by Andrea Jones
Raven gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. When she saw the moisture standing in White Bear’s eyes, her own tears tumbled down her cheeks. She recognized the act her husband was performing. It was a ritual she herself had observed, moons ago, in mourning. This rite was a sacred ceremony. Attended by earth, by air, by fire and by water, White Bear was making a sacrifice, to sorrow.
Her husband was cutting his hair for her, just as Raven had shorn her own, grieving for Ash. Touched, she could not hold back a sob. White Bear had not approved of this custom, before he married her. Raven’s shearing was strange to him, so archaic a compulsion that even her own people had nearly forgotten it. Never, not even in dreams, had she thought to earn this depth of devotion from her sister’s husband, her provider, her lover, the man who journeyed to this island from afar: White Bear. He stood on his knees before her, his second wife, and surrendered to her his most prized possession.
When his lock was cut free, White Bear offered it in his two hands to Raven. She regarded it with reverence, then accepted it into her fingers. Warm and vital, it filled Raven’s grip with his substance. Their eyes met above it. Nothing more required to be said. In this single ceremony, White Bear imparted a lifetime of loving. The couple held one another then, pressing their beings together, her cheek nestled at his throat, and they remained thus, their hearts drumming like the surf down below, until two birds circled and alighted beside them, on the bright white ledge of the cliff.
Rowan Life-Giver bowed his head in respect. “White Bear. At your request, we disturb your serenity. Word comes from the Red Lady’s chief that his ship stands ready to sail.” He and Lightly stood impassive, affecting not to notice the shortened tail of White Bear’s scalp lock. Far from diminishing his authority as a council member, the mark of his bereavement enhanced the man’s gravity.
White Bear nodded to the Messengers, and they stood back to render privacy to his last words to his loved one.
“Raven, I set you free to fly. Know that I hold you only here,” he held his clenched fist at his chest, “here, my wild bird, in my heart.”
“My husband. White Bear.” Raven blinked the tears away so that she could gaze clearly into his eyes. “I hear you.”
He touched her cheek, and they took one last kiss, tenderly this time, in fear that their grief might betray them. Too soon, White Bear rose to his feet and drew Raven up beside him. She coiled his long lock of hair in her pouch, carefully, and secured it. With his arm around her waist, he presented her to Rowan and Lightly.
“Messengers of the People, deliver my wife safe to the Other Island. I look for your return only once her welfare among our relatives is assured.”
“Yes, White Bear,” Rowan answered. “Our canoe lies aboard the ship. When we near the island of your birth, we will paddle the final miles, as you instructed. Your people’s scouts will not see us in company with pirates.”
Rowan and Lightly each clasped arms with White Bear, and Lightly of the Air said, “White Bear, we owe you our gratitude for restoring us to the elders’ esteem. We pledge to honor your trust.”
“The People spoke with their actions,” White Bear replied. “I have learned to listen.”
The two young men collected Raven’s pack. Then, bending down, they made a chair of their arms, and White Bear settled Raven into it. He touched her hair; her fingers lingered along the ivory of his necklace. White Bear stepped back. Raven spread her arms to weave them around Rowan and Lightly, and, for this lone occasion of her life, she took flight like her namesake. Upheld by the Messengers, the raven in white winged her way homeward.
White Bear watched as their figures soared away, growing smaller. He heard the ships’ lookouts cry out. Over the distance, he saw Raven with her black hair and snowy dress, touching down to stand at the stern of the Lady. Rowan and Lightly supported her, one on each side, as the vessel bobbed free of its moorings. He saw her hand rest on the pouch, where his lock traveled by her side. Her other arm rose up, in one final gesture— farewell.
From her stance at the ship’s rail, she saw White Bear standing straight and tall on the cliff top, with green pines behind him. Below his feet, the pale rock glared and the cerulean sea teemed. Above his head, the wind tugged the feathers of his scalp lock. He raised his right arm, the arm that should have borne his second wife’s marriage token but which, in truth, only moments ago held much more. As the ship’s peculiar motion pulled her backward, Raven steadied her legs and kept her gaze upon White Bear. He remained there, watching, his hand upraised in answer to hers.
