Even as he said it Wilkenson realized how utterly craven a plan it was. But in order to see Marlowe hanged he had to catch him in a provable crime, and this was the easiest and most humiliating that he could manufacture.
Elizabeth shook her head, disgusted. “That is the most cowardly, pathetic thing that I have ever heard.”
“Perhaps. But you will do it nonetheless.” Wilkenson felt his cheeks burning with embarrassment. Maybe when this was all over he would show her what it was really like to be taken by force. Show her that he was not the timid little man she thought he was.
He shook those thoughts aside. “I will expect a note from you by week’s end indicating when you will be at Marlowe’s house and the exact moment that I am to arrive. If I do not receive word by then…”
“Pray, don’t say it.” Elizabeth’s tone was equal parts weariness and contempt. “You have been none too subtle with your threats already.”
“Then we understand each other?”
Elizabeth glared at him, her lips pressed together. “Yes, yes, whatever you wish. I have no choice, it seems, but to be part of your pathetic plan.”
“Quite true.” He had applied the stick, and she had moved in the right direction. Now he would show her the carrot. “Incidentally, that new home of yours is very nice. Very nice indeed. It could not be inexpensive.”
She looked hard at him, wary. “It is not, but it is within my means.”
“Unless, of course, the note of hand should be called in. Then I imagine you would exhaust your funds paying it off.”
“Perhaps. But the note is held by Mr. David Nelson, who is a man of honor, and who assures me he will not call it in.” She could see what was coming. Clever little slut, Wilkenson thought.
“Ah, but that is no longer the case, you see, because I purchased the note from Mr. Nelson, along with several others, and now it is mine to call in whenever I so choose. If I have your cooperation in this matter, I may well be persuaded to
tear up the note, and you will own your home, free and clear. If not, then I fear you shall be bankrupt paying it off, once I call it in.”
He let the words hang in the air. George Wilkenson knew a great deal about persuasion.
“If I…I shall have my house, free and clear, if I do this?”
“Indeed.”
“Very well, then. I shall do as you wish.” She seemed to deflate in resignation.
“Good. I shall bid you good day.” He gave her a curt bow, turned on his heel, and turned back again. “You will send a note, then, by week’s end?”
“Yes, yes. I said yes.”
“Good.” He turned again and strode away. He could feel his cheeks burning, and his neck and palms were covered with sweat.
Still, it was a good plan, because the crime would be perfectly believable. It would take no art to show that, after killing Matthew Wilkenson for her honor, Marlowe came to expect certain favors from Elizabeth, and when they were not forth-coming he tried to take them.
It was perfectly believable that George should go to Marlowe’s house to issue a challenge. His claiming that he was doing so would quiet those people who were asking abroad why George did not call Marlowe out, while at once assuring Marlowe’s death by hanging and saving George from having to fight the rogue. Perfect.
Nor would it be any great effort to get the others to do his bidding: Sheriff Witsen and the jury and even Governor Nicholson.
George was careful never to put the family into debt, not to their agent in London or to anyone in the tidewater. Owing money meant owing allegiance, and George Wilkenson would owe allegiance to no one.
Instead he accrued the allegiance of others through his generous lending of money to any who asked with the proper
humility, and he never demanded that it be repaid on any schedule.
But he understood, and his debtors understood, that the entire sum was always due in full upon demand, even if it meant the debtor’s ruination. In this way George Wilkenson exercised control over half of the population of Williamsburg.
He suddenly felt a desperate need for this all to be over, for Marlowe to be hanged and buried so that he could get on with his business.
I am not Achilles, he thought. No, I’m not the warrior. I am Odysseus, the clever one.
George Wilkenson took some comfort from that notion.
Chapter 10
IT TOOK twenty hours, dropping down the James River, then standing east-northeast with an average eight knots of breeze over the starboard quarter for the Plymouth Prize to cover the sixty miles from her former anchorage to Smith Island. They had all sail set, including the little spritsail topsail that set on the spritsail topmast at the far end of the bowsprit. The great lumbering guardship pushed along, seemingly as reluctant as her men to go into battle. But like her men, go she must, and one by one Marlowe pricked the miles off the chart.
