Ransom (21 page)

Arise be damned. If the cook was willing to doctor the soup, that condition was not dependent on contact with other ships. They could make the opportunity when the time was right. As vehemently as Smith wanted to escape, as strongly as he abhorred the notion of having to buy his freedom from that arrogant brigand, he was not willing to get his men killed merely to save himself embarrassment. With what they knew, now, it was only a matter of time before Adrian was captured and his “business” ended. They might even, if they were very lucky, be picked up by a ship with enough speed and firepower that they could be in at the capture.

Besides, if Archer had gone missing this was not the time to engage the enemy. Thirty-eight against five was just less than eight-to-one odds; losing one man made it ten-to-one, and if Archer were not with them it meant Adrian had a hostage.

But how could anyone misplace a man on a little brig like this? It wasn’t possible. Perhaps Bert had simply not been present when Archer was moved.

And why would he be moved? Surely it made more sense to keep them together. Perhaps sense was not the main concern, though; had Adrian, fearing that what was happening among his disaffected crewmen might occur, decided to make escape more difficult by hiding one of his prisoners from all but a trusted few? Or, if Archer was in the sail locker—presumably a spot less comfortable than the cells—was it some kind of punishment, as it had been for Marshall? If so, for what offense?

Or was he even on board at all? If Marshall and Archer had come up with some way for one of them to escape—no. Not unless he had been able to get to the ship that had been nearby the night before last, and Bert would certainly have heard if there’d been an escape. If Archer were not on board...

That was extremely unlikely. Adrian would not purposely throw away £5000. Which meant that if Archer were not on board, he had probably gone over the side in the night—and he was almost certainly dead.

~

In a day and a half, David had not been returned to the cell. By midday, Marshall was ready to climb out the window, daylight or no. He spent the afternoon honing the adze blade until he’d scraped a groove in his shoe buckle. By nightfall, he was nearly frantic. But the guards said nothing, ignoring his questions. The fellow who switched buckets frowned at him, brows knitted; Marshall stared back impassively. Unless Adrian was playing yet another game—a very real possibility—something was seriously wrong.

Supper, the only meal they’d brought that day, came and went, and night dragged on. Marshall had just sufficient willpower to wait until lights-out before he was back at work, scraping at the last inches of wood that kept the bar in place. Somewhere around two bells, the adze-blade bit through wood above the bar. By four bells, an hour later, he was able to slide it up and out, and it was not until he held almost two feet of iron bar in his hand that he realized he had a weapon as well as an escape route.

At least in theory. If he wanted to conceal his absence, he could not take the bar along, and in any case he was planning a reconnaissance, not an assault. His intention had been to have David replace the bar and deflect any attention.

Captain Smith had said something once, sounding like he was quoting—“No plan survives the initial encounter with the enemy.” Their plan had included Archer, but the enemy had managed to scuttle it.
I’ll be damned if I’ll wait any longer.

Rather than leave the cell obviously empty, he shoved some straw into a body-shaped heap and arranged the sailcloth over it. With only a hint of reflected moonlight, he could not tell if it would fool anyone, but unless they brought David back, no one was likely to see his handiwork.

He stretched up and out through the opening, reaching for the edge of the hatch, and realized his body wouldn’t bend that way; he slid back inside, shucked off the confining jacket and shirt, and gave his straw twin a pillow and arms. He took his shoes and stockings off as an afterthought; most of the deckhands went barefooted, and some had light-colored sailcloth breeches. If anyone caught a brief glimpse, he might be mistaken for someone who had a legitimate reason to be on deck.

He could not go out forwards, so he tucked the bar into his waistband and tried again, backwards. It was damned awkward, but he was just able to catch the iron rings where the ropes were fastened. For one painful instant the sill of the port dug into his back, then he shoved off with his feet, hauled up with his arms, and dragged himself clear of the cell. The ropes tightened along the hull, but they held, and no head appeared at the rail above him.