In the sky above them, sea birds swarmed. The man and the woman acknowledged only each other. Neither witnessed the larger ship heel to the wind in her brilliant, gilded glory, nor did they notice the way her sister craft bloomed as she followed, uncurling her sails to flutter them open like wings. In rapid succession, dual guns boomed goodbye to the Island, and the shouts of the sailors bounced over the waves.
The figures stood steadfast, dwindling in one another’s vision, a streak of copper and a dab of white, ever smaller, and greedily seized. Within minutes, the two ships deserted the arms of the Island. The lovers lost one another, and the depths of the bay lay wavering and vacant between them.
At last, when the colors of the Neverland faded from her horizon, Raven let down her arm. She closed her eyes. She murmured to his memory, “I see you, Husband.”
Far and farther away from her, drawing back from the cliff top, White Bear bowed his proud head.
“I hear you, my wild bird. My Raven.”
He turned back toward his family, shadowing her footsteps through spruce that shed redolent scent.
CHAPTER 38
The Wider World
“C
ommodore Hook is most gracious to offer cigars, but you may have mine, Jacquot,” Chef’s plump fingers doled out the largess. “Smoking dulls the palate.”
“Très bien.” Jacquot held the stogie under his nose to inhale its rich tobacco scent, then stuffed it in the pocket of his apron. As he heaved the silver tray with his scrawny arms, he made a show of teetering a bit before lugging it down the companionway toward the Red Lady’s galley. The sister ships lay at anchor, side by side in a balmy sea, and as a mid-ocean wave pitched the deck, he nearly missed the first step in earnest.
“Watch your feet!” Chef steadied the tray, then cuffed his galley mate. “I spied you draining the dregs of the wine, you cur. Next time the captain entertains, I shall serve the guests myself!”
“Oui, Monsieur,” Jacquot agreed, not reluctant to shirk any duty.
But Chef smiled once again, reliving his triumph. “This banquet was a grand success, another culinary coup.” To Chef’s delight, Captain Cecco’s appetite remained in full flower, and he had ordered a celebration. This afternoon, the captain was regaling Commodore Hook and the Lady Jill in his quarters. The royalty of the fleet had feasted in good cheer, and not a morsel of Chef’s effort went to waste.
“Yet I must be modest,” he allowed. “I alone am not the genius of today’s success. It is l’amour, Jacquot, that extracts the superior flavors.”
Jacquot wobbled again, causing the china to rattle, and Chef himself seized the tray to balance it on his generous belly. Nimble from years on the sea, he glided down the stairs, his stodgy body moving as fluidly as the waves. “But why do I waste my advice upon you? That Indian widow with the blue feathers, she stole your heart away with one glance of her sad, black eyes. Now she is planted on that other island, and you shall never see her again.”
“Do you think the rumor is true?” Jacquot asked, intrigued, “That she bestowed upon the commodore the blue plume he exhibits in his hat?” The sailors’ gossip had not ended with their shore leave.
“Ah, who can tell? No gentleman would admit to it, but,” Chef’s eyes twinkled in his doughy face, “what female can resist our dashing, romantic officers? It is said that Captain Cecco, too, inspired love in her heathen heart.”
“And Red-Handed Jill
commands the hearts of both commanders! Is it possible that you will be creating another wedding cake, for our lady and Commodore Hook?”
“Non, non, Jacquot. The man is too shrewd. He hides his affection from his enemies.”
“It is said any man who marries Red-Handed Jill becomes cursed.”
“C’est vrai. You saw what happened to her first husband— or is he her second? Before he could glory in the wedding night, the woman stole his diamonds and drugged him with his own potion. Then she sent him packing back to Austria, to bring her more riches.”
“La femme fatale!” Jacquot exclaimed in admiration. “I saw her steal even his watch.”
“Captain Cecco, strong man that he is, suffered cruelly from this marriage curse. I judge by his appetite, hein? For the sake of my art, I hope today’s happiness lasts.”
The two men and the crockery docked at the galley without mishap. Before tending to the dirty dishes, Jacquot lit his cigar, and Chef ignited his imagination with more musings on the subject of romance.
