Sixteen
Tired, Tiola took early to her bed. She had been given a quiet, comfortable room at the side of the house overlooking the extensive gardens at Archbell Point. This was Governor Eden’s grand house, the focal axis of his four-hundred acre plantation on the west side of Bath Creek. The gardens, like the house, were beautiful, clad in their russet, red and gold autumn finery. The owner, a proud peacock who placed little value on human life beyond how useful a man or woman could be. The place was maintained by black slaves and white household staff. From gardener to cook, to footman, to scullery maid all had their uses – and Governor Eden ensured all of them adequately earned their keep.
With no capital town yet established and no official buildings, Archbell Point served as the necessary administrative centre. The ground floor was devoted to offices, and a cramped council meeting chamber doubled as a court when necessary. North Carolina’s neighbour, Virginia, was doing nicely for itself as a colony, but then, Williamsburg had not been attacked by rampaging natives three years ago, nor was its surrounding countryside a ruin of uncleared land that was wholly unsuitable for farming or settling. Governor Eden was determined to pull Bath Town and North Carolina from the mire, however, and he did not particularly care how he did it.
As with the previous two days, dinner in the dining room, which had a water stain on the ceiling and several serving dishes that were cracked, had been a gruelling affair. The Governor, Tiola had discovered, invited guests every evening. It amazed her that he managed to find so many obnoxious people, but then, as the only town in North Carolina, Bath Town attracted the sort of visitors who eventually made their way to Archbell Point.
This evening the women had been scornful and patronising towards her, while the men were overtly interested in the cut of her bodice and what lay beneath – which had contributed nothing to ease the mistrust of the women. Eden had been his usual pompous and dictatorial self. Tiola felt sorry for him. A man in his early forties trying to maintain an appearance of being in control while the walls of reality were crumbling into ruins around him.
He was a widower with no children of his own, and so he forged the resemblance of a united family by keeping his nephews, nieces and stepchildren under a rule of uncompromising authority. Only one among them would be inheriting the estate and one day soon, not soon enough for some of his family, he would have no further use of it beyond a burial plot in the churchyard.
With the exception of three of the family, Tiola cared not a rotten apple for any of them. Nicholas Page and his wife Elizabeth-Anne were pleasant people, though Nicholas fretted about the future and Elizabeth-Anne worried about everything. The stepdaughter, seventeen-year-old Perdita Galland, was a sweet girl.
“We need a son,” Elizabeth-Anne had said with a sob in her throat as Tiola’s gentle hands had explored the great swell of her heavily pregnant belly. “My uncle has stated over and again that he has no patience with girls, that if I am not fit enough to produce a son then I am not fit to live in this house.” And the held-in tears had fallen down her flushed, hollowed cheeks. A sorrowful first meeting that had appalled Tiola and destroyed any chance of her developing respect for Governor Eden.
Tiola had not expressed her thoughts, but held her anger at the callousness of a bitter man firmly in check. She had merely smiled and assured her patient that the babe was kicking and healthy, and would be born when it was ready to be born.
“I so need to know I have a son! My dear husband frets over where we will go, what we will do if this is not a boy.”
Drawing the curtains back and opening the windows to allow in the waft of the damp night air, Tiola reflected on the answer she had made. She never gave a woman cause to wonder that she might be somewhat different to other healers and midwives. Her technique – her insistence on cleanliness, her ability to take away some of the pain, she passed off as skills she had learnt in India and the Far East – in itself not an untruth, she just failed to mention that her knowledge had been gained over several incarnations through many centuries of time.
For Elizabeth-Anne Page she had made an exception. “You have a boy. A fine, healthy boy, and between us, when he is ready, we will bring him into the world.”
Elizabeth-Anne Page had not asked how she knew it was so, all she had wanted to know was when that would be.
Tiola had smiled reassurance and answered; “Not yet, my dear. Not yet.”
