Sea Witch (32 page)

Dismissing the subject, Jennings began to stroll from the jetty. “Do as your ex-wife suggests,” he said over his shoulder. “Go back to Cape Town. And stay there.”

Twenty Two

“Women are not permitted aboard ship.” Rue stood, arms folded his face set grim, blocking the entry port. “Rules of Articles.”

“Sod the bloody Articles.” Giving a fair mimicry of Jesamiah’s voice Tiola stepped over the rail from where she had climbed up the hull cleats and swept Rue aside with her arm. He was a large man in his mid-forties, tall and heavily built, she, half his size and less than a third his weight. Tiola ignored him, marched towards the quarterdeck and swung herself easily up the narrow companionway ladder.

“I have seen Jesamiah set sail in a matter of minutes,” she announced, tartly. “Why are we still in harbour? Would it not be best to cut the anchor cable now?”

“Now, belay a minute,
mademoiselle
!” Rue blustered, astounded, hurrying up behind her. “Just who in ‘ell do you think you are? Throwing your weight about – what there is of it – aboard my ship?” He scanned her slender figure, reckoned he could lift her with one finger and toss her overboard.

Tiola cocked her head to one side, her eyes sparking. She was at least two hand-spans shorter than he but her confidence made her appear twice as tall. “I am Tiola Oldstagh and this is
my
ship.”

Rue put his fists to his hips, legs straddled and laughed outright at her audacity, a great bull roar rumbling from deep within his belly. “And ‘ow, in all ‘ell, do you figure that one?”

She copied his pose. “Because Captain Jesamiah Acorne named her after me and because I wear this.” She lifted her hand, showed her marriage finger and the acorn signet ring she had slid from a pocket while in the bum-boat, exchanging it for the one Stefan had put there as proof of ownership. That ring, she had disdainfully dropped into the sea without a second thought. “Because also, I am his woman and he is my mate. And because twice now you have referred to hell. We are not there, Rue – it is Rue, is it not? – Jesamiah is. He has been taken into its burning pit and I intend to fetch him out, preferably while he is still alive and sane. I cannot do so without this ship, however. I would therefore appreciate your help, although I do not need it.”

Again Rue guffawed. So this was the wench Tiola? Looking at her he could see why Jesamiah had plunged full scale in love with her, aye and broken his heart over losing her. Several scathing answers rumbled into his mind to belay her arguments; about to launch them at her he paused, reconsidered. Henry Jennings had sent word that Jesamiah required urgent assistance, he had seen for himself his captain being dragged aboard that red-hulled ship. Had seen the blood on him, and the stains on the floor of the great cabin aboard this ship.

To go to this length? Phillipe Mereno must want revenge very badly. Rue had always thought it unwise to have confronted him on his own turf. He frowned at Tiola standing there before him, her dark eyes fixed, unwavering on his. Not a sign of doubt in her. She reminded him of a pet dog he had been given as a boy. Damned thing had a mind of its own and once it got hold of something in its teeth brute force would not have made it let go. Damned loyal little thing. Best friend he had ever had.

And then he had a sudden suspicion that trying to remove this young woman would not be such a good idea. “Short of physically tossing you over the side, you are not going to leave are you?” he asked shrewdly.

She shook her head. “I am not.”

Rubbing at his chin he flung a questioning look at Isiah Roberts who had come up behind him. Roberts shrugged. Across the harbour came the last of the men, pulling hard at the oars.

“Cut the cable as soon as those laggards are aboard Isiah,” Rue ordered, making a sudden decision, which he hoped was the right one.

“Aye, Sir!” Roberts grinned, proffered an imitation of a Navy salute, fingers to his fore-crown palm innermost. Soldiers of the army, marines – everyone except a sailor – saluted with the palm faced outward, but then their hands were not permanently grimed from the stain of tar.

“And you, er,
Madame
,” Rue pointed his stubby finger, as tar and gunpowder-marked as Isiah’s, at Tiola. “Remove yourself from this quarterdeck. Jesamiah’s cabin is below, I will expect you to remain there.”