For a moment he just sat there, legs dangling inside, and looked up at the stars, drunk on the wide openness and clean sea air blowing around him. He was just a few feet above the waterline; it was return from exile. But it was a little too cold to hold still for long, and he had a job to do.

The waning moonlight was enough to see that his guess about the rigging was fairly good; the closest chains looked to be about five feet away, a bit of a stretch, and he’d have to be sure he made no mistakes. The ship was moving slowly but steadily through the water, and if he were to slip off now that would be the end of it, and of him.

With great care, he fitted the bar back into position and stood, balancing on the sill and holding both hatch ropes. It was glorious to stand up straight, too—amazing how such small things could make such a difference.

He couldn’t hear anything from the deck, nor did he see any hatches that resembled theirs on this side of the hull; no surprise, though he’d still had a faint hope that the Captain’s cell would be accessible. The sail locker was on the opposite side, too; he’d known that from the angle of light.

Marshall slid to the edge of the sill and reached for the cable, leaning against the slight outward curve of the sea-sprayed hull. It leached the warmth out of him, bringing out gooseflesh all over his body. As if in reaction, his mind gave him a clear picture of the insane position he was in, splayed out against the hull, hanging on to the dubious security of a line meant only to hold a shutter closed, standing a few feet above the moving sea with no safety-rope around him, his fingers just barely grasping the first vertical cable.

Sheer physical fear did focus the attention wonderfully well. He could not stay here; if he didn’t go back inside, he had to move. He tried to reach the chains with his right foot, but he’d had to angle too sharply for his handhold.

Nothing for it, then. With a small wordless prayer, he gathered himself and leapt, his left hand locking on to the cable just above his right. His toes scrabbled at the side of the hull for a moment, then caught in the pegs anchoring the very bottom of the chains.

Heart pounding, he hung there long enough to collect himself, then began to climb, hand-over-hand until he reached the lowest ratlines, still below the deck along the side of the hull. Even though he had done his best to take exercise, the week’s confinement and short rations had worn the edge off his strength, and he rested there until his breathing steadied.

As carefully as if he were boarding an enemy ship—which he was, really—Marshall crept up the shrouds until he could see over the rail. He was a little aft of amidships, nearly even with the quarterdeck. He couldn’t see much of it, but could hear two voices up there, without making out the words. Neither sounded like Adrian; he was probably asleep.

For a mad instant he wondered what would happen if he were to vault the railing, charge into Adrian’s cabin, and attack him with whatever came to hand. Before he could decide whether that would be brave or stupid, he made out the forms of two guards standing before the cabin door. As it was on the opposite side of the deck, his chances of getting there without them seeing him were slight. In fact, his chances of getting on deck at all, unseen, in this light, were terrible. Not with those guards there. Were they permanent fixtures, or was Adrian up to something at this hour?

As he crouched there wondering, the guards shifted and the door to Adrian’s cabin swung open. Marshall ducked back down, straining to hear. He caught what might have been, “... back to his cell..” and risked a quick look above. Sure enough, someone was muffled in that cloak—but he couldn’t tell who it was. Davy? If so, thank God, but that meant they’d be putting him in the cell. And Marshall knew there was no way in the world he could get back in there quickly enough to avoid discovery.

~

Archer felt like a sleepwalker as the guards bundled him back to the cell. It had been less than a day and a half since he’d been taken out, but it felt like forever. He had a quick glimpse of Marshall lying in the corner before the lantern was taken away. “Will?” he whispered.

No response. Archer shrugged away his disappointment and moved quietly to the porthole. The bar turned easily, and, on experimenting, he found that it was ready to be removed. No wonder Will was sleeping so soundly; he must have spent every moment after lights-out working on it. The moon would be closer to dark tomorrow night, and dark the night after. One night to scout, one to make their move. The timing could not be better.

He found his folded sleeping-mat by touch and the faint reflection of moonlight that came in the hatch, and arranged it on the straw. Odd that William would be lying under his; it wasn’t all that chilly tonight, at least not in here.