Breathing deep, Tiola filled all her senses with the heady night fragrances. Closed her eyes to savour the richness of the different smells. Wet grass and damp earth, a hint of frost in the air from the direction of the mountains. The trees, the river; the distant sea. A faint aroma of horses from the stables and the odour of humans, the slaves in their huts. Tomorrow she would go down there, see what she could do for the pregnant black women and for the men who needed the discreet intervention of her healing Craft. She did not like slavery, but it had always existed. Always would – another uncompassionate trait of the Dark Power that had infected the greed of human nature.
She wrapped her arms around herself, looked at the wide smile of the moon riding high in the black sky; could hear the giddy chatter of the stars as they swept by in their gay dance. Heard the whisper of the Universe, and the gentle rhythm of life itself, drumming its steady pulse-beat through the entirety of Existence. It was good to be alive. To be in love.
She moved away from the window, turned the lamp low so that it cast a dim, shadowed light and stood in the centre of the room, waiting.
He did not take long to climb the ivy, to wriggle over the balcony railings and step inside her bedroom.
“Brought you these,” Jesamiah said, handing her a bedraggled bunch of wilting flowers. “I picked ‘em some while ago. ‘Ad t’wait fer the ‘ouse ’old to settle didn’t I?”
“I doubt water will revive the poor things,” she said taking the peace offering and placing them in the jug on the washing stand, “but I suppose I should accept them graciously.”
Pulling his boots off, not wanting to get mud on the floor, Jesamiah stood in stockinged feet on the square of expensive carpet. He spread his arms, inviting her towards him. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
Making him wait a little longer, Tiola remained by the washstand, prodding the drooping blooms into some sort of tasteful arrangement.
“Did you make love to her again? Aboard the
Sea Witch
? In our bed?” She kept her back to him, not wanting to see his face, read his expression. She would know if he lied. Always knew when he lied.
“No,” he answered, “and the thought of doing so never crossed my mind.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“Though she spent all her hours scheming on how she could accomplish it.”
Tiola turned, gazed at him standing there, his arms still spread, head cocked to one side.
“I spent most of the voyage up the main mast, reading Pope.” He lowered his arms, unsure what to do next, anxious that she might not forgive him.
Spotting some bottles on a table he walked over to investigate; Spanish sherry, a cordial. Ah, brandy!
“When you were not firing your guns at the
Fortune of Virginia
, you mean.”
He swivelled on his heel, bottle in hand, “Eh? We did not attack her. We were seeing Teach off!”
“That is not the way Captain Lofts saw it. He was a dinner guest, he informed Governor Eden, in front of us all, that the
Sea Witch
is a pirate in breach of amnesty. He wanted the Governor to send the Carolina guardship after you, but Eden was reluctant to do so.”
Jesamiah laughed, “That’s because a more notorious pirate than I controls the guardship, this entire river and the North Carolina coastline. Without Teach’s say-so Eden does not even fart. And anyway, I think you’ll find the guardship has a ruddy great hole in her keel. Eden has never bothered to ensure she was kept in good shape, but he would never let on to someone like Lofts that she’s not seaworthy.”
Shaking his head in dismissal, Jesamiah prised the cork from the bottle and drank deeply. “It’s a simple misunderstanding. I’ll sort it out when I reach Virginia.” He grinned lasciviously. “When I’ve sorted out this other little matter of a misunderstanding?”
He put the bottle down, removed his hat, coat, cutlass, pistol and belts. Began to unbutton his waistcoat, untie the lacing of his shirt.
“I have a penance t’do I b’lieve.”
Leaning against the wall, Tiola folded her arms. “And what makes you so sure I do not wish you to clean out pig pens or dance naked along Bath Town’s main street as punishment?”
He grinned, moved towards her and pressing her body against the wall, encircled one arm around her waist and with the other began undoing the lacing of her bodice. “Because,” he said as he kissed her, “I have a hard feeling you want me as much as I want you.”
It was impossible for Tiola to stay angry with Jesamiah for she did so dearly love him. She threaded her arms around his neck, her slender body moulding into his strength, eager to kiss him back. Wanting him.