In all it was a fine sail. The weather in Virginia, when it is good, is the best in the world. And those two days were good, with the warm breeze making cat’s paws on the blue water of the bay. The sky from horizon to horizon was a fine clear blue, just a little lighter in color than the water.
Off the starboard beam, framed by Cape Charles to the north and Cape Henry to the south, the Atlantic Ocean stretched away, glittering and flashing and melding at last with the pale blue sky on the indeterminate horizon. In their wake was the low green coast of Virginia’s mainland, and forward the long peninsula that ended at Cape Charles. Overhead a variety of birds wheeled around the trucks of the masts, and under their keel the bay rolled with barely perceptible swells.
A good thing, for the Plymouth Prize might well have sunk in anything worse.
One hundred yards off the larboard quarter the Northumberland kept station. It was only with much difficulty that King James was able to sail slowly enough so as not to headreach on the Plymouth Prize.
There is so much to do, Marlowe thought, so very much to do. The Plymouth Prizes were tolerable seamen, but they had grown lethargic and unmotivated under Allair’s command. Nor was their seamanship his immediate concern. More pressing was their training for combat, so that they could acquit themselves well, or at least so that he and Bickerstaff and King James would not die as a result of their incompetence.
“First position,” he heard Bickerstaff call out, and the fifty men drawn up in a line in the waist moved into the first position for sword work: feet at right angles, left hand behind their backs, cutlass held before them. They were as graceful as pelicans waddling on shore, and just as intimidating.
“Second position,” Bickerstaff called, and fifty right feet came forward, ready to lunge or parry. It was all very pretty and nice, and a few years before Marlowe would have thought it a waste of time. Fancy drills had nothing to do with the bloody, desperate hack and slash of a real fight. But he trusted Bickerstaff, and Bickerstaff had convinced him of the importance of learning the fine points first, and then later the grim reality of the thing.
“Extension in three motions,” he called, and fifty men lunged at an imaginary enemy. Two of them stumbled while attempting this, fell to the deck. Marlowe turned and stared out at the blue water and the wooded shoreline far away. The time had come to reconsider his strategy.
It was three hours past sunset when the Plymouth Prize made her ponderous way around the east shore of Smith Island. The moon was almost full, and in that silver light Marlowe had a clear view of the bay and the pirate ship still at anchor. A huge fire was burning on the beach, and sounds of the
distant bacchanal drifted over the water. Everything was as perfect as he dared hope.
They had parted company with the Northumberland at sunset after ferrying over Francis Bickerstaff and a force of ten of the best men the Plymouth Prize had to offer. Lieutenant Middleton, second officer aboard the Plymouth Prize, was sent to take command of the sloop and King James was returned to the guardship. The black man was not happy about that development, Marlowe knew, but there was no cho
ice. He needed King James by his side.
“Sir?” Lieutenant Rakestraw stepped up to Marlowe and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, glancing over to the leeward side of the quarterdeck where King James stood.
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Sir, it’s…ah…about the nigger, sir? King James?”
Marlowe glanced over at the man in question. He looked a dangerous sight, to be sure. A bright red rag was tied around his head, and he wore nothing but a waistcoat, unbuttoned, a loose cotton shirt, and baggy trousers. A cutlass and two braces of pistols were hanging from crossed shoulder belts, pressing the cloth of his shirt down and revealing the powerful chest beneath. His right hand rested on the quarterdeck rail, his left on the hilt of his cutlass. The muscles of his arms rippled with the slightest movement.
“Yes, what of him?”
“Well, sir, is it wise to arm a nigger that way? I mean, to give him guns? I don’t think it’s legal, sir.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Marlowe said. “Why don’t you go take them away from him?”
“Sir?”
“Go disarm the man, Lieutenant. I daren’t.”
