We made Elizabethtown, the main port on Bacalao Island, in nine days—a record. I needed to visit Hillman and Plunkett’s Bank to make sure my finances were all in order, but first, while Mr. Rafiq resupplied, I slept.
32
The Wreck of James Mayo
I’M DREAMING. I recognize a voice. It’s far away and has an American twang to it, a Virginia twang. It’s shouting my name, not the name I have now, Rossalinde Deverell, but the name I had when I captained a privateer crew.
“Ross! Ross Tremayne!”
I opened my eyes in the darkness of Hookey’s cabin. I’d taken advantage of his kindness and was stretched out on the narrow bunk. The full moon outside the cabin window shone through the salt-frosted glass onto Corwen’s silver hair as he slept in the old armchair next to me.
“Ross! Ross Tremayne!”
I recognized the faraway voice, but it was slurred with alcohol and cracked from bellowing.
I heard footsteps coming down the companionway and a knock at the cabin door. I was aware Corwen had passed from sleep to wakefulness in about as much time as it would take for a wolf to do it.
“Ross! You’d better come.” Hookey’s voice this time.
“What’s the matter now?” I intended to call out, but my voice did little more than croak. “How long have we been asleep?” I asked Corwen.
He took out a pocket watch and held the face up to the moonlight. “You’ve been asleep about seven hours. Me, three or four.”
“Why do I feel it’s the other way round?”
He grunted. “Try looking from this side of my eyelids.”
“Ross?” Hookey again.
“Coming.”
I looked down and found I was still fully dressed. Someone, probably Corwen, had taken off my shoes and dropped a blanket over me. I sat up and scrubbed myself awake with the heels of my hands.
“Come on. Whatever it is must be important or Hookey would let us both sleep.”
He grunted and heaved himself out of the chair. “After you.”
I wobbled slightly as I groped my sleep-fuddled way across the cabin to the door.
“What’s the matter, Hookey?” I screwed up my eyes against the light from the lantern.
“Come and see,” Hookey said.
We followed him up the companionway to the deck. A knot of sailors, the watch crew and a few more besides, stood around something . . . no . . . someone.
A filthy wretch huddled on the deck. I smelled him before I saw him—shit, piss, vomit, and stale beer in equal proportions.
“Ross Tremayne. There you are. I love you.” The man opened his arms, and then, as if the effort were too great, he folded in on himself and began to weep.
I stared, dumbfounded. Was it? No, it couldn’t be. He was dead, or was he? Maybe not.
I sank down on my knees in front of him. In the combination of moonlight and lamplight, I stared at the unkempt beard and the shaggy head, dark threaded with gray, trying to find the man I knew behind the bloodshot eyes. He stared up at me, reached out with the index finger of his right hand and touched my chin as if he could hardly believe I was real. At last I knew.
I pulled him into my arms. “It’s all right, Jim. I’ve got you.”
James Mayo, Gentleman Jim the pirate, was alive.
* * *
I let the filthy pirate weep all over my clean shirt until he’d wept himself out and my knees were stiff from kneeling on the planks of the Heart’s deck. After a while the crew, embarrassed by unmanly tears drifted away, though the buzz of conversation followed their retreating backs. I heard snatches . . .
Is that really Gentleman Jim?
I thought he was dead.
Looks like he is.
I thought James Mayo was supposed to be the fiercest pirate in the Dark Islands.
I don’t believe it.
The cap’n seems to think it’s him.
I heard she once . . .
I was glad I didn’t hear the end of that last speculative comment. I had once. I’ll give him his due, Mayo waited a decent interval after Will’s death before propositioning me, and of course I refused. I refused again the next time we met, but eventually I looked at Mayo, handsome, rakish, not a cruel man, at least, never to me, and I saw someone who might reawaken my senses if not my emotions.
All the while this was going through my head, Gentleman Jim wept gobs of snot and tears into my breast. Though the crew drifted away, Corwen stayed by my side, while Hookey and Mr. Rafiq hovered nearby.
I don’t know how long it took, but eventually Jim’s sobs subsided to hiccups. Even when they faded, he kept his face turned into my bosom. That was more like the Jim I knew, taking advantage of a situation for as long as he could.
“Can you speak yet?” I asked him.
His nod rubbed his cheek against my nipple. Enough was enough. I pushed him upright.
“I thought you were dead,” I said.
“I think I am.” His voice sounded cracked, like an old man’s. How old was Jim? I’d always thought him to be barely a few years older than Will. With a shock I realized it probably meant he’d turned forty. He cleared his throat. “Strange how much like real life purgatory is,” he said. “I thought you’d gone down with my ship.”
“I almost did.”
If Corwen hadn’t pulled me out of the water with my arm opened to the bone and half my ear ripped off, I would have died when the Black Hawk’s powder magazine blew.
“I saw you heaved overboard,” I said. “How did you survive?”
“Tarpot Robbie. As he was throwing me into the ocean, he realized I was coming round. He managed to kick a square of oiled canvas overboard with me. Did you know that you can trap enough air in oiled canvas to make a float? I began to swim for the nearest vessel. I was far enough away from the Hawk when her powder magazine went up. Did you have to sink my ship?”
