by Keegan, Mel
The two men stamped inside and the door slammed. Burke’s voice was sharp with anger. “You think I’s going to believe a word of this bilge? You bugger off and get it, Trelane, right bloody now. You drag it out here, quick sharp, or I’s likely to lay another set of stripes across your back, like all the ones you earned before. Whose brand are you wearin’ on your arse?”
“Yours,” Toby said hoarsely, in an odd voice Jim had not heard before. “It’s been so many years, Nathaniel –”
“Not so many that I’s forgot,” Burke snapped, “and nor am I likely to. You just remember whose brand you’re wearing. You drag out the swag, drag it out quick enough, and I’ll forget you tried to gull me.”
“I didn’t – I’m not trying to swindle you,” Toby protested. “I’ve turned this place inside out and shaken it, I just haven’t found it yet. Now you’re finally here, you can help. You think a place this size can be searched, rafters to cellar, in a few days with one pair of hands, in this weather, while trying not to be seen?”
Burke hesitated, and it was Pledge who said sourly, “The lad makes a point. I wouldn’t like to be ’anded the job, wiv me life dependin’ on it.”
“A very good point indeed.” Burke admitted slowly, musingly. “Master Fairley, I’ll thank you to come back out here.”
The pulses were hammering in Jim’s temples as he stuck his head out of the kitchen. “I’m slicing a rabbit pie. You don’t want food?”
And then his mouth dried as Burke calmly lifted the pistol from the right side of his belt, pulled back the hammer, and drew aim dead center on Jim’s forehead.
“I’ll ask you again,” he said to Toby. “Drag out the swag. Drag it out now, lad, or it’ll be a pistol ball for Master Fairley and a cane across your back till you can’t stand.”
“Sweet Jesus.” Toby dropped to his knees at Burke’s feet. “Flog me to death, Nathaniel – I can’t give you what I haven’t got. I’ve searched – go up and look at the mattresses! Every one of them’s ripped open on the bottom. For godsakes, don’t murder on my account. Like Barney always says, I’m going to hell, nothing’s surer – there’s enough on my slate to burn me for a decade. Don’t make it a century, not with the blood of an innocent. I don’t want that on my hands.”
It seemed to Jim the tableau froze and time stopped dead. The clock on the mantel might have stopped ticking, for all he was aware of it. Pledge was leering at Toby, expecting Burke to pull the trigger; Toby was hunched, head down, poised on his knees. There was no way for Jim or Toby himself to get to Burke before Burke made the shot, or before Pledge pulled one of his own pistols. Burke had the habit of keeping his weapons loaded at all times, but when Joe Pledge was walking into a scene like this, Jim had to believe his were loaded too.
He found his voice with an effort of will and slowly, slowly raised his hands. “I don’t know what you want,” he rasped, not recognizing his own voice, “but if you’re desperate to search the house – get on with it. I’ve lived here a long time. Tell me what you’re looking for. I can tell you where it might be. Then take it, whatever it is, and go. Just go away. Stay away. All right?”
“Nathaniel, please.” Toby did not lift his head. “I remember the day you branded your mark into my hide, and I was glad of it. I’ve never had reason to dupe you, I don’t have a reason now. A handful of baubles is all I ask, and my freedom. A handful, and I can live well for the rest of my life – I don’t ask much. I found a place in Spain, I’ll be going back there. Just help me search, take what you want, and let me go. Let Master Fairley go – he’s done nothing, Nathaniel. Killing him would be murder. You want the stain of it on your soul?”
“Shut up, Trelane. You sound like a priest again, and you got no right. Not with an arse that’s been ridden like yours.” Burke spat in Toby’s direction, but the hammer dropped softly on the pistol and the weapon slid back into his belt. “Well, now, Master Fairley. It seems I believe you.”
Jim summoned his voice and found a croak. “Damned good thing you do, because it’s the truth. You’ve got me flummoxed, Captain, and I hate a mystery.”
“Captain?” Burke echoed.
“You look like the skipper of a rough, disorderly crew.” Jim lowered his hands slowly. He gestured at the door, and beyond. “The longboat. I thought you’d just come ashore. You’ve a ship in the bay, have you?”
