“The end of what? The end of what?”
“Shh. Let me take another look.” I stared and scribbled in the sand, stared and scribbled some more. The sun rose high in the sky and beat down on us between the leaves. The words jumped up on down on the page. I began to sweat.
“‘Of the path.’ Yes, true it is, ‘The crown at the end of the path.’ That’s the whole message,” I crowed, victorious at last. This was exciting. I had actually solved something. I imagined a great glittering crown on a beautiful pathway bordered by flowers. I waited for Fence to offer his congratulations.
“The path? What path?”
Elation drained out of me. “Well, how the hell should I know? We’re in the right place, Devil’s Island, according to the other emblem, so we’ll have to look for it. Perhaps it even begins in the woods here. But we can’t look today. I’m too tired. Scratcher kept me up all night, yammering and fighting with his henchman.” That reminded me. I still hadn’t told Fence about Proule and Mary.
I lay down on the spinney floor and shut my eyes. Even so, I could still see light and dark, light and dark, shimmering across my eyelids as the sun patchworked through the canopy of the trees. And that blasted dog Tempest had lain down next to me. I could feel his hot breath against my side and hear little panting noises and grunts, but was too exhausted to do anything about it. I opened one eye, saw a black floppy ear standing straight up in the air and a white one pointing straight down. It gave the beast a quizzical expression, as if he were saying, “What’s this knave about to do to me now?” I was about to do nothing. I couldn’t even imagine lifting my hand to push him away, but I didn’t need to. In a single blink he had gone, chasing after a lizard. I shut my eye again. And slept.
“Put the verse away and shut the chest,” I commanded when I awoke, as if Fence were my servant, in the same way that I was Scratcher’s. “Cover it with earth. Commit the message to memory, as I will, and wipe out what’s on the dirt. And then I have something to tell you about Proule.”
“Proule?”
I opened both eyes. “Hell’s Bells, Fence, stop repeating everything I say or I’ll go completely barmy. Yes, Proule. And Mary, his old enemy. And others.” That was a huge puzzle too. And one about to burst open like an overripe plum, suggested the small wicked voice in my ear.
Plums. I rubbed a new mosquite bite as I thought about them. I’d pilfered plenty off the barrows in Plymouth in the past. And now I’d had no supper, nor no breakfast either, and there wasn’t a barrow nor shop in sight. I could almost taste the soft sweetness of the absent plums, though I remembered the pain when one got stuck on the way down when it wasn’t ripe enough. Ouch. But now even an unripe plum was out of the question, though I was starved and ready to put up with anything.
When Fence had finished his tasks, I scrambled up and we went to look for molluscs in the confusion of rocks and sea at the shore. The tide was coming in, spraying the rocks, and we paddled our toes in the eddies. I told Fence what I’d seen and heard the day before, and his forehead creased. “A conspiracy?”
“It’s possible.” I shrugged. I liked to think that much of my devilry had been washed clean away by the roar and whine of the sea storm. But now, true it is, having seen Proule and Mary and the others in the woods, I wanted a stake in any wickedness that might occur. My heart beat faster, my brain urged it, though I tried hard not to admit my interest even to myself. And I shouldn’t even mention wickedness to Fence, I realized, who was still young, and straight and clean as an arrow. Or at least, so I liked to think. I said no more on the subject.
After eating a snail-like creature or two, which slunk down my gullet and comforted my belly, I commenced looking for the emblem path with Fence, who wouldn’t leave off nagging. We searched the rest of the day in the woods, our legs sorely prickled by thorns and sharp grass. The wind was still. The sun slanted through the trees and spider webs, its brilliant yellow slats spearing the ground at intervals as if to guide us. The tide finished coming in, and started going out. But we found nothing. Mayhap the path was overgrown. Or mayhap it had never been there in the first place. It was a bafflement.
CHAPTER 19
STORM SIGHTING
The ocean was beginning to roar. Rain spat and then, with little warning, poured from clouds. Lightning rent the welkin as ants ran for cover and we ran for home. Just before we reached the settlement we caught sight of three shadowy forms half hidden by a large rock. They stood very close to each other, close enough to be telling a secret.
“Is that Admiral Winters?” I asked, sodden from head to foot.
