Pirates! (26 page)

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Chapter 43

We would not lie skulking and hiding, waiting for the pirate hunter to find us. Broom called the crew together and all agreed. We would go out to meet him, back on the account. We would take our old places. It would be like the old days, with Vincent as mate, Pelling as quartermaster, Phillips as gunner, but we would sail without Minerva.

She was with child. She was in the early stages, and much afflicted with sickness, and although she argued that women have served before in that delicate state, no one would even hear her out. She spoke strongly to go with us, came as near as her nature would allow her to pleading, but Vincent would not countenance it, neither would Broom, and neither would I.

We sailed out on the
New Fortune
. The big Dutch East Indiaman was armed with extra guns, strong enough to take anything that might come against us, or so we thought. The weather was fine and we had fair winds, but Vincent continued gloomy. He leaned over the rail, staring down at the waves folding back from the prow. He was worried about Minerva, about leaving her.

‘She will be safe,’ I replied to him. ‘He comes for me, not her.’

I felt that in leaving we were acting like a bird trailing her wing, leading the fox away from her nest. I thought that she would be safer there on the island than here on the ship with me. But the Brazilian was no fox. He was a wolf of the sea.

Broom set double watches. Every minute of the day and night, to larboard and starboard and high on the topgallant platform, eyes scanned the horizon until they ached with watching, looking to every degree of the compass, seeing nothing, until we all began to question the enterprise, thinking it futile. Perhaps Andrews was wrong in what he had told us. Perhaps the ship that had been sighted truly was the
Flying Dutchman.
Such aimless cruising was pointless; we could wander the Southern Ocean like the albatross and still never find him. We would go back to Madagascar and wait there for fresh news, or none.

He came at us just after daybreak on our fifth day out as we prepared to return to the island.

The night had been calm and there was hardly a breath of wind stirring the sails. I was on watch, staring towards the east, as I always did, longing for the morning, waiting for the first spark of light to pierce the darkness. The day broke with one single beam, as if some great beacon were stationed just below the horizon. The sky began to pale and slowly the tiny dot of light turned into a great wavering orange circle surrounded by clouds shot through with pink and purple.

Dawn brought mist with it, rolling across the sea towards us, and soon we were enveloped. Droplets formed on our faces, our clothes and hair, beading deck and rail, loading the sails with damp. The Southern Ocean can be cold. Men heaved on their fearnoughts, or pulled them close at the collar.

‘It’s bloody cold up here!’ Phillips, who was to take the next watch, came up on deck. ‘We could be in the North Sea!’ He hawked and spat, lifted a bottle from his pocket and took a nip, offering it to the men shivering round him.

‘It’ll burn off soon.’ Vincent nodded in the direction of the rising sun. ‘It’s going already.’

A rosy glow showed deep in the centre of the cloud, like light seen through alabaster.

‘Hold up! What’s that!’ One of the men, Lawson, was leaning over the rail, straining out into the fog. ‘There’s a ship! Look!’

His finger wavered as he pointed. It was death to be the first to sight the
Dutchman
. The others drew back as if he were already accursed.

A dark shape showed deep in the swirling mist. She appeared in apparent miniature: a ship cut from paper, overlaid with gauze. Then she swung about. She was coming towards us, getting larger and larger, looming out of the fog, standing under a press of sail as though she would run us down.

We stepped back from the rail.

‘How is she moving?’ Lawson said in wonder. ‘And how so fast?’ He looked up at our masts. ‘When there’s not a cat’s paw of wind in our sail.’

The black ship was closing quickly. It was possible to see men in the rigging. Once her sails must have been black. Now they were bleached to a rusty hue, like blood dried on to linen. We all knew that something should be happening. Orders shouted. Men jumping to it. There was nothing. No one did anything. The fog sheathed us in silence; the only sound was the hiss of water off the ship’s bows.

Vincent broke the spell, yelling for someone to fetch Broom. The captain appeared, stuffing his shirt into his breeches, shouting and bellowing, screeching for men to get up the rigging and put out every inch of sail.

