by Keegan, Mel
Toby’s eyes closed. “Could you do it?”
“Kill them?” Jim pulled a tub chair closer to the warmth, settled and balanced the terrier on his lap.
“Murder,” Toby corrected. His brows quirked. “We have the better of them. The advantage is in our hands. Kill them, and it’ll be murder in cold blood.”
“No court in this land’d convict thee,” Edith said tartly. She had cupped a hand behind her ear to catch every word.
“True,” Toby agreed. “And we can surely kill them, Jim – it’s all too easy. But think, before you do.” He held up his palms. “There’s no blood on these hands, not yet. I’ve never killed. I’ve done a lot … been made to do a lot … that I’m not proud of, but I’ve never killed a man and I don’t intend to, if I can help it. There’s one stain I don’t want on my poor soul.”
“You still believe any of the old Bible twaddle?” Jim was astonished.
“I don’t honestly know,” Toby admitted. “But I’ll tell you this. When Judgment Day rolls around, as you can be sure it will, I’ll be able to stand up in front of the Judge and say honestly, I never took a human life, much less murdered.” He shrugged eloquently. “It’s important to me, Jim. I’m going to burn, no doubt about it … but I don’t think I’ll burn for very long. Not compared with the likes of Nathaniel and Joe. The goblins’ll grant me manumission from Purgatory a hundred years ahead of them. It matters.”
In fact, it did. Jim thought back to his father, who was so fond of the Psalms, always in church on Sunday, careful not to blaspheme, just as careful to contribute to the poor fund. Arthur Fairley would have agreed with Toby without hesitation, and as for Jim – he was far from sure it could all be dismissed as ‘Bible twaddle.’ At least something inside that thick, mystifying, confusing book might be true. And if it were true, the lighter the burden of sin one carried with him to Judgment Day, the better.
“Damnit,” he muttered, “you’re not going to make it easy!”
“Nothing ever is.” Toby was stroking Bess, and intent on Jim. “We have options other than murder.”
“Two that I can see,” Jim said slowly. “One, we take their longboat and leave. We just go, and don’t come back.”
Toby nodded slowly. “I thought about leaving. The trouble is, if we vanish, they’ll wake up sure we had the prize all along, and we took it with us. You heard Nathaniel. We’ll be hunted, and eventually we’ll be found. We’re easy enough to recognize in a crowd.”
“Especially me, with this leg.” Jim breathed a long sigh. “Then, we find the prize, don’t we?” He looked from Toby to Edith and back. “The last option we have is for us to find the prize before we let the buggers wake up.”
“Yes.” Toby licked his lips and sat forward, betraying his eagerness. “We take a small share, and we leave the rest. Trust me, Jim, we can be rich as lords on a very small share, and we can be gone before they’re clear headed enough to see what’s on the table in front of them.”
One brow raised at Toby and Jim asked, “Burke wouldn’t hunt us down, to recover what we’d taken?”
“Not if we took less than what would be my share anyway.” Toby smiled, lopsided and engaging. “He has his own odd code, and he keeps to it. I was there, I shared the same risks, did the same work. He put his mark on me and I did my duty by him, never shirked in what he asked of me.” Color rose in his face as he confessed this much, but he lifted his chin. “I’m due a share.”
“As a slave?” Jim asked uncertainly.
“A small share,” Toby allowed, “along with my freedom. I’ll also leave them a letter – Nathaniel can read, after a fashion. I’ll tell them Barney’s dead, and how, so there’s one less way the prize has to be split. There’s more for everyone with Barney out of the way, and even Charlie, rest his soul.” His face shadowed again. “And that’s another thing. There’s two more of Nathaniel’s crew back in Exmouth that I know of, and a third who should have arrived by now. If we want to walk away from this as free men and not have to spend the rest of our lives looking back, we need to settle with Eli Hobbs, Willie Tuttle and Rufus Bigelow at the same time. Have it done, finished.”
“Well … shite.” Jim passed a hand before his eyes. “You’re not asking for much, Toby.”
