Isle of Swords (24 page)

On the forecastle deck, far from Stede and the others, Anne sat in a dark nook between two barrels. She had her head bowed into the palm of one hand and anxiously twirled a long lock of her crimson hair with the other. How had it all gone so terribly, terribly wrong? All she'd wanted to do was help Cat find out who he was, to take him ashore just long enough to get the clue that he needed.

Who am I kidding?
Anne chided herself.
I just wanted to get rid of him.
She stood up and began to pace the deck. She paused each time at the port rail and strained to see the flicker of a torch, some sign that her father, the others—and Cat—were returning safely.

But a weight in the pit of her stomach told her otherwise. She'd seen the towering fiery plume surge high above the island. She knew one way or the other that her father had been involved. Anne couldn't keep from imagining scenes of his death . . . and all because of her. With each lap back and forth, her despair—and her anger—grew.

Her skin suddenly prickled, and she felt a presence behind her.

Drawing her dagger, she wheeled about. There stood a dark, hooded figure. He loomed menacingly over her, and she struck. But deftly, the shadowy being moved. Anne felt a pain in her wrist, and the dagger slipped from her hand. Anne clutched at her throbbing wrist and looked up. Her blade was now in the hands of her attacker. He held the dagger out and came toward her.

“Commodore! Commodore Blake!” came a loud voice from behind.

Standing in the still-smoldering ruins of St. Pierre's mill, Blake turned and saw that it was Father Espinosa. The gigantic monk did a kind of waddle-run. His cheeks were red and bulged like pink grapefruits, and he breathed heavily. There was another monk with him.

“Commodore Blake!” yelled the large man. He yelled, in spite of the fact that he stood now only a few feet away.

“Yes, uh . . .” Blake looked up and saw the long brown robes.

“What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, I suppose, but perhaps I can do something for you.”

He gestured to the other monk. “This is Brother Jerome. He has found something I think you should see.”

Something in the way that he said it . . . something in the look on Father Espinosa's face made Blake feel uneasy. “Sir Nigel!” he called.

“Yes, sir?” answered the slender, dark-haired soldier.

“Bring ten of your best. Make sure they're armed.”

Brother Jerome led them north to the church and down into the graveyard. “I was just sweeping the walk,” he explained. “A mist or maybe smoke began to creep in, and it became very quiet.” Brother Jerome led them down the cobblestone walk into the hollow. The mountain's shadow had deepened. “I stopped just up ahead,” he said, gesturing. “I heard a strange sound.” He led them to a large stone sarcophagus. “The tomb opened, and someone . . . someone came out of the grave!”

Father Espinosa led them over to the edge of the tomb. “As you might understand,” he said, “Brother Jerome was overcome by the, uh, startling appearance. When he came to, he bravely looked into the tomb . . . and found this.”

Blake and his men drew near. “Stairs!” he said aloud.

“Should we follow them?” asked Sir Nigel.

“No need,” Blake replied. “I already know where they will lead.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I am afraid I have vastly underestimated Declan Ross and his men. Sir Nigel, once we finish helping with the cleanup at the mill site, we will return to the fleet. I've had enough of fighting on land. Let us take to the sea and challenge Ross to elude us there.”

“What about Bartholomew Thorne?” Nigel asked.

“I have not forgotten Thorne,” Blake replied. “But his trail has gone cold. We shall take our fleet and form a sea net. We will drag the Caribbean north and east of Dominica and see what we catch!”

The dark, hooded figure now had Anne's dagger. “You should be more careful with such weapons,” he said, returning her dagger to her as he lowered his hood.

“Padre Dominguez?” Anne's mouth remained open as she sheathed her dagger. “I could have killed you.”

“No,” he replied. “I do not think so.”

Anne still felt a slight throb in her wrist from when he had disarmed her. “How did you do that?”

“I wasn't always a priest,” Padre Dominguez said, but he did not elaborate. He stood very still and did not speak for several moments. He seemed to be waiting. All the while, she could feel him watching her.

Anne had marveled at his dark eyes that first day in St. Celestine.

Even in the bright sunlight, they were as black as pitch. But the darkness there was not the color of emptiness. No, if anything, Padre Dominguez's eyes were too full—full of knowledge, full of history, full of wisdom.

“I climbed the ladder and stood here on the forecastle deck,” he said, breaking the silence at last. “I watched you pacing. I thought you knew I was here.”

Anne looked away and shook her head. “I'm sorry . . . I was just lost in thought.”

