Twenty Three
Saturday 9th November
For Perdita Galland, the atmosphere at Archbell Point was desolate. The sun shone but its brightness was an intrusion. Sunshine was for happy days, not for the ending of a young girl’s world.
Fishermen had found a body floating in the Pamlico River. A male with hands severed at the wrists. He had been identified as Jonathan Gabriel, although the corpse was bloated and fish had eaten at his face.
On that same day Governor Eden had discovered Perdita’s affection for the boy and had beaten the truth out of her. Abruptly, his repugnance at the boy’s murder had altered to outrage at his stepdaughter’s disgrace. Locked in her room, the punishment of confinement had not bothered her. She welcomed solitude where she could sob in abject misery and her heart could break in desolate privacy.
Elizabeth-Anne had been weeping for almost the entire week, her woe increasing when she became certain that the distress would harm her baby. Tiola had reassured her the child remained healthy, and there was no sign of imminent labour. The reassurance did not stop the tears.
The shouting had been renewed this morning. Governor Eden had sent for his stepdaughter and given her a sharp interview. Her marriage to Knight was to take place within the week. On her knees, Perdita had begged and pleaded, but his mind was set and the dowry was agreed. She would be wed before any possible sign of a child should show. Knight would know nothing of her whoring. Nothing at all. She would forget Jonathan Gabriel, never think of him again.
Tiola was at a loss for what to do. She so wanted Jesamiah to come and take her away from here – so wanted this child to be born so that she could leave. But the babe had not dropped; it would probably be at least another week yet. No one was in any doubt that Jonathan’s death had been at the hands of Blackbeard. There was no certainty for the reason, but it was assumed the boy had known something of Mary Ormond’s drowning. The speculation was that he had gone to confront Teach. None but the Eden household knew the full truth.
Sitting on the porch, idly rocking in a chair, Tiola was deep in thought. Should she interfere and take Perdita’s pain away? She could do so but all the girl had left were her memories, what right had Tiola to remove them, no matter how deep the present pain? She looked up as a shadow fell across her: Perdita, pale, thin, haggard and so, so sad.
“You should have let me kill him when I had the chance,” she said, her voice so low it was difficult to hear.
Tiola rose, went to take her friend’s hands but Perdita stepped aside. “I wish to walk by the river. Forgive me, Tiola, but I want to be on my own.”
“Of course, but Perdita, I am so sorry. I cannot say how sorry I am.”
“Then say nothing. Sorry is such a short word and its necessity will soon no longer be needed.” Holding the wooden banister rail Perdita went down the three steps and on to the lawn. She smiled briefly up at Tiola. “It was not your fault. The blame is with Teach. I hope someday someone puts a bullet through his black heart.” She scuffed a tear aside. “I want to be beside the river, where I shared happiness and love with Jonathan. It is the one place where I can always be with him, and no one can take him from me.”
Tiola watched her go, the girl’s head bowed, the sun lighting her hair, dancing a shadow at her feet.
What good have I done here
? Tiola thought.
Evil broods in this place and it will not be cleansed until Teach is dead
.
Twenty Four
“Ahoy! Ahoy there
Adventure
!”
Jesamiah peered groggily over the rail into the brightness of the midday sun. A brig was hove too, carrying a decent amount of cargo by the look of her.
He had opted to sleep aboard the sloop for there were fewer flies and it was far away from Vane. He did not trust that man any more than he trusted Teach. Either one of them could have slid a knife between his ribs while he slept. For all that he liked Jack Rackham, Jesamiah did not trust him either. He was prone to getting wild ideas that he never thought through until the consequences were too late to do aught about.
He yawned, scratched at his backside, peered again over the side as the shout came again.
“
Adventure
! Ahoy!”
“What do you want?” he called grumpily. No one ashore appeared to be awake, even though the sun was at its zenith. Huh, hardly surprising, the drinking and carousing had gone on until almost dawn. He doubted any one of them would regain their senses for several days yet. “What is it?” he repeated. “If you want Teach he’s over there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m the only one aboard.”