Tiola acknowledged his acceptance of her presence with a polite, feminine curtsey. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” Rue answered as he began loosening off halyards to raise the gaff of the mizzen sail. “Away aloft! Trice up and lay out!” he shouted to the crew. Instantly men ran, eager to obey orders.

As she stepped down from the quarterdeck he remarked casually, “By the way, I am surprised you ‘ave not learnt from Jesamiah; one person alone cannot sail a ship of this size. Especially not a woman – a slip of a girl such as yourself.” He laughed aloud at the ridiculous thought.

Tiola smiled pleasantly up at him, thought perhaps this was not the appropriate moment to disillusion him. Indeed, one person alone could not. One witch, however, were she to put her mind to it, certainly could.

The last of the men, blowing hard from their rowing, scrabbled aboard and hauled in the longboat; others were hurrying aloft, their bodies ascending the shrouds dark against the brilliant blue of the sky, and running out along the yards to cast off the gaskets and wait there, poised, holding the sails.

Roberts was hurrying forward with two other men – Mr Janson and Toby Turner, Tiola was to learn later – axes over their shoulders. As requested she left the quarterdeck, but had no intention of going below. Instead, she followed behind Mr Roberts, made her way to where the bowsprit soared outward above the sea and the figurehead. As she progressed forward she felt the crew staring at her with mistrust and hostility; there were some men who thought it unlucky to have a woman aboard ship. Curt, and with authority, Rue stowed the muttering with one bark of explanation. “She is the Captain’s woman. She ‘as as much right to go after ‘im, as do we.”

That was all that was needed.

“Might not be sensible to stand there Miss,” one of the crew offered respectfully, a young man with the first fuzz of a blond beard grazing his chin. “If the sea blows up rough the spray can be uncomfortable up ‘ere,” the lad advised, knuckling his forehead in respectful salute.

She guessed him to be ex-Navy, disillusioned, as with many a pirate, by the harsh discipline and sordid conditions. Piracy was as harsh and sordid, but there was an ocean of difference between being your own man or being at the mercy of a Navy captain’s rule of brutal flogging with the lash of a cat o’ nine tails.

She offered him a generous smile. “And you are?”

“Jasper, Mistress. Jasper Hicks.”

“I thank you for your concern, Jasper, but I prefer to remain here. The more for’ard I am the closer I am to your captain. I wish I could stand out on the bowsprit to be closer still.”

The lad swept her a startled expression of alarm. “It be dangerous, Ma’am! We call the ‘sprit the Widow Maker; many a good man has fallen to his death from there.”

Wondering at the daftness of females, he knuckled his forehead again and scurried up the foremast as agile as a monkey, but halfway up he cast one quick glance down to ensure the woman had not done anything foolish.

Rue watched as Isiah, Jansy and Toby, with a will, set their axe blades to the cable, then put his two hands to the helm, his fingers firm around the spokes. “Let fall. Sheet ‘ome, sheet ‘ome!” he cried in a voice that could stretch half a mile. “
Allez, allez, vite, vite,
you laggards, get to it! Man the ‘alyards: ‘aul, ‘aul! Belay.
Merde
! We ‘ave a wind to find and our captain to fetch!”

The ship’s timbers creaked in protest as she was held in check while crossing the sandbar and eased with stately elegance out to sea. Once clear, more canvas was spread: the maintop and foretop fell away, then fore and main course, ballooning wildly at first, before being tamed into a taut curve. With each wind-shivered spread of sail and rumble of canvas,
Sea Witch
moved faster, eager for her mission. Ten minutes from Nassau and she was flying: a hawk seeking its prey, her sails a majestic eagle-spread of wings.

The ocean foamed to each side of her bow, boiling over the figurehead, dousing the fore rail in a cascade of spray that shimmered with dancing rainbows of colour. The wind, which sang through the rigging and blustered about the crew’s ears, whipped Tiola’s hair into a tangle.