“I know.” Toby stood and let Bess have the stool, where she perched looking down at the water. “But I also know these men. If we split the prize with Nathaniel and Joe, and cut out the other three, it’ll be Eli and Willie right behind us, and I’m not too sure about Rufus, either. He was always the best of the bunch – which isn’t saying much. They’re perfectly capable of murdering all of us, Nathaniel and Joe as well, to get what they call their fair share.” He gestured west. “Eli and Willie are at a tavern not far on this side of Exmouth. The Cattlemarket.”
“I know it.”
“And I’d give you good odds, Rufus will’ve joined them by now.”
Jim was silent for some moments. “You want to bring them here.”
“After we find the prize.” Toby was looking into the fireplace even then. “We find it first. There’s a tradition among thieves and pirates. Division of the spoils. In the company I knew, the captain took half. The first mate took a quarter of what was left. Then the remainder was split up according to shares. Gunners got three shares apiece; ordinary men got one. Slaves due their freedom, a half share and a ticket of leave.” He looked away. “Slaves not due their freedom got nothing but the gift of life and the chance to live another day.”
“And if we can get the five of them here,” Jim said slowly, “they’ll hold to this?”
“They will. I’d swear to it. I know them.” Toby took a kick at the water and muttered an oath. “If we’re going to do this, Jim, it has to be soon. It’ll be hard enough to search the fireplace already, and in a few hours we’ll be wading up to our knees in the cellar. The longer we talk, the harder it’s going to be.”
“And our lives depend on it,” Jim finished.
“Yes.” Toby’s face darkened. “I’m rather afraid they do.” He paused, and his voice was plaintive. “Please, Jim.”
For better or worse, the decision lay in Jim’s hands, the first time he had ever carried such a burden of responsibility. He might have struggled with it, but Toby knew these men too well and he was right. “Then, we’d better find it,” he said tersely, “because we’ll never convince Burke and the others we don’t have it. We might as well put ourselves out of our misery, if Charlie Chegwidden’s outsmarted us.”
“He hasn’t – not yet,” Toby whispered. “He was shrewd enough to keep the secret safe for six years after they put him in a hole in the ground, but I knew Charlie. He wouldn’t try to swindle Nathaniel – and not because he had any affection for him!”
“It was all about sheer bloody fear?” Jim guessed, with a glance into the taproom.
“Let’s say, he had a healthy dread of Nathaniel.” Toby had picked up the small brass bucket in which the cinders and ash were carried away from the hearth, and was bailing water into the fire basket to put out the coals. “I wouldn’t care to have Nathaniel Burke hunting me!”
Jim hauled himself up onto the aching leg and gave Boxer the chair. “Edith, I’ve a job for you. Those swine will be starting to think about waking up in six or eight hours. Make note of the time, and with an hour to spare, pry open their nasty mouths and give them four more drops apiece, right on the back of the tongue. You can do this?”
She made a face. “I’ve dosed enough bairns in me time … not that any of ’em ’ad rotten teeth.”
“Careful with the laudanum,” Jim warned. “Too much, and you can kill them – and you heard what Toby said. You don’t want murder on your conscience any more than we do.”
She waved him off as she heaved herself out of the chair. “I’ll get up there an’ get a fire goin’ in the big bedroom, an’ all.”
“It’s a mess up there,” Toby warned. “Do what you can, Edith. When we’ve found what we’re looking for, I�
�ll come up and help.”
“When,” Jim echoed. “When we’ve found it.”
“When.” Toby had the fire out now, in a mass of hissing coals and gray smoke. He straightened, one hand in the curve of his back, and gave Jim a rare smile. “I’ve got to believe it’s here.”
So did Jim. As Edith stepped out he caught Toby’s head in both hands and held him to a kiss that left them both breathless. His lips felt bruised as he stepped back and said, “All right. Now we find it.”
Chapter Fourteen
The water was cold enough to make Jim’s finger joints ache, and filthy enough for him to lose sight of his hands two inches below the surface. He and Toby had slung every lantern they possessed from the mantel, filling the fireplace with light. The fire basket stood out in the kitchen now, still hot enough to cast grudging warmth though it was cooling rapidly, and the sweat of effort continued to prickle along Jim’s ribs after the sheer effort of clearing out of the hearth – water, cinders, soot, ash, the debris of recent fires – while the water washed everything right back in. The fire basket might never have been moved since it was set in place when The Raven was rebuilt on the ruins of the old inn.
