The Ephemera (24 page)

"I've been kidnapped," Roger sings. "You've stolen me."

The man called Angelo manages to crease his face into an expression of dismay. "Harsh words, little chap," he scowls. "By any measure."

"I've been
kidnapped
!" Roger repeats the word now, relishing it. "Smuggled out to sea."

Angelo waves his hands in a placatory manner. "Naw, you're simply a guest of the Captain's pleasure. "

Roger laughs and shakes his head and swears he can feel the memories of Montegrosso, of Ma Hutton's squalid rumshop and all the slaps and smacks he suffered there, and in the orphanage before it, tumble out like pebbles kicked off a cliff edge. "You've kidnapped me! You've
rescued
me," he yells. "At last, I'm free!"

Old Angelo blinks in startlement. "Free," he sings slowly, "is not for me to say. But it's true enough the Ship's your home now. However long you youngsters stay."

There's an unreadable look in the old man's eyes, but Roger is swept along by the music. He doesn't think about the implications of the lump on his head that brought him here, or even where, precisely,
here
is. He's a lad for whom the words "press-gang" have long been a fantasy. It's a phrase that has traditionally launched many a renowned sea-going career, and the starting point in Roger's mind for any number of adventuresome possibilities. For now he is slave to the music, caught up in the heart-racing, helter-skelter symphony of his escape from the limited horizons of his former life. And he has just become aware of a new melody woven into the arrangement.

"You said
youngsters
," he breathes. "Called me
the other
. Am I not alone then in this escapade? Have I brother?"

"Too true! The Captain sent for English beans—a special yellow type." Angelo ruffles Roger's fair thicket. "But
two
sacks came aboard, which means. Now he's trying to decide which is wrong and who is right."

Roger hears a troubled tone in Angelo's voice, but he's still too caught up in the music. Not only has it swept him at last to the beginning of an adventure, but it's delivered him a comrade-in-arms into the bargain. On cue, the music flourishes a fanfare that conjures images of two young men fighting back-to-back on the deck of a sleek ship, repelling bloodthirsty cutthroats; and then, perhaps later, fighting face-to-face over some young lady, or even the owning of the ship itself. Never having had a friend of any sort, he sees no disadvantage in having one that someday may become his rival. Indeed, the music appears to demand it.

Roger springs for the rope, but Angelo's age belies his reactions. Roger squirms, but the old man's grip is fast.

"'Tis rumoured," his rheumy gaze loses all of its friendliness, as he enunciates his words clearly. "There be treasure in the Captain's mind, and one of ye be the key?"

It is clear that Roger is expected to answer, but he knows nothing of treasure. Disappointed, he shrugs himself free of Angelo's grip. "In my life I've never seen a coin of any kind," he says. "So, I doubt, it's never me."

"Well I can see that you don't lead old Angelo a dance," the old man sings. "Do the same with the Captain, and you'll give yourself a chance."

The rope-end thrust into his hand, and the curt upward nod gives him no opportunity to ask:
chance of what?
And the music, changing again, trilling and thrilling, propels him monkey-clambering up the rope. The climb turns out to be slow work, though, because the old hemp is slimy, but the music spurs him on, furnishing flourishes to the mental picture building in his mind. There's a roll of drums that names the vessel around him as one of the King's navy, the military impression reinforced by a rising horn call that conjures sailors standing to attention on gleaming decks, as stiff as the taut white bells of the sails. A fine place for a lad to start a new life, true enough. Then a shrill tootle of pipes announces the Captain, as resplendent a figure in his serge and braid as the ship itself with its own bright trim of flags and insignia, but he's more than just a dandy. A slash of cymbal is bright and threatening as sabre-steel. A hard man, then, the Captain; but for an eager young lad, a good man to learn from.

This ship, the music tells him as his fingers grip at last the rim of the deck, is the answer to all his wishes.

By the time that he's pulled himself onto the deck, however, the music has fallen silent.

It's a big ship, right enough. It has three tall masts and what must once have been a proud prow, but where Roger had imagined fresh paint, clean lines, white sails, what he sees are sooty scorches, splintered wood and tattered canvas.

Is the music capable of deceit?

