by Gene Wolfe
We gilded a lot of woodwork on the stern, too. The idea was to make the Sabina look like one of the smaller Spanish galleons. Novia wanted to embroider a cross on the mainsail. That would have taken forever, but she and I laid one out, marking it with charcoal, and painted it in an afternoon.
Port Royal was a very interesting town if you stayed sober and kept your eyes open. There were water hoys all over the place, because the town had no wells. Water had to be fetched across from the Copper River. You could buy a white woman-an indentured servant-there just like you would buy a slave. Novia and I watched it one time, and the best-looking one (she was blond and looked German or maybe Dutch) went for forty doubloons.
The fact of the matter was that there was not much you could not buy there. Prices were the highest you would see anywhere, but whatever it was, somebody had it or would get it.
One of the chores I had there was talking to the merchant-his name was Bowen-who had gotten ransoms for Don Jose and Pilar for us. I had to tell him Don Jose was dead.
"What of the woman, his wife, Captain. You have her still?"
I said yes.
"Very well." He rubbed his hands. "You'll turn her over to me? I'll see that she reaches her friends safely."
"Sure," I said. "You'll be doing me a big favor."
"And myself, Captain. The ransoms were for both. We will return half, less-let me see… Less twenty percent. I will complain that due to the slowness with which the very modest ransom you asked was paid, Don Jose perished in captivity. Would you care for a cigar?"
I said no, and he lit one for himself from a little spirit lamp.
"As the ransoms were for both, we have every right to return the wife to her friends and family, and keep half. I will take my commission of ten percent on that. Twenty percent of the remaining half we will retain for our trouble, and to defray the expense of holding the two for so long, of writing and sending letters and so forth. Of that, I will take half, you the remaining half. Is that agreeable?"
I could have argued that he was entitled to ten percent, not fifty. But if I had, he would have reminded me that it was my fault Don Jose was dead. Which it was.
Could I have gotten ninety percent? Sure. I could have cocked my pistol and cut up rough, and gotten every last doubloon-after which, he would never have worked with me again. Instead, I said half the twenty percent was fine with me and walked out with everything I had coming, in gold. If you do the math, you will find that I got better than fifty-five percent of what I had been hoping for the first time I talked to him. I had gone in there expecting to get nothing. John Bowen could have taken Pilar off my hands and kept everything for himself. He did not, and after that I understood why people had advised me to do business with him. Mrs. Taylor asked whether I would schedule confession sometime. It made me feel as guilty as I ever get, which is not nearly guilty enough in a lot of cases. Fr. Houdek had not really believed in confession, and neither had Fr. Phil. They did not say it, but you could see it from the way they acted. Talking with Mrs. Taylor made me think about the priests at Our Lady of Bethlehem, and how they went into Havana at least once a week to hear confessions. We had confession in the chapel every evening. You did not have to go, but you could.
I told Mrs. Taylor that I would hear confessions every Saturday afternoon from two to four, for as long as I was at Holy Family. If no one came, I would wait for those two hours anyway-it would give me a fine chance to pray.
It will also mean that I will no longer be tempted to go to New Jersey on Saturday, a temptation that has been growing stronger and stronger in the past few weeks. I tell myself that if I do not speak to either of them it can do no harm. That may be true, but can I control the urge to speak to them when I see them?
What if they speak to me?
It would be so easy. Fr. Wahl would be delighted to take my mass. I would buy a monorail ticket, change trains in the city, and arrive in four hours or so. When evening came, I would beg a night's lodging at some rectory. In the morning, I would return.
Very easy-and it might ruin everything. What if my father decided not to go to Cuba to run the casino? What if he did not enroll me in the monastery school because of something I ("that tall priest with the beat-up face," he would call me) happened to say to him? Novia would be lost. Everything would be lost. None of it would ever have happened.
I pray God will put this temptation from me. Have I set down all the important stuff about Port Royal? I think so, and some unimportant stuff, too. With better ships and more men to crew them, we sailed around the island to Long Bay-that's my two ships, Rombeau in Magdelena and Novia and me in Sabina.
