Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key (11 page)

Grimacing, John grabbed a fistful of the man’s shirt and pulled him down, backing away with him and letting him go at the companionway. The dead man drifted through, turning slowly as he went. The bubble escaped from his mouth and fled upward like a fish. John followed, looking around on the deck to see what else he might grab on this trip, and spotted the swivel gun on the broken rail. He swam over and wrenched at it until it came loose, rail and all. Cradling it in his arms, he pushed off against the deck and broke the surface.

“Got this,” he gasped, manhandling it over the side into the boat.

“What use is that, may I ask?” said Mr. Tudeley, scowling at it through sweat-fogged spectacles.

“You never know. She’s a sweet little gun, and company may come to call,” said John, wiping his face with one hand.

He dove four more times before he had to stop; it took a dive each to fetch up their trunks, and on the last he spotted two cutlasses and a pistol lying up against the bulkhead. Too weary to climb into the boat (which was now full of salvage in any case) John simply clung to the stern and rode it back as Sejanus rowed them ashore.

The first thing he did, after he staggered dripping ashore, was haul out Mrs. Waverly’s trunk and open it. Tilting it, he spilled out gowns and shoes and toilet things, all soaked. He sorted through them hastily to see if he could find Tom Blackstone’s letter. Letter there was none, even in the little inlaid box that had been tucked under the bottom layer of her garments. John opened it and found only the earrings Captain Reynald had given her, with some hairpins and a few trinkets he suspected she’d stolen.

He closed the box and became aware that Sejanus and Mr. Tudeley were watching him. “Just wanted to be certain sure she wasn’t robbed,” he said.

“If you say so,” said Sejanus, raising one eyebrow.

They buried more bodies before they started back—with somewhat less ceremony, funerals being impractical when corpses were becoming so commonplace. Mrs. Waverly rose from where she had been tending the fire, and smiled to see what John carried.

“My trunk!” she exclaimed. “Why, Mr. James, how dear, how
thoughtful
of you!” She ran to him and stood on tiptoe, pulling him down for a kiss.

“It was a pleasure, ma’am,” said John. In his best bluff and honest manner, he added: “Mind, we had to open it to drain the water out, and your things fell out too, so they’re a bit disordered. But I put everything back in.”

“You have my eternal gratitude,” said Mrs. Waverly. “What luck that we have fresh water! I can launder everything tomorrow. Do let me launder your shirts and stockings as well, Mr. James.”

“I have shirts and stockings too,” volunteered Mr. Tudeley, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

She made on a great deal over John that evening, serving him his coconut and whelks first, mixing him a treat of rum and coconut-water, and nestling up beside him when they sat by the fire afterward.

The conversation ran on what they ought to look for next in the diving, whether the carpenter’s chest or the navigation gear, and from thence it proceeded to where they would go once they’d built their pinnace.

“Mind you, we need to know whereabouts we are, first,” said John. “If we can find the charts and they ain’t too spoilt, we can chart a course. Can’t just sail off into the blue.”

“How very wise, Mr. James,” said Mrs. Waverly, sliding her arm through his. He looked at her sidelong. “You and I, of course, ought to proceed to Leauchaud. Once we have resolved those matters concerning my poor husband’s estate, we might consider anything! Should you care to travel? Have you ever been to Paris?”

“I was thinking of settling down in Port Royal,” said John, but the high-colored image of going to Paris with Mrs. Waverly dazzled him, as it had been meant to do. To clear his head of images of Mrs. Waverly in a lace peignoir, he said: “What’ll you do, Mr. Tudeley? Go on to Barbados?”

“That’s a question, indeed, sir,” said Mr. Tudeley, staring into the fire. “You know…I don’t believe I shall. I ought to send to Arabella to let her know I’m well, of course. But, in a way, this whole mischance has been a blessing in disguise. A veil has dropped from my eyes, sir. I have perceived now that, life being so miserably brief and tenuous, one ought to spend it in what enjoyment one can, don’t you think? And the essentials of life are so much more easily come by in a place less constrained by Society.

“I rather liked Tortuga. It was a jolly place, quite free and easy! I think perhaps I may settle at Tortuga. Yes.” Mr. Tudeley helped himself to a little more rum. He looked across the fire at Sejanus. “What of you, sir? Shall you go back to Africa?”