Roger decides that because he hears it with his heart, not his ears, it is not. The mistake is his fanciful interpretation. "I sense a shift..." he sings to himself.

His small words are snipped away by the wind, but his is not the only voice in the air, because while the ship is not the bustling military vessel of his imagination, it is nevertheless alive with activity. Seamen swarm the rigging and gather in gangs to haul at the sheets. They glitter in the sunshine, clothed more in steel than linen and sweaty with their exertions, and their voices are ragged and rough as they offer their work song to the wind. "Cry haul!" they bellow. "Aye, a-diddle-aye-dee."

"Quick smart, now, don't dawdle there." Contrary to Roger's laboured ascent, Angelo has clearly found the rope no trouble. "The Captain he don't like to wait. Straight ahead and up the stair." He prods Roger in the direction of the foc'sle. "And knock before you enter, mate."

Roger covers the length of the rolling deck as fast as his unsteady legs will allow him. He trains his gaze firmly on the boards, trying to ignore the scars and missing limbs, the dull metalwork and harsh, violent tattoos that pass through the peripheries of his vision. He can still hear their songs, though. And that's bad enough. Roger doesn't understand half of the words in the shanties, but the half that he does know terrify him, although they thrill him too. Just a little.

His knock on the cabin door is as trembly as his heart. Judging by the crew he has now entirely revised his expectations of the Captain. Now, he imagines a hulking, brooding monster, worse than all the rum-soaked bastards in Hutton's innroom together. He imagines a thick black beard not quite covering up a horrific facial scar, brows as portentous as stormy clouds and eyes as dead as a shark's.

He listens, but the music holds its counsel.

~

Getting To The Bottom

The voice, when it comes, sings out as clear and melodic as the single trumpet that heralds the music's swelling return.

"Well come in, if yer coming, lad. Come in if you will. Don't stand around sunning. There's work to be done while the sun's on the sill."

The Captain's cabin also confounds Roger's expectations. It's a comfortable room with a bunk on one wall and a
chaise longue
on the other, both embellished with brocaded cushions. A dangling lantern adds a homely quality. It softens the harsh daylight flooding in through a window that has been opened to dry some rags. There's a map table and a scrolled escritoire, both with their instruments and papers stowed neatly away. The red feathered tail of a quill pen ruffles in the breeze and a gimballed inkwell rocks gently with the ship's motion. It's more like the drawing room of a gentleman than a rogue sailor's bolt hole. The floor's even been newly washed, judging from the mop standing to attention in the corner.

All of this Roger takes in instantly, but after that it's the Captain himself who commands his attention. He's a powerful man. Not especially tall, no, but the living angles and planes of his naked torso phosphoresce with compact energy even as he covers them up with a shirt as white as the smile that is like looking into a crack of the sun itself.

"Welcome, Blondie," the smile sings as the Captain tucks the shirt into britches the colour of blood and adjusts the cuffs, "to our happy delegation. We apologise for the uncouthness of our invitation, but time was pressing and you seemed less than happy with your present station."

It's the wink that tells Roger that he's seen the man before. Only he wasn't smiling then.

"What happened to the Magistrate?" he stammers.

"No concern of yours, little man, but in the interests of seeing justice served, there was a cove who surely got what he deserved." That wink again. "Don't you think?"

Roger has to admit that he's not unhappy that the Magistrate is dead. He manages a nod.

"Grand!" The Captain claps his hands, which Roger notices are pink from a fresh scrubbing. "Now, to the business in hand, but first of all, let's have a drink."

Roger is faced with his second flask of the day, but this one—silver and embossed with
fleurs-de-lis
— is a damn sight more inviting than Angelo's diseased old antique. The Captain's smile turns conspiratorial, and Roger is unable to refuse. The drink is sweet and minty, and when he catches an escaping drip on his finger it is like liquid emerald. He sucks it off with relish and raises the flask for a second gulp, but the Captain takes it from him with a laugh.

"Steady now, that's quite a thirst! And you shall have your fill. But I'd have yer attention first, so hearken if you will, while we get to the bottom of it..."

"But I know nothing!" Roger interrupts, sensing a tension in the music's underscoring of the Captain's words. Thinking, for the first time, that perhaps that smile is too good to be true.