“Ma’am? Ma’am. Mrs Page wishes to ask you something. Will you come?” The knocking on the door was hesitant, but grew bolder. “Ma’am?”
“Don’t answer,” Jesamiah whispered into Tiola’s ear. Gathering her tighter, more possessive, he brushed her cheek with his lips and nibbled at her neck below the curve of her jaw. ”Pretend you are asleep.”
She sighed, shook her head and pushed him away. “I cannot.”
She re-laced her bodice, fetched up a wrap, called, “One moment! I am coming.”
Disappointment flooded Jesamiah’s face. He felt his erection subside, the twist of pain at her dismissal. “You always go to them,” he said, dejected “You always put them before me.”
At the door, her hand on the latch, Tiola paused to look at him. “Would you remain with me if you knew the
Sea Witch
was foundering or struggling to survive a gale? Would you not leave me in our bed and run to the helm to do what you could? And when the danger was passed, would you not return, knowing I would be there, waiting?”
He closed his eyes, defeated. Nodded.
Quickly she ran across the room and kissed his lips, a lingering, loving kiss. “Then wait in our bed, for I will not be long. The lady I have come to tend is not ready to birth her babe yet, this is a mere worry on her part. It is nothing. I promise you, I will not be long.”
She whisked away, was gone.
When she returned twenty minutes later she found him sprawled naked across the bed, face down, asleep. He had such a beautiful body. His buttocks and thighs white against the brown skin of his torso, his arms and neck tanned a darker shade. His hair flopped forward to cover his face, one arm cuddling a pillow as if it were his lover.
Only his back marred the beauty, for it was crossed with the stripes of barely-healed scars. A flogging he had taken to protect her. One, near his shoulder, still had the faint yellow hue of bruising.
There was other bruising too, black and angry along his ribs. He was a rough man living a rough life. She wished he did not, but then, if he was different he would not be Jesamiah.
She removed her clothes, leaving them rumpled on the floor where they fell, and straddled his legs, her hands sliding gently up his spine and over his shoulders.
He murmured, made to move, then lay still. “Do that again, that was nice.”
She complied, pressing harder with her fingers, moving down his back, over his buttocks, across his thighs.
“You going to stay here long enough for me to make love to you?” he said, into the pillow.
“I am.”
Silence as she eased her fingers to the inside of his thighs and worked upwards.
“Good. I’d have to go find a serving maid to accommodate me if not.”
“I be all the maid thee need,
zur
.”
Jesamiah laughed, rolled over onto his back and caught Tiola in his arms, wrapped his legs around her, exhilarating in the delicious feel of her cool, smooth skin pressing against his.
“Then sit yourself astride me, wench, and do what you will to pleasure me.”
Seventeen
Thursday 10th October
There was a distinct chill in the air in the quiet hour before dawn. Jesamiah stood under the trees, his hands tucked beneath his armpits, staring across the dew-wet lawn at the balcony and window from where he had just climbed, leaving Tiola asleep, her body curled, contented, hair tousled. A smile on her face. He had not woken her but had dressed quietly, placed one of the less wilted flowers in the dent of the pillow where his head had been, and left her.
“I’ll come for you when you are ready,” he had said as he had felt the shudders of ecstasy coursing through him, and had grinned as she had cheekily answered, “I am ready now, and you are about to come.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he had repeated later, after she had crept down to the kitchens and stolen him some food; after they had sat in bed, naked, together, devouring the spoils and leaving crumbs on the sheets. “When you are finished here I’ll fetch you.” And had added, suddenly doubtful; “If you want me to?”
He smiled up at the blank darkness of the glazed window. “Of course I do,” she had assured him.
“I want to know about my father,” was the other thing he had said. “I want to know why he did nothing to stop Phillipe. Why he allowed a boy – a man, he was all those years older than me – to do what he did. I thought Phillipe was my elder half-brother, and I thought he did those things because being the elder somehow gave him the right. But he had no right. He was not my brother. He was not my father’s son.”
“Leave it,” Tiola had urged him, her palm on his chest. “They are gone, it is done. Leave it.”