Toby was pale, grim, tight lipped as he leaned on a pry bar, trying every stone in the hearth in turn. He was working fast, in the scant moments after Jim took the big yard broom and sent a dirty tidal wave sweeping out into the kitchen. For two seconds at most, as every wave went out, they saw the bricks of the hearth itself. Toby would pinpoint a new crevice between them, jam in the pry bar and throw all his strength against it.
Nothing was moving, while the sweat rolled off the pair of them, no matter the aching cold of the water. At last Toby surrendered and took a moment to catch his breath. He leaned both hands on his knees, chest heaving.
“There is no way between heaven and hell old Charlie was up to this,” he panted. “Not single handed. And there was no one he’d share the secret with – not even Nell, if she’d be awake when he came home, which she wasn’t, may she rest in peace.”
“The prize isn’t in the hearth floor, then,” Jim agreed bleakly. “Well, damn. That was the best idea yet. You want to try the fire back?”
“We have to try everything.” Toby straightened his spine with an obvious effort. “And we don’t have much time.”
He was looking at the far corner of the kitchen, where the trapdoor was under several inches of water by now. As soon as they lifted it, the cellar would start to flood fast. If Charlie had buried the prize in the floor, they were not likely to find it before the cellar was bailed out by a bucket-line of hired laborers. Men like Burke and Pledge were too impatient and much too angry to wait so long, and Jim’s skin prickled as he grasped the danger.
Toby had turned his attention to the stones at the back of the hearth, and Jim dropped a hand on his arm. “Leave them. They’ll be above water for hours yet. It’s the cellar floor that scares me spitless.”
“You’re right.” Toby pulled both hands over his face and grabbed a lantern in each fist. His eyes were dark, hollow, as he gave Jim a hard look. “You be bloody careful on those steps. They were slick even before they were wet. They’ll be lethal now – if you’re not sure, stay up here and let me do this.”
The thought was kindly meant but Jim would have none of it. “And how many years have I been climbing those steps in all weathers? They get slick as glass, winter and summer alike, soon as it rains. There’s always mold in there – even when the cellar’s dry, you can still smell it.”
“All right.” Toby paused to take a gulp of coffee. Both mugs had gone cold on the corner of the table while they worked. He took two lanterns in each hand and splashed through the water to the trapdoor with Jim on his heels. They set a half dozen lanterns on the pantry shelf, perched in front of flour and rice, barley and oats, and Toby lifted a brow at him. “You’re sure?”
“Dead sure.” With a soft curse, Jim thrust both hands into the water, hunting for the big iron rings to lift the trap.
They were cold and the trapdoor was so heavy, under the weight of water, he and Toby strained and swore as they wrestled it up. It dropped back with a splash, and the kitchen seemed to drain itself into a pit as black as the gateway to hell.
Cautious as a lame old wolf, Toby took a pair of lanterns and looked in, and down. “Let me go first.”
He was by far the more nimble, and Jim was not about to argue. If Toby had the strength and agility to scramble around in the rigging of a ship that was rolling, pitching in a storm, he was capable of negotiating a flight of mold-slick steps in semi-darkness and moving water.
With great care he found the top step, and the second, and felt his way down, balanced like an acrobat. Still, halfway between trapdoor and floor he missed his footing and went down on his right hip, hard enough to make him shout with pain, shock, anger. He would wear a bruise for a month, Jim knew, but Toby was up a moment later and hanging lanterns from the hooks set into the old timber beams so close over his head, he almost had to duck. With the lights in place he came halfway back up, and on one knee Jim leaned down to pass him the rest of the lanterns, save one. Jim clutched the last in his left hand as he made his own way down, right hand clawing at the wall as if he might find purchase there.
