Shadow of the Corsairs

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  “Do you love him enough to be with him during the hardest season of his life? Will you be at his side, even if it means his heart is buried along with Mellesse and his girls?”

  Now the tears fell without restraint.

  “Yes. Even then.”

  She pulled out a handkerchief and dried her tears, taking long moments to compose herself.

  “I watched a funeral procession in town today...”

  She looked up. Osman kept his gaze out the window. The silence stretched on. Morwena frowned and then, as though aware of being watched, he returned to her with a smile. “Perhaps we are all not so different,” he said. “Will you help me?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There is a time for everything under heaven. Jonathan must have his time to mourn. We have missed All Souls Day, so we shall arrange a memorial service for him. A symbolic funeral in the Ethiopian way. Will you help me? Do you think the crew of the Terpsichore will help?”

  “Of course they would, but I don’t know what to do.”

  “I brought something. Come with me.”

  Morwena left her desk and followed him into the cavernous warehouse itself. Amongst the newly arrived crates containing green coffee beans was a small trunk. Osman opened it and pulled out a beautifully woven bag made of the most beautifully colored string.

  “It is our custom that people are buried at the place which has the most meaning for them personally,” said Osman. “Mellesse is buried on the island monastery on Lake Tana, the daughters are buried in the graveyard of the family church at Gondar. I brought things which meant something to them all. If Jonathan can have a place to remember, they will be with him – not somewhere far over the sea, over the horizon, so far away over the mountains and valleys. Will you help me convince him this is the right thing to do?”

  Morwena could not have been more nervous if she tried. She touched a hand to her hair, plaited and pinned it at the nape and secured it with a wide band of white linen.

  She took in Osman’s encouraging smile and breathed in the fresh cut grass and wild flowers spread on the stone floor, mixed with the intriguing smell of incense he had brought with him.

  He had cleared a space on the floor of the warehouse and set up a portable stove while she changed.

  The dress she wore was a gift, a dress Osman had brought her from Ethiopia he called a habesha. It was made from crisp white linen. It skimmed her waist over her hips and fell to the floor while the slim sleeves ended at the elbow. The trimming was the most magnificent work she had ever seen. A wide ribbon embroidered in all shades of blue, from the palest aqua to the deepest sapphire and at least half a dozen shades in between, trimmed across each sleeve and the hem and around the yoke and either side of slit neck opening, joining below the bust and down to her hips where the pattern ended and a large, stylized sinuous cross, similar to the one Jonathan had in gold and wore around his neck, took over the design.

  “You look beautiful Morwena – like a li’urtsie, a princess.”

  She offered a wan smile. “What if he didn’t get the message? What if he doesn’t come?”

  Osman simply smiled. “An Ethiopian man will always come home for coffee.”

  ***

  The message Jonathan received from his cousin was simple enough.

  Bunna tetu – drink coffee.

  He didn’t think anything odd about the location either – the warehouse – he must have brought with him a fresh shipment of green coffee beans.

  Jonathan’s mouth watered in anticipation of freshly roasted and ground coffee from home.

  He entered the warehouse and halted. In the center of the floor was a portable stove already fully stoked, and smoke drifted lazily toward the high ceiling.

  “Osman! When did you get here?” Jonathan noticed the young woman, dressed in the familiar habesha of his homeland, but her face was in shadow. “Who did you bring with you? Another cousin?”

  “I arrived just over a week ago and renewed acquaintances with this charming lady.”

  The woman stepped forward and he could see her face properly for the first time.

  “Morwena? Wh-”

  She smiled at him but said nothing as she picked up the jebena, a rounded clay coffee pot suspended over the fire to heat.

  For a brief moment, he thought Morwena was Mellesse; remembrances of such coffee ceremonies of years gone by left him momentarily disoriented.

  “Come take a seat with me, Cousin,” said Osman. “We will enjoy coffee as it was intended.”

  Jonathan watched Morwena pour a handful of green coffee beans into a long-handled pan and held it over the hot coals until the husk and debris separated out. With that, she removed the detritus and started to slowly roast the beans, shaking the pan over the flame. The aromatics rising from the oil glistening on the surface filled his nose with flavor as well as nostalgia.

  “I can’t tell you how much this reminds me of home, and when Mother and the other women would welcome our visiting cousins,” said Jonathan.

  Still, Morwena said nothing, intent on her task. He had not thought it possible to love another woman after Mellesse but, after today, his heart had been all poured out, leaving him empty of everything but his love for Morwena.

  He had been afraid of sharing his past, and had become too damned exhausted trying to keep his two worlds apart. But now Morwena and Osman bridged them.

  Jonathan’s heart ached with desperate longing. He wanted Morwena to be his future. How had he not known that she, too, needed to connect to his past? The long shadow of his loss started to retreat.

  Using a mortar and pestle, Morwena crushed the still hot beans, releasing even more of their flavor, then poured the crushed beans over the simmering water that sat on the edge of boiling. A few minutes later, the coffee was ready. Morwena removed the pot and approached a small table that stood in front of where Jonathan and Osman sat.

