Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key (5 page)

“What is it?” said Mrs. Waverly, out of the darkness. She sounded full wide awake.

“Somebody dropped something.”

“I don’t believe so,” she said. John heard her rustling about. “I believe you were dreaming, Mr. James. I heard nothing. Do go back to sleep.”

The deck was flush, all the pegs sanded down and all the nail-holes stuffed with oakum and tar. Now John saw why Reynald’s men put up with his silly-arse ideas about universal brotherhood; for the captain knew his craft. He had the
Harmony
rerigged, giving her fore-and-aft sails for speed.

Reynald stalked her aft deck in satisfaction, gazing up at the spars and lines, now and then ordering an adjustment. When she was in full trim they caught a wind and ran, and made twelve knots. She might be broad in the beam, but now the
Harmony
was fast as a hare, and answered the helm like a willing bride.

No sooner was she apt for work but she found employment.

“Allons!” Captain Reynald grinned and closed up his spyglass. “Flag of Spain! Anslow, signal the
Fraternity
. We pursue!”

John, who had been cleaning the one-pound gun, looked up in interest. He could just make out the tilting pyramid of sail on the northern horizon, and the unwieldy bulk under it that suggested a merchant galleon. He cheered up considerably. Cargoes of tortoiseshell and logwood were pleasant enough to have a share in; the same went for sugar and rum. But the prospect of Spanish emeralds, or gold, or silver from the mines of Potosi, was enough to make the mouth water.

“What’s happening?” said Mr. Tudeley, who had been helping him by holding the rags and bucket of grease.

“We’re going into action,” said John, grinning as he watched the
Fraternity
wheel about and take off after the Spaniard like a coursing greyhound. The
Harmony
came about too and cut after her, and men catcalled and ran up into the rigging for a better view as they sped along.

“Oh dear God,” said Mr. Tudeley. “And now I shall be party to murder and robbery.”

“No!” said John. “That’s a Spanish ship, see? Now, you and me being English, our consciences are clear. They’re the enemies of the nation, so for us it’s a proper act of war.”

“But there has been a treaty signed,” said Mr. Tudeley. “We are at peace now, or hadn’t you heard?”

John had heard something of the sort, but he shrugged. “Like as not they’ll declare war again, when they hear what we done at Panama. And, you know, they’re only Papists after all.” He looked around at Captain Reynald. “Shouldn’t care to be a Frenchman,” he added thoughtfully, “because they’re Papists too, and I don’t know how they square their consciences going after Spaniards.”

“I can’t bear this,” said Mr. Tudeley, gathering up his rags and bucket. “I’m going to my cabin.”

“Just fetch up the powder and shot first, will you?” John called after him, watching avidly as the distance closed between the
Harmony
and the Spaniard.

The Spaniard was the
Santa Ysabel
, and the
Fraternity
had already engaged her to port when the
Harmony
came storming up to starboard. Little puffs of smoke were showing, here and there as muskets were fired.

John, who had been waiting impatiently for Mr. Tudeley’s return, sprinted below and found him struggling upward with his arms full of shot, holding a powder horn between his teeth. “Oh, Bleeding Jesus,” cried John, and grabbed him up bodily and ran back on deck with him.

“Le gouvernail!” Captain Reynald was roaring, pointing at the
Santa Ysabel
’s rudder. They were within point blank range. “Shoot! Shoot her!”

“Aye sir!” John slammed down Mr. Tudeley and relieved him of a gunball. He grabbed the powder horn, loaded, turned for a bit of wadding—

“Where’s the damn wadding?”

“The what?”

John spotted a book peeping from Mr. Tudeley’s coat pocket. “Here.” He grabbed it, tore out a page and shoved it down the gun, over Mr. Tudeley’s cry of outrage. The ball was rammed down, and then—

“Where’s the slow match?”

“You didn’t ask for one!”

“Oh, you whoreson ninny—”

“Merde! C’est incroyable,” muttered one of the musketmen, and dropped to his knees beside John, who aimed for the
Santa Ysabel
’s rudder. The one-pounder was tiny, no longer than John’s arm, but easy as a pistol to aim. They waited until the rise and the musketman dabbed his slow match to the touch hole. The gun fired; the little ball sped true and smashed pintle and gudgeon both, a beautiful shot if not much use. Hastily they reloaded, tearing another page from Mr. Tudeley’s book (“You bastards! That’s Boethius’s
The Consolation of Philosophy
!” raged Mr. Tudeley) and fired again, John praying for lightning to strike twice.

