She’d not known why it was necessary for Kutii to enter the cave again, but he’d insisted. He told her that he needed to touch what she had deposited here, and to fix the objects in his mind. She left him there with the gold while she swam back into the sea and searched for the bundle they had thrown from the Silkie.
Lacy had fixed in her memory the location of a crack in the limestone cliff wall. The water here was much shallower than it was by the wreck. Going down thirty-five feet was child’s play. Taking care that Matthew Kay’s henchmen posted along the shore did not see her, she dived again and again. When she’d covered the area, she started over, determined that what she and James had wrested from the Miranda with such difficulty would not be lost. This time, she was successful. She returned to Kutii with the missing bundle of treasure.
“You come,” he insisted, helping her up out of the water inside the cave.
Clutching her hand tightly, Kutii led her along the narrow ledge of limestone. Then they climbed a series of natural steps in the rock, and passed through a tunnel on their hands and knees.
Lacy gasped with wonder as she entered a vast room lit by what seemed to be twinkling stars. Icicles of colored stone hung from the ceiling and protruded from the floor in giant fingers. “Is this real?” she whispered, “or am I seeing it in a dream?”
Her voice echoed through the blue, eternal twilight, resounding back to her over and over again. “... in a dream ... in a dream ... in a dream ...”
Kutii stood up and pulled her to her feet. The air was fresher than it had been closer to the sea, but Lacy could still hear the faint ebb and flow of the tide. She shivered; the cavern temperature was cool and her body was wet.
“See.” Kutii pointed to a raised basin between two enormous ice-blue stalactites. He had piled the treasure there; a great heap of gold and silver jewelry, gem-studded goblets, masks and headdresses of beaten gold, pearls, and emeralds, and golden statues of animals and birds. Reverently, he added Lacy’s bag to the collection. “This be place of gods,” he explained. “Sacred place. No evil come here.”
“Is there a way up to the jungle?” she asked him in a low voice. “The light’s coming from somewhere, and the air’s pure.”
He shrugged. “No find.” He pointed to the back of the cavern. “Cave end in stone. Only by sea come.” He said something in his own language that she couldn’t understand, then switched back to his broken English. “Evil man, woman, come this place, gods destroy.” He placed a fist over his heart. “Gods see into heart. No fool. Bad man die, all die.” He pointed again to a shallow alcove.
Lacy shuddered. The remains of a human skeleton lay scattered on the floor. The skull lay at the base of a stalagmite. Over countless years, limestone deposits had dripped onto the bones, until they and the skull had become a part of an infant stalagmite.
“We go now,” he said. “Treasure safe here.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “but there’s something I think I’ll need.” Kutii waited in silence as she went back to the raised basin and retrieved a necklace of golden disks from the heap of glittering jewelry and slipped it over her neck. “I have a reason—” she began.
The Indian shook his head. “You are the star woman. The gold is yours.”
Together, they returned to the place where Lacy had emerged from the water. There, in darkness, she took the end of the vine, tied it to their wrists once more, and slid into the underground river. A few minutes later, Lacy led the Incan safely out of the cave mouth to the ocean’s surface.
They climbed out of the sea on the jungle’s edge where they had waded in earlier. There, a sentry lay huddled against a palm, still bound and gagged. Kutii had wanted to silence the man forever, but Lacy had seen no need for bloodshed. “I won’t kill a man unless it means our life or James’s,” she’d whispered to the Indian.
“Dead man cast no spears,” Kutii had warned.
“We’re not murderers,” she’d replied stubbornly. “He can scream all he wants once we are back in the jungle. What can he tell the captain? That we went swimming in the moonlight?”
She’d had her way, and they’d spared the sailor. Lacy devoutly hoped she wouldn’t live to regret it. What she had to convince the Indian of now was even more difficult.
“I must face Matthew Kay alone,” she said after they’d both slept for a few hours, and Kutii had examined the cut on her head, and pronounced it well on the way to healing.
“No. Kutii come.”