“Well I ain’t coming no closer – it’s a deep enough channel here, I ain’t risking running aground.”
Jesamiah raised his hand, a partial wave, partial salute. “Fine. Do what you want, mate.”
“I have news.”
Rubbing his forehead – he had a pounding headache, he had, after all, partaken of his own share of the rum – Jesamiah hauled himself to his feet and propping his arms on the rail, made a flimsy attempt at appearing interested in the occupants of the brig bobbing on the tide thirty yards away.
“I’m Sam Odell, Teach knows me. Just come up from Charleston.”
“Oh aye?”
“Four armed sloops under the command of Charleston’s Governor Johnson attacked Worley, killed him and twenty-five of his crew.”
“Worley? He was new to piracy, weren’t he? Prowled the Florida coast?”
“Aye. Johnson tried and hanged ‘em all there and then on the spot.”
Jesamiah shrugged. He did not know Worley and it was the risk they all took when they signed to go on the account.
“There’s more,” Odell called across the sparkling blue of the flooding tide between them. “Stede Bonnet has also been caught.”
That got Jesamiah’s attention. “You’re jesting!”
“As sure as I’m standing here it is the truth. Four days ago. He put up a pretty pleading – said his men were responsible for any attacks, not him. He’s a cowardly scammer-bag that one.” Odell spat over the side. “Good riddance to him I say. He claims he always shut himself in his cabin and would have nothing to do with no acts of piracy! Not a soul believed a word of it. He is to hang. God rot him I say. Tell Teach. Once Bonnet’s despatched I reckon they’ll be after him as well.”
Jesamiah watched Odell’s handful of crew competently negotiate the brig towards the Pamlico River, going to Bath Town, probably. Where Tiola was. God, but this was ridiculous, he had to do something to stop all this nonsense. Give Spotswood what he wanted – the opportunity to finish Blackbeard off. This idiotic plan to blockade Hampton Roads was ideal. If Teach even attempted to enter the Chesapeake those Navy frigates would have him – perhaps it was best to encourage the proposal, and make out that he was going to fetch those sloops?
Stede Bonnet captured and to hang? Well, well. Serve the bugger right. Jesamiah had never liked him.
Twenty Five
Tiola waited on the porch for most of the afternoon, only going indoors to attend Elizabeth-Anne, see she was comfortable and offer her a herbal tea to help her rest. As the sun began to set, the concern that had been gnawing at her increased. Finally, the unease growing to fever pitch, she fetched her cloak and followed the route Perdita had taken across the lawns and along the foot-worn path that threaded through the bushes and shrubs.
At the river Tiola paused. Did she have any right to intrude? The girl was entitled to her grief, but she was also entitled to the comfort of a friend. Setting off up the path, Tiola guessed Perdita would have gone to that tumbledown shack in the clearing. The poor girl had probably sat there in the sun and cried herself to sleep, not noticed the fading day. Probably did not care.
The woods were quiet. There was no wind. No leaf rustled, no bird sang or called. Utter silence, as if Nature were holding her breath.
She found the glade, found Perdita’s cloak on the grass at its edge, crumpled as if she had lain there a while. The door to the little hut was closed. Deep evening shadows were already darkening the trees; half the glade was almost invisible now the sun had gone. But Tiola could see. In even the blackest night her Craft gave her vision that was as clear as day. She stood there, clutching Perdita’s cloak to her breast, the tears of despair trickling down her face. She should have realised what the broken-hearted girl had meant when she had said she was going to be with Jonathan.
With love, compassion and the sadness of bereft regret, Tiola climbed the lower part of the tree as Perdita had done, reached out and cut the rope that made the noose around her neck.
It was no good trying to revive her. Perdita had hanged herself hours ago.