“So I noticed,” he said. “You are troubled.”

It hadn't been phrased as a question. Anne shifted uneasily from one foot back to the other. When she looked again into his eyes, she found there was compassion and more than that . . . peace. Peace, like a still lake on a moonless night. Anne felt as if a cork had been removed from her heart. Everything just spilled out.

“My father, Cat, Jules—all of them—they are dead!” she cried.

“And it's my fault!”

“We do not know they are dead,” he said.

“But if they are, it's my fault. Father told me I couldn't go on the island, but I didn't listen. I was angry, and when I saw how badly Cat wanted to go, how Father was keeping him prisoner too, . . . well I . . . I just had to do something.” Anne blinked and looked away. “I know Dominica well enough,” she said. “I just figured we'd go look around a bit and be back on the
Wallace
before anyone knew.”

“But you had other motives.”

Anne felt her throat tighten. “How, how did you know?”

“You are a passionate person, Anne Ross,” he said. “You are moved to action by these passions, and when these actions cause harm, you bear the guilt . . . and rightly so. But there is something else, I think. You also have the writing of God on your heart.”

“What?” Anne almost laughed out loud. “Writing of God? But I don't even believe—” He cut her off with a wave of his hand.

“Beneath your passions,” he said, “there lives a powerful sense of justice, something that weighs and measures not only what you do—but why you do it. This is the writing of the Almighty.”

Anne quietly rocked back and forth on her heels.

Padre Dominguez continued, “The Scriptures say ‘the law of God is written on their hearts.' I am convinced, it is written on yours.”

“Padre Dominguez,” she replied, shaking her head. “I . . . I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Do you not?” he asked, his eyes penetrating. “Tell me, the pain you feel now . . . would you still feel it as intensely if you had acted solely out of charity?”

Anne did not answer.

“If you had done all this because you honestly thought it would help Cat—and no other reason—would your sorrow be the same?”

Anne began to tremble. What was with this priest? He seemed to see right through her, and every word he said peeled her open like a plantain. She rushed to the rail and began to sob. “My father,” she cried, “just welcomed Cat aboard, just accepted him, made him part of everything. I'm his daughter. I'm his flesh and blood! And he hardly even talks to me—except to say no. I wanted to get rid of Cat. Not kill him, I mean . . . I just wanted him off the ship. Back in his own life.”

Padre Dominguez put a light hand on her shoulder. “Your father loves you, Anne. In my short stay aboard the
Wallace
, I have seen it. He watches you with great pride. He talks of you often. But he is a man of many responsibilities. And in the midst of them all, he is afraid . . . afraid that he can no longer protect you as he should.”

She turned around, wiping away tears. “But he doesn't have to keep me in a cage. He . . . can't keep me in a cage.”

“No . . . no, he cannot. And I suspect that he knows this, and it gnaws at him every moment he thinks of you.” The monk put up his hood, but before he turned to walk away, he said, “Your father is the captain of a ship, a man used to making decisions, directing others—having the answers when others fail. But with you . . . with you, he does not have the answers. You will have to show him. And it will begin when you learn to read what is written on your heart.”

He descended from the forecastle and disappeared somewhere on the main deck.
A strange man,
Anne thought.
One minute he took away my dagger like I'd never held one before, and the next, he's reading my mind.

No one had ever spoken to her like that before. He seemed so supremely confident . . . and peaceful. Anne pondered his words.

She didn't know what to think about all this “God writing things on your heart.” She hadn't really given God much of a thought since her mother died when she was about four. She had vague memories of her mother taking her to church. She remembered the nice vicar with rosy cheeks. He used to press a sugar stick that tasted of peppermint into her little hand as she passed through the receiving line after the service each week. But after her mother died, Anne went to sea with her father. And many things changed for Anne.

It wasn't that she blamed God for her mother's death. It was all too common for people to get sick and die in Edinburgh on the windy east coast of Scotland. But her father, a man who admittedly never darkened the door of a church himself, only mentioned God in brief rote prayers before dinner.

Anne put her head down on the rail and drifted off into thought.

She did not see the small flickers of yellow light in the trees onshore. She didn't see the small band of men leave the trees and board the cutter Stede had left ashore. But when Declan Ross and the others came aboard, she heard them. But even as her heart surged with gratitude and joy at their return, another part of her wondered about what the monk had said.

Anne climbed down from the forecastle and walked through the shadows of the main deck. She had directly disobeyed the captain of the ship . . . her father. And because of that, the lives of many had been put in danger.