“Kutii not come.” She unclasped the necklace of golden disks from around her throat, the single object she’d brought with her from the hoard in the cavern. Each circle was of beaten gold, wafer-thin and inscribed with mysterious markings. “I’ll bait Captain Kay with this, and I’ll promise to dive for more gold if he’ll let James go and cut us in on the treasure.”
“He take gold and kill you.”
She shook her head, and a hint of mischief danced in her cinnamon-brown eyes. “I’m a star woman, remember. You said so yourself. He can’t kill me. I’m immortal.” She stood up and cupped the priceless necklace in her hands. “There’s more than enough gold in the cave to keep James and me for the rest of our lives. I’ll pretend to keep my bargain until we can get away.”
“Kutii come.”
“Kutii can come with me when I leave this island. But now I need you to stay in the jungle. You’ll be more help to me if you’re not a captive. Kay won’t think he needs you. If James is badly injured, he knows I’ll be defenseless without you. He might well have you shot, or he might put you in chains and sell you back to the German.”
The Incan regarded her through narrowed eyes. “Fear for Jamesblack make you—”
She cut him off with a quick motion of her flattened palm, a hand gesture he often used. “No. I will not be careless or foolish.” She cupped her flat stomach. “I have my child to think of. Trust me, Kutii. I have known men like Matthew Kay all my life. I can deal with him.”
Can you? her inner voice demanded. Or are you risking everything for Jamie? Are you so sure he’d do the same for you?
For one awful moment, the vision of James falling forward into the sand splashed across her mind. The red blood blooming like a rose on his white shirtfront ... the puzzled look in his eyes.
Lacy swallowed hard and banished the frightening image. James’s death at Matthew’s hand was in the future. She’d changed the future before. She’d change it now.
Her lower lip trembled as she gazed into Kutii’s sorrowful eyes. “I must try. And if I fail, you’ll be free to save me.”
“So.” He nodded his head once sharply and stood up. “You fear your own power, star woman. No fear. Learn to use.”
“I never asked to be born a witch.”
“Kutii never want leave mountains. See family die.” He shrugged. “Brave man ... woman ... face what is. You star woman. You no have fear to see. Use vision.”
“I need to make a bargain with Matthew Kay. Take me to the ship. Please.”
“I take,” he said grudgingly. “But you listen father. Use power. No fear to see.”
“I’ll try,” she promised.
Three-quarters of an hour later, Lacy emerged from the trees onto the beach. One of Captain Kay’s sentries was walking gingerly a few steps ahead of her. Lacy wore the sailor’s shirt over her own tattered garment and held his musket with the muzzle aimed in the exact center of his back.
Kutii had captured the one-eyed buccaneer for her. The Indian had moved so silently out of the thick foliage that Lacy hadn’t seen him until the white man was belly-down on the jungle floor with Kutii’s knife at his throat.
Kutii remained in the forest as she’d begged him to, but she was certain that he was watching her from the trees. Her back felt itchy, as though Kutii’s heathen, black eyes were burning a hole in her skin.
It was one of the worst things about being a witch, she mused, as she prodded her prisoner forward with the musket. A witch constantly had to contend with spooky t
hings that normal people never encountered.
Two sailors were drawing a longboat up onto the beach. Beyond them, the square-rigger Adventure was anchored in the cove. A third man, in striped shirt, bare feet, and full breeches, leaped to his feet and shouted an alarm as Lacy and her prisoner stepped into the clearing.
“I want to see Captain Kay,” Lacy shouted. “Tell him Mistress Lacy Bennett of Cornwall has come a-visiting.”
“Mother of God!” Lacy swore when she peeled off the bandages on James’s back an hour later.
James winced and sweat broke out on his pale forehead. “Leave it be,” he protested. “It will heal.”
“Heal?” she snapped. “It’s a wonder you’re not dead of gangrene! What maggot-brained son of a sea cook is responsible for this?” She glared at Matthew Kay. “You’re the captain here. Do something! I need hot water and soap. If ye wanted him dead, why didn’t ye just whack him on the head instead of letting some clod brain sew him up with wood splinters under his skin?”
Matthew’s complexion turned a violent shade of puce, and he whirled on the cabin boy. “You heard the lady. I want hot salt water and lye soap. Now.”
