The Pirates and the Nightmaker (13 page)

The captain crossed the broad tree-dotted esplanade and returned to the main thoroughfare. As if unwilling to linger he hurried onwards, pushing past those strolling at a more leisurely pace. Eventually he stopped at the building I guessed was his lodging and pushed through the open door and into the lobby. I slipped in behind him and down the narrow passageway to follow him. However, not even the safety of his lodgings had encouraged him to diminish his pace and he strode so quickly ahead of me that he had opened the door to his room and shut it firmly behind him before I had even a moment to think of following him further.

It was of no matter. Mr Wicker could be told where the captain lodged and that he was attempting albeit without success to find a passage to Kingston. Much of this information
would be of little interest to my master. It was unclear to me why he needed to know where the captain was sleeping and he already knew of the captain’s fever to get to Jamaica.

What he did not know was the captain’s threat to Sophie Blade, now renewed even if only implicitly. Again I thought about passing this information on to Mr Wicker, especially now that it wouldn’t compromise my secret acquaintance with Sophie. However, I recalled Sophie’s wish that I not do so, and I considered this a promise made.

The corridor was close and dark and I was pleased to return to the lobby and the brightness of the street. It was only when I was on the street and cast a look back over my shoulder at the building when I realised with a start that it was the very same building in which I had seen Mr Flynn earlier on.

I turned and hurried back to the house. It was a two-storeyed building with the upper floor timbered. I returned to the dark passage but all doors there were closed and I could hear no sounds from behind them. I guessed at least some of these rooms would belong to the owner and his family while others were let to travellers such as the captain and Dr Hatch.

There was a narrow stairway from the lobby, as steep as a companionway on a ship, and I climbed these stairs to find another equally dark passage punctuated with another set of doors. These too were firmly closed and a gloomy silence reigned. Perhaps all of the house’s inhabitants were out or perhaps they were taking part in that
siesta
I understood people took in these hot climes.

There was little to keep me and so I descended the stairs again. Once on the street, it occurred to me that if I hurried to report back to Mr Wicker I might find him still at the house of Jenny Blade and Sophie. I immediately leapt in the sky and climbed high above the little town of the Cove and flew along the curve of the bay towards the large dwelling
I had seen Sophie and her mother walking towards earlier.

It was however to be an afternoon of frustrations, for before I reached the house, I saw far below me the unmistakeable figure of Mr Wicker striding from it. I circled down and landed on the pathway before him.

‘Well, little Loblolly Boy, have you found the captain?’

‘I have, sir,’ I said.

‘Well done and where did you find him?’

I related briefly what I had discovered: I told Mr Wicker of how the sailors in the skiff had treated the captain with scant courtesy and this tale made Mr Wicker laugh. I then told him how I had followed the captain to his house of lodging and roughly where it was.

‘I have ascertained his very room,’ I added.

‘Well done, little man,’ he said. ‘You are quite the boon to me.’

‘And you, sir,’ I dared to ask, ‘are you going to be able to retrieve your trunk?’

He smiled at me. ‘Even better,’ he said. ‘For a consideration of some size, I’m bound to add, Mistress Blade will consider allowing me the use of the
Perseus
and a captain and crew in order to bring me to Cartagena where, as you know, I have certain business I’m anxious to conduct.’

‘Not Captain Lightower?’ I asked.

Again Mr Wicker laughed. ‘I hardly think so,’ he said. ‘Captain Lightower is, shall we say, somewhat unreliable.’

I nodded. Desperate, too, I thought. Mr Wicker’s words chimed somehow and I remembered that
unreliable
was the very word the sinister Spaniard had used to describe the captain.

‘Have you any other errands for me?’ I asked.

‘I think not,’ said Mr Wicker. ‘I will walk back to the town and to my room. Perhaps, though, early on the morrow there may be some business for you, but until then …’ He raised his hand in dismissive salute, ‘…
Adios
.’

I said farewell to him then and climbed back into the sky. I was careful, though, to soar high and up and away to make as if I were flying inland and over the jungle intent on exploring the mountain beyond. My real intention was, however, to make my back to Mistress Blade’s house as soon as possible to find Sophie.