‘Turn her! Damn you! Turn her!’ he screamed at the helmsman. ‘We don’t want to meet her beam on!’

The ship groaned and shuddered, as the helmsman strove to do his bidding. Beam on, we presented an open target. We needed to show the attacking ship our stern, or meet her prow to prow.

‘Can’t budge her,’ the helmsman grunted. ‘She’s dead in the water!’

She was approaching from the windward side. We were giving our whole starboard side to the advancing ship. In answer to every man’s thought came the boom of cannon and a puff of smoke from her gun ports. The ball splashed into the water. It had fallen short, but not by much.

‘Gunners!’ Broom yelled. ‘To your posts! Give ’em Hell.’ He turned to Vincent. ‘They hoisted any colours?’

‘Black flag with no device.’

‘Well, get ours up there! We’ll show the buggers! By God, they’ll know what it means to attack the skull and crossed bones!’ He turned to yell down the ship. ‘Gunners! Prepare to fire!’

‘Hold up, Captain! Hold up!’ I grabbed his arm.

‘Hold up?’ Broom looked round. ‘For what? She’s almost on us!’

‘Look there! On the bow!’

Minerva was bound to the underside of the bowsprit, her arms wrenched back. In the eye of my mind, she appears larger than life, as if the ship were named
Minerva
, and she were the figurehead, a carving of her namesake.

The Brazilian’s ship was bearing down, threatening to ram us. The wind died as if by command. Except there was no wind. There never had been. His ship’s rusty sails dropped in their shrouds as limp as ours. The two vessels came gliding together as sweetly as if piloted by masters.

The mist was lifting; we were in the full light of sun again. The Brazilian stood on the quarterdeck, the diamond cross on his chest breaking the light into a thousand dazzling shards, as he swung round towards us.

‘I have found you at last. You have led me a dance.’ He nodded towards Minerva trussed under the bowsprit. ‘Do you enjoy my little tableau?’

‘It’s me you want.’ I stepped forward. ‘Let her go!’

‘All in good time.’ He leaned over the rail. ‘First you must put down your weapons. Throw them on the deck. Any man who thinks to disobey, is dead.’

Sharpshooters flanked him, others hung from the rigging, all with long muskets aimed at us. Pistols, cutlasses, swords and knives clattered on to the deck. As if to prove a point, a shot rang out, then another. Two men fell for fumbling their weapons or being slow at unbuckling their belts.

Already Bartholome’s men were streaming down the sides of his ship and over into ours, pouring down the hatches. Some scurried about the deck, collecting the weapons up into sacks. The pirates looked away from them, and from each other; their eyes seeking a stain on the deck, a knot in the planking. I knew that they would be gripped with the shame of having their weapons confiscated, of being taken without a fight. They were just about broken. The Brazilian’s men rounded them up with no trouble at all.

We were forced from one vessel to the other, at the point of gun and cutlass, and collected in the waist of the Brazilian’s ship. Men went among the pirates, binding them in pairs, back to back, like chickens waiting for market. Minerva was cut down from the bowsprit and brought to the Brazilian on the quarterdeck.

He made her kneel before him and seized her by the hair. He took out a long curving knife and held the blade under her jaw, the point angled into her ear. I thought of her throat cut, the blood spilling like the necklace he’d given to me. I remembered what Phillis had said about seeing my death upon me. What if it had not been me she had seen, but Minerva?

He ordered me forwards.

‘What will you do to save her life?’

‘Anything,’ I replied. ‘Anything you ask of me. Anything at all.’

‘Very well.’ He let Minerva go. ‘Remember your promise.’

I was sent below to put on women’s clothes. I was trembling with terror, but it was important to show no fear. I kept my voice steady, saying that I would not go unless Minerva came with me. I needed her to help me. She was my body slave; how could I dress without her? He let me have her without question. He was old-fashioned, rigid in his thinking. He lived in a world where women did nothing for themselves, were helpless without their slaves to attend them. He did not think that I had been living among men, dressed as one of them, for more than a year. What did I do for a woman’s help then?