✽ ✽ ✽
L’amour was the inspiration behind the captain’s door as well. “Another toast, Captain, to your love and mine,” Hook proposed. “To our Beauty. Our Red-Handed Jill.”
The two men had indulged in a feast for their eyes as well as their bellies. Jill appeared radiant in her best black silk gown. Rubies glowed at her throat, and her bosom rose above the spare, square neckline. Her fair hair flowed over bare, rosy shoulders. Jill had, however, given thought to the Indian women’s more earthy example, and left off her perfume today. The scent of sea and sky on her skin, she found, made a headier impact on her seafaring men’s senses.
The men, too, were attired in their formal best, Hook in black velvet, Cecco in his headdress of medallions and his bright gypsy silks. As the men raised their crystal goblets, Jill acknowledged the honor. “Gentlemen, your sentiments are reciprocated.” She, too, was enjoying handsome company— Hook with his neat black beard and patrician features, and Cecco’s deep brown eyes, his smooth olive skin. Each of her lovers stole her breath away.
“And another,” proposed Cecco, lifting his glass once more. It sparkled in the sunlight that came slanting through Red Lady’s port windows. Before Raven’s stay, Cecco had ordered the former captain’s dull paisley drapes to be replaced with gold curtains. The rugs and cushions were changed to suit his Italian tastes, and where once the room suppressed its guests’ moods, it now buoyed them up with lighthearted cheer. The Roger lay in view, rolling in tandem, and Cecco smiled, well pleased with this wider world. “To our beloved’s revenge.”
“To justice,” said Hook.
This time, Jill sipped the light white wine, too, but as its zest tingled on her tongue, she became contemplative. “The line between revenge and justice is a fine one. In the matter of Lean Wolf, I feel that I achieved both.”
“Your instincts are exquisite,” Hook agreed. “Although Captain Cecco and I loathed to allow it, your ploy raised a malcontent’s emotion to the highest pitch. You won both his love and his trust at the exact moment in which you betrayed him.”
Cecco declared, “To destroy his faith in Raven was the pièce de résistance, as my Frenchmen would say. By the time your quarry died, his Red Hand from the Sea meant everything in the world to him.” He laid his hand on Jill’s. “May I never earn your enmity, Bellezza. I too, would die a tortured man.”
She smiled at her husband. “And you, my dear, played your role to perfection. I myself believed you were about to murder me. But Giovanni,” Jill asked, “what of your oath? You swore that the man who handled me would not die before your weapon handled him.”
From their seats on either side of her across the crisp linen tablecloth, Hook and Cecco exchanged knowing smiles. “Lovely one,” Cecco answered, “do you not yet understand?” He raised her scarlet fingers to his lips and kissed them. “You yourself are that weapon.”
Hook concurred. “A weapon we are wise to keep secret. The impending menace is as yet ignorant of your powers.” At his words, an uneasy silence descended. None of the three celebrants wished to dampen the festive mood just yet. For now, the name of the next threat to contentment remained unspoken.
Hook leaned back and tapped his glass with the point of his claw, striking pleasant little pings from the crystal. “Our sojourn on the Island proved delightful in some ways, exhilarating in others. Our forces have been tested against the Indians’, and our opposing powers remain in balance.”
“I am satisfied,” Jill said, “that I leave my Island sons thriving, and I see my sailor sons happy, in their positions as bo’sun’s mates.” Jill chuckled, “Even Nibs seems content. His old kerchief is restored to him.” But her brow creased as she considered her moody young man; “Yet I’ve noticed a change in Nibs. Ever since we sailed, I’ve seen a faraway look in his eye.”
“My love, you of all people should recognize that look.”
“Ah. You believe he is in love, Hook?”
“Nibs is a man in search of a woman.”
“Then I shall not feel concern. Whatever Nibs sets his mind to do, he achieves. I hope the same holds true for dear David.”
Cecco snorted. “All I hope for ‘dear David’ is that he succeeds in registering our marriage in London.”