As soon as I was sure that Mr Wicker had lost interest in me, I did just that. I turned about, although remaining high in the air, so high the entire island lay below me, again reminding me of an outline on a chart: the etched coastline, the colour bands of blue, gold, green and brown corresponding with sea, shore, forest and mountain. And then there came the thrill of plummeting down, further and faster than I had yet dared until I soared up again from just below the cliffs’ edge and back once more to land beside a small grove of wind-sculpted trees not far from the house.

There was no sign of Sophie outside but then I was not really expecting that. The house was single-storeyed but large and built to command a fine prospect of both the harbour and the sea beyond the narrow entrance channel. Had the island been a Spanish or English stronghold I expect there
would have been a fort built on the site as well as one on the opposite point with cannon defending the channel.

I circumnavigated the house without catching sight of Sophie, or indeed of anybody. Finally, though, I threw caution aside and entered the main doorway. From somewhere inside I could hear music. This time it was not Irish Peter’s fiddle, but the sound of a clavier or of some other keyboard instrument. The notes were rippling and very pleasing, something watery, something birdsong.

I passed through a vestibule and into a comfortable sitting room where I found Sophie playing at a small keyboard with her mother sitting not far away listening attentively. There were two others in the room, an older man and a younger woman whom I took to be servants by the manner of their dress.

Jenny Blade looked much less like the marauding pirate I knew her to be. Gone were the red bandana, shirt and pantaloons. She was wearing now a long green gown of simple calico and she had brushed down her hair. As she sat listening to Sophie’s music she looked much more like a mother, a proud mother.

The pretty domestic scene all at once made me think of my own mother back in Portsmouth Town and I experienced a deep and painful pang. It occurred to me that until Mr Wicker relented and returned my humanity, my mother would never see me again, that I was now as dead to her as if I had been butchered on the jolly-boat. While it had been a blessing when it saved my life, invisibility was now a curse cutting me off from all, or nearly all, of my fellow creatures.

I stepped further into the room and into Sophie’s line of
vision, but carefully so as not to frighten her. Despite this care, she suddenly saw me standing in the room and gave a little start and stopped playing.

‘What is it, Sophia?’ asked Jenny Blade, curious. ‘Is something the matter?’

Sophie gave me a quick smile. ‘No, Mother,’ she replied. ‘I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, a butterfly perhaps, and it distracted me.’

Mistress Blade looked about. ‘I see no butterfly,’ she said. She turned and looked enquiringly at the servants who both shook their heads.

‘A trick of the light, then,’ said Sophie. ‘But, with your leave, Mother, I will stop now. It will be a little cooler outside and I would welcome some fresh air.’

Jenny Blade smiled at her. ‘Of course you may, my dear. Anyway, I really need to talk with Abigail about the arrangements for dinner.’

‘We are having guests?’

‘Good heavens, no. After that time at sea, the last thing I desire is a house full of people. No, we dine alone.’

‘Good,’ said Sophie, gathering her music. ‘Those are my sentiments as well.’

Not long afterwards, Sophie left the room and took the path beyond the house that led to the very tip of the headland. I accompanied her.

‘You have news, Loblolly Boy, or do you merely wish to talk with me?’

‘Both,’ I said, ‘and I also have a question.’

‘Perhaps you should start with the question.’

I told her about Mr Wicker’s meeting with the one-eyed Spaniard in the Rope and Gibbet and how he had frightened me, despite his not being able to see me or knowing I was there.

‘He is called Don Scapino.’

‘I am not surprised you were frightened,’ said Sophie, her face clouding. ‘He frightens me, too.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘I know of him,’ said Sophie, ‘and I have seen him about the Cove. He visits the town regularly.’

‘What can you tell me about him?’

‘My mother would know more,’ said Sophie. ‘There are many stories. He is thought to be a spy. Some say he spies for the Spanish against the English, some say he spies for the English against the Spanish, some say he spies for the French against both. My mother suspects he spies for anybody and would betray anybody. He is known as
El Serpiente
.’

‘
El Serpiente
?’

‘The snake,’ said Sophie.

‘And Mr Wicker has dealings with this man,’ I said. ‘I learnt that Don Scapino gave the astrolabe Mr Wicker is seeking to the
commandante
at Cartagena and now he is plotting with Mr Wicker to get it back.’

‘Mr Wicker would be foolish to trust him.’