For a moment Burke seemed apprehensive and then his face creased into a grimace which was probably supposed to be a smile, displaying long, tobacco stained teeth. He laughed with the sound of congested lungs. “One thing at a time, young Fairley, and all in its right order. You didn’t notice this bugger ferretin’ about in your nooks and crannies, countin’ your cobwebs?”
“No,” Jim lied. “I’ve been too busy. The first storm did a lot of damage, I had windows to fix, and a door –”
“Aye, all right.” Burke turned his back on Jim, intent on Toby now. “Get your feet under you. When I want you on your knees, I’ll tell you.”
“Nathaniel.” Toby stood with a grace and ease the other two might have envied, and Jim held his breath.
“Show me,” Burke invited. “Show me what you’ve searched, and how. Make me believe you, like I believe that gimpy-legged eunuch over there, who’s white with dread and likely peein’ his britches.”
Given the chance to divert attention from Jim, Toby seized it. “I started upstairs. After the first storm, I mended the thatch – searched the loft while I was up there. There’s a trapdoor in the ceiling. Come up, and I’d be glad to show you.”
“Nathaniel,” Pledge growled warningly, hanging back.
“Speak your mind.” Burke crossed both arms over a chest like a barrel.
His left arm did not work quite like the right, Jim noticed, as if an old wound bedevilled the shoulder, but those arms were thick as the limbs of a young tree. Wrestle with him, let him get a rival into a bearhug, and the result would be broken bones, suffocation. Jim saw all this and noted it down while he forced himself to listen to Pledge.
The London accent was thick enough to be sliced with a breadknife. “Yer gunna believe ’im?” Pledge demanded. “Yer put yer mark on him, yer mark of ownership. Yer think ’e’s not gunna grab the first chance ’e can get to wriggle out like the worm ’e is?”
“You don’t believe him,” Burke observed with curious amusement.
“No, I bloody don’t,” Pledge said hotly. “What I believe is, ’e found the swag yesterday, the day before mebbe, ’e took it out and Master bloody eunuch Fairley didn’t see nuthin’, and if this little shite of a parson can give us the slip and take the lot, ’e’ll do it, and laugh.”
“I’s sure he would,” Burke agreed, “but he ain’t going to get the chance, Joe. Calm yourself. We’ll search this place, rafters to cellar. If I has to, I’ll put a torch to it, burn it down and go through the rubble one shovelful at a time. If Toby’s tellin’ the truth, we’ll find the swag sooner or later. If he’s lyin’, and I’ll grant you, he probably is, we’ll find nothin’.” He smiled at Toby almost benignly. His right hand reached out, tangled in Toby’s hair, tousled it gently. “And then I’ll have the truth out of him, the way you saw me have the truth out of the Spanish lad, that time in the Azores.”
Pledge was chortling now. “And the Portuguee, in Barbados.” He doubled up in glee and slapped his thigh. “Damn, d’yer remember ’ow ’is eyes bugged ’alfway outta ’is ’ead when yer shoved a belayin’ pin right up ’im, and branded ’is tits wiv a pair of doubloons straight outta the brazier? Ha!”
“Then, there’ll be plenty for you to enjoy,” Burke said, still fingering Toby’s hair in a mockery of tenderness, “unless the lad’s tellin’ the truth. In which case, you’ll be too busy countin’ your share of the swag to care what happens to this un.”
The Adam’s apple bobbed twice, three times, in Toby’s throat. “Honestly, Nathaniel – I’ve searched. It’s got to be here. You’ll find it, and when you do – all I’m asking is a handful of l
ittle ones, and you let me go. You won’t see me again. You always said I’d earned it. Freedom.”
“Aye, maybe you has.” Burke withdrew his hand. “We’ll see. Right now, you can earn your ticket of leave with the truth. If you’s bein’ honest with me, we’ll find where old Charlie hid the swag. If you’s not…” The tricorned head cocked at Toby. “I wouldn’t be you, lad, if you’s lyin’ to me. You know me. I’ll winkle the truth out of you. You want to walk away from here? You play nice.”
“I want to walk away.” Toby’s head bowed. “I’m telling you God’s honest truth –”
“Don’t you dare quote God at us!” Pledge roared. “One more word about God outta them filthy lips, and I’ll hammer you right through the deck!”