“It was the only way I could save mine. I’d hoped to kill Walsingham, but I was unsuccessful.”
“I know.”
“You’ve seen him since?”
Jim began to laugh, but there was no humor in it, and eventually he subsided into dry sobs again.
* * *
“What are we going to do with you?” It was a rhetorical question. I didn’t actually expect Gentleman Jim to answer it.
“I’m useless. Give me a few shillings and send me back for a gallon of rum. It’ll see me to next week.”
I frowned. That didn’t sound like Jim. I’m sure he liked his drink, but he’d always been quite sober for a pirate, never giving anyone the chance to get the better of him while in his cups.
Corwen wrinkled his nose. “He smells as though he’s been living on rum and not much else.”
“Beer when I can’t get rum, but rum’s the thing. Fierce as an unpaid whore. ’S the only thing that makes me forget.”
“Forget what?” I asked.
“Can’t remember.”
“How long is it since you’ve been sober?”
He pursed his lips and frowned at me as if trying to remember.
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
“Just throw me in the harbor.”
“That’ll make you stink even more.”
“Stink? I don’t sti—”
“Billy, bring up some buckets of hot water and some lye soap. And a barrel we can dunk him in.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n.”
“Jim, you’re going to clean yourself up. Then we’ll talk again.”
“Madam, ’m perfectly clean.” He waved Billy away.
I waved him back again. Two more hands brought a barrel.
“Get his clothes off. Take them to the dockside and burn them. Dunk him in the water, all of him. All the way in. Hair and everything. I don’t want to see any crawle
rs on him.”
I was beginning to itch myself. I should have thought about lice. “And bring me some washing water down to the cabin.”
Dawn was breaking as three crewmembers stripped off Jim’s rags. I was shocked at how thin he was as he stood there shivering in the half light. I thought at first it was the filth, but then I realized the marks on Jim’s body were scars, long thin stripes where the skin had been peeled away, some still red, others fading to white. I knew for certain then which ship had picked him up out of the water.
“No wonder he’s a mess,” I said to Corwen. “And I don’t just mean his body.”
While the men were sluicing down what was left of a once-famous pirate captain, I followed suit in Hookey’s cabin. I scrubbed myself down to the skin, washed my hair, and let Corwen check me for lice.
“You’re clean,” he said, running his warm hands down my flank. “Whether your shirt will ever recover is another matter altogether.”
“I’ll let Billy boil it,” I said as I brushed my hair and tied it back with a thin black ribbon. “I wonder how they’re getting on with Jim.”
“What did you mean when you said no wonder he’s a mess?”
“Did you see his scars?”
“Yes, nasty. I wonder how he got them?”
“Nicholas Thompson, Old Nick. That’s who must have picked Jim up out of the sea along with Walsingham. He likes to flay his prisoners, sometimes to death, and sometimes to the point of death, to see how close he can take them while leaving them alive and writhing in pain.”
* * *
I watched from a distance as Lazy Billy and Windward dunked Gentleman Jim first in one barrel of water and then a second. Billy, quite fastidious for a seaman, sniffed and decided they needed a third barrel. Then he gave Jim a sheet and sat him on the hatchway. At first, I thought he was going to try and comb out the matted mess of his hair and beard, but he obviously decided it was too much of a task and I heard the snip of shears as he cut everything down to stubble, then scrubbed his head and face once more for good measure. Then Windward took him down to the forward hold and strung a hammock for him in the cubicle where Billy did his rough doctoring.
I decided to leave Jim to sleep and get a couple of decent meals inside him. Billy would find him some clothes. I had a few errands to run—the most important of them to Hillman and Plunkett’s Bank where I was pleased to see my fortune had increased, thanks to my one-quarter of the profits of the Butterfly’s trading. Mr. Sharpner had left a written account with Mr. Plunkett. I recognized Simeon Fairlow’s neat hand on the sheet which detailed the figures and Mr. Sharpner’s less elegant scrawl on the letter. It seems they’d stuck to legal cargo only, for which I was grateful, and Mr. Sharpner apologized for the empty hold on one run back from Jamaica to Elizabethtown, saying he’d turned down a cargo of livestock when he realized they were human slaves destined for the American enclave on the other side of Bacalao island.
I begged a sheet of paper from Mr. Plunkett and wrote a note to Mr. Sharpner, thanking him for the accounts and telling him I heartily agreed with his decision not to carry slaves.
It was early evening of the same day before Jim climbed the companionway and stood on board deck, his rough hands clutching the deck rail for balance. He was wearing a pair of sailor’s slops and a loose shirt. His hair was so short I could see his skull. The day was reasonably springlike, so he wore no waistcoat or jacket. I thought I saw him shuddering as I approached. Corwen had agreed to my suggestion to stay below and let me talk to Jim as an old friend.
“You look more like yourself now.” I spoke when I was still some distance off, not wanting to startle him unnecessarily. He jumped anyway and turned to face me.
“I’m not . . . myself, I mean. I might never be again.”
“I know you, James Mayo. You’ve fallen on hard times, but you’re still you inside.”