‘That is the strange thing,’ I said. ‘Mr Wicker doesn’t. He told him so to his face.’

Sophie shrugged. ‘I imagine Mr Wicker would know what he is doing.’

‘I think he is determined to obtain the astrolabe,’ I said.
‘He says that if the prize is big enough, risks and dangers are nothing.’

‘My mother is thinking of offering him a ship,’ said Sophie.

‘Is she in league with him?’ I asked cautiously.

Sophie laughed. ‘With Mr Wicker? Good heavens, no! I believe that she would see Mr Wicker as another
serpiente
. No, I think she would simply like him off the island and out of her sight and that giving him a ship and crew is an easy way to do this.’

We were silent for a while and paused as we had almost reached the end of the path and the headland. Sophie leaned back against a rock, studying me.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘I am still not sure that I can really believe you.’

I looked at her crossly. ‘I have told you the truth,’ I said indignantly.

She laughed. ‘No, I don’t mean that. I don’t mean what you’ve said. I mean
you,
I’m not sure I can believe you exist.’

‘I’m not sure I
do
exist,’ I said.

‘Don’t be silly, of course you exist.’

‘I exist to you, perhaps, and Mr Wicker. But I don’t exist to your mother or anybody else in this place.’

‘You do exist, though,’ said Sophie. ‘Look at you, all green and beautiful and those wondrous wings.’

I glanced over my shoulder.

‘May I touch them?’ asked Sophie shyly.

‘If you so desire …’

She reached towards me and tentatively stroked my
feathers. Her touch was so light I hardly felt it.

‘Wondrous …’ she repeated.

I looked at her and her eyes were shining. She was now looking beyond me to the cliff’s edge, imagining. ‘How wonderful it would be to run and run and leap from the cliff and into the sky rather than plummet like an ungainly rock. So wonderful, so wonderful …’ she whispered.

‘Don’t, Sophie!’ I said sharply.

‘Would it not be?’ she demanded, sharp herself now.

‘It is,’ I said, ‘but it is not wonderful to pay the price for this wonder: of not feeling the sun’s warmth, or the breeze’s cool, of not having thirst to slake or appetite to satisfy. Your mother is arranging your dinner, but I will never eat again. Can you imagine never more sinking your teeth into a russet apple, an orange or even a spoonful of pease pudding?’

‘It would be a dream,’ insisted Sophie.

‘A dream and a nightmare,’ I said.

She screwed her nose and I knew I had not convinced her.

Needing to change the subject, I suddenly remembered. ‘Sophie,’ I said, ‘Captain Lightower …’

‘Yes?’

‘He is grown desperate. He has had no success in obtaining passage to Kingston and can see no hope of doing so.’

I told her of the conversation I had overheard and how he saw the only way out was to persuade Sophie’s mother.

‘He will not do so,’ said Sophie.

‘Yes but he intends to threaten you as a means of persuading her.’

‘Then he is a fool,’ said Sophie. ‘I could think of no course of action less likely to persuade my mother.’

She seemed quite unwilling to contemplate the danger. For some time we watched as a barquentine negotiated the narrow channel below us and made for the open sea.

I tried again. ‘You must tell your mother.’

She smiled at me. ‘Tell her what? That there is a plot against me being hatched by Captain Lightower and the foolish doctor and I know all about it because it was relayed to me by an invisible flying loblolly boy who just happened to overhear it, the same who was lost off the jolly-boat?’

‘You could tell her you heard it from a butterfly.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I thought,’ I said quietly, ‘that you believed I existed.’

Sophie looked at me, understanding now her words’ import. Her face fell. ‘I’m sorry, Loblolly Boy. I did not mean it like that. But consider what my mother would say?’

She reached for my wing again and touched it briefly before reaching in turn for my hand, which she grasped softly.

‘I
will
take care,’ she said. ‘I thank you for the warning.’

I suppose it was as much as I could hope for. I realised that she felt secure at the Cove and discounted any threat from the captain, but she had only seen Mr Lightower as a bedraggled guest on her mother’s ship, she had not seen the steely cruelty of the man who had dismissed me so arrogantly on the quarterdeck of the
Firefly
. Had she done so, she would not have been so careless about the danger he presented.

Shortly thereafter, we parted; Sophie to wander back to her house, and I to fly back to the town.