LeRois said nothing. He stopped his pacing and waited until the Vengeance had drawn abeam of the Point, allowing him to see the wide Roads beyond. It was indeed a ship, a big one, and most likely a merchantman, but he had learned something about appearances as of late.
“We go to quarters, eh!” he called out. “Load the great guns and run them out, we will blow this son of a bitch out of the water if he fire on us!”
There were no arguments from the crew regarding this precaution, and they quickly fell to loading the guns, pulling away the coils of rope and empty butts and personal effects piled on top of them, and tossing it all in a great heap on the main hatch. LeRois brought the bow around until the Vengeance was closing with the lone vessel. He swept her deck with a glass. He was close enough to see a few figures moving about, but that was all. It seemed impossible that this could be a trap, but he could not shake that concern.
Merde, he thought. Let it be a trap. I am ready.
They closed to a cable length and still he could see no more than a few men on the deck. He took a long pull of rum, braced himself, and felt his muscles tense as he waited for the image of Malachias Barrett to appear in the lens of his glass. But he could see only a few seamen aboard her, and a stout man who looked like the master, and none of them looked like Barrett. The stout man pointed at the Vengeance, turned and spoke a few words to the others, and then they all disappeared from sight.
A moment later they reappeared, this time in a small boat that pulled around the ship’s counter and made for the shore and the small town of Hampton. Every man in the boat pulled an oar, including the master, and they quickly left their ship behind.
They have guessed who we are, LeRois thought, and they leave their ship to us.
It was too good to believe.
The Vengeance closed to half a cable length and then rounded up with her mainsails aback, heaving to abeam of their victim. LeRois studied the ship, waiting for the hundreds of men to spring up, to run out their guns, but there did not seem to be anyone aboard.
For a long moment there was silence aboard the pirate ship, silence from the enemy, silence in Hampton Roads, as if the whole world was holding its breath.
“The flag, raise the flag! Run out the guns!” LeRois shouted, and the tension broke like a thunderstorm as the hideous black flag was hoisted up the ensign staff, the great guns were trundled out, and the pirate tribe cheered and shrieked like the host of hell.
And still nothing from the merchantman.
“Give them a gun, one gun!” LeRois ordered, and a single gun went off amidships. Bits of the victim’s rail flew into the air, but little damage was done beyond that, for the gun had been loaded with case shot and langrage, meant to kill people, not sink ships.
The blast of the gun echoed around the roads, but still no reaction, no sign of life aboard the other ship one hundred yards away. “Let go and haul on the mainsails! Fall off, there!” LeRois shouted, and the Vengeance was under way again, turning toward their prey, running bow-on to them. The men in the waist climbed tentatively up on the rails and into the shrouds. There was no vaporing now. That confidence had been blasted out of them. Now they tensed and waited.
“Round up! Round up!” LeRois shouted to the helmsmen. They spun the wheel, and the Vengeance turned into the wind a moment before her spritsail topsail yard would have fouled the other’s headrig. The two ships came together with a shuddering crash, and then, and only then, did the pirates begin to scream.
They shouted with all the pent-up fury and tension of the past hour, of the past week, as they poured onto the deck of this most unfortunate ship. They brandished pistols and cutlasses and daggers as they ran fore and aft, and in their blind rage it took them some moments to realize that there was not one person aboard that ship, besides themselves.
They tore open hatches and scuttles and raced below, kicking in cabin doors and searching the ’tween decks and the hold, but there was not one person left aboard. The master and the three men with him had been the last, and they were
already to Hampton. The ship was theirs with not the least resist
ance.
LeRois felt his fortunes changing.
He stepped up onto the merchantman’s quarterdeck and from there surveyed all he could see. She was a big one, five hundred tons or thereabouts, and heavily armed. There were twenty guns aboard her, and they looked to be nine-pounders, as well as swivels and arms chests on deck that had yet to be opened. Her rigging was freshly blacked and well set up, and her decks and brightwork and brass bespoke a vessel that was well maintained. He had no way of knowing what shape her bottom was in, but he did know that a master who was so careful about the details was unlikely to let her hull rot away.
