The Jezebel's Daughter (20 page)

I stuffed the leather strip into my mouth and nodded. Ben inserted the needle into my flesh and white-hot agony coursed through me. I did scream and cry and moan and whimper. But I did not flinch or try to pull away from him. After I was the proud owner of fifteen neat, black stitches, Ben gave me a bottle of rum, told me to get into my bunk, and drink all of the rum. My arm would stop hurting and I would feel good.

I did as he instructed and drank until I was blind. He was right; my arm stopped hurting and I felt weightless and dreamy as I floated away on a river of rum. My worries about what the future held in store for my soul were pushed aside for a little while and I did nothing more strenuous than raise the bottle to my lips.

XXIII

On board the Jezebel

March, 1717

I had a beastly head-ache the next morning, but at least the pain in my arm had faded to a dull ache. The sun was entirely too bright and the men entirely too loud, so I spent as much time with the charts and maps and log books as possible, hiding in the quiet gloom of Sebastian's cabin. I had become something of a permanent installation in the space and Sebastian had grown so used to my presence that sometimes he forgot I was there.

When I entered the cabin, I heard voices from the captain's bed place. I sat quietly down at the desk and unrolled a chart, half-listening to the discussion. It sounded as though Sebastian was meeting with Duquesne and the new gunner, Weiss, who had come over from the
Vixen
.

“It's like the flintlocks on our pistols, captain,” Duquesne said. “But for the cannon.”

“
Ja
,
Herr
Captain,” Weiss said. I smiled, hearing my mother's native German spoken again. “It will do away with the need for linstocks and will make crews safer. Guns will aim better.”

“Can you retrofit our existing cannon?” Sebastian asked.

“
Nein
,
Herr
Captain. They must be new guns, made with new fittings.”

“And how much would this endeavor cost?”

“Seven thousand
reales.
For each gun,” Duquesne answered.

My eyebrows flew up in shock. Seven thousand
reales
was approximately two hundred pounds sterling. There was a silence and I could almost see Sebastian's face as he mulled over the costs of such a thing. “I'm afraid we cannot afford that right now, gentleman. After taking aboard the new twelve-pounders, there is no more money for arms at this time. Perhaps in a year, the ship's shares will build once more to that level, but for the meantime, we stick with the present cannon.”

“Not even one, Captain?” asked Duquesne. “Just so that Mr. Weiss can prove the modifications to you?”

“I'm sorry, gentlemen,” Sebastian said. “Come back to me in a year's time, if you're still with us, Mr. Weiss.”

I heard the door opening and buried my head in the charts spread out in front of me, hopefully convincing the men that I hadn't heard a word they'd just said. Duquesne and Weiss nodded to me as they exited the cabin and Sebastian sat down across from me, working on his own captain's logs. I raised my eyes and studied him for a moment, opening my mouth to ask a question but deciding better of it before speaking. I went back to my work.

“I can hear you thinking, Loreley,” he said softly. “What is it?”

“It's just... Well, you do have the money for at least one of the new cannon that Mr. Weiss proposed.” I looked up at him and found him staring at me, his eyes narrowed and a strange, unreadable expression on his face.

“And you know this because...?”

I swallowed and suddenly wished I hadn't spoken. “Um. Well, I've been checking