Sejanus shook his head. “How can I go back to a place where I’ve never been?” he said, adding another bit of driftwood to the fire. “No. What would I do there? No one would speak English, and I know only a few words of the talk. Mud houses and cattle pens and strangers…what’s that to me? Get myself taken up again as a slave, most likely.

“Then again…no sense going back to Boston. Or Virginia. Laws change too fast. I went to sea because I heard there are no nations among sailors. I heard that on a ship, a man’s as good as the work he can do. I was sadly misinformed…Wasn’t true under Captain Sharp, no, sir. I was only one inch higher than a slave, to him. But it was true under Reynald. First time I was ever around white men who treated me like one of them. Pity, Reynald dying…maybe I’ll go back to Tortuga, myself. Sign on with the Brethren.”

“Piracy don’t pay all that well,” said John. “You know, there’s places inland where slaves go when they escape. Lots of ’em live back in the caves and such. Supposed to be whole villages, hiding up in the mountains on Hispaniola. D’you ever think of going to live with them?”

“But I’m not an escaped slave,” said Sejanus. “I was manumitted free and clear. I’m not going to run and hide from anyone.”

“You’ll have to, if you’re a pirate,” said John. “Except for the other Brethren, every man’s hand will be against you.”

“Every man’s hand is already against me,” said Sejanus, with a humorless chuckle. “But at least it won’t be just because of the color of my skin, if I’m looting treasure and burning galleons.”

THEY ROWED OUT FARTHER next day to the bow of the
Harmony
. Here the water was deeper, the diving harder, but it was worth it; for here John brought up what proved to be the carpenter’s chest at last, as well as a few barrels of salt beef.

And here he spotted one-pound shot scattered across the sea floor like windfall apples under a tree, and busied himself collecting as many as he could each dive, gathering them into a sack he’d made from an old coat sleeve tied off at one end. The coat’s owner was beyond caring, but they had buried him a little deeper, just in case, and muttered a few prayers over him to make up for it.

John was crouched over, scooping up a few last shot on his fifth dive, when he heard a thundering knocking from above, as though they in the boat were beating on the gunwales. Which, as it turned out, was just what they were doing, trying frantically to get his attention.

He turned to look upward and was hit in the shoulder by a gray shape that struck him hard, flowing smoothly past. He turned, peering through his floating hair, and saw a reef shark turning to come back at him. Straight at his face it came, a big dead-eyed bugger like a battering ram. John, terrified, swung his fistful of shot and hit it square on the nose. Its forward momentum was halted; a sort of caul veiled its eyes, as though it was squinting. As it paused in front of him John grabbed its head, with his thumbs through the gills on either side, and rammed his forehead into its nose.

The shark shook violently. John let go, pushing off from the bottom. Sejanus was already reaching down for him, and grabbed him under the arms as he broke the surface. He hauled him half into the boat. John clutched at the thwarts and writhed forward, trying to lift his lower body out of the water, but felt something hit his calf and then sharp pain there. He bellowed in fear. Sejanus grabbed hold of the back of his breech-clout and hauled so hard it came off, but did succeed in getting John the rest of the way into the boat.

John, still screaming, heard Mr. Tudeley grunting with effort as he struck at something with an oar. Then the oar was hitting John across the back of his legs too, which hurt rather more than the other pain, and he heard Sejanus laughing. John turned in outrage and saw Mr. Tudeley clubbing a dogfish that had come into the boat with its teeth sunk in John’s calf. It lay now detached in the bottom of the boat, stunned, and John was bleeding like a stuck pig from a circular wound in his leg.

Sejanus was still laughing so hard he couldn’t speak, but he grabbed the oar from Mr. Tudeley and rowed them ashore as quickly as he could. It wasn’t until he ran them aground that he was able to catch his breath enough to say: “Bind up his leg with the breech-clout, Winty! You’ve killed us a nice fish for dinner, too. White men make good bait, I guess, eh?”

They went back up the trail to the other side of the island. Mr. Tudeley ran ahead to the camp, to fetch John back a pair of breeches, while John limped along leaning on Sejanus. He felt dizzy and faint.

“Could have been worse,” said Sejanus. “Could have been the big one got your leg. You don’t go back in the water until your leg heals up, eh? Maybe Winty and I will try our luck. Maybe out on the Dutchman’s wreck. She had a big fine stern cabin; daresay there’s charts and sextants and such in there. Come on, don’t you go swooning. Talk to me! How do we build a pinnace? You ever built a boat before?”