There was a sloop there flying the black flag. The captain-as small and active as his ship-asked to come aboard and did. When I had talked to him a little I got Rombeau over, too, and called a meeting.
"He says Captain Burt's gone to Portobello instead of Maracaibo," I told everybody. "I have some questions, and I'll bet you do, too. Let's hear them."
Rombeau grinned. It makes him look like a hungry shark-I have probably said that. "How do we know you speak for Captain Burt? Prove that to me, and I believe you."
Harker reached into his pocket and took out a folded paper. "Can you read English?"
Rombeau shook his head.
"Then I can't prove it to you. Can you, Captain?"
I said I could and took the paper. I cannot remember the exact wording, but this is close: The bearer is Capt. Hal Harker of my sloop Princess. He will tell you where I have gone, and why; it will be the Devil's own chance, that if fortune favors us should leave all of us rich. Join me as speedily as wind and weather permit, bringing none but sound men. Your Comrade and Commander, Abraham Burt, Captain Signed aboard my ship Weald this 12th day of September
I read it aloud in English, then in French, and at last in Spanish as a courtesy to Novia, although I knew she had understood the first two.
Rombeau licked his thin lips. "Do you credit it, Captain?"
I shrugged and asked Harker, "Were you there when he wrote it?"
"I was, Captain, and I watched him write it, sand it, and fold it. After that he passed it to me. He'd already given me my orders."
"He dipped his pen in the inkwell seven times," I said. "I can tell from the writing. You saw him do that, Captain Harker. What did his inkstand look like?"
For a minute Harker looked blank. Novia giggled a little.
"I'll give you time to think about it, but you must have seen it."
"Aye, sir. I did, Captain. It was brass, not one of the big ones. All brass, I believe, and no wood about it. There were shells on it. Not real shells but in the brass, I mean. Scallops, Captain."
I spoke to Rombeau. "I believe him. Do you?"
"It was correct? What he said?"
I nodded.
Novia said, "He has told us he is going to Maracaibo. We are to meet him there. Do you know why he changed his plans, Capitan Harker?"
"I do, madam. Captain Gosling took a Spanish ship, the Nuestra Senora de las Nieves. I would say that means 'Snow Lady,' although you may correct me, and welcome. She was bound for Maracaibo and had letters aboard. Gosling opened them and read them."
"He reads Spanish, Captain Harker?"
Harker nodded. "He was a prisoner of theirs for three years, madam. The governor of the prison liked him, and loaned him his books. He didn't know ten words when he was taken, he says, but by the time he was exchanged, he could read it like 'twere English."
Rombeau frowned, and Harker said, "I mean no offense, gentlemen. I can't read Spanish myself, nor your French neither."
There was some arguing here that I will skip. I cut it off by asking what the letters said.
"That we were planning to attack Maracaibo, as I understand, Captain. Somebody had talked, and it had come to the ears of some Spaniard in Veracruz. Gosling told Captain Burt when they met, and Captain Burt got all of us together-as many as were there, is what I intend. He told us and wanted to know who was gam
e to go through with it. I was." Harker shrugged. "The rest were not. The Spanish have been shipping silver from Portobello now-bar silver, we're told, because the mint in Mexico can't keep up. They wanted to go for that, and Captain Cox has made friends with a tribe on the coast. They'll guide us around behind the town, he says, for there's a fort to guard the harbor."
Novia asked, "And that is what Captain Burt has decided to do?"
Harker looked doubtful. "It was decided for him, if you take my meaning, madam. Dobkin and I stood by him, those that sit with us now weren't there, nor was Captain Lesage. The rest were against him, every man. If he had stood out for Maracaibo, they'd have gone at Portobello on their own, and he wouldn't have had force enough to do it."
Novia nodded. "I see."
"So he sent me here," Harker continued. "I'm to speak with you and Captain Rombeau here, and to Captain Lesage, and send you to Portobello-to the Pearls, really, that being where we are to meet."
I said, "On the other side of the Gulf of Mosquitoes?"