Sea Witch
heeled over, her larboard cathead and lee rail dipping beneath the smother of white foam, and Tiola grabbed for a backstay to stop herself from sliding down the wild angle of the deck. For a moment – a moment only – she felt fear, but it fled as elation swarmed into her. The utter exhilaration of moving at speed under full sail; the power, strength, courage and gaiety of the ship as she ran before the wind – and suddenly Tiola realised why Jesamiah did love this life so! This was freedom, this was being truly, wholly alive!

Filled with wonder and delight she laughed aloud, would have clapped her hands had she not been holding on so tight. With her fingers curled around the backstay for support she leant backwards, looked up and up and up, past the fill of the sails and beyond, to the race of the clouds passing by on a scudding blue sky. Heard, in her mind, a distant very faint response to her euphoria. A feeling only, the awareness of a presence, nothing more. A presence that was almost childlike in its innocence, one filled with the same unbridled ecstasy.

The voice of the ship herself, of
Sea Witch
. As eager as Tiola to find Jesamiah. She too wanted her beloved captain back.

Twenty Three

“I’m in Hell. I’m in Hell. I’m in Hell…”

The mantra mumbled from Jesamiah’s split, bruised lips, repeated over and over as he lay curled within himself, not caring that his ribs were aching, not caring that rats were running over him. Not caring about anything at all except the horror of his misery. His eyes were closed, the left one partially crusted with dried blood. No point in opening them anyway, the cable tier down here in the bilge was as black as pitch. He would not be able to see his hand in front of his face, even if he had been able to raise it high enough.

To bring ultimate humiliation, they had stripped him, and chained his wrists and ankles to bolt rings too tight for him to be able to move more than an inch or two. All he could manage was lying or sitting, except it hurt his back and ribs to sit. He had tried. The ship was tacking to larboard again; she had been rolling slightly through the Atlantic swells, but the motion now they were altering course was easing. It would start again next time they tacked. As the ship heeled, the slop in the bilge washed around, slapping against the timber bulwark exacerbating the foetid stench of stagnant water. Jesamiah could no longer smell it; his own stink was as bad.

How long he had been down here, he did not know. He had fallen unconscious soon after they had set sail, after Phillipe had come to ask questions that first time, which he had refused to answer, and paid the penalty for. For all he knew, since then he could have been blessedly unaware of everything for a few years. The ship had been running smoothly when he had regained his senses, had only started rolling when, he guessed, they had cleared the shelter of the Bahama Islands and run out into the open Atlantic. After that? Two, three days? No, less. He was not hungry, his body was not craving food, he felt light-headed because of the beating, not lack of nourishment. From that alone he guessed less than a day had slid past. A while ago they had brought him half a tankard of stale water to drink, pouring it into him so that he gagged and spluttered, most of it wasted, dribbling down his chin and chest. The water was not for nicety or care and attention. The water was to keep him alive.

The men had not spoken and neither had he, Jesamiah had not trusted himself. The only way to ensure he did not break down before ordinary hands into the disgrace of pitiful begging was to keep his mouth shut.

Food and water had not been his worry. Soon after waking he had felt the need to piss. That was when he had tried to sit, to wriggle on his backside as far as he could from where he lay. He had considered shouting, yelling he needed to use the heads. Knew, even if there had been anyone to listen they would have ignored his pleas. That was the idea of chaining him down here, to humiliate him, to treat him as less than one of these rats. To let him lie, naked, in his own urine and then his own filth. To put him in the purgatory of a hell and leave him here.

The sound of the sea was tearing past on the far side of the hull only a few inches away. He could hear feet above, hurrying about on the lower deck, hear the occasional faint shout of command as they braced and sheeted home. Familiar sounds that in his misery he only dimly registered.

A rat scurried over his face, its paws and tail slimy, wet and cold. He shuddered, continued his repeated litany. The words drowned out their squeaking. He hated rats. Both the animal and human kind.

He figured he was right, they could not have been at sea long, for apart from when they had first brought him down here as they had prepared to make sail in Nassau harbour, Phillipe had left him alone. And that, Jesamiah knew in the pit of his aching, bruised stomach, was not going to be his brother’s intention for long.

