Mariah Mundi and the Ship of Fools (15 page)

Vikash looked at Charity and then pushed Charlemagne onto the red couch that stretched along the wall.

‘Tell your friend that we will find him,’ Charity said as he turned to leave. ‘If any harm comes to the girl then he will wish he never stepped foot on this ship – and that, my friend, will be your fate also …’

Charlemagne slumped back onto the sofa. He curled himself like a small child and sobbed. Vikash looked at him briefly and shook his head. He leant towards him and out of Charity’s sight whispered in Charlemagne’s ear.

‘Pray to whatever god you worship that nothing happens to my sister,’ Vikash said softly as if he spoke a lullaby. ‘If she is harmed in any way then I will come for you – understand?’

Charlemagne nodded and held out a shaking hand as if to beg friendship. Vikash turned and walked away.

‘Don’t judge me by what he does,’ Charlemagne shouted after him in a rapid, anxious voice.

The two men walked purposefully and ignored the shouting from the room. A small crowd had gathered in the passageway and muttered to each other as Vikash and Charity forced their way through.

‘What you done to him?’ asked the one-armed juggler as he stood in their way. ‘You can’t come down here accusing him of things.’

‘We accuse him of nothing. It is Shanjing we seek – he is a human and not a mannequin,’ Vikash said as he pushed the man to one side. The troubadours gasped that he should say such a thing. ‘It is true – ask Charlemagne, he will tell you.’

Vikash had no need to say another word. The troupe that blocked his way soon parted and scurried like mice to see Charlemagne.

Charity turned back and saw them forcing their way into his room. ‘It will be about the ship within the hour,’ he said, ‘but it will help our cause – he will have nowhere to go.’

‘You believe him?’ asked Vikash.

‘I don’t doubt what he said. I had my suspicions that all was not well. There was something about Shanjing that was too real. Just before I was trapped I saw the figure of what I thought was a small boy. Now I know that to be Shanjing –
he
is the true ventriloquist,’ Charity said as they descended further into the depths of the ship. ‘Where would Biba hide in such a place as this?’

‘There is a place Biba would always go when she lived on the
Ketos
. It was the store where the passengers’ luggage not wanted on the voyage was kept. She would look through the cases and dress in the clothes. If she were still on the ship, I’m sure that is the place she would take Mariah,’ he said.

‘Then we shall go to that place and start our search. With every hour that passes the chance of finding them dwindles,’ said Charity.

Casper Vikash led on. Charity watched him as he walked. He was tall and upright with a nimble yet muscular frame. His clothes were functional but had an air of finery that not many men could accomplish. Charity wondered as they walked how Vikash could live with the agony of such a disfigured countenance. It was obvious that he had at one time had distinguished looks. Now his face was torn with a thousand scars.

There was much about the man that intrigued Charity. Now he knew that Vikash was the son of the Marquis DeFeaux he began to understand. It also made him realise that he was the true heir to all of the fortune. The houses, ships, yachts, the castles and factories, all the great wealth that DeFeaux had built into the grandest financial empire since Napoleon, would belong to Vikash on DeFeaux’s death. All that stood in the way of the fortune was the true-born daughter – Biba.

O
N board the paddle steamer Mariah looked down from his hiding place. He had pressed himself into the narrow gap between the door and the roof of the passageway. The ship was smaller than the
Triton
and had rolled back and forth even though the sea was calm. It made him feel sick – that and the smell of the whale oil that appeared to float in the air like a fine mist. The two men he’d heard talking had walked by without even looking up. Mariah had listened to them arguing as they disappeared from view. They were drunk, he could smell it. Their voices were tinged with anger and echoed through the passageway even when they were long gone. Mariah waited until he could hear them no more.