"Exactly, Captain. You are to go there straight away, if that's convenient. I'll have to wait here for Captain Lesage. We'll join you directly when he comes. I don't suppose you have news of him?"
I did not, but I asked about his ship. It was the Bretagne, which was what I had been thinking. The communists have fallen! Or if they have not, they are falling. The reports we get are very confused and none of America's intrepid journalists are sufficiently intrepid to go to Cuba and see for themselves. I have been thinking of going. It might be possible to hire a boat in Miami that would make the run, but I am quite sure it would take a lot more money than I have. It might also be possible to steal one, and to tell the truth I am sorely tempted.
But no. Our Lady of Bethlehem will not have been reopened so quickly. Once in Cuba, I would have to wait. I can wait just as well here, and perhaps do some good.
Until air service is resumed, I will remain. That will be-must be-my yardstick.
A lot of things must have happened while we sailed from Long Bay to the Pearls, but the only one I remember clearly is that Novia and Azuka had a big fight and tried to kill each other. We separated them and told them that when we got to the islands we would set them ashore with whatever weapons they wanted.
I believe I probably said we would do it right away, but Capt. Burt wanted to see me as soon as we got there. So I came, bringing Novia with me. It was something I had never done before.
There were two reasons for that, both good. The first was that she was my real second-in-command, and everyone knew it by then. Taking Portobello meant going ashore and marching through the jungle, and I meant to leave her on the Sabina to look after things for me. She would need to be filled in as well as it could be done.
The second was pretty obvious. I was afraid she and Azuka would go at it again and the crew would take sides. A big fight among ourselves, with four or five dead and fifteen or twenty wounded, was exactly what we did not need.
I explained my first reason (but not my second) to Capt. Burt, who smiled and paid Novia compliments, and poured wine for all three of us. Then, when we were seated in his cabin and comfortable, he snapped, "Can we trust you, Senora?"
For a minute there I was afraid she would fly off the handle, but she was cool as Christmas. "If you are indeed Crisoforo's friend, Capitan Burt, you may trust me to the death and beyond. If you betray him, I will see you hang or kill you myself."
"Captain Burt won't betray me," I told her.
He chuckled, and put down the pistol he had been oiling. "She had a right to say what she did, Chris. I began it, after all."
He went back to Novia, dead serious again. "You're Spanish, Senora? You did not deny it."
"I am. So was my husband, who was a beast. So was the father who sent me to him and turned the blind eye to my bruises and my degradation. If I had been as I am now, Capitan Burt, I should have killed him by my own hand. I was not so hard in that time, only a silly chit who thought herself a woman. It is now otherwise."
"You'll kill him if you see him, Senora?"
"He is no more, Capitan Burt. I did not kill him, nor did Crisoforo, yet we watch him die."
I said, "I suggested to Novia that you might marry us, Captain. We talked it over and decided we'd like a priest and a wedding in a church. I told her you'd understand, as I'm sure you do."
"I do, of course. I understand, too, that a Spanish woman, a beautiful, educated Spanish woman, may be a great help to us. Will you help us, Senora? Should the occasion arise?"
Novia nodded. "If Crisoforo wishes it. No! Even when he does not. He does not wish me to risk myself. Inquire of him who was first of all to board the San Vincente de Zaragozza."
"It was the person we found lying on deck unconscious with a couple of empty pistols," I told him.
"There was the blood on my punal? You must say this, too."
I nodded. "A lot of it."
"Capitan Burt-you comprehend?"
"Oh, I do indeed, Senora." He favored her with his warmest smile. "Not all beautiful things are treasures, but all treasures are beautiful. You're a treasure."
"Then I, this treasure, ask a question. We come here, not Maracaibo, because they are warned there. Not by me. Did you think that?"
His head bobbed, though so little I might have missed it. "I had to consider it, Senora. I'd have been a fool not to. Would I credit the idea now? Not I, Senora. I wouldn't."