When Phillipe did come again Jesamiah realised he had not been in Hell after all, but only set on course to it. He abandoned pride and begged.

It made no difference. On deck, the crew still heard his cries of agony.

Twenty Four

The storm Phillipe had expected never came, instead, the wind had dropped and a fog rolled in – and
Sea Witch
lost her Chase during the night.

Stefan had told Tiola that Mereno was taking Jesamiah to Virginia – Rue guessed he had meant the plantation along the Rappahannock River – a voyage of five or six days if wind and weather held fair, twice that if not. By then, Jesamiah could be dead. There were guardships in the Chesapeake Bay, narrow channels, sandbars and rocks – as a rendezvous point to hang around and wait, it was impractical. Better to intercept Mereno in the open sea, but first he had to be found.

From the way he had run up through the scatter of Bahama cays and islands with
Sea Witch
stretching in pursuit, Rue was convinced he was aiming to head out along the shortest route, diagonally across the open Atlantic, not following along the safer, slower, Florida and Carolina coastline. And then the fog had come down like a shrouding blanket. Of all the damned days for wind and visibility to fail!

Mindful, from bitter experience, of the Florida reefs, Rue chose to swing out to meet the sullen rollers of the Atlantic, hoping the winds there might disperse the grey soup of fog and allow a clearer view of the horizon. Hoping Mereno would be sensible and do the same. Most seamen, where fog was concerned, if they knew shoals were close by would either heave to or head for open space.

For a full two days none of his hopes were met. The wind had gone and the fog obstinately stayed. As another evening crawled in from the east,
Sea Witch
crept along on topgallants only, with barely a whisper of a breeze to make headway. Now, the only hope was that Mereno was also trapped in this frustration of making less than a mile in an hour.

With night approaching Tiola felt her frustration building into anger. Unreasonable she knew, for the fog was not Rue’s fault; all the same, as the grey murk turned into night blackness she confronted him on the quarterdeck. The men, as anxious, concealed their grins at this half-pint lass fearlessly standing up to a man who had been known to haul in an anchor cable with his bare hands. That the cable had not been attached to an anchor was not so wide known; a small truth Rue kept firmly to himself.

“We need to find him!” she demanded, stamping her foot. A futile, childish gesture she knew, but one which relieved her tension. Standing for long hours up in the fo’c’sle, she had tried shifting the fog, but it was stubborn, a thing, she guessed, deliberately manipulated by the Dark to hinder them. “He is suffering. We must get to him!”

“And ‘ow do we do that?” Rue shouted back, as disheartened and irritated as she was. “I ‘ave been up to the tops myself more than once, even with the bring it close there is nothing to see except fog banks and patches of open, empty ocean.
Dieu
! I am not a sorcerer, I cannot see what is not there, nor can I conjure a wind!”

His bellow blasted along the length of the deck, causing glances and raised eyebrows to be exchanged. Rue was a placid man who rarely lost his temper; they were all agitated and on edge.
Sea Witch
was a fast ship, they should have had the Chase found and dealt with by now. No one said it, though all were thinking it, they should not have lost her in the first place. Jesamiah would not have done so.

Rue was a good seaman, knew how to handle a vessel and keep a crew in order but he was not Jesamiah. Which was perhaps why, in addition to the loyalty they felt towards their captain, the crew were so determined to have him back where he belonged – growling at them from the quarterdeck.

Tiola had also attempted to reach him with her mind, although she assumed he would not be knowing the ship’s position. There might have been something, sounds or the feel of how the ship was running, something, anything, to help them find him. But for the few fragmentary connections she had managed he had not been lucid enough to convey anything of sense, even after she had sat through the night cross-legged in his cabin, his personal possessions strewn around her. His cutlass across her lap, his hat, too big, tipped to the back of her head. One of his ribbons woven through her fingers, which were splayed across the stains of his blood on the floor.