Twenty Six
Sunday 10th November
Hell, Teach maintained, was nothing to fear. It was Heaven, he claimed, that scared the shite out of him. All that praying and confessing. All those do-gooders and holy singing angels.
“Give me tha Devil,” he roared as he stood on the beach on Sunday morning, “give me tha lust and tha greed o’ tha Devil!”
Vane had started the tirade. News of Stede Bonnet had unsettled them all, several of the men wanted to take a vote to leave, to sail across to Africa, lie low for a while.
“None of us fancy going to Hell, Teach!” Vane had cried. “Not even you, were you to admit the truth.”
“I bain’t afeared of nothin’. ‘Specially not Hell. It be a fine place for men who call themselves men.” That said, Teach had promptly set about proving it.
Common practice to clean a ship’s hold of rats and fleas by lighting pots of tar and brimstone and leaving the noxious sulphurous vapour to fumigate the closed space. Not common practice for men to sit there amidst the suffocating stink and smoke, but that was what Teach insisted on. To show them what Hell was like and that he, Edward Teach, Blackbeard, the Devil’s own, could tolerate the foul conditions better than they could. And when Teach got an idea into his head, no matter how ludicrous, his men did as he bade them. Or died.
Blackbeard sat there on a barrel at the head of the circle, like a king on his throne, his pistol – primed and cocked – was set across his lap, his threat taken seriously that the first one to run would be shot. One by one the pots were lit, began to burn giving off a red smoke.
Jesamiah frowned. Sulphur did not usually burn that colour, Teach must have added something else to the pots.
It was not too bad for those first few minutes; the smell was most unpleasant, but used to the acridness of gunpowder, to which sulphur was added, it was bearable. There was one lantern set on a keg in the centre of the circle, its flame a patch of yellow, but all else in the darkened hold was obscured as the red smoke began to turn into a heavy, noxious fug, burning like all the fires of hell. Jesamiah grimaced as the smell became gut-wrenchingly putrid. It was like having a length of burning match stuffed up his nose.
Seated a little to Blackbeard’s left he could hear rats squeaking and scratching, desperate to get out. They would not have much luck. There were no holes in the hull and the scuttle hatch was shut tight. They were all to suffocate down here, rats and men. Loosening his shirt, Jesamiah pulled the collar up across his mouth and nose, held it there with his hand. It helped his breathing a little but did nothing to stem the watering of his eyes. Several of the men had taken the faded bandannas from their heads and had tied them across their faces. Teach was just sitting there, arms folded. Was he human? Surely he could not be?
Shutting his streaming, stinging eyes Jesamiah tried to concentrate on something else, something pleasant. Tiola. He was beginning to think he was never going to see her again. And he had not even enjoyed his marital rights! What was she doing now? Was there any sign of this wretched babe emerging into the world?
They had managed a few shared words over the last days. Sad, grief-stricken words mostly. Poor Mary, Jonathan, Perdita. It was all tears and death and dying. Curse Edward bloody Teach! Jesamiah wanted to be with his wife, to make love to her; did not want this constant killing.
Several of the men were coughing. Jack Rackham was muttering a prayer and whimpering. He was a good sailor and a fancy dresser, with his love of finery and the calico cloth, but he was not the bravest of men. Vane was swearing under his breath between gasped splutters.
Gibbens started up to his feet, but the click of Teach’s pistol made him sit again, his body bending over in great coughs.
“This is ridiculous, Teach! You’ll damn kill us all quicker than any bloody Navy battle! You enjoy your creation of hell if you wish. I have had enough of it.”
Israel Hands. He had been with Teach from the first. From the days several years back when they had jumped ship from the Navy and started a more profitable life of piracy under the command of Benjamin Hornigold. Hornigold had taken amnesty, was one of Governor Roger’s advisers along with Henry Jennings now. Perhaps they had been right to see sense? Israel Hands had been the only one to remain as Teach’s true friend, no matter what he did. But this was going too far. They were all going to die down here in this dreadful stink of brimstone. Someone had to make a break for it and Teach would shoot any one of his crew without a second thought. But Hands? Would he shoot his friend?