  On the table sat hand-painted ceramic cups, about the size of tea cups, but more rounded. Each was painted with a stylized foliage in vivid sapphire blue. Another gift from home.

  He waited as Morwena offered up the steaming cup of black coffee to Osman, the honor of the first going to the guest. With great ceremony, she presented Jonathan with his cup, but she was so intent on her task, she did not meet his eyes until she sat and picked up her own cup.

  “Bunna tetu,” she whispered.

  He savored the drink, first taking in the aroma. It had been roasted to perfection and bore a slight fruitiness that brought to mind the flavor of blueberries.

  “You are a magnificent hostess, Miss Morwena,” Osman pronounced. “Perfectly done.”

  She curtsied gracefully, but it was not his good opinion she sought.

  “Morwena, this is the finest coffee I’ve had since leaving home, thank you.”

  A smile, long absent from her face, filled him with joy and the shadows retreated even more.

  “Cousin,” said Osman. “You know, as well as I do, it is long past time to say goodbye.”

  ***

  The old falling down shutters had been taken down from the front of the villa, leaving it open to the cloud-studded sky.

  It had rained overnight but, this morning, the showers had departed and the dove grey clumps of clouds were breaking up.

  Woven mats had been spread across the floor of the open sitting room. Across the way, Osman slept on his mat. Jonathan had awakened with the birds that emerge after the rain. He had let his beard grow out as part of his mourning.

  Soon, people would arrive – not people, friends – friends who were now as close as anyone had ever been to him. Today they were family.

  The sound of jangling bridles and the steady clop of horse hooves roused him to his feet. He felt lost. At home, there would be slaves already hard at work, cooking for the steady stream of mourners who would stay at the house for at least three days, perhaps longer.

  No, he thought. He would never have slaves again. Not now that he knew wha
t it felt like to be one.

  Noise came from the back of the house sufficient to wake Osman.

  The long abandoned fire in the kitchen had been lit. There was a whole group of women he didn’t know all over the room, preparing food he couldn’t identify. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. Morwena’s rich, brown eyes looked up at him, her mouth lifted up just a fraction in acknowledgement. Her lustrous, straight, black hair was covered in black lace. Her dress covered everything to the neck and it was the same unrelieved black.

  “Remember Tuccia, Nico’s wife? These are her family members. They’ve come to help prepare food.”

  “How does Giorgio feel about being relegated to assistant?” he asked.

  “He will do as he is told,” she said, placing both hands on Jonathan’s shoulders and turning him away, escorting him down the hall. “Today, the kitchen will be the women’s domain and you must stay out.”

  “Thank them for me, will you?”

  Morwena nodded. “Go. I’ll be with you shortly.”

  Waiting for him in the sitting room was the crew of the Terpsichore, dressed somberly. Even Hardacre. And like him, each man had remained unshaved, in solidarity of his mourning.

  The percussive sound from a hand drum started, setting the tempo for the first of the hymns. Osman wore the kebero drum across his chest and led the procession across the lawns to where four newly planted hibiscus shrubs stood. At Elias’ suggestion, this would be a living memorial.

  The blanket that Hagos loved was placed in front of the shrubs; Belkis’ beloved doll her uncle had fashioned was placed on it, then a washint that Debre had just started to play. Finally, a necklace Jonathan had given Mellesse on their wedding day was placed on the blanket.

  Elias’ reading and homily were mercifully short, then eyes turn to Jonathan.

  Osman had given him a benega, a ten string lyre, a Harp of King David, a gift brought back from King Solomon to his people.

  It had been many years since Jonathan had held one, although it had been commonplace amongst the noble families to use them in private prayer and meditation. He stretched out his fingers and plucked a string. The distinctive buzzing note propelled him back to the Highlands when he would wake at dawn and watch the sun rise over the hills.

  His fingers walked of their own accord as he played.

  My darling girls, in the arms of Almighty... watch over me, watch over us all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  November 1813

  Her momentary resistance disappeared and those lips were as sweet and as soft as he remembered. The back he touched was feminine, therefore familiar but different. Her breasts, full and soft, pressed against his chest. He deepened the kiss. He gave himself to it, holding nothing back.

  If Morwena would have him as a husband, then he would throw himself into the task heart and soul, but he had to be certain.

  “It will not be easy. I’m considered a stranger here.”

  She greeted him with a tremulous smile and stroked his clean-shaven cheeks.

  “Everyone is considered a stranger here. Even the ones who are leaving the country for the city.”

  He picked up her hand and placed it palm to palm with his.

  “We are markedly different – look at the color of my skin against yours.”

  “Your hands are so much bigger than mine. And you can do no more about that than you can change the color of your skin.”

  Morwena spread her fingers and Jonathan’s own slipped between them.

  “I come from another world. Another place. Other customs,” he continued. “It will not be easy for us.”