Dropping to the floor, he stretched out his stiff arms and shook them. The blood began to circulate again and he could feel his fingers. He could see to the end of the corridor where the men had gone. It was dark and empty. The lamps were dim and their light was absorbed by the grey walls. Mariah didn’t know which way to go. Now, he regretted even more jumping into the lifeboat with Biba DeFeaux. It had seemed to be the right thing at the time – to come in search of the thieves and
have them captured. He had disregarded all that Charity had told him. But now he had no plan and no way out. Mariah didn’t know how long Biba would be able to stay alone in the dark. All he wanted to do was find the deck of the ship and think of a way of escape. Biba herself would be safe. When they found out that she was a DeFeaux no one in their right mind would ever harm her – well, not without trying to gain a ransom first.

It even crossed his mind to go straight to the captain of this ship and give themselves up and hope they would not be harmed. But that was not his way and was not the way of the Bureau of Antiquities. As he shook the numbness from his fingertips he thought that he should at least try to make an escape.

The ship must have its own lifeboat, and if they put to sea they might be found. Charity had told him that two ships a day left Southampton for New York and that they kept to the same latitude to avoid the sea ice to the north. Since the explosions in Greenland, the ice had moved further south – pushing the ships with it. There was a good chance, Mariah thought, that if they could escape from the ship they would be seen.

He felt a peculiar disadvantage, searching a ship that he didn’t know. He checked the pistol in his pocket and slipped the catch forward. Then he took a deep breath and crept along the corridor towards the light by a flight of steps that led upwards. Mariah went quickly up the run of iron steps, turned at the top and then along another corridor. The smell of cabbage and cooking beetroot spilled from under the galley door in a cloud of thick steam. Next to the galley was an iron door with peeling paint that revealed the metal beneath. Swinging to and fro as the ship moved, never quite closing, there was a small hatch to look in through. The door was bolted from the outside and in faded black paint had the word
Brig
painted above the hatch.

‘A jail,’ Mariah whispered to himself as he dared to peer in through the hatch.

On a bench on the far wall of a room without light a man was lying. He sprawled across the makeshift bed as if he were dead. His arms were outstretched, his mouth open. Rolling back and forth across the wet floor was an empty bottle. It turned this way and then that, never finding rest. The man opened one eye and stared at him. Mariah ducked out of sight, hoping that he had not been seen. He clung to the door and looked back towards the steps, thinking he should run.

‘Gonna let me out, boy?’ the man asked. ‘Been in here long enough … Sober now. I’ve done no wrong. Said it was for my own good and now my own good is good enough,’ the man rambled.

Mariah was silent as he thought of what to do. He had been seen. He was trapped. The prisoner could shout and in the hue and cry Mariah would be found.

‘I said, you gonna let me out?’ the man asked again. ‘Don’t care what you doing on the ship. Got a face I never seen before. You a stowaway?’ he asked. ‘That’s what I was – that’s why I’m in here.’ He laughed in a deep and gruff voice tinged with spit.

Mariah thought for a moment and then stood up. He looked through the hatch. The man could not be seen. It was as if he had been a ghost – the voice of an ancient mariner long dead. He could smell the foul stench of half-digested onions mixed with rum. It hung in the air like vapours of mist. Mariah stared harder into the gloom, hoping to see some sign of the man, but there was nothing – he was gone.

Without warning, a hand grabbed Mariah by the collar of his shirt and pulled him close, choking him as the thick fingers gripped hard.

‘Don’t you speak, stowaway?’ the man asked as he appeared from his hiding place.

‘Let me go!’ Mariah said.

‘Not until you let me out. Don’t like it in here and I’m not
sailing all the way to America in the brig. Undo the bolt and I’ll say nothing and you can go and hide with the rats,’ said the man sternly as he tightened his grip.

‘Why are you in here?’ Mariah asked.

‘What’s it to you – why you on the ship?’ the man asked.

‘Stowaway, just like you said,’ Mariah replied, thinking fast as he held the man’s hand to stop him tightening his grip.

‘Well, you gonna let me out or am I to choke you where you stand?’ the man asked as he shook Mariah with an arm so thick that it filled the hatch opening.

‘I can’t reach the lock – you’ll have to let me go,’ Mariah replied as his face was scraped against the side of the door.