“Looks to be him. And Proule. Who’s the other?”
Jagged lightning lit the three figures, followed by an earsplitting stroke of thunder. “Why, Fence, good fellow, don’t you see?” I blinked hard, trying to clear my eyes of rain. “A ragged red skirt, hair longer than the admiral’s. There stands Mary Finney, bold as brass. That witch gets into everything.”
“At least there’s three of them so they can’t be a-lying down together,” Fence said seriously, wiping his face.
“True it is.” I laughed, but wondered what Mary wanted with Winters and Proule. No answer occurred to me, unless she was eager to tittle-tattle about a fourth person, perhaps Scratcher. Or me. At that moment she passed us by, hurrying back to the cabins, her hair plastered to her head and neck. The two men had disappeared.
“What you looking at, stupid?” she asked.
“Not you, Mary, Mary Fish-Finney. Not you.”
“You just remember that, toad spawn. You ain’t seen no one.” She had been with Proule, that vicious beast, and Winters, the real power of the settlement in spite of that title going to Boors, so she was confident. Whatever she’d been doing with them, she was safe. Fence and I waited for a moment before following the same trail back.
I finally reached Scratcher’s and shoved several baked eggs, leftover from lunch, down my throat. I peeled and ate so fast that one got stuck, and I had to choke it back up. Afterwards I slid into my habitual corner, still too drenched and chilled to sleep. Mary, Winters, Proule, I whispered to myself over and over again as I tried to rub myself warm. Fish Fin, Winter Nights, Cat Pee. And occasionally, as I finally began to nod off, xxyyx, yyxxy. Scratcher, Heaven be praised, was in a drunken stupor, crying and mumbling about his lost chest and his lost treasure. If he only knew….
CHAPTER 20
THEY’RE GONE!
There was much alarmed talk. The admiral had disappeared several days before. So had Proule. So had Salt-fish Mary, though no one took much notice of that. Others were missing from the settlement too, including the men I’d seen in the spinney speaking to Proule. And though I’d searched everywhere, I couldn’t find Peter Fence. That was most alarming of all. He had melted into thin air. I knew he wouldn’t leave me, not willingly anyhow. I was all he had in the way of comfort in the world. He must have been forcibly taken. Or worse, drowned.
Boors was more demented than usual. With Fence doing a disappearing act, he had no one to swat flies for him. He slapped his legs and arms continuously while calling for the boy in a quavering voice. Within a day he’d lost both his nightcap and his umbrella. Piggsley, who had made a fly swatter out of twigs, was obliged to help him out. Others were more concerned with practical matters.
“With the admiral and half the crew gone,” said an exhausted-looking colonist, “how will we ever reach Jamestown?” Half the crew was a bit of an exaggeration, but at least we got his point. Now we had only the lunatic Boors to lead us. And Boors would be incapable of stepping out of a wooden bucket on his own, never mind anything else.
“I have to get to Virginia,” yelled Scratcher, as the news sunk into his sotted brain. “I’m to be secretary.”
No one was listening to him. He wasn’t secretary yet. They were arguing with one another about what was best to be done.
“We should go out and search for ’em,” said a mariner.
“We should stay put and let them ge
t on with it. More food for us,” said another, rubbing his belly.
“Why must we leave here?” asked a small girl in a small voice. “I don’t want to go back on the sea.”
“There’s enough food to keep us all full. I’m for staying on this island forever,” said one of the colonists.
“I’m to be secretary of the colony, I say,” Scratcher screeched, his face purple.
“There won’t be enough food. Not come winter.”
“Rot, there’s plenty of food for all,” replied another voyager, ignoring Scratcher altogether. He glared around as if daring someone to contradict him.
Scratcher screeched again, like a drunken monkey. The wind was beginning to rise and there was a scent of rain and wine.
“Little Lettis has said true. We’re likely better off here on Devil’s Island than goin’ awa’ over to Virginia, anyway, which Winters will make us do if he comes hither again.”
“Right,” agreed someone else, pulling his tatty cape around him. “God knows what awaits us on the seas, never mind Jamestown.”
A young woman began to cry. “I hate this Isle of Devils.”
“Me too,” whined a little boy with a dead crab in his hand.