“Thee leave here, Israel, an’ I mean my word. I’ll shoot thee.”
His eyes running with tears, breath choking in his suffocating lungs, Israel shook his head, “Then shoot me Teach. I don’t particularly care anymore.” He went up the ladder and began pushing the hatch cover aside.
With utter calmness, with no apparent reaction to the stench or smoke, with no qualm of conscience or remorse for the ending of a friendship, Teach levelled his weapon and fired. The bullet slammed into Isiah’s knee, shattering the kneecap. He shrieked – and every man leapt to his feet and bolted for the hatch, the first ones there scooping Hands up and carrying him out to the fresh, clean air. Jesamiah and Charles Vane among them.
“The man’s insane!” Vane spluttered through gasps for breath, his mouth opening and closing as if he were a fish. “Utterly stark, staring mad! If he thinks I am going to sail with him he has another think coming! Bugger knows what he will dream up next!”
He never even looked at Israel Hands who lay groaning on the deck losing blood and consciousness. Instead, Vane was gesturing wildly for his men to start climbing down into the longboat. “Are you coming, Rackham? I am leaving. Teach can keep his hell to himself.”
Jack Rackham, Calico Jack, hesitated.
“You are welcome to stay with me,” Jesamiah said as he used his knife to rip a Spanish flag into strips to bind around Isiah’s shattered knee. “I’ll be leaving here soon too. Come with me?” Rackham was a little naïve, perhaps, a little too much in love with the simple life, but a good fellow. Fun.
Vane was in the boat, ready to give order to push off. The tide was on the flood; if they hurried they could set sail and negotiate the shifting channels and hidden sandbars without too much fuss. “You coming, Rackham?”
Apologetically, and with a grin that made him look more like a naughty boy than a fearsome pirate, Rackham spread one hand. “I’ll not get my own ship with you, Jes. I’m sorry. And anyway, you have your wife. You’ll not be wanting a whoremonger like me around her, will you?”
That was true. Jack Rackham could coax a woman into his bed faster than an anchor dropped. “You take care then, Calico Jack.” Jesamiah shook hands with his friend then turned his attention to saving Israel Hands’ leg. He doubted he would be successful.
Except for the rats Edward Teach sat alone in the hold. The air had started to clear once the hatch had been opened, but there was still enough smoke and foulness to create the hellish fire and brimstone illusion he had intended.
“Thee bist all cowards!” he bellowed. “Lily-livered dregs! Not one o’ thee be fit t’sail with me! I be Blackbeard tha Devil’s own! Tha most notorious pirate on tha Spanish Main!”
“Except you are not, are you, Edward? Vane is more notorious than you. Few of your men are prepared to stay loyal, and your ship is a leaking hulk. You are finished, Edward. Finished.”
There was another in the hold. A figure sitting where Acorne had sat. Their appearance was alike, same facial expression; same build. For a moment Teach thought it was Acorne, damn him. He should have shot him long before now, but then, he did dearly want the
Sea Witch
for his own, and as much as it galled him to admit it, he was not going to get her without Acorne’s initial aid.
The man sitting there was not Acorne. It was his father. Charles St Croix Mereno.
Blackbeard chortled. “So, this be where thee ended up? In tha pits of Hell!”
“No Edward, I am not yet there. You are invited there ahead of me. The arrangements are made.”
“I ‘ave a pact with tha Devil. I bain’t goin’ t’ die.”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, Edward. You have been misinformed.”
Teach swore, slapped his thighs, started coughing, his face turning puce as he struggled for breath. He was choking but he made himself turn his back on the phantom, walk triumphant, with dignity, up the ladder. Only in the privacy of his great cabin did he throw open the stern window and take in great gulps of air. He refused to notice that his hands were shaking.