Everything was wet. His feet slithered on the blue-black slime which grew on the steps as soon as the rains came. Twice he felt the sickening dread, sure he was going to fall. Toby was right below, ready to make a grab for him, but only Jim knew how much a fall could hurt him. It could cripple him, as the hedgehog spines of bone that quilled his leg moved, shifted – it could send him to the surgeon right here, right now, to have the leg opened and probed, or else sawn off not much under the hip –
And then, how fondly would Master Trelane think of him? Jim wondered as he caught himself on the thin edge of the fall. How greatly would Toby desire a man whose leg had been taken off as the price of his life? The same uncertainty might have been in Toby’s head, for as Jim made it down within reach the balladsinger’s hands were there at once, steadying, buttressing. He stepped right into an embrace tight enough to knock the air out of his lungs.
“Easy, easy. Goddamnit,” Toby whispered against his ear, still punishing him with the embrace. “If we get out of this, Jim, I’m going to coddle you till you’re sick and tired of me … and then I’ll just coddle you some more.”
It would make a nice change, Jim thought, pushing his face into the bony angle of Toby’s shoulder. There had been far too little coddling in his life, and none at all since his father died. He soaked up Toby’s body heat as long as he dared, and then fended him off with a sound of reluctant humor.
“I’m not done for yet. And we’ve got more work ahead of us than I like to think about.”
Even then Toby was watching the amount of water trickling down the steps from the kitchen, where it was still coming in under the house’s outside doors. “Two hours,” he judged, “and we’ll be ankle deep, and after that we won’t find any damn’ thing on the floor, or under it.”
“Shrewd guess?” Jim stepped back and cast about for inspiration.
“It’s like watching a ship’s hold flood, when you’ve opened up a seam.” Toby dragged a handful of hair out of his face and thrust it behind his ear. “You watch for a few minutes, get an idea of how fast she’s flooding, so you know how long you have to fix her up or get her offloaded and let her go.”
“You’ve watched a ship trying to sink itself,” Jim observed. Toby answered with a mute nod. “Two hours, then.” Jim took a kick at the water, to judge how deep it was already. “Same as we did in the hearth? There’s brooms down here, and irons.”
“Same again,” Toby agreed grimly. “You want to sweep while I lean on the bar, or try your hand with the iron?”
Jim’s whole body was hurting, head to foot. He had never done this kind of work, nor kept up the pace for so long. He doubted it would make any difference which job he took. “You’re handy with the iron,” he gro
wled, snatching up a big, battered yard broom.
The worst of the job was moving the piles of stuff which had been stashed down here over so many years, he had no idea what most of it was. In minutes they had exhausted the possibilities of any open area of floor, and the real work began – humping crates, trunks, kegs and barrels to lay bare parts of the floor which human eyes had not seen in years.
“You piled all this lumber here?” Toby asked, panting under the weight of a keg of nails.
“Some,” Jim told him. “Some of this stuff was here when we bought the place. I remember my father telling Charlie, ‘Don’t you start thinking I’m going to count the sundries in the cellar and pay for ’em one at a time!’ A lot of this gear must’ve belonged to Nell Chegwidden.” He hoisted up a crate, felt the pull in his shoulders and arms, and splashed across to the new pile taking shape on the area of floor they had searched first. “I never bothered to open most of these, never even thought about them.”
“You had no cause to,” Toby reasoned, panting under the weight of another load. “What was Charlie to you? A crusty old salt, telling strange stories and staring out of those windows at the path, or the bay.”
“Waiting for you,” Jim added.
“Or for whichever of us made it back here first.” Toby wiped the back of his forearm across his sweated face, leaving a streak of dirt there. “It could have been Eli or Willie or Rufus, any of us, who got here first. We scattered on the wind, and eight years was a lifetime.”
For Jim the same eight years had been just as interminable, for different reasons. A lame leg, the confines of home, and always the sea, the horizon, mocking him with the promise of adventure he would never share. He watched Toby for a moment, working with strength and energy Jim could only envy, driven by a desire to stay alive a little longer. Perhaps to take that handful of gems and live long enough to enjoy them.
“Jim?” Toby stopped long enough to angle a concerned look at him. “You’re in pain.” Not a question.