.’
Benjamin unclenched his fists, slowly. ‘That man she foolishly thinks to wed won’t know I’m speaking with her
. And I’ll not tell the women it’s a dowry. They can choose how to spend it. I’d get the rocks now but even with lanterns it’d be too hard to dig in the dark and too easy to break them—’
‘Yer just wants to see the woman in the daylight one more time,’ Gid interrupted.
Ben ignored him. ‘It’ll take a bit to pull the marble out of the hard dirt without destroying it. The wind won’t hold for ever and if we get becalmed then I’ll lose even more time and money before I sail on a real voyage again.’
Benjamin bowed his head for a moment and shut his eyes, trying to blink away Thessa and her world. He could not get the image of her in the water to leave his mind. And the gnawing in his belly at the thought of leaving her. ‘I have no care for Thessa, other than my concern for a woman without someone to keep the evils of the world away from her.’ He said the words aloud so he could hear them.
‘Can’t blame yer for wantin’ to look a little more,’ Gid continued as if Ben didn’t speak. ‘Niver seen a sight like that woman slippin’ through the waves myself and I be older ’n’ water. Yer dropped a spyglass and yer swore not one word. A right good spyglass. Not one word. Yer couldn’t speak.’
‘A lady was standing there,’ Benjamin snapped. ‘I was being a gentleman.’
Gidley’s eyes widened in argument.
‘You look like one of those bulging-faced blenny fish,’ Benjamin muttered, ‘and you better brush up on your prayers because you’re going to be needing them or saying them.’
‘I already been sayin’ my own. I’ll be pleased to see the back o’ this land. It’s peaceable lookin’, but there’s much more’n a few rocks buried here. This here place is full of spirits. Why, that smell in the air, I’m thinkin’ it be caused by demons. They leave an odor behind. Yer walk in a room and it smell funny—half the time a demon been there.’
‘Gid. This is a ship. Not your personal Drury Lane.’
Gidley tapped his nose. ‘I can scent out a demon better’n anybody I ever seen. And this place...’ He gave a sniff to the air. ‘It’s startin’ to stink grand.’
*