Jill dropped her gaze from her husband’s. She had prepared herself to impart the course she felt obligated to choose, but surely the three conspirators had earned a few more minutes of this bliss? She began to fidget with her wedding ring.
Seemingly unaware of the pain awaiting him, Cecco continued, “Before long we shall be relieved of another youngster. Next time we drop anchor on the Island, Mrs. Hanover will pass from my care into Lelaneh’s.”
“Your care, Captain?” Hook ribbed him. “Do your talents now circumscribe those of a midwife?”
“I have simply learned more of an officer’s duty to his crew.” Cecco shrugged. “A captain’s burden.”
“Indeed. And, depending upon the paternity of the child, my own burden will increase or diminish.” Hook’s lips twisted in distaste, and Jill set a soothing hand on his elbow.
She said, softly, “I am confident that the child’s sire is its grandsire.”
“A prediction, my love, or a story?”
“Both, perhaps. Yet Lelaneh believes that the babe is not well, and the birthing will be troubled. Surely this is a sign.” Jill felt a knot in her stomach. Content with the family she had already raised, yet she could scarcely bear the thought that another woman might mother Hook’s only child. As always, Hook sensed her emotion, and, just as she had comforted him, he laid his hand over hers where it rested on his velvet sleeve. His loving touch warmed her heart.
He admitted to Cecco, “I too gained fresh insights from our Island adventures. I watched a raging river drag Jill away from me. Soon after, our lady suffered abduction. With each disappearance, I imagined my life turned back like an hourglass, to a time without Jill. I now hold more sympathy for her husband, whom circumstance has caused to endure a similar torment.” Hook held his glass high. “I drink to you, Captain Cecco.”
Moved by his rival’s magnanimity, Cecco bowed. “Commodore.”
The toast was drunk, and Jill set her cup carefully down, unwilling to cause a sound or a vibration to disturb this pivotal moment. Three times now, the unity that remained her deepest wish had been granted by her lovers. This harmony might prove fragile, or it might endure for three lifetimes. Jill closed her eyes and held her breath, listening to her soul as it sang in celebration.
It was Cecco himself who braved discussion of the state of affairs. Jill had steeled herself against the necessity of wounding him, again, yet Cecco’s speech made her love him the more.
“I thank you, Sir. After the crisis Jill survived all alone, I see how love clouds my judgment. My selfishness cast her into danger.” With his hand on his heart, Cecco vowed, “Jill, my lovely wife, from this moment, I release my claim to you. You must use our marriage for your protecti
on, but you yourself must go as you will.” His accent softened as he finished, tenderly, “I ask only that you act, always, to ensure your safety, which is far more dear to me than my own.”
The tears smarted in Jill’s eyes. Clearly, Cecco anticipated her intention, and he had moved to make her burden of separating from him easier for her. She searched her heart for proper words to respond, but she jumped as Hook slammed down his goblet. He became their commander again, and he spoke through bared teeth.
“Let me understand you, Captain. It is your intention to abandon our lady?”
“Commodore?” Cecco drew back in astonishment. A glance at Jill showed him that she, too, was startled.
Hook leapt to his feet to tower over the dining table. The curve of his claw reflected the sun’s rays. “Soon we must face a most dangerous foe. Jill will require the both of us, and both of our companies, to conquer this monster.”
Hook’s pronouncement resounded through the room, and then the silence of dread fell again. This time, Jill determined to face the demons that drove it. She listened closely as Cecco countered Hook’s challenge.
“No! È impossibile! I shall never abandon my wife. But see how pale she grows! Take some brandy, Jill, and we will speak later of this distasteful subject.” He fetched the decanter from the sideboard, bringing three crystal snifters, once the pride of Captain DéDé LeCorbeau.
Jill accepted a glass, but her color had already risen. “Do not tread lightly for my sake, gentlemen. I triumphed in the ordeal of Lean Wolf. I chose to brave that monster, just as I chose to brave Doctor Hanover when I stole his wealth instead of his life.” At last, she had uttered the name of her enemy. As the words left her lips, all she felt was relief.
She squared her shoulders. “Let us not delay any longer. We have only months to prepare for this battle.”