“Joe, now, be calm before you hurt yourself,” Burke said with infuriating good humor. “You don’t lay a hand on Toby. Not even a finger. Not while he’s wearin’ my brand, and I’s tellin’ you not to. You want him, you ask nice, and you give back what you borrowed in the same condition you borrowed it. You know how it goes … it’s been a long time, but you ain’t forgot.”
“I ain’t forgot.” Pledge was seething, and gave Toby a glare that would have felled an oak. “But don’t bloody dare quote God at me, or when the time comes to ’ave the truth outta yer filthy ’ide, I’ll ask Nathan, all nice like, fer the pleasure o’ doin’ you meself.”
Burke gave that congested laugh and slapped Toby’s backside. “And there’s a treat I’d be happy to grant. So, lad. Time you were showin’ me, eh?” He turned back to Jim now. “And you, Master Fairley, lay on this food and drink you promised. You can’t get away from here. The water’s up to your doorsill, you can’t row the longboat single handed … and I saw the old woman back there in the kitchen. Your grandmother, is she? You vanish on me, Fairley, and I’ll put a bullet in her, somewhere it’ll take her three days to die in the kind of agony you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, you bein’ the nice lad you are.”
“I might,” Jim breathed, “wish it on you, Captain … but I take your meaning. I have no foggiest notion what you’re talking about, but if you want to search the house, go ahead. Start with the loft and work down, and if you want to burn the place and sift over the rubble, at least have the decency to let me and Edith and the dogs step outside before you set it alight.”
The remark made Burke laugh aloud. “Maybe I won’t have to. Maybe,” he added, shoving Toby in the direction of the stairs, “we’ll just find old Charlie’s hidin’ place, and be on our way.”
The sense of impotence was overpowering. Jim stood in the kitchen doorway, watching as Burke and Pledge followed Toby up, and his head reeled with everything he had seen and heard. The threat to Edith Clitheroe was very genuine, and only the deafness of old age prevented her hearing it for herself. Jim did not repeat it.
And he realized Toby could only have told him a fraction of the story of what had happened in the time between the mutiny on The Rose of Gloucester and the day the eight survivors went in eight directions, to stay ahead of the law. The details – personal, painful, shaming – he had kept to himself, and now those old secrets were flaying him alive.
“Does thee know these buggers?” Edith tugged at his sleeve. “Who in ’ell is the one wi’ the pot belly an’ the ringlets an’ the wicked temper?”
“I only know what Toby’s told me,” he said as softly as he could and still be heard. “They’re the last survivors of a mutineer crew he sailed with.” He looked down at her, saw the clench of her face. “Charlie hid something belonging to them. They’re here to take it, and if they don’t get it…”
“They’ll kill us all,” she finished.
“Edith, don’t be panicking,” he began.
“I’m not bloody panickin’,” she growled, “an’ I’s seen enough. The big bastard ’ad Master Trelane down on ’is knees, an’ I don’t need to see no more. They’s like to murder us, thee knows it, well as I do. If we let ’em.”
The same thought was scudding through Jim’s mind, and he studied Edith with a frown. “Will you trust me?” he asked, not for the first time.
Her eyes narrowed. “Aye, I’d trust thee – sooner than that fool of a grandson o’ mine!”
“All right, then.” Jim dropped a hand on her shoulder and steered her back to the table where her best work was done. “You just stay well away from them, and do exactly what I tell you. Promise me this, now.”
Chapter Thirteen
The sounds of industry took Jim upstairs and he stood, tight-lipped, watching as Joseph Pledge tore the mattress off the last bed and strewed its stuffing across the floor. Every other bedchamber in the house was a similar shambles, including Jim’s own, where everything he possessed was cast about like so much rubbish. Burke and Pledge would turn to the stones in the fireplaces next, before they took an iron and began to pry up the loose floorboards. Everything Jim and Toby had done with care, leaving the tavern habitable, was being redone with the violence of frustration, as if only reducing the house to a dismembered chaos would appease the aggravation of finding Chegwidden long dead and the prize out of reach.
Without a word, Jim watched Pledge shove the bed across the floor in the last room and attack the boards with the narrowest of the fire irons. Toby stood back, let him assault the timbers, and met Jim’s eyes with a tight look. His own eyes were wide, dark, filled with dread and warning. Don’t provoke them – let them wreak their havoc, it’s only timber and linen and straw, it’ll mend!