He puffed air through his cheeks, his breath visible in the coldness. If only he could. If only he could!
He was fiddling with his right earlobe, realised suddenly that the hoop of his gold earring was loose, that the attached acorn charm was not there. He cursed as he fastened the hoop, hoped the acorn had fallen off in Tiola’s bed. That she would find it, keep it safe.
Lost in thought, he did not hear the whispered breath at his back until it was too late.
“Move a muscle an’ thee be dead, bastard.”
Jesamiah froze, willed himself to keep still as the pistol barrel pressed into his right temple. He forgot all about his earring as he heard the double click of the hammer. Prayed that his voice would not betray the fear thudding through him as he responded as nonchalantly as he could; “Hello Teach; you really have to learn how to move quieter if you want to creep up on people.”
It was a lie, he had not heard a sound, but Edward Teach, Blackbeard, would not be knowing that.
“What be thee doin’ ‘ere, Acorne, skulkin’ aroun’? Gotten thy eye on tha Guv’nor’s silver, hast thee?”
Slowly Jesamiah lowered his hands to his waist and felt surreptitiously for the slender blade concealed inside the facing of his coat. “I would wager I’ve been doing the same as you. Taking my pleasure with one of the ladies of the house.”
“Tha Guv’nor bain’t be pleased to be hearing tha’.”
“The Governor ain’t goin’ t’be ‘earin’ of it, is ‘e?”
“No’ ‘til ‘er belly swells.”
“When that happens, Teach, I’ll be long gone. Or I could put the blame on your nocturnal activities.”
The bigger, older man snorted, pushed the pistol harder against Jesamiah’s head. “Thee tried t’kill me. Thee crippled my sloop an’ made a gurt fool out o’ me in fron’ of my men. Give me a reason why I shoul’nay shoot thee ‘ere an’ now. An’ make it quick, I’m in no mood fer parlour games.”
With his left hand, Jesamiah eased the weapon aside. “You fire that an’ you’ll wake the entire household. You’ll probably think of an excuse to explain why you’re standing over a dead body, but saying why you are here, in the dark, an hour before dawn will be more difficult. Add to that, you owe me. Seeing as how you reckon I owe you, that makes us quits.”
Teach snorted again, but he uncocked the pistol, lowered it. “An’ just how doos thee fathom tha’n? Thee lost me my ship. She were’n a fine vessel, tha
Queen Anne’s Revenge
.”
“I didn’t lose her. You were pissed out of your skull and you sailed her over a sandbar. You wrecked her, not me.”
A snarl began to pucker Teach’s lips. “An’ what of my sloop?
Adventure
? Thee nigh on scuppered ‘er an’ all, thee bastard.”
Slipping the knife into his sleeve, from where he could retrieve it in a hurry should he need to do so, Jesamiah tipped his hat back slightly. “Actually, for some fokken stupid reason I saved your life, mate.”
“Fuckin’ tripe, thee bilge rat!” Raising the pistol Teach reversed it suddenly and brought the butt down hard into the curve where Jesamiah’s neck met his right shoulder. Jesamiah cried out and slumped to his knees. Willpower and gritted teeth made him ignore the agony shooting down his arm and stabbing up into his brain. He held his breath to ride it out.
A couple of deeper breaths and he forced himself to his feet. Halfway up he moved quickly. Stepping forward he thrust the blade up and under Teach’s waistcoat, pushed it against the lower ribs.
“You even think of blinking and it’ll be in to the hilt.”
“Thee casn’t kill me Acorne, nay un can. I ‘as made a pact with tha Devil.”
“I’m willin’ t’put that claim to the test.” Jesamiah was very close to Teach, his face almost in his; the smell of bad breath and body odour was nauseating, even with the general stench of uncleanliness a familiarity. Through the concealing bush of his beard ulcerous sores were spotted around Teach’s mouth and nose, a few blackened teeth were loose in his gums.
“I could kill you,” Jesamiah said, taking half a step backwards, but not removing the dagger. “Send you to the Devil to find out if he lied. Or are you goin’ t’throw the pistol into that flower bed over there and talk to me like a civilised gentleman?”