“Yes, sir!” The pimply-faced youth didn’t pause to feel the weight of his master’s fist. He darted out of the captain’s cabin, leaving Lacy and Matthew Kay alone with James.
“No,” Lacy ordered when James would have stood up. “Don’t move.” She glanced at Matthew. “I suppose you do have rum.”
“Aye,” he admitted.
“Give it here,” she said.
“Don’t be hard on Matt.” James grinned. “He tried.”
“Better you’d dumped sea water over him and left his wound to bleed,” she chided. “I want to see the man who made this mess. I’ll warm his ears for him.”
Matthew turned even redder. “I sewed him up,” he mumbled.
“You what?” Lacy asked.
“I sewed him up. Hellfire and damnation! He bled enough. I thought it was clean.”
“I’ll need tweezers, scissors, and a needle. Have ye silk thread? It looks like ye stitched him up with hemp.”
“I’ve tended men afore,” Matthew complained. “Some lived, some died, but none made a fuss about my doctoring.”
“Then they must have been as lack-witted as you,” she retorted. After uncorking the rum bottle, she took a drink, then passed the bottle to James. “Take some,” she urged. When he did, she reclaimed the bottle and poured a little into his open wound.
James swore so foully that it brought a blush to Lacy’s cheeks. “Would you murder me?” he gasped. “I was on the path to recovery until you came aboard.”
Lacy grimaced. “I’m glad ye think so.” She looked at the captain again and wondered for a moment if she had only imagined the vision about Matthew shooting James. It was clear to her that Matthew Kay cared about James deeply. There was nothing in Kay’s demeanor to suggest that he considered James a prisoner. And the captain had shown her nothing but courtesy since he’d met her on the beach and escorted her to the ship.
“All I wanted from you was a fair share of the treasure,” Kay had said while the two of them were being rowed back to the square-rigger. “I never meant harm to you or James. He’s been like a son to me. I can assure you that the gunner who fired that volley won’t ever make the same mistake again.”
Was it possible that Matthew Kay could be trusted? That she and Kutii had both judged the captain wrong?
James cut through her reverie by snatching the rum bottle from her hands. He drank deeply and passed the bottle to Matthew. “Have some. If we don’t drink it, she’ll waste the lot by bathing me in it.” Matthew accepted with a good-natured chuckle and settled into a high-backed chair to finish off the spirits.
A furtive movement in the shadowy hatchway caught Lacy’s attention. As she stared intently at the deck expecting to catch sight of a rat, a cat strolled into the cabin, pranced over to Matthew, and leaped up into his lap.
“Harry!” Lacy said in astonishment. “That’s my cat.”
Harry padded in a circle and curled up, purring loudly. Matthew stroked the cat’s gnarled head and scratched him behind his missing ear.
“That’s my cat, Harry,” Lacy repeated. “I thought he drowned when the Silkie went down.”
“Wasn’t it fortunate we only lost the gold instead of poor pussy,” James quipped sarcastically.
“He was the first thing we pulled out of the water,” Matthew said. He flashed a grin at Lacy and she realized that in his younger years, he must have been an attractive man. “I like cats. I’ve always been fond of them.”
Lacy went over to the cat, bent down, and petted his head. Harry gave her a disdainful stare and yawned.
“Damned good-for-nothing cat,” James said. “Why isn’t there ever a shark around when you need one?”
Matthew covered Lacy’s hand with his own. “You can see that you’ve no future with that man,” he said. “A man who hates cats has no imagination. You’d do much better to cast your net with me.”
“Better Harry than either of ye,” she answered lightly, pulling her hand free. “What does any woman get of a man but trouble and heartache?”
At that instant, the cabin boy returned with a steaming basin of water. He cleared his throat loudly. “Sir,” he said. “Here’s—”
“Bring it to me,” Lacy ordered, returning to James’s side. She frowned at the boy. “Do ye never wash your hands? Ye look more like a swineherd than a sailor.” She rejected the filthy cloth the boy offered to wash James’s wound with and glanced at Matthew. “I need clean linen and a flame to put the needle and tweezers in.”