“Oh. Well.” Rakestraw apparently did not think it so important, under those conditions, that King James be disarmed.
“See here, Mr. Rakestraw, I know this is irregular, but King James is a vital part of the thing, and I reckon he’ll be a good man to have at our side when the fighting starts.”
“Well, if you say so, sir…” Rakestraw said, and said no more.
Marlowe stepped down off of the quarterdeck and into the waist, where the men were gathered. Each held a musket cradled in his arms and two pistols in his belt and a cutlass dangling from a shoulder strap.
They were a motley and ragged bunch, and Marlowe had no fear that they would be recognized as a man-of-war’s men. Nor was it likely that the pirates would guess the Plymouth Prize was one of His Majesty’s proud vessels. There was nothing more he needed to do to give the ship an appearance of piratical neglect.
“Now listen up, you men,” he said. “I’ve gone over the plan sufficiently, so I won’t bore you with it again. You’ve worked hard, and so I’m going to give you all a cup of rum, by way of thanks.”
This met with a murmur of approval. He dispatched two men to fetch up a breaker while he continued. “This fight could be a hard one, but hear me and take heart. The pirates will be taken quite by surprise. What’s more, I’ll wager they are all drunk as lords and in no condition to resist.”
That was half true. He had no doubt that they were drunk, but he also knew that being drunk would only make them more fearsome in a scrape. Ardent spirits did that, which was the real reason he was giving them to his own men.
“So remember, all of you, stand fast, do your duty, obey orders, and tomorrow you shall be heroes. And rich, to boot.” At that last he saw a few heads turn, a few glances exchanged.
These shortsighted wool-gatherers haven’t considered the prospect of booty, Marlowe thought. But now they would, and it would make them that much more cooperative.
He turned and headed back for the quarterdeck as the breaker of rum made its appearance. His presence would have only dampened the men’s enjoyment of the moment and prevented them from speculating about possible riches.
They rounded the easternmost tip of the island and turned westerly, coming close-hauled with larboard tacks aboard. The wind held steady, and the Plymouth Prize was making three knots at least, heeling just a bit to starboard. The moonlight and the huge fire on the beach glinted off the little waves in the bay, flickering and dancing. The far-off revelry and the crackling of the flames seemed unnaturally loud in a night otherwise silent. The dark silhouette of the anchored ship stood out sharp against the fire and the reflections on the water.
“Stand by to let go the anchor,” Marlowe called forward, and Lieutenant Rakestraw, just visible by the cathead, called back, “Aye!”, leaving out the “sir” as Marlowe had instructed. Things were working out well, the way that he had hoped.
They stood in past the anchored ship. She was indeed a big one, bigger than the Plymouth Prize and more heavily armed, though now she was a flute, her gunports empty and her heavy guns ashore. It would have been no great difficulty to board her and carry her off, but she was not what Marlowe was after. What he wanted was ashore-the pirates and their ill-gotten merchandise.
“Who’s that?” called a voice from the pirate ship, heavy with drink, loud with surprise. The fellow left aboard to keep watch, no doubt, Marlowe thought, and a fine watch he is keeping. The Plymouth Prize was already alongside and no more than fifty yards away before he spotted her. “What ship is that?” the watchman added.
“Vengeance,” shouted Marlowe.
“And where do you hail from?”
“Out of the sea!” It was the usual pirate response to that question, defiant, mocking all seagoing etiquette and protocol.
There followed a brief silence, and then: “What do you want?”
“I’ll tell you, but it’s no business of yours. We need a harbor, we’re leaking like an unstanched wench. D’ya not hear our pumps going?”
There came a grunt by way of reply. “Very well, then, but keep your goddamned distance, hear me? And if you’d beach her, then just stand on, there be a bar of but one fathom deep just ahead.”
Marlowe heard his words but gave them no thought. The watchman had not raised an alarm. His mind was now occupied with the beach. If they stood in another cable length or so, he figured, then they could land in the dark. Those pirates encircling the inferno would be blinded by their own fire and silhouetted against the flames. Yes, it would be a handsome thing.