“Captain.” Darnall came up the ladder to the quarterdeck. He had two bottles in his hand that looked as if they had come from the master’s cabin. He handed one to LeRois.
“Ain’t a fucking soul on board,” the quartermaster reported. “Looks like mostly tobacco in the hold, goddamned lot of tobacco, and worth a fortune. Some money in the master’s cabin. Hell of a prize.” Darnall took a long pull from his bottle.
“Hell of a prize,” LeRois agreed.
“Looked at the logbook. She’s the Wilkenson Brothers.”
“Uhh,” LeRois grunted. His hand was shaking from the fear, fear that he might see the vision. The Vengeances were still screaming, he could hear them, though he could not actually see anyone’s mouth moving.
He took a long drink from his bottle, letting the liquid run down his cheeks and beard as he guzzled it. It was red wine, which did not have the same instant numbing effect of rum or gin, so LeRois drank again and again, until he felt the warmth spreading through him. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“You are wrong about the name, quartermaster,” he said to Darnall. “Whatever the hell you said she was, she is the Vengeance now.”
Chapter 23
GEORGE WILKENSON peered into the cell where King James lay, his unconscious body deposited on a pile of hay, the only amenity in the cold, damp stone room in the Williamsburg jail. He was manacled hand and foot, even though he was locked in a cell and did not even look capable of moving. Indeed, he did not even look like he was alive.
They had really beaten him good. Wilkenson winced at the sight of the welts, the swollen eyelids, the dried blood covering his chin and staining his shirt. It was hard to tell, sometimes, with these black fellows, if they had been hurt. But not in this case.
The deputies had taken the opportunity to vent their annoyance at King James’s arrogance, and to express, in a physical way, what they thought of a free black man. It was what Witsen had told them to do, of course, and Witsen was doing what George Wilkenson had told him to do, though the deputies had gone a bit beyond what George had had in mind.
But it would do the job, assuming they had not killed him. Wilkenson stared for a moment more, until he was certain that the black man was breathing, then turned away.
It was midafternoon. James had been in the cell for half a day. The only light in that dreary place came from a small window high overhead. There were bars across it, even though a child could not squeeze through the space. A stone wall with a single iron door separated the three cells from the other half of the building, where the jailor lived. Wilkenson took one last look at James and then stepped through the door and pulled it shut.
The jailor was not home. Wilkenson had sent him away. He wanted the jail all to himself, a private office for the afternoon. He sat on the battered chair beside the room’s single table. Surveyed the crumbs and the dried food and sundry other filth with disgust, then stood and paced back and forth.
He wondered what was causing the delay. Wondered if there was some problem. That thought made his stomach twist with anxiety. He stepped over to the window and peered out from behind the heavy canvas curtain.
Across the wide lawn surrounding the jail he could see the sheriff’s men approaching, and between th
em, half running to match their pace, was Lucy. There did not seem to be any problem. Not for him, in any event.
This was not entirely necessary, of course, this thing that he was about to do. William Tinling’s letter alone was enough to humiliate and ostracize Elizabeth, and perhaps even see her charged with some crime. But he had to be certain. He had been fooled before. He would not let it happen again. He wanted confirmation, and no one knew more about Elizabeth Tinling than Lucy.
The door opened, and the sheriff’s men all but shoved the young slave girl into the room. She recovered from her stumble, looked up. She saw Wilkenson standing at the far side of the room, and her eyes narrowed.
“Good day, Lucy.”
She was silent for a long second, looking at him with contempt, but she was a slave and knew better than to voice that emotion. “Good day, Mister Wilkenson.”
“Lucy, I want you to see something.” George Wilkenson straightened and crossed the room to the door that opened into the cell block, swung it open, and gestured for her to enter.
She hesitated, glanced around, and then tentatively stepped through the door. Wilkenson followed.