‘Then we got a problem. If I let you go you could run away and leave me in here,’ the man said.

‘You could turn me in and then I’d be locked up with you,’ Mariah replied, as the man’s grip got even tighter.

‘Then we have to find some trust,’ the man said through the vapours of rum that billowed from his guts.

Mariah thought for a moment. He was being held by his throat and couldn’t escape. The man grasped him with such strength that he could snuff him out there and then.

‘If I open the door are you going to turn me in?’ he asked.

‘Depends on what you have to say for yourself,’ the man replied, not releasing his grip.

‘Then I promise not to run and I will undo the bolts,’ Mariah replied as the breath was being squeezed from him.

‘Give me your left hand,’ said the man. He loosened his grip on Mariah’s throat.

Mariah didn’t question him. He knew this would be the only way he could escape being choked by the man’s arboreal fingers. He slipped his hand through the hatch. The man grabbed him by the wrist as he let go of his throat. His grip on Mariah’s hand was just as tight, just as harsh.

‘I can’t run,’ Mariah said painfully. ‘I’ll open the door.’

He slid the bolts with his free hand. They were easy to move and slipped quickly from their keepers. The door swung open and the man stepped outside. He kept his grip on Mariah as he looked down at him and smiled.

‘Bigger than I thought for a stowaway,’ the man said as he pushed the fingers of his free hand through the mass of thick, black curls that covered his head. ‘How did you get on the ship?’

Mariah didn’t know what to say. It would be easy to lie, but it would be easy to be found out. He was caught, either by a friend or foe, and he didn’t know which the man was.

‘Does it matter?’ Mariah asked.

The man laughed. ‘It would be interesting to know – I have never met a fellow stowaway. That’s how I started my life at sea – a lad just like you jumping on a ship to see the world.’

‘And what are you now?’ Mariah asked, as he looked the giant of a man up and down.

‘They call me Cartaphilus – I wander the seas of the world in whatever way I can,’ he replied as he let go of Mariah’s wrist. ‘You have honest eyes, too honest to be at sea and I bet you haven’t eaten.’ Mariah nodded as Cartaphilus smiled again. ‘I can smell cabbage. The crew are on watch, either that or drunk in their beds – we can eat and won’t get disturbed.’

‘What if we get caught?’ Mariah asked as the man took him by the shoulder and marched him to the galley, opening the door and pushing him inside.

‘Then we’ll sleep in the brig until we get to Virginia,’ he replied as he took some bread and cheese from a cabinet and gave it to Mariah. ‘You alone?’

The question had come suddenly and Mariah answered with his eyes. He looked from Cartaphilus to the door.

‘A girl?’ asked the giant. Mariah nodded. ‘Hiding in the hold?’

As he ate the bread and cheese Mariah told the man how they had got on board the ship. Something made him keep Biba’s identity a secret.

‘So they’ll think you’re lost to the sea?’ Cartaphilus asked. ‘In a lifeboat you say – from the
Triton
?’

Mariah nodded. ‘Why did they have you locked up?’ he asked.

‘Didn’t like what I was up to – took five of them to get me in there. Got me drunk first – that’s my weakness. We all have a weakness and I love Jamaica juice.’ He coughed as he savoured the memory.

‘So they’ll put you back inside?’ asked Mariah as he looked at the faded tattoos on the man’s arm.

‘Not again – and you’re gonna help me,’ the man said as he leant forward to Mariah and picked cheese from his plate. ‘We’re gonna take over this ship, you and me … I’ll make you first mate.’

‘So you’re not a stowaway?’ Mariah asked.

‘I’m the captain,’ Cartaphilus replied slowly as he stared Mariah in the eyes. ‘Or should I say – I was the captain until I agreed to pick up that lifeboat from the
Triton
. Once it got out that it was packed with gold then other people had ideas beyond their calling.’

‘Mutiny?’ Mariah asked.

‘I would call it cowardice – cheating and stealing what is mine,’ Cartaphilus said as he stood up from the table. ‘Come on, lad, we are going to take back my ship.’