And then he thought of what the watchman had said. He turned to King James.
“Did that villain say ‘If we’d beach her…’” he began, but got no further. The Plymouth Prize lurched to a stop. Marlowe staggered forward, thrown off balance. The grinding sound of her bow running up on the sandbar was carried back through the fabric of the ship.
“Son of a bitch,” he said out loud. They were hard aground. The ship began to swing, pivoting on her bow as the stern was blown downwind. Overhead he heard the flap of canvas as the sails luffed, and then they fell silent as they came aback.
Just as Marlowe was assuring himself that there was no harm done-they were only on sand-he heard a creaking, a horrible creaking and snapping of wood, a groan of cordage and the sharp pop pop pop of ropes coming under great strain.
He looked up. The mainmast was leaning to starboard and aft. He could see the wood coming apart, actually see it splintering, where the mast had rotted at the base. The sails were full aback and pushing the whole thing over the side.
“Clew up the topsails! Clew up the mainsail!” he shouted. “Just cut the damned sheets away! Just cut them away!” What he hoped to accomplish he did not know, nor did it matter. The men just stood there, staring dumbly aloft, as if his orders were directed at some other crew.
The mast leaned farther and farther. One shroud, then another and another, snapped and flew across the deck as the mast went by the board. The mainstay was stretched taut as a harp string and groaned under the load. He could hear the
fibers popping as that rotten rope tried to hold the entire weight of the mast.
“You there, in the waist,” he called to a knot of men standing just beneath the stay, “stand clear…”
Then the mainstay lanyards parted and the heart, a great block of oak made fast to the end of the mainstay, whipped through the gang in the waist. One man turned at the sound and caught the block full in the face. It carried him along as it knocked the others about the deck, like a cannonball blasting them apart.
Vigilance, vigilance, and no standing about, Marlowe thought, taking some small satisfaction in seeing the sluggards pay thus for their somnambulism.
The mast hesitated, as if making one last effort to remain upright, then toppled over the side. Mainmast, main top, main topmast, main topgallant, fla
gstaff, fore topgallant and flagstaff, and half a ton of rigging all collapsed into the harbor.
“Drop the damn anchor,” he called forward, heard the anchor splash down.
He looked over the water toward the beach. A hundred of the pirate revelers were standing in the surf, watching the fun as the Prize’s mast collapsed. That was the last thing that the mast had taken with it-their chance at surprise.
He stepped down into the waist, spoke in a sharp whisper. “Get those boats alongside. Load your weapons, and remember, I’ll flog the man to death who fires before I give the word.”
“We’re still going ashore?” someone croaked.
“Yes. And I’ll flog to death the next man who questions my orders.” And by God he meant it, too.
The two big boats were pulled alongside, and one by one the men clambered down the boarding steps and took their places at the thwarts, their muskets laid down amidships. Marlowe stood at the gangway, looking down. White, expectant faces looking back at him. He had intended to land the men at the dark end of the beach, but now that was out of the question. The pirates would think such a move was an attempt to flank them, which indeed it was.
“Oh, to hell with it,” he said out loud. If the villains on shore thought the Prizes to be fellow Brethren of the Coast then they wouldn’t be surprised to see the men come ashore heavily armed. It was what that type did.
“Listen up, you men,” he said in a loud whisper. “We’re going right at them. When we beach, just pull the boats up and step ashore, easy as you please. Keep your mouths shut, only I talk. Then, when I give the word, jump into formation and prepare to fire a volley. Is that clear?”
He heard murmured acknowledgment floating up from the boats, but he felt no great confidence that his orders had been understood, or if they had, that they wold be obeyed. Well, he thought, there’s nothing for it now.
He climbed down into the first boat and sat himself in the stern sheets, and without a word King James followed, taking up the tiller. The former slave seemed oblivious to the dirty looks shot aft by the Plymouth Prizes, who apparently did not fancy the idea of a black man as coxswain.
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