“I heard tell the admiral was building a pinnace. Perhaps they be already gone. My intended be in Jamestown. Now I never will see him again.”
The pilot arrived. “Who’s missing in addition to the admiral?”
“Michael Angel, for one….”
“No, I’ve just seen him.”
“Mortimer Proule is gone.”
“Who cares? We’re better off without the old sod.”
“Secretary of the colony….” moaned Scratcher.
“Shut up!” yelled the pilot. Scratcher shut up.
Other voices were rising and vanishing into the wind, and people were shoving one another. It was beginning to pour with rain, cold and hard, as it had done all this week. They would never come to agreement. They would never do anything. They had, in fact, forgotten they were talking about Winters and were fighting with each other over nothing of importance at all.
I felt desolate and lonely but wasn’t about to give up. Creeping into our hut behind Scratcher, who had finally given up his claims of grace and favour, at least for the moment, I thought, as I warmed my bones somewhat, about what I might or could accomplish in the light of this new mystery. Not in the interests of wickedness, for once, but of friendship. I missed my boy Fence. The next afternoon, with the wintry sun streaming through the trees, I was back in the spinney searching for clues.
I looked on the ground for footprints, but the rain had scrubbed everything clean. I gazed at the bark of cedars, thinking that Fence might have scratched some kind of clue, and into the lacy, leafy canopy. I widened my search to the pink sand of the beach, and I examined the limpet rocks. Everything was as usual. Everything was empty of evidence. Sitting down in damp grass by the shore, I rubbed my head hard until at last, as the day began to darken, an idea popped into it. I went back into the deeps of the tall Bermuda forest, where the trees grew wild and private, as a bird swooped down and perched on my shoulder. Carefully, I uncovered the top of the chest, and sprung open the lid, afraid that I would find nothing. The bird flew away.
Nothing, nothing, I repeated to myself. I will find nothing.
But lo and behold, Fence’s old black glove, never before separated from his right hand, was waiting inside. It was stuffed with palm leaves and its fingers pointed south, towards a stretch of water. Not to Virginia, which lay to the west. They hadn’t gone there. Oh, my clever Fence, I hurrahed to myself. Not a book learner or even a writer of the alphabet, to be sure, but no fool either. He had shown me the way. I would paddle south, across the watery expanse, to the next island, an island I had never ventured to explore before. But that’s where Winters and Proule and Finney and the others went, dragging Fence along with them, I was sure of it now. I left the glove in the chest, and read the verse of the last unsolved emblem over and over till I knew it. Then I stuffed it under my jerkin. I would sail on the tide of tomorrow, and try to solve the cipher before I went.
CHAPTER 21
HELLISH HEAD BANG
On the ground. Just woken up, but still very drowsy. Godawful headache, like I’d been knocked over the head with a rock. I fell asleep again, for a few minutes or maybe more. When I awoke, I had sand in my mouth. I could taste blood in it. And there was a bad smell. I’d pissed in my hose. I turned over and felt around my head with two fingers. It was wet, but not from the sea. The wetness felt sticky and warm. Blood or brains were leaking out. I opened one eye for a second then shut it tight against the sun, which was searing. Something was licking the stickiness on my head. I was too tired to raise my arm again and push it away. I was too tired and headachey to reopen my eyes. I hoped to hell it was the ship’s dog and not some ferocious beast. Maybe Tempest had swum over too.
Memory returned slowly. I’d left our island, having told only Piggsley goodbye. “I s’d come with you, Ginger Top, if I could,” he said, giving me a pat on the shoulder. I reckoned he wouldn’t give me away, and I felt I needed to have someone in the know just in case I disappeared for good. So I wouldn’t vanish from the face of the earth with no one to notice my passing. But when I told him I was going, he immediately asked me. “Who s’ll I tell, lad, if you goes missing?”
I had none who cared over in England should I vanish. And no one here except him. “Nobody, Master Piggsley, nobody at all.”
I fleetingly wondered whether I should say he might inform Mistress Oldham of Plymouth Town, but dismissed the idea as soon as it bubbled into my brain. “Good riddance to stinking rubbish,” she would likely respond, her idea of a fitting epitaph.
He walked me down to the shore and shook my hand like a gentleman, calling me a good soul. “And if we be’ant to meet agin in this life,” he said, “we s’ll meet in the next, never fear.”