He heard the shot strike home but couldn’t see it; yet his luck must have held, for the
Santa Ysabel
wallowed and swung, drifting sidelong and turning her bow toward the
Fraternity
. Over the cracking of musket-fire John heard the Spanish tillerman cursing, as the
Harmony
cruised past and came around again.

Now the
Harmony
had the advantage, for her tops were full of buccaneers, crack marksmen. They picked off the one sharpshooter in the
Santa Ysabel
’s main top, whose attention had been focused on the men in the
Fraternity
. His covering fire stopped as the crew of the
Fraternity
pulled close enough to grapple and board.

John leapt up and ran below, grabbing a cutlass and axe from the arms-rack. He felt the crash as they ground into the
Santa Ysabel
’s side, but kept his feet and ran on deck once more, in time to see a Frenchman cut down right in front of him by a Spanish musketball. Mr. Tudeley was on his hands and knees, crawling crabwise. John kicked the dead man’s cutlass toward him.

“Come on!” he roared, as he spotted the Spanish marksman re-loading on the quarterdeck of the
Santa Ysabel
. He hurled the axe, which spun end over end and took the Spaniard full in the face. The man dropped with three inches of steel spike in his brains. John ran on and vaulted the shifting uneasy space at the rail, landing on his feet aboard the other vessel.

His enthusiasm evaporated, as it tended to do in the heat of battle, when his cold rational self woke to blood and mayhem. Panic drove him then, and so far had done well by him, enabling him to mow through his assailants.

He looked around now and promptly ducked, as one of the defenders swung a Toledo blade at him. The man had a better blade and was a better swordsman; John knew no style but a butcher’s, but he was bigger and had the reach on the other, and was scared besides. His opponent fell with a grunt, cleft at the shoulder, and didn’t move again. John saw men boiling up from belowdecks and yelled in terror. He put his blade up and beat away the first, and beheaded the second, and by slow degrees hacked through the crowd to the companionway and stood there gibbering, killing the Spaniards before they could come out, like a housewife smashing beetles.

Then there was blood all over the deck, all over the treads of the companionway, and John was looking down at dead men. He peered around, confused. Something was on fire, smoke tendrils were drifting up now from the hole at his feet. He saw Sejanus, grinning white through a mask of blood as he fought, and behind him another black man, one John did not recognize. The man was a near-giant, whaling away with a big squared blade; his strokes mirrored those of Sejanus, with eerie precision. It looked almost like a martial dance.

Then a grimacing enemy rose into John’s field of vision, pointing a pistol full into his face. John shouted and ducked, cutting the Spaniard’s legs out from under him. He rose and to his astonishment saw Mr. Tudeley, holding his cutlass out as though it was a poker, attempting to fend off an opponent. The other lunged forward and sliced away Mr. Tudeley’s left ear, and cut the string that held his spectacles on his face to boot. Yet he overreached.

His stroke carried him against the rail, in which time Mr. Tudeley had time to realize what had happened. He caught his spectacles and clapped a hand to the side of his head, disbelieving; then burst into tears. He ran full tilt at his enemy and impaled him on his blade. The man fell, yanking the hilt from Mr. Tudeley’s grasp as he dropped. Mr. Tudeley stood there weeping, streaming blood down his neck. He fumbled for his handkerchief and clapped it to where his ear had been, murmuring “You bastard, oh, you bastard. How shall I wear my spectacles now?”

“Victoire!” someone was shouting. John turned to stare and saw Captain Reynald swinging a bloody cutlass on high. All the Spaniards were down, dead or dying. The
Santa Ysabel
had been taken.

When they ventured below they saw they might have taken the
Santa Ysabel
, but they weren’t likely to keep her. A fire had been started somewhere down in the hold, and thick white smoke was billowing up. Some of the men went down with buckets of water to try to put it out, but they couldn’t find where it was before the smoke drove them out again, blinded with tears, choking.

So in the end it became a frantic game, running down with wet cloths bound over their mouths to grab what bales and boxes they could and drag them up on deck, to be swung over to the
Harmony
. John and Anslow hung off the stern on ropes and kicked in the windows of the great cabin. They got a lot of the Spanish captain’s candlesticks and plate that way, as well as some armor and navigation gear.