Matthew pushed the cat off his lap and went to a sea chest along the far wall. Carefully, he lifted out a coat, breeches, and several white shirts. Beneath those were women’s clothes.
Lacy crossed the cabin to inspect the contents of the chest, and suddenly her heart skipped a beat. The gown Captain Kay was taking out of the box was the one she’d seen in her vision. She recognized it instantly by the full puffed sleeves and the brilliant indigo color.
“No ...” she stammered, backing away. “Not that.” Her stomach turned over and she felt dizzy. “No,” she repeated. Her mouth tasted of dust.
“There’s more in here,” Matthew said. “I know I’ve—”
“This will do,” she said, snatching up one of the linen shirts.
“Make free with my clothing, by all means,” Matthew said. He eyed her sternly for a few seconds, then broke into a deep laugh. “James said you were a handful ... indeed he did.”
Trembling, Lacy turned her back on him and ripped a sleeve from the shirt. She dipped the material into the basin. “If you’ve more rum, captain,” she said harshly, “James has need of it. For what I’m about to do will make his disposition no sweeter.”
Later, when James had drunk enough to fall into a deep sleep, Lacy walked on the quarterdeck with Captain Kay. Matthew had said he wanted to talk to her, and neither of them wished to disturb James after his painful ordeal.
Lacy had lanced the pockets of infection and cleaned James’s wound, removing all the splinters of wood she could find. Then she’d scrubbed the raw flesh with lye soap and rinsed it with fresh sea water and again with rum. It was an unpleasant task, but one that had to be done. She’d seen her father perform similar operations on his comrades back in Cornwall, and once she’d removed a musket ball from her brother Ben’s backside.
Tending to James’s wound had taken her mind from the situation she found herself in, but now, she had to face it again. They had lost the Silkie, Kutii was hiding out in the jungle, and both she and James were at Captain Kay’s mercy. Despite Kay’s protests to the contrary, Lacy felt as though she was once more a prisoner.
Matthew had tried to make her feel at ease, even offering her the beautiful blue gown as a gift, but she refused to touch the hateful garment. Instead, she’d donned one of his white linen shirts over a pair of breeches. The shirt hung so lo
osely about her waist that she’d wound a black Spanish scarf around her middle and knotted it on one hip. She had topped her outlandish garb with a black silk bandana, tied roguishly over her unbound hair. Her feet were bare, no discomfort in the warm tropical night.
The deck of the Adventure was nearly deserted. A bobbing lantern at the far end of the ship showed the night watch on duty, but no one came near the quarterdeck. Lacy looked at Matthew Kay expectantly. “Well, what do ye have to say to me? What’s so important that I must leave James’s side?”
Matthew’s chuckle was low and genuine. “You are a most unusual lady,” he said, taking her hand in his. “Was James telling me the truth when he said you were the one who dived down to the Miranda and brought up the gold?”
Lacy tried to pull her hand loose, but Matthew held it tightly. “Yes,” she replied. “I did. And I can do it again—but only if ye treat us fairly.”
“You are a very beautiful woman, Lacy,” he murmured. “I meant what I said earlier. You’d do better to switch your allegiance to me.”
“Is this how you repay a friend?” She kept her tone from betraying her rising temper. “Ye try to steal his woman?”
“James has stolen many a wench from me, I can assure you.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the underside of her wrist. “Never one as charming or as courageous.” His voice thickened and Lacy glimpsed the corsair hiding behind the gentleman’s mask. “I’m going to be a power in the Caribbean,” he said. “The right woman could rise with me.”
“A woman branded with the mark of a whore?” she dared, pushing back the scarf so that her scar showed plain in the moonlight.
“What you’ve been in the past is of no interest to me,” he answered. “If you make a pact with me and break it, I’ll dispose of you as easily as I disposed of that stupid gunner.” He yanked her against him and kissed her hard.
She made no protest, other than to clamp her teeth shut to keep him from deepening the kiss. But when he released her, she stepped back away from him. Her lips stung from his rough assault.
Fortune Trilogy 1 - Fortune's Mistress Page 24