“Thee bain’t got tha guts t’kill me, worm.”
“Ah, but I have. Only, the price on your ‘ead ain’t ‘igh enough yet. Give it another month an’ you’ll be worth killin’. Now, do you want to know why I stopped you attacking the
Fortune of Virginia
or not?”
Teach growled, tossed the pistol away.
Jesamiah removed the dagger, but kept it in plain sight. “She sailed from Nassau, where she had been commissioned by Woodes Rogers who, as you know, is a bosom pal of Virginia’s Governor. The pair of ‘em ‘ave got bees buzzing in their bonnets about pirates who ain’t sworn an oath of amnesty. Are you listenin’ to me, Teach? They’ve got it into their ‘eads t’be rid of scummers like you.”
“I be list’nin’.”
“You were going to attack the
Fortune of Virginia
– you see, Blackbeard me old mate, you’re too fokken greedy. What had you assumed? That she was laden with rum; molasses; passengers? Slaves maybe?” Jesamiah shook his head, tried to ignore the throbbing ache in his shoulder. “You’d got it wrong. She was packed to the gunnels with armed militia. Her orders were t’draw you in, wait fer you to board. Then finish you off. Savvy?”
“An’ thee,” Teach sneered, “out o’ tha goodness of thy putrid heart decided t’save me? Pull tha other leg, it has a bell tied to it!”
“I decided to warn you ‘cause I figured if I did you a favour you’d stop sendin’ your bloody men to spoil me pleasant evenings with a bottle and a blonde.” Jesamiah slipped the dagger into his pocket, spread his hands. “I ain’t got no quarrel with you, Teach, and I don’t p’ticlarly like the way these bastard governors are tryin’ to run us out of the Caribbean. This is our patch. Let ‘em bugger off if they don’t like the way we do things.” He folded his arms. “I came here specifically to warn you, but if you don’t want to listen, I’ll not waste m’breath.”
Blackbeard grunted, nodded, fell for it. Every untruthful word. He put his arm around Jesamiah’s shoulder and steered him away from the house, heading through the boundary trees to walk up-creek along a gravel path of crushed ballast that crunched beneath their feet. Began boasting how he had made the girl he’d been poking scream with delirious pleasure. “Left she crumpled in a heap sobbin’ an’ wantin’ more. She’m nait been drubbed like that afore. Takes a man to show as how it be done prop’ly.”
“Indeed it does,” Jesamiah responded, wondering who the unfortunate victim was, then wondering if it was true. He could not see any woman willingly bedding with this odious man. And Teach could not have been ashore long. They must have taken a good while to limp home, and there was fresh tar on Teach’s hand, Jesamiah noticed, while his boots were mud-caked. Come to see Governor Eden perhaps? To arrange the secret offloading of cargo?
Stopping at the bank beside a wooden jetty, Teach indicated a bumboat, four men were huddled together in the stern, snoring.
“I be goin’ home to me bade, Acorne. I live’n o’er to there,” he pointed in a vague direction across the creek, “at Plum Point. I be wantin’ thee to row back tha way thee came, an return to thy little ship an’ get off m’river. If ’n I catch thee here again I’ll string thee up from thy own yardarm by thy balls. Be thee understan’in’ me?”
Jesamiah touched his hat, turned on his heel. “Aye Cap’n.” He walked away, heard the sound of a hand slapping against faces to wake up sleeping men. Heard grunts and grumbles and then the splash of oars.
Sweat trickled down his spine. That had been close. Thank God for his ability to think quickly and lie convincingly!
Peering over his shoulder, Jesamiah saw Teach’s men rowing across the creek, Teach standing in the stern, one arm outstretched. Saw a flash, heard a loud bang and remembered belatedly that Teach always carried more than one pistol.
Felt the impact of a lead ball slam into his right shoulder. As he crumpled to the ground, heard a man laugh, then shout. “Nay’un tries t’better me Acorne! Nay’un!”