I was starting to relax. It could have been the wine, but I think that what Capt. Burt had just told us had a lot more to do with it. I said, "Let me put another idea to rest before it comes up. We had a prisoner we were holding for ransom, a Spanish lady called Pilar. Her ransom was paid-I'll give you your cut of that and a good deal more before we go. When it was, I handed her over to John Bowen, who'd collected the ransom for us, and I assume he handed her over to her relatives."
"I see." Capt. Burt was watching me, his face expressionless.
"So there are a bunch of questions. Could she have heard about Maracaibo while we had her? Yes, it-"
"That fool?" Novia looked as if she wanted to spit. "She might hear a hundred times and understand nothing."
"It isn't likely," I continued, "but it's possible. I know I didn't spill the beans. But my officers knew-Rombeau and Bouton. I made them swear they'd tell no one, but who knows?"
Capt. Burt nodded.
"I also, Crisoforo."
"Right. Novia here, too. It could have happened. Next question. Could Pilar have gotten to Veracruz in time for her to tell somebody there, who wrote a letter that he put on a ship to Maracaibo-a ship that was taken by Captain Gosling, who told you about the letter? And-oh, yeah, there had to be time for you to have a meeting with your captains and tell them about it, and send off Harker to tell us."
"Right you are, Chris. Was there?"
"Absolutely not. Two days after I turned Pilar over to Bowen, we sailed for Long Bay. We got there the next day. Harker was riding at anchor there when we came into the bay. Say four days tops. I'd bet you a doubloon to a shilling that Pilar was still in Port Royal when we talked to Harker. I'll bet you again-same bet-that Bowen sent her to Spain, not Veracruz. As a gentleman and a friend, I'll warn you before you take my bet that Spain was where he told me he'd send her. It's where her family is."
"Need I say I believe you, Chris? I do. One more question, and we'll leave it. Whom have you told?"
"The people I've already mentioned. Bouton, Rombeau, and Novia here. Nobody else."
"And you, Senora? Whom did you tell?"
"Nadie. No one."
I said, "We should ask you the same question, Captain Burt. Who did you tell?"
He sipped his wine. "Far too many, as is now clear. All my captains. Besides yourself, Gosling, Cox, Lesage, Dobkin, Isham, Ogg, and Harker. All my captains. Add to that Tom Jackson, my mate. You don't have to tell me any one of them may have been indiscreet. I know it already."
"You must indulge me," Novia said, "for I am a
woman and we ask many questions. Has someone told them in Portobello? If no, we should act soon, is that not true? If yes, we should not go there at all, I think."
"I agree, Senora. Your Captain Chris has brought us two fine ships. Three more ships would complete our pirate fleet-Isham's, Lesage's, and Harker's."
Capt. Burt drummed his fingers on the table, and his face got hard. "The minute one more arrives, we'll sail. If none in a week, we'll sail anyway with what we have." That night, as Novia and I lay naked and sweating in the larger, longer bunk I had made for us in Port Royal, she said, "There is a certain one you did not speak of today, Crisoforo. One more who might know. I did not say her name to Captain Burt, and now I wish you to know I did not."
"I told him the truth," I said, "he wanted to know who I'd told, not who might have overheard me."
"She was listening, you think? In the wall which once was in the White Castle?"
"Say Castillo Blanco, "I told Novia, and kissed her ear to show I was half kidding. "You don't translate ships' names."
"Was she?"
I do not remember just what I said then. Probably it was that Estrellita might have been. If she had been, and had told, who could blame her?
25
The March to Portobello
Two days after I had reported to Capt. Burt, Capt. Isham's Emilia joined us. We sailed the next morning, going wide of Portobello before entering the Gulf of Saint Blaise.
The Native American tribe Capt. Cox had found for us was the Kuna. Nothing I had seen in Veracruz had prepared me for them. The men went naked, or nearly so, and striped their bodies with black paint.
The women touched up their faces and bodies with red paint a lot like ours do. They wore blankets or shawls, draped in various ways and generally slipping in one way or another at any unusual motion. Quite a few were slender, handsome girls, so flirtatious that I wondered if they had learned it from the Spaniards who raided them for slaves. For as long as we were among these women, men disappeared-only to rejoin us, grinning and swaggering, after an hour or two.