I hand paddled over to the island south and slightly west of ours. The wind was high so I bent low, gripping the broad plank I rode on between my knees. Piggsley and I had found the plank, washed up from the Valentine, on the shore. Sprays of salt water drenched me as I went. The sea got into my mouth and I choked on it. Coughing, I fell off the plank. I scrabbled around for it, but it was already behind me, swept back by the waves, so I had to swim to the island, which was still a long way off. The tide was pulling me the other way. My clothes were dragging me under. I wrenched off my jerkin and the emblem went with it, down into the depths. Lucky I’d solved it. There was no way I could dive after it. My arms were too painful from all the paddling and swimming. I was close to drowning. Tempest the dog had swum up behind me. He barked twice, as if to urge me on, and pushed me once, with his paw.
I made it to shallow water, scrambled up and waded to the land. Sobbing with exhaustion and effort, I gasped land air into my lungs. I could see smoke, no doubt the smoke of a cooking fire, further inland. So perhaps they were here then, Winters and his crew. They or someone else. I was creeping towards the sight and smell of the smoke when I was smacked hard from behind, and went out like a snuffed candle. Even Oldham’s frying pan over the head routine had nothing on this. As I fainted, I heard someone screaming. Perchance it was me.
Now I still felt weird, half asleep. I tried to think about the cipher in the final emblem. For a moment I couldn’t remember what it said or even what the emblem verse was. The plain text. Or the picture. I was too confused. Why would I even think about ciphers at such a time anyway? It was a kind of madness. But I did think about it, I couldn’t help myself, and its words and meaning were slowly coming back to me. I could almost see letters set out on the parchment. Not all of them though. I couldn’t recall all of them.
I managed to open both eyes before squinting around. Everything was hazy. Two figures loomed above me, huge and dark against the sun. Perhaps they were the wild men talked of in England. The wild men of the New World. Or Spaniards. Either way, they’d likely kill me. I b
anged my eyes shut and pretended to be dead. Mayhap, I thought, I already am, and this is hell. But at that moment I realized with relief that they were speaking English. Then with dread, because one of them was Proule. I could tell by his voice.
“What you do to him?” asked the other voice.
“I hit ‘im. Hard. He went down like a slit pig,” retorted Proule.
“He’s Scratcher’s boy.”
“I know that. He ain’t supposed to be here. He could rat us all out. I ain’t wanting to see Scratcher’s face again ever in this life, not after our last set-to. I ain’t wanting to see him again even after, if we’re both sent below.”
“Below?”
“To ruddy Hades.”
“Is the boy dead?”
“I’ll find out.” Proule kicked me hard in the side. I moaned, staggered up, then fell onto both knees, my head spinning. The dog stood nearby, looking a bit stunned. Proule kicked him too. He yelped and cringed, before running over to me. I was too hurt to reach out, but felt a sudden and unfamiliar kinship with him. Tempest. Good dog. Pax vobiscum. Peace be with you.
“Nope,” Proule went on. “Starveling’s not dead. He reeks like dead fish but he ain’t dead.” I was amazed he could smell me over his own noisome stench. But perchance he was so used to his own stink that he thought he smelled like attar of roses. “In point o’fact,” Proule went on, “he’s alive.”
“That’s lucky,” said the other man.
“Aye, that’s lucky. That’s good news.” Proule sounded as if it wasn’t. “On yer feet, cockroach,” he shouted, loud enough to deafen me. He dragged me up by the ear. “I’m taking yer to the gov’nor and making a present out of yer for him.”
He punched me in the back to help me get going. Feeling as if my spine had cracked in two, I screamed again.
“Shut yer yap,” Proule shouted.
A small crowd, no doubt alerted by my shrieks and Proule’s yelling, was already gathering. I recognised people: Mary Finney, Stephen Beerson, the minister’s clerk, Sam Buyers and Abraham Carpenter, sailors both, and Admiral Winters himself, who I supposed to be the gov’nor. There were some others. I didn’t see Peter Fence anywhere, but true it is that my right eye was very sore, that’s the side of the head where Proule had bashed me, and I couldn’t look leftwards.
Minerva's Voyage Page 8