My rooms were prepared: one for living, one for sleeping. I had never seen such apartments given over to just one person, not even to a captain. My own trunks stood against the wall, from Madagascar, even from Fountainhead. One of my own dresses was laid out on a bed bolted to the deck. It was the gown that I’d worn on my sixteenth birthday, when I went to dinner at his plantation.

Minerva was shaking from her ordeal, her eyes wide, her body trembling in every limb. I put my arm round her and led her to the bed and sat next to her.

‘They came in the night. Two days after you left. Attacking without warning, on us before any even noticed. They moved up through the village, killing all who opposed them. I heard the commotion, but by then they were already at our house. They held me captive, then went through the rooms, gathering up all your possessions. I had no time even to draw a weapon – ’

‘Never mind that now. What about the baby? Are you all right?’

She nodded. ‘I think. Not that it matters now. He is mad.’ I saw the tears start in her eyes. ‘He will kill us all.’

A man who would use a living woman as his figurehead was capable of anything.

‘That’s as maybe,’ I whispered, holding her to me. ‘But we are not dead yet. Let us see what possibilities this place offers. We need to know our fighting ground.’

The door outside was guarded but, as is common on ships, my quarters were part of a suite of rooms, one opening on to another towards the stern. No one barred our way as we slipped through the folding doors that led to the next apartment. The Brazilian’s night quarters. Minerva’s eyebrows rose at the proximity of mine to his. We crept past a great carved damask-draped bed, and on towards his day cabin. This was furnished as richly as if the ship were a floating palace. The walls were thickly panelled and hung with antique weapons and armour, badged with coats of arms that were half obscured by a patina of time, as if they had been taken from the walls of some ancient house.

The room was lit by great stern windows, as large as in any admiral’s grand cabin. A wide desk stood under them, laid out with charts and flanked by an astrolabe, globe and compass. A great carved chair faced out, as if the occupant liked to gaze at the sea as well as to study the charts in front of him. We had seen enough. We tiptoed back to my cabin.

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Chapter 44

A servant delivered the rubies that had been given to me so long ago. The Brazilian must have gone through all my possessions to find them. It was clear I was to wear the same dress as I had worn on my birthday. It was strange. Puzzling. As if no time had elapsed at all for him. I did not hurry my dressing. We spun it out as long as possible, trying to fathom his mind, pierce into his thinking. If we were to defeat him, we had to outwit him. We were overmastered in every other way. It was our only hope. I had lived in dread for these many months, but now the moment had come, I had no fear of him. It was exactly how I felt before an attack. I would stand trembling and sick as the ships drew together, but once the engagement had begun, I was as fearless as any other.

By the time I was summoned, I had put on the gown. It was low cut at the front and Minerva cinched in the bodice as tight as she could make it. My face was powdered, my lips rouged, my hair dressed and piled high. I was arrayed for battle.

‘How do I look?’ I whispered to Minerva.

‘You look wonderful! He won’t be able to keep his eyes away from you. Just like Thornton!’

I fixed the earring in my ear while she clasped the necklace about my neck. The gooseflesh rose on my arms at its cold grip. I slid a finger under the hard edge of the gold, trying to loosen it away from my throat. I felt as if it were choking me.

Minerva took my hands away and held them gently down at my sides.

‘Don’t touch it in his presence.’

The Brazilian was seated in the great carved chair in the grand cabin, his arms lying along the wide curved arms, gazing out at the view those great windows afforded him. He waved a ringed hand, indicating for me to stand in front of him with my back to the window. The man who had brought me was dismissed.

‘Now I have you!’ He leaned back against his chair, surveying me. A prize taken at sea.

‘I hope you are not disappointed.’

‘On the contrary, my dear. I like you all the better for the chase you’ve led me.’

‘What will you do with me now?’

‘What I intended all along. I will take you back and marry you. But I do not think that we will return to Jamaica. Too much is known about your history there. No. I will take you to South America. Brazil, perhaps, to São Luís. I have a house there, and my sister will be a companion to you, for I am often away. Or, on the other hand,’ he smiled as if he were bestowing some benign golden future upon me, although his dark eyes glinted with cruelty, ‘I also have interests in Manaus, far up the Amazon river. Maybe I will take you there.’