“You don’t know . . . ”
“I saw your scars. Old Nick at a guess. But you survived. You survived the wreck of the Black Hawk. I’m sorry about blowing up your ship. I thought you were already dead, and I so dearly wanted to kill Walsingham.”
“A pity you didn’t.”
“Indeed. We bested him when we met again, but he still lives, and he’s back in Britain. He’s a dangerous man even though he’s maimed and blind.”
“I know it. I didn’t realize it when he first approached me to chase down the Heart, but by the time we caught up with you, I knew he was a horse of a different color altogether. Believe me, Ross, I would never have brought him to the Heart if I’d known you were on board. That damned box. I knew there was something odd about it.”
“You can sense magic.”
Jim shrugged. “In a small way. I think that’s what intrigued me about you when first we met. You hid it well, but there was something—aside from the way your ship always managed to catch the fairest winds. There had to be something—someone—on board, and I knew it wasn’t Tremayne. I figured it was either you or the black fellow, Rafiq, and the more I saw, the more convinced I became that it was you.”
“Did you tell your men?”
“What do you take me for?”
I couldn’t answer. I had taken Jim to be a dangerous pirate—and he surely had been—but he’d also shown me another side, thoughtful, tender. He didn’t expect an answer, so I let him continue.
“After Walsingham tried to kill me, and Robbie gave me a chance, I swam for my life, thinking Robbie helping me was most likely a way of making my death slower. Then I saw a ship in front of me. My elation turned to dread when I realized it was the Flamingo.”
“Old Nick.”
“He sailed with my fleet, but I was never sure of his loyalty. I always thought he had ambitions, but he was deadly and damned good at giving pirates a bad name. It turned out I was right. I should have put Nicholas Thompson down when I had the chance. He kept me chained belowdecks on the Flamingo, as good as dead, and took my place as leader of the fleet. And no one stopped him or stood against him. Even Tarpot Robbie works for him now. He’s been given his own ship, the Lady Emma. I heard that rumor here on the dockside. And my island, lovely Auvienne, is under that bastard’s bootheel. He’s sleeping in my bed, fucking my whores, killing anyone he thinks is against him. I built Ravenscraig from a tiny fishing village, and now he’s pissing on it.”
He swiped the heel of his hand across his eyes. “And there’s nothing I can do. He’s got it all, and I’m . . . broken.”
“When you were on Old Nick’s ship, did you see Walsingham?”
“Not at first. Nick thought he’d got himself a real prize. Thought he could ransom Walsingham back to the King of England, so he afforded him some care. His sawbones took off Walsingham’s left arm when it started to fester. By the time they chained him up in the hold with me, he was beyond dying, so I guess Nick’s surgeon saved his life if not his eyes.”
“You were chained up with Walsingham. Did he ever speak of his book?”
Jim began to laugh. He laughed so hard his whole body shook, and at length he fell to his knees, still holding on to the deck rail like it was the only thing keeping him in this world. And then his laughter turned to dry sobs.
“What’s the matter, Jim? Something about the book?”
“I know about the book. It’s the only reason I’m alive. Old Nick took it, but Walsingham wanted it more than anything. He taught me a spell. Invisibility. He had that one in his head. I guess I have a bit of magical talent that I never realized. I was supposed to turn myself invisible and get the book for him. Then he started to teach me one of the codes—there’s more than one—said if I could read him the spells, he could get us both out. Get him the book, he said, and he would take me with him. Though I rather think I was supposed to take him with me, since he was blind.”
“Did you? Get him the book, I mean.”
“I would ha
ve tried, even though I knew Walsingham and that damned book were a bad combination, but Nick’s answer must have come from the King of England, so Walsingham was dragged away to his freedom. I . . . was left with Old Nick who wanted to know what was in the book and thought I might be able to tell him. He has ways of being persuasive.”
“I saw your scars.”
“I knew once I told him everything he’d take enough skin to kill me. I waited until we were close to land, and then I used Walsingham’s invisibility spell. It worked. They came to take me up on deck to peel another strip of skin from my body and thought I’d escaped and swum ashore to Jamaica, but I hid and finally made my escape when the ship put into port on the American side of Bacalao. I’ve been here ever since, dreaming of revenge.”
“Looking for it in the bottom of a bottle.”
“What if I have?”
“It’s not good enough for you. James Mayo. You were one of the finest captains in all of the Dark Islands.”
“Was.”
“You can be again. You’re not that far gone. You’ve cleaned up pretty well.” I might have stretched the truth a little. “You can be the man you once were.”
“Ha!”
“We need that book, or we need to destroy it. It’s not for the likes of Old Nick, and Walsingham mustn’t be allowed to possess it again. No one should have it. It’s dangerous. We’ll help you get back to Auvienne. Your men will rally to you when they know you’re alive.”
Jim swiveled round and sat, leaning his face into the deck rail.
“And all you want in return is the book?”
“Yes. The book. Safe in our hands or destroyed.”
“It’s a good bargain, but . . . ”
“But?”
“I might have given Nick the key to translating it—partly, anyway. I didn’t give the whole game away. The pain, you know. I’m not proud.” His voice shook. “And . . . ”
“There’s more?”
Rowankind (3 Book Series) Page 28