“No,” said John. “I just reckoned we’d make it like the longboat. Only bigger.”

“Use the longboat as a pattern? That’s good. That’ll work. Collect the busted bits of wreck that’s washed ashore, eh? Some fine big planks washed up. Come on, keep walking, not much farther now. I see the camp. Oh, lord—” Sejanus began laughing again, and John gave a strangled cry of horror.

Mrs. Waverly, clad only in a shift, was running to meet them, closely pursued by Mr. Tudeley, who was waving his hands and protesting “But ma’am—but, ma’am!” Sejanus, with great presence of mind, snatched off his scarf and screened John’s privates with it.

“You was supposed to bring my breeches,” John shouted at Mr. Tudeley.

“It’s not my fault! She’s
washed
everything,” protested Mr. Tudeley.

“Oh, my poor Mr. James!” Mrs. Waverly fell to her knees beside John. She loosed the breech clout to examine his wound and it promptly gushed forth blood again. “Oh, my dear! This must be sewn up!”

John tried to explain that all he needed was a tighter bandage and a good-lie down and some rum, but somehow he came over all strange. The next thing he knew, he was lying on his face in camp and hearing Mrs. Waverly saying, “Hold his hands, for this will sting.” He yelled and started up when she splashed rum in the wound, and only Sejanus holding him down (and the consciousness that he was still naked under a bit of sailcloth) kept him from jumping to his feet. He put his head down and swore.

“Please don’t use that sort of language, Mr. James,” said Mrs. Waverly, threading a needle. “It ill becomes you.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said John, and gritted his teeth as she stitched him up.

He was given a big shellful of coconut water and rum afterward, and told to lie quiet. He was content enough to do this, sipping his rum and watching Mrs. Waverly move about the camp. Her shift was of rather fine material and gave the imagination a lot to work with. It seemed to unnerve Mr. Tudeley, who blushed and stammered, and stared when he didn’t think she noticed.

The whole camp had a domestic appearance now, with fresh-laundered laundry spread out on bushes to dry in the sun, for all the world like washing-day in the fields by Hackney Brook. Sejanus went back and fetched up the dogfish, which he gutted and cleaned. Mrs. Waverly cut it into steaks and grilled them over the coals. Later she knelt by John and fed him choice bits with her fingers, smiling and chatting on inconsequential matters with such grace and elegance, she might have been at Court.

“Now, dear Mr. James, I hope you’ll indulge me by drinking a little more coconut water,” she said at last, wiping her hands.

“Yes, ma’am,” said John. “I’m sorry about the indecency, ma’am.”

She laughed gaily. “Why, Mr. James, a gentleman in his natural state is not indecent if there is no lewd purpose to his undress. In any case, we are presently far from Society and its constraints, as Mr. Tudeley pointed out.” She patted his shoulder, and perhaps her hand lingered a moment too long on his bare skin. “Nor are you an ill-favored man.”

“Very kind of you to say so, I’m sure,” he said, trying not to notice that he could see her nipples through the gauzy fabric of her shift.

John might have died and gone to Fiddler’s Green, so pleasant his next couple of days were; for he had nothing to do but lie in the shade in his shirt, and sip coconut water while Sejanus and Mr. Tudeley worked at collecting planks from the wreckage scattered on both sides of the island. They had a go at diving on the Dutchman’s wreck themselves, from which they did manage to recover some navigational gear and sodden charts, before another reef shark came cruising to see what they were doing.

Mrs. Waverly found that going about in her shift was altogether so comfortable and convenient, in the intemperate heat, that she declined to wear anything else. John fashioned himself a crutch to hobble about with for necessary purposes, but mostly he lay still as he had been bid, with his bandaged leg propped up on a roll of sailcloth. He watched Mrs. Waverly’s bare ankles twinkling about, and observed keenly as she bent over to stir fish-broth simmering in the pot they had salvaged, or crouched to rub fish oil into the leather of her shoes. His leg hurt a bit, and itched powerfully as the wound began to heal, but she treated him as tenderly as though he were at death’s door. John was altogether a happy man.

Mr. Tudeley, on the other hand, was quite flustered. The first day or so he avoided looking at Mrs. Waverly at all, averting his eyes from her whenever possible.