"That's good son, ignorance is bliss." The hand on his arm is meant to be reassuring.

Roger edges away from it. "I know nothing," he repeats. "Ask the other one..."

"Other one?" The Captain gestures around the cabin. "What 'other one' is this?"

And with surprise, Roger realises that's what's missing. The other boy. His companion-in-adventure-to-be. The music drawls out a mysterioso, tremolos on the brink of an unresolving cadence. He looks around the room a second time, but for all its relative opulence there are no hiding places—unless one counts the small sea chest that sits beneath the window with those two pale embroidered rags stretched for drying on its lid, but even for a boy smaller than Roger that would not be possible. "I'm sorry," he stammers. "I must be confused, perhaps Angelo's forgotten..."

 "Well, p'raps there
was
a brother," the Captain interrupts, arching his brows to mirror his dangerous, devilish grin. "Mayhap, he caused me bother. Asked too many questions, wriggled like a squid, tried to get to the bottom of his situation, and perhaps," the Captain pokes his head dramatically out of the window and the music cuts a plummeting glissando, "that's what he did."

Is he really suggesting...?

No, Roger decides, the Captain is making fun. Angelo must have been pulling his leg too. There never was another boy.

The music draws out a sigh of strings. Does Roger imagine a mocking tone to it? "Am I the butt of some joke," he sings, feeling stung.

"The
butt
?" The Captain roars with laughter. "The
butt
, my piggy in a poke? Well, p'raps it's true at that. Old Angelo can't resist a stoke when we take aboard a rat."

"Rat?"

"Shipmate, son, shipmate. Now indulge my curiosity, pray. What else did that old shyster say?" When the Captain smiles again, there is a slash of sabre cymbal that warns Roger against any temptation to fib.

"Treasure," he peeps like a piccolo.

The Captain's eyes widen. "Treasure?" he whispers. "Well there's a word, by any measure, and," he winks again, "p'raps it's even true. But heed this warning young'un, a word like 'treasure' is torch to powder if spoke among the crew. So, keep it down, say it no louder lest it filter through. In fact— " the Captain places his finger on Roger's lips. The skin is scoured raw, but there is still the thinnest trace of red circling the nailbed. "If you'd keep your skin intact, keep 'treasure' locked away for good." His next utterance is
sotto voce
. "And that goes for the old man too."

"But now," the Captain's finger leaves Roger's lips and rejoins its siblings to execute a snare-tight slap on his cheek, "we've had our meetings, and we've gotten past our greetings, and there'll be no beatings, not unless you're very rotten." The Captain circles Roger as he sings. Roger opens his mouth to protest, but the Captain's hand grips his shoulder and he murmurs close to his ear, "and we'll be having no more bleatings if you please. The light is fleeting, and I'll not have it defeating me so let's..."

Roger feels the Captain's hand on his belt.

"...get..."

The sound of steel. The real thing this time, not just the music.

"...to..."

There's an alarmingly deft movement that Roger can't quite see, and then his britches are at his ankles. The breeze freezes his exposed arse.

"...the bottom!" the Captain finishes in triumph.

~

The Pirate's Life!

When Roger creeps from the Captain's cabin, the sun has climbed high over the yard.  The attempt at stealth, however, is pointless. Even if the cabin door were not in plain sight of most of the ship, even if he were able to walk in any other manner than this stuttering impersonation of an arthritic pigeon, there is his waiting audience. The second Roger appears the crowd of sailors erupts in laughter and jeers, catcalls and sarcastic applause.

Roger wishes he could die. He knows what they think is the reason for his crabbed stance and permanent wince—living in the roughest tavern in Montegrosso he has heard all the stories of what could become of cabin boys, even on the crisp, spruce ships of the King's Navy—but what really happened to him was worse.

The rags, which were neither cotton, nor linen, nor cloth of any kind, hadn't been fully dry. They had left a smear of gore on the map table, and Roger had been made to stare at the one rough-flensed, pink scrap with its inked island coastline and its neighbour with its black-blue nautical coordinates. But he had not really seen the island or the writing, he had seen the freckles and soft hairs and could not put from his mind the fate of the other boy. The one who had caused the Captain trouble.