Jim heard the words as clearly as if Toby had spoken them, and he backed off, sealed his lips, merely watched as if the process interested him. Nathaniel Burke wore a face as black as a thundercloud, but he had his temper on a tight rein. He was by far the more dangerous of the two, Jim realized. Pledge might be deliberately cruel and stupid as a brute, but he could be goaded, forced into risks that would be his undoing. Burke had the cooler head – the brain of a snake and a deep streak of malice which might outdo Pledge’s.
“I told you, Nathaniel,” Toby said as they exhausted the possibilities of the upstairs. “I’ve already done all this, and found nothing.”
“So you say.” Burke had taken off his hat, bundled it into his pocket. His hair was sparse, salt-and-pepper, and the lantern light gleamed on his pale, bare scalp. “And you’d like me to believe you.”
“I’d like you to recognize the truth when you hear it.” Toby sighed and leaned both shoulders against the wall. “You think I want to come under your hand again? As if I have some secret craving to be whipped till I faint? You have me confused with the wrong man.”
“Has I, now?” Burke leaned on the wall beside him, with one fingertip idly tracing the lines of Toby’s nose, lips and jaw. “Seems to me you took a lot and came up smilin’.”
“I took it like a man and wouldn’t let the bastards reduce me to blubbering and begging,” Toby corrected acidly. “Smiling? Not me, Nathaniel. You could be thinking of your little French molly. What was his name?”
“Ah.” Burke chuckled deep in his throat. “Jean Pierre. You remember Jean Pierre, Joe?”
“I recall ’is mouth, and ’is arse,” Pledge said gruffly, panting as he finished with the floor. “Nothing ’ere. No fuckin’ thing.” His eyes were blazing on Toby. “I’d ’ave yer nailed to a wall an’ screamin’ yer goddamn’ lungs out, if it was up to me. Be bloody glad yer wearin’ ’is mark.”
“I am,” Toby said quietly, looking into Jim’s face. “A thousand times, I had cause to be very glad indeed I wore his brand.” His brows quirked at Jim. “Does it seem strange, Master Fairley, for a man to be grateful to be branded, carrying the mark of another man’s ownership?”
“It does,” Jim admitted. “But if it meant being the plaything of one man rather than the amusement of a dozen, I daresay I’d take the brand. It was like that for you, I suppose.”
The blue eyes were full of gratitude. “It was. I survived … and as much as you’ve likely already come to despise Nathaniel, there’s a tr
uth you won’t get past. He’s the reason I survived.”
“He branded you in an act of charity?” Jim asked scornfully.
The question inspired Burke to a belly-laugh. “Charity? Ye gods, what nunnery d’you live in?”
“I don’t live in a nunnery at all.” Jim met Burke glare for glare now. “So you’re one of those.”
“One of what?” Burke’s laughter was gone.
And Toby’s face was sharp with warning: Careful!
“One of those,” Jim said, almost without inflection, “who prey on folk less powerful than themselves … one with an eye for the pretty, the lovesome. One who’ll take what he wants, when he wants it. You fancied a pretty thing to beguile away the night? What, there were no women on hand? Or was this one –” nodding at Toby “– simply prettier and more lovesome than the girls, and you thought you’d take him for your bitch instead.”
Burke’s lips pursed as he studied Jim thoughtfully. “You’re a deal more savvy than you look. As a eunuch, you’d likely know all about being a man’s molly.”
The words were far truer than Jim liked to admit, but there was danger in admitting it. “I don’t know anything about it at all,” he said in level tones, “and I’m not a eunuch. I’m lame. There’s a difference.”
“Thass not what them lasses back in Exmouth sez,” Pledge jeered.
“Well, they’re wrong, aren’t they?” Jim kept his voice quiet and never took his eyes from Burke, trying to read his expression every moment. “Maybe I just don’t have a use for the kind of doxies you meet in ale houses. Maybe …” He looked along at Toby. “Maybe I have a taste for sweeter flesh, and I know real beauty when I see it. In a woman,” he added quickly, lest Burke know where his heart lay. “And I’ve run a sailors’ tavern for years, quite long enough to know all about matelots and punks, mollies and bitches.” He shrugged. “Six months at sea, well out of sight of a petticoat, and I can imagine how a lovely face and a smooth, slender body would start to look irresistible.”