Jesamiah’s misery was too great for her to hear anything beyond his whimpering; those few connected moments unbearable for her to listen to. Reluctant, she had decided to pull back. If he was being tortured and she continued to try to feel into his mind she too could break into brittle shards of insanity, which would be of no use to him.

Her intention, if he had been aware of her mental presence, he did not now assume she had abandoned him.
~ I am coming! I am following! ~
Her last words sent to him.
~ Cling to that, Jesamiah. I am coming for you and I will find you! I will! ~

The pointless belligerence against Rue sapped from her, she was being unfair and unrealistic. As anxious as herself the man was doing his best.

“I am not a sorcerer,” he had said. Neither was she, but she did have her Craft. “Nor can I conjure up a wind!”

No, Rue could not. But she could.

Without knowing where Jesamiah was, however, even a wind was of no use.

“I need to eat,” she said, decisive. “I also need to speak to you in private, for what I intend to do is for you to know alone.”

Rue shrugged, politely indicated the way to Jesamiah’s cabin and handed the helm to Isiah. “Stay on this course, call me if a wind shifts.” On his way below following behind Tiola, he called for dinner.

“The lady is ‘ungry and so am I,” he growled to Finch in his bear voice. “Fetch us something worth eating.”

The stores were not low, the chickens in their crates laid well, there was salt pork and beef in sealed barrels and someone had thought to bring fresh-butchered joints aboard.

“It’s cooking!” Finch’s irritated shout came back. “I can only char the bloody stuff as fast as the bloody stove will burn it!” Those in hearing, Rue included, grinned. Finch was an excellent galley cook but he would never admit to it. He had appointed himself as Jesamiah’s personal steward and on discovering Tiola was his captain’s chosen woman had instantly taken her under his wing as well. Finch, however, Rue had quietly warned her, was inclined on occasion to be a curmudgeonly old mother hen.

In the great cabin Rue sat at Jesamiah’s desk shuffling aside a few of the papers scattered there. Tiola was at the table, a fine piece of furniture. He noticed she had not tidied the place; the papers and charts were where they had been strewn, a chair still lay on its side, the red velvet cushions scattered, one torn, its stuffing spewing over the carpet. A broken bottle, its thick glass shattered. Jesamiah’s blood staining the floor. He did not know if there was anything missing, nothing obvious had gone. Except for their captain. Beyond the curve of the stern windows, the fog spread in a solid depressing bank.

“Well?” he said after a long pause.

Her fingers were twirling her ring. Not looking at him she spoke low, very quiet, in almost a whisper. “How much has Jesamiah told you about me, Rue?”

“Ah, ‘e said you were
très belle
, that you were smart. ‘E is known for ‘is tendency to exaggerate, but in this, rare for ‘im, ‘e told us the truth.”

Tiola acknowledged the compliment with a smile. “He did not tell you of my talent?”

“That you were a ‘ealer and a midwife?
Oui
. ‘E told us of the birthing ‘e ‘elped you with so often we threatened to cut off ‘is ballocks and make a eunuch of ‘im.” He laughed, showing it had been a jest.

She laughed too. It was good to laugh when everything else was so stifling in its unpleasantness. “Nothing more?”

“Nothing more.” Rue shrugged, pushed himself up from the chair and began collecting the charts from the floor, stowing them in their wide drawer beneath the desk.

“‘Ee never said ‘ow much he loved you, ‘e did not need to. It was there whenever ‘e spoke of you, in ‘is eyes, in ‘is voice.” He said the last sharply, critical. Asked direct, “For why did you not come? Why did you leave ‘im to sail alone? It broke ‘is ‘eart – and a pirate’s ‘eart,
ma fille
, is as ‘ard as a two-year old ship’s biscuit. It is not easily broken.”

She answered with the same blunt directness. “My heart was broken too. We were deceived. I should have realised it instantly, but grief confused me. I ran aground,” Tiola settled her hands into her lap, her gaze meeting with Rue’s. “As with Jesamiah, I was marooned in a pit of loneliness, unable to scrabble out.” She smiled, “Or I thought so, until now. Marrying Stefan was probably stupid but it was the only quick solution I could think of. And now, what I am about to say and do may be stupider still.”