But all the while the smoke was getting thicker, and the fire could be heard now, crackling away somewhere deep. The
Fraternity
ungrappled and cast off, sailing free just as the first red flame appeared. Little bright tongues danced up through a blackened patch of deck. “Abandon ship!” someone shouted, and John joined the general rush to scramble back on board the
Harmony
. They cast off and moved away from the
Santa Ysabel
with bare moments to spare: indeed the
Harmony
’s paint was bubbled and discolored from the heat, where she’d lain too close. The same breeze that pushed them away fanned the blaze, and looking back John could see the little flames running up the
Santa Ysabel
’s shrouds and lines like sailors.

They did not stay to watch it burn, but beat away north. Still it was visible a long while behind them, as night fell, an inferno pitching up and down on the black water.

IT OCCURRED TO JOHN to wonder where Mrs. Waverly had been during the battle. He assumed she had sensibly remained in her cabin, but thought he ought to go down and ask her how she did. So, as the wounded were being laid out groaning, John took a horn lamp and went below.

“Ma’am?” he said, knocking on the door. There was no answer. He wondered if she had fainted, and opened the door and shone the lantern in. There was no sign of her.

“What are you doing, Mr. James?” Her voice came from behind him. He swung around to see her approaching him from the direction of the foc’sle.

“What’re
you
doing?” he demanded, in his surprise. She looked pained.

“Seeing to private matters,” she said primly.

“Oh.”

“I trust the engagement is over, and Captain Reynald won?”

“Aye, he did, ma’am”

“And were many poor fellows wounded, on our side?”

“We’re fair cut up, ma’am, but the other side’s are all dead.”

“I must do my best to tend to our boys, then,” said Mrs. Waverly. She shoved past him into the cabin. He heard her rummaging in her trunk. She emerged with one of her shifts, tearing it into strips, and went up on deck. John followed her.

There was a sort of Guy Fawkes’ Night air on deck, with the smell of gunpowder strong and the loot from the
Santa Ysabel
piled up all untidy in the lanternlight. The wounded sat or lay here and there, while the others were eagerly opening barrels and crates to see what they’d got. Mrs. Waverly knelt at once to play the ministering angel to the hurt. John shrugged and walked forward to the plunder.

“What’d we take?”

“Commodities,” said a Frenchman named Belanger, and spat. “Maize flour. Salt. Le tissu coton, what d’you call her, calico?”

“Hell,” said John. “Well, the candlesticks and plate ought to be worth something, eh?”

“We will get a good price for all,” Captain Reynald told them. “Turn it all into gold at la belle Tortue! Madame, truly you are a saint.” He crouched beside Mrs. Waverly, who was binding up the stump of Mr. Tudeley’s ear.

“It is a lady’s duty, sir,” she said, smiling at him. Mr. Tudeley paused in his lament long enough to watch sourly as Captain Reynald kissed Mrs. Waverly’s hand, and then resumed:

“—Maimed, maimed like a common criminal, I might as well have been branded for a thief! How shall I show my face in public again?”

“Your scar shall be a badge of honor, my friend,” Captain Reynald told him, gazing into Mrs. Waverly’s eyes.

“Oh, gammon and spinach,” snapped Mr. Tudeley. “And what am I to do about my spectacles?”

“Tie them around the back of your head,” advised Sejanus, who had come through the entire fight without a scratch. He found a bit of string and bound Mr. Tudeley’s spectacles on for him, though he had to fasten them around the outside of the bandage Mrs. Waverly had bound on, the ends of which stuck up on Mr. Tudeley’s head like rabbit ears. “There! Now you can see.”

“Though I shan’t wish to look in my shaving-glass,” moaned Mr. Tudeley. “What indignity.”

“Have some rum,” said John absently, for he was rummaging in one of the boxes he’d salvaged from the Spanish captain’s cabin. It looked to have nothing much of value in it. He pulled out a comb and a bundle of letters bound with ribbon, a block of sealing wax, a sort of jointed ivory tool containing a toothpick and other personal grooming devices. There was a smaller box inside, too. John opened it and whistled. He saw a pair of earrings, gold set with dangling emeralds, and a twist of paper that when opened contained four loose pearls of varying sizes.