She paused for a moment and looked around in the dim light, and then she gasped and flung herself at the bars of James’s cell.
“You killed him, dear Jesus help me, you killed him!” she cried, reaching through the bars, stretching out her hands to the unconscious man ten feet away.
Wilkenson stepped up behind her. “No, he’s not dead. Not yet.” He put a hand on her shoulder and half turned her toward him. Tears were running down her face. She avoided his eyes. He put a hand under her chin and tilted her face up to his, and their eyes met.
“The sheriff’s men caught him sneaking around the town last night. And he had a gun. You understand what that means, Lucy? You understand he can be hanged for that?”
He looked into her dark eyes, wet with tears. She nodded her head, just slightly, acknowledging that she understood.
“Good. Come out here, please.” He guided her back into the jailor’s quarters. “I wish to talk to you.”
He sat her down at the small table and stood opposite her, looking down at her, waiting patiently as she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her eyes.
“I have an idea, Lucy, that you are very much in love with James.”
Lucy nodded and the tears came again, and between gasping sobs she said, “We is going to be married.”
“That’s nice, Lucy. It is. But see here. It has come to my attention that there was something not…not quite regular about the situation between your mistress, Elizabeth Tinling, and her late husband. You know that Joseph was a particular friend of mine, and I am anxious to know just what it was that was going on.”
Lucy looked up at him, and there was a flash of defiance beneath the fear and the sorrow. “What’re you asking me for, Negro girl like me? Ain’t no good me telling you anything.”
“Oh, you won’t be telling me anything I don’t know. I know everything that went on, from an impeccable source. But I would like you to confirm it. I want to hear it all from someone else as well, and I don’t reckon there’s anything happened at the Tinling place that you don’t know about.”
Lucy bit her lower lip and looked around the room. The sheriff’s men flanked the door, arms folded, watching, expressionless. She was a cornered animal, small and frightened.
Wilkenson put his hands flat on the table and leaned toward her until their faces were only a few inches apart. Lucy drew back and half turned away, but her eyes never left his. “You have a choice to make here, Lucy,” Wilkenson said, his voice soft and calm. “I can have King James released, or I can have him hanged. I can do that. You know I can, don’t you, Lucy?”
She nodded, her eyes fixed on his, a bird hypnotized by a snake. The tears were flowing with abandon now, and the dull light coming in from around the curtain shone off her wet skin. She stifled a sob and sat more upright and summoned up the strength to speak.
“If you knows what happened, then you know she didn’t have nothing to do with it. Mrs. Elizabeth. She didn’t even know. Still don’t. It was the old woman, the one who did the cooking, it was all her doing, and she’s dead this year and more, so there ain’t nothing can be done.”
Wilkenson frowned, shook his head. “I don’t understand-”
“Mr. Tinling…he was an animal…an animal. Beat my mistress like nothing I ever seen. Beat her worse than a dog, worse than a slave. Almost killed her once, she was in bed for a week, all black and blue. I…I…don’t know why. She never did nothing. He just liked it, liked to hit her. Finally he said he’d kill her, and I swear to the Lord he meant it and he would have done it.”
She broke down and put her face in her hands and sobbed.
“Go on, Lucy, it’s all right…”
Lucy braced herself again and looked up. “The old woman couldn’t stand it no more, she loved Mrs. Elizabeth, we all
did. Old woman had the knowledge, poisons and such. She put something in his food, make it look like his heart give out. He dropped dead right in his bedchamber, trying to have his way with me. Ripped my clothes, had himself all hanging out…and it weren’t the first time…and he dropped dead. We all thought his heart give out. Old woman told me the truth of it. Right before she went to her rest, she told me.
“The sheriff, he find the son of a bitch dead that way, breeches all down, and he don’t want to talk about it, don’t want no one to know how the old bastard died.”
She looked around again. Her lower lip was quivering and she was sobbing, but there was a certain defiance about her as well. “It was the old woman killed him, all right, but he would have killed Mrs. Elizabeth if she didn’t do for him first. He said so, I heard it, and he meant it, too. He was crazy, the meanest bastard I ever known. I’m glad for what she done.”