Calmly and clearly, she told him what she was.

He did not believe her. First his brows rose, then furrowed. He sat, began to fidget, stroked his chin, drummed his fingers on the desk. His eyes would not meet hers.

“I do not expect you to accept what I am telling you, Rue. Until he saw things with his own eyes Jesamiah did not believe I am of the White Craft either. But he does now, and he does know some of what I can do. That belief, I hope, is giving him an anchor to cling to, a reason to stay alive.” She paused, spread her hands, pleading. “I am having to trust you with this for we must find Jesamiah and we must do so now, not in a few days or a week, but
now
. The longer we take the more likely it is there will not be anything of him to save. We will find only the husk of the man he was. Justifiably, he is frightened of Phillipe.”

She paused. How to explain? “Mereno is eaten by jealousy; he is so possessed by what, as a child, he saw as betrayal by his mother and father that he has lost his sense of reason. The mind is a complex thing, Rue, I do not expect you to understand, but sometimes human frailty becomes as a beacon to the power of the Dark. It is hard to survive fear and loneliness – despair – easier to succumb to the voices that goad you into hurting others because you have been so hurt yourself. It is a form of vengeance. You cannot take your hatred or spite out on the ones who originally hurt you, so you do so with one who cannot fight back, instead.”

Rue sat silent as Finch fetched in the food and at the quartermaster’s solid glare, left again muttering remarks about the untidiness of the cabin and not knowing when he would get chance to tidy it.

Moving to the table Rue sat, ate, tasted little of what he put in his mouth. Finally he said, “As far as Mereno is concerned, I think ‘e is a madman. ‘E is like a rat drowning in the bilge – ‘e keeps scrabbling at the same bulk’ead, ‘oping to pull ‘imself out. If only ‘e ‘ad the sense to turn round, to swim the other way, ‘e would find a footing and survive. Mereno ‘as a debt to pay Jesamiah, although to be fair Jes did poke ‘im with a sharpened stick.” He gave a small half-hearted smile. Had he not been reminded of cobras that night on the Rappahannock?

His smile widened as he considered Tiola. “My rational sense is telling me I ‘ave been told a ridiculous sailor’s yarn.” He pushed the empty plate from him, took a breath. “At sea I ‘ave witnessed things with my own eyes that defy belief. What you ‘ave told me is beyond my reason.” He shrugged, “In all ‘onesty, I think you too are mad, but then, most of Jesamiah’s schemes sound like they come from the wrong side of the moon, so I will believe you.”

Tiola laid down her knife and fork, her food barely touched, took a sip of wine. “I think there may have been a compliment hidden in there somewhere?” She asked shyly.

Pouring a glass for himself, Rue confirmed there was. “Jesamiah is a man I respect. If I must admit to it I think of ‘im as the son I never ‘ad. Nor ‘ave I ever ‘ad cause to doubt ‘is judgement. ‘E was the one who did not want to go to Nassau, ‘e said ‘e smelt a rat, ‘e was right. I – we – were wrong. Although the rat turned out to be ‘is brother, not the Governor.” Abruptly he scraped the chair back, stood, offered his hand to Tiola accepting what she had told him and what she intended to do. Use her Craft to find Jesamiah.

Tiola took the gesture as it was intended and placed a kiss on his cheek. A seal of friendship.

“Night is coming,” he said, gruff, to conceal the sudden emotion filling him. If Jesamiah was the son he had always wanted, then this lass was most assuredly the daughter. “I ‘ave to be on the quarterdeck. Not that we can go any slower than we already are, but to ‘elp you stay safe I will reduce sail, let ‘er idle as much as I can. You ‘ave my word none shall disturb you. I ask you, though, for the sake of God – and for Jesamiah’s – to be careful. There is a reason the bowsprit is called the widow maker.”

Ais
, she knew. Young Jasper had already told her.