So I was to be entombed in a house with his sister, or sent to some Amazonian backwater. His smile grew wider. He knew I would relish neither prospect, but I took care not to react, or show any emotion. I would keep him guessing.

‘And what of my companions?’

‘The pirate rabble you travel with?’ He sat up to reach for a knife that lay on the desk. ‘They will go over the side to feed the fish.’

He sat back, straight in his chair, his eyes on mine, playing with the knife he had just taken up. It was narrow, double-bladed, and so perfectly balanced he could hold it on the tip of one finger at the point where the blade met the hasp. He threw it up, catching the hilt and holding it like a drumstick, tapping the needle tip against the palm of his hand.

‘The rubies still look magnificent on you, even if your skin is a little tawny. But you lack one earring.’ He looked at me critically. ‘Remove it. I do not like lack of symmetry. Hold it up.’

I did as he told me. It hung from my fingers like a drop of blood.

‘Tell me, my dear. What happened to the other one?’

I kept my eyes on his. His question seemed inconsequential, but I suddenly felt a heaviness within it, as if it were weighted with meaning I could not interpret, as sometimes such questions are in myth and story. The wrong answer meant death.

‘I gave it to another,’ I said.

‘You gave it to a whore. Is that not the case?’ He sat upright, his body uncoiling like a snake. ‘What a profligate gesture. And quite wasted on her. She was quick enough to tell me how she came by it. Almost as eager to talk as that love-sick cabin boy in New York. The banker was notably tight-mouthed, but the rest? Your old shipmates, the governor of that fort you took? All happy to tell me as much about you as they possibly could. Everyone has their price, but then you should know that by now.’ He paused and looked at the knife balanced on his finger end. ‘Put your trust in stones, did I not say that? They are as quick to betray you, my dear. Very like whores, in fact. It’s a fine stone.’ He focused on the ruby’s glow. ‘But what’s the use of just one earring? I have its pair here.’ He fished it from his waistcoat pocket and laid it on the table. It lay between us like a bubble of blood. ‘But now I’m thinking, perhaps you should wear just that one. As a pendant, maybe. There,’ he pointed with his knife, ‘between your lily-white breasts.’

I suddenly saw what I had not done before. Something that our plans had failed to take into account. The knife in his hand was for throwing. My rejection and flight had slighted him. I had run away with slaves rather than marry him, lived with pirates, given his gifts to whores. I had insulted him and his family beyond any reason and he had no intention of taking me anywhere. He had been merely toying with me. He meant to kill me then and there.

His grip on the knife shifted and he smiled. I had tried to keep my alarm and fear from my face, my eyes, but he saw it and took clear delight in my knowing that the position was hopeless. I was completely in his power. He could kill me at his leisure, and who would stop him? All the pirates were trussed like fowl on the deck, waiting his order to be tipped overboard. All the pirates but one.

He had neither seen, nor heard her. He had probably forgotten all about her, slaves being beneath his notice. Minerva had come into the room behind him, gliding on silent feet from my rooms into his. I kept my eyes away from her, allowing more fear to flare, my lips to tremble, as if I might start pleading, anything to keep his attention focused on our wordless battle. She took a sword from the wall. The hilt was long enough to take her two hands, the wide blade chased with Moorish designs on razor-sharp Toledo steel. She held it, testing the weight of it, the balance, then she took it in a double grip. She would have only one chance at this. She pulled the sword back past her left shoulder, then brought it forward in a scything motion, a wide blurring arc of grey metal, taking his head off at the neck.

‘It was the only way.’ Minerva threw the sword down, and leaned on the back of the chair, taking a deep shuddering breath. Then she reached down, grasping the head by the hair. ‘Now we must show this to his people. Without him, they are nothing.’

We held the bloody trophy between us. Men fell away before us as we mounted to the quarterdeck. We held the head aloft for all to see.

‘He is dead.’ Minerva’s voice rang out over the hushed deck. ‘I killed him. Now you will be commanded by me.’

They offered no resistance. They knelt before her, as if to some pirate queen.