There was silence in the small room. Wilkenson glanced over at the sheriff’s men, noting their wide-eyed surprise, imagined that his own face carried the same expression. He had hoped only to confirm William Tinling’s letter, fan the sparks of a rumor, get people talking. But this was another matter, an issue for the law, the courts. Testimony under oath.
“There, is that what you wanted?” Lucy asked.
“Yes…yes,” George Wilkenson said, but that was not entirely true. It was not really what he had wanted. It was much, much more.
The Plymouth Prize dropped her anchor in Hampton Roads to await the flood tide before working up the James River to Jamestown. It would make the trip upriver that much easier, and twelve hours on the hook would allow time for the word to spread about Marlowe’s second triumphant return.
The anchorage in the Roads was deserted. Even the Wilkenson Brothers was gone. Marlowe wondered how they had mustered enough hands to get her back to her mooring. He pictured George Wilkenson tentatively laying aloft to loosen
sail, shaking like a leaf, the old man standing at the wheel bellowing orders, and the thought made him smile.
Marlowe was alone on the quarterdeck, leaning on the taffrail, enjoying the calm of the evening as best he could. The image of that black flag, with its skull and crossed swords, kept swimming in his head.
He was back. LeRois was back. The sight of him was as frightening as it had been the first time, so very long ago, when Marlowe had been no more than a sailor aboard a merchantman. When he had been someone else entirely.
No, that was not true. It was more frightening now. Now he knew what LeRois was capable of, knew what fury LeRois would unleash upon him, given the chance. Pray God he did not get that chance.
Bickerstaff stepped out into the waist. Marlowe hoped he would come aft, distract him from his thoughts, offer him some counsel. His old friend paused and looked to larboard and starboard, taking in the lovely Chesapeake Bay, lighted as it was by the lowering sun, then climbed up the ladder and walked aft. He had a precise, almost delicate way of moving, as if he were dancing, or fencing.
“Good evenin
g, Thomas,” he said.
“Good evening.”
“It would seem to be as perfect as the original garden, this Virginia.”
“Indeed it would, though I seem to recall that the garden had its serpents as well.”
“By this awkward and altogether uncharacteristic allusion to Scripture I take it you are making reference to Monsieur LeRois?”
“I am.”
“Do you think he is here? On the bay?”
“I do not know. He could be. He could be anywhere.”
The two men were quiet for a moment, watching a pair of swallows twisting and turning overhead. They looked black in the red and fading light of the day.
“You called him the devil himself,” Bickerstaff said at last.
“An exaggeration, perhaps. Not by much.”
“I saw him only the one time. Is he much worse than the others?”
“Most of these piratical fellows do not live so long, do you see? A few years, and then they are caught and hanged, or die of some disease, or are cut down by their own men. But LeRois, he has managed to survive, as if he was blessed by Satan and cannot be killed.
“He was not so bad, you know, when first I was pressed into his service. But by the time I…we took leave of him, he was quite mad. Inhumanly cruel. Drink, I believe, rotted his brain, the drink and the pox and the hard, hard living. And that would not matter so much if he were not so cunning as well, and so able with a sword. At least he was then, and I have to reckon he still is.”
“You defeated him in this last fight,” Bickerstaff pointed out.
“I drove him off, I did not defeat him,” Marlowe corrected. “And that will only serve to make him more dangerous still, because he will be furious over it, and now he will be cautious.”
“You bested him once.”
“Once. And it was a close thing. I would not like to try that again.”
It was first light, with the edge of the sun peaking over Point Comfort, when they won their anchor and made their way upriver under topsails alone. Marlowe had expected word of their return to spread. He had expected boats to greet him, people on the shore to be waving at the mighty guardship, with her bright flags and bunting flowing in the warm breeze. But it seemed as if there was no one there to take notice, as if the very colony had been abandoned.
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