  Morwena did not look at him. He watched her marvel at their intertwined fingers. She then kissed his fingers one by one.

  “I am Sicilian. When has life ever been easy?”

  She was seducing him and he allowed it. The difference in their skin color and culture was not the only difference. They had different temperaments. She was as bright as a flame and just as fiery; he was the river, deep and steady. He watched how she bossed her brother about. Jonathan would not allow her to treat him in the same way. He was no one’s door mat.

  “Jonathan, there’s something you should know.”

  She disengaged her fingers from his. The playful sensuousness of a moment ago had vanished.

  “My father has given me the business, not my brothers. It is written in the testament that it will belong to me and my children. Not my husband. For a Sicilian man that is the equivalent of chopping off his manhood.”

  Jonathan winced, then laughed at the image. But there was no upturn to Morwena’s lips.

  “You have my word of honor. The Gambino business is yours to run as you see fit.”

  The sigh of relief was quickly followed by a smile.

  “But it goes both ways,” he stated. “I’ve had a wanderlust ever since I could walk. I’ve found life at sea suits me, but it is dangerous. I cannot stay at home and be a neutered tomcat.”

  Morwena let out an inelegant snort. “That is the second time the subject of...”

  Her face flushed deep rose and she did not continue the thought. Jonathan was captivated.

  “It’s most inappropriate,” she finished, primly.

  “I can assure you that everything works as it supposed to.”

  There was temptation in her eyes, an invitation to explore. Morwena’s raw sensuality was almost his undoing. She was a woman to contend with. One who would demand everything he was without reservation. She would not accept the small part of him that remained as Mellesse had done. Morwena would want it all.

  “So you want to marry me?”

  “Did I not make that clear?”

  She shook her head.

  Jonathan sank to his knees.

  “Morwena Francesca Gambino, will you marry me?”

  EPILOGUE

  London, England

  June 1814

  Jonathan opened up the jewelry case and smiled.

  Yes, he thought he’d done rather well.

  In the box was a necklace made of multicolored gemstones – garnets, topaz, and amethysts of various hues; pear-shaped stones along its length had been set into five petalled flowers, pansies, he learned. Apparently the French word for these flowers was pensees – thoughts.

  How appropriate.

  He imagined Morwena's face as he presented them to her for she had always been in his thoughts. She would admire their beauty then ask how much they cost. He would silence her with a kiss and then another, and more until her only words were ones of passion and of love.

  Above, the deck thundered with what sounded like the hooves of a hundred elephants.

  He should go up and help with the loading, and greet their first passengers – a professor and his two nieces.

  “They're here.”

  Jonathan snapped the lid of the case closed and placed it on his bunk. His bunk in his own cabin. He turned to Elias who grinned like a monkey.

  “Who's here?”

  “The two women I told you about, the ones Kit rescued from that bounder Archibald Havers.”

  Bounder. Jonathan wasn't familiar with the word but he could guess at its meaning and, besides, he'd already heard of Kit's heroics at the Duke of Pembroke’s ball back in April. The man couldn't help himself.

  “Here.” Elias made his way to the brass mounted portholes that Kit was adamant these upper cabins should have. “You can see them here.”

  Two women waited dockside with two men with them, one younger, the other older.

  “Which one has Kit been smitten by again?”

  “The black-haired one. Her name is Sophia Green. And the lovely creature in blue with her is her cousin, Laura Cappleman.”

  Jonathan raised his eyebrow. “Looks like Kit isn’t the only one smitten.”

  Elias looked sheepish and changed the subject. “Is that the gift for Morwena?”

  “A wedding gift.”

  Elias nodded his approval, then slapped him on the back
. “I’ll see you up on deck.”

  While he had been in England, he had commissioned a wooden chest, carved with an English countryside scene. The box now sat next to his footlocker on the newly christened Calliope. It held the keepsakes that had once belonged to Mellesse and the girls. In their memory, he would continue to do what he had always done and bring them back gifts. From this trip, a coffee pot from Staffordshire; a painted wooden spinning top; an English doll with porcelain face and hands in a pretty, pink, silk gown, and a book of nursery songs.

  One day, he and Morwena might even have children of their own. The thought of this made him smile.

  The shadows of his past had finally cleared from his mind. Now he was ready to face the sun.

  He was coming home to his bride.

  Jonathan made his way up onto the deck and ran through the logs with Mr. Grace.

  “Where’s Kit?”

  The old sailor removed his pipe from his mouth and pointed up to the cargo net being lowered by crane onto the deck.

  There was their captain, clinging to the side of it. Jonathan shook his head, though he shouldn’t be surprised. Elias looked back at him and grinned. He’d witnessed the outrageous display, too.

  Their passengers watched agog as Hardacre athletically jumped down from the net. He approached and bowed flamboyantly.

  “Ladies! And gentlemen... I’m Captain Christopher Hardacre. Welcome aboard The Calliope.”

  THE END