Cartaphilus pushed Mariah into the passageway and then bade him to follow. It seemed he didn’t need to know Mariah’s name or much about him at all. Mariah felt a deep unease. Could he believe the man? Cartaphilus didn’t look like a captain of a ship. He had the bearing and guise of a soldier, with hands that looked as if they had worked the land for a thousand years.

They crept though the begrimed warren of tunnels until
they came to the stairway that led up to the deck. Mariah could smell the sea.

‘This is what I want you to do,’ Cartaphilus said as he held Mariah by the shoulder. ‘Go up them stairs and along the deck. Behind the bridge you will see a cabin – that’s my place. Inside the desk you’ll find a gun. Bring it to me …’

Mariah did as he said. He had soon climbed the stairs and ran along the empty deck. The moon shone down and far to the west he could see the lights of the
Triton
. Behind the bridge he saw a ladder that led up to a narrow deck with a solitary door. A man with a beard at the wheel of the ship was staring straight ahead, as if he tried to follow in the wake of the
Triton
.

Mariah climbed the ladder, walked the deck and slowly and carefully opened the door of the cabin. Just as Cartaphilus had said, Mariah saw the desk. He opened the drawer and found the gun. It was old, more a small rifle than a pistol, with a short magazine that jutted out from the side. Quickly, Mariah retraced his steps, keeping an eye on the bridge and the man staring out to sea.

‘Was there anyone about?’ Cartaphilus asked when Mariah returned.

‘Just a man on the bridge steering the ship – he didn’t see me.’ Mariah replied.

‘Did he have a beard?’ he asked. Mariah nodded. ‘That’s old Tornado Jones. Blind as a bat – he be sticking to a heading and seeing nothing at all. That means the rest will be drunk and asleep. Better choose the place to do battle,’ he said as he took the gun from Mariah and cocked the hammer. ‘You’ll have to fend for yourself, lad – it could get bad …’

Cartaphilus climbed the steps and onto the deck. The night was clear and crisp. For a thousand miles around them the sea was still, as if it were about to freeze. The wake from the ship fell back into the sea like shards of ice.

The captain walked towards the bridge, staggering as if he were still drunk. With every step he looked back and forth, expecting an ambush lay ahead. They edged their way around a stack of barrels filled with lamp oil and then slowly on.

‘We’ll wait until they change the night watch,’ he whispered as he climbed to the deck and got to the door of his cabin. ‘You coming or are you going to stand there all night?’

Mariah followed him into the cabin. It was all he could think of to do. He felt as if he were trapped in a game – like a mouse chased by a cat, captured but not killed. The cabin was small. There was a desk by one wall and an old stove by the other. Three leather chairs were nailed to the floor by their claw feet. Maps and charts were pinned to the walls. Cartaphilus lit the whale-oil lamp and put a pot of coffee on to the stove.

‘When will the watch be changed?’ Mariah asked as he searched nervously for something to say.

Cartaphilus looked up at the clock on the wall of the cabin. Its white face glowed in the golden light. The black hands were unmoving, as if time had stood still.

‘Two of the clock now … and the watch will be changed in an hour. Time for some coffee,’ he replied. He sat in a rickety old chair by the stove and warmed his feet. ‘So,’ he said with a long, deep sigh. ‘What’s your name? Where’s your friend? And what are you doing on my ship…’

Mariah touched the pistol in his pocket and was tempted to pull the gun and shoot the man there and then. He could feel his breathing deepen as the blood pulsed through his body. His mouthed dried as he stared blankly at the clock. The room was cold and airless and stank of whale oil.

‘Mariah,’ he found himself saying. ‘Mariah Mundi. My friend is Biba DeFeaux – she is in the hold with the lifeboat – we hid and never knew it would be set adrift.’

‘Did you see the gold?’ Cartaphilus asked.

‘A man came and took an ingot. I saw him from our hiding place.’

‘That would be Mr Pusey – you may know him, an Englishman from Oxford,’ Cartaphilus said as he watched the coffee pot steam.