He lay back and tried to sleep; he knew he should. But every time he closed his eyes he was back in Adrian’s cabin the night before, trying to regain control of himself after his body had emphatically rejected Adrian’s attentions, along with the dinner he’d just eaten. He had never been troubled in the least by seasickness, but sometimes nerves had that same effect on his interior. Nerves, and Adrian’s increasingly imaginative demands.

He rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth, reflexively. Well, there was no question that his reaction had put the bastard off, at least temporarily. It must be difficult to maintain the role of irresistibility when one’s imagined paramour couldn’t keep his dinner down
. He couldn’t say I didn’t warn him.

That had not sweetened Adrian’s temper, of course. He’d made Archer clean up the mess and then sent him off to what must have been the storage locker where Marshall had found the adze blade. One of the guards had been thoughtful enough to leave water, and Archer’d found the raised seat Will had built. A few more folded sails, and he was able to lie on it and escape into sleep, his jacket over his face to discourage rats.

Except for the isolation, it had not been bad; if he sat up he could see moonlight on the water outside, and once a mist of spray from an unusually high wave had blown against his face. His only worry had been that Adrian would turn his attention to William, but he hadn’t really expected that, not yet, and his surmise was borne out when a different set of guards appeared the next evening to take him back up.

Some of his earlier detachment had returned by then; he was only a little dismayed when Adrian announced that they would repeat the previous evening’s activities before dinner. But the bastard had not pushed things quite as far as he had the night before, and Archer felt he could count that as a minor victory.

Besides that, Adrian had lost the worst of his weapons without even knowing it. Whatever he might do, he could no longer threaten to tell Will—or, rather, he could threaten, or even tell him, but that no longer mattered. Archer still found it incredible that Marshall had embraced and absolved him, but it was enormously comforting, even if it were to turn out that Captain Smith and the rest of the world saw the situation differently.

He wished, selfishly, that William would wake for even a little while. His relentless optimism somehow neutralized much of Adrian’s poison. But it would be unfair to waken him; it was not as if they had any more to do on the porthole, and—

Something thumped against the port, and Archer nearly jumped out of his skin. “Will!” He grabbed for his sleeping friend’s arm—and his hand clutched an empty shirtsleeve. It was only his throat freezing with fright that kept him silent. Then the pieces slipped into place and he leapt up to move the bar out of the way as a bare foot landed on the hatch. Archer peered out. “Will?”

“Thank God—Davy, stand clear!” Marshall ordered in a whisper. A second foot joined the first, then he shot through the porthole like a dolphin cleaving the water. He landed off-balance; Archer caught and steadied him. Damp and shivering, Marshall seized his shoulders. “Are you all right?” he asked through chattering teeth.

“More or less.” Archer handed him the bar. “I see you’ve had a busy night.”

“Mainly the last half-hour,” Marshall said in an undertone, setting the porthole to rights. “Your timing was perfect, Davy. I could hear someone on deck coming over to the rail and I’d never have got this out in time. The chains are just barely within reach, and it’s much easier going than getting back.” He sat on the sailcloth and pulled on his shirt. “Chilly out there. I take it my dumb twin passed muster with the guards?”

Archer sat, too, his spirits lifting. “Never mind the guards, I’ve been lying here for the past 15 minutes wondering when it was going to wake up. Was your excursion a success?”

“Less than I’d hoped. I don’t know if Adrian posts a guard on his door all night, or only when you’re up there, but if he does, it will make things more difficult. He certainly keeps strange hours.”

“I know. I remember reading somewhere that the Red Indians in the colonies always attack in the small hours because men are at their lowest ebb. Perhaps that’s why he moves us around at that hour.”

“It makes as much sense as anything, but we’re used to having the watch change every four hours. Why would he expect it to matter? Oh, to hell with his peccadillos; you’re back. Are you really all right? Where have you been all this time?”

“Where you were, that sail locker. It was a bit close, but you’d already cleaned it up; anything’s better than being in his quarters. I annoyed him again—don’t ask,” Archer added hastily. “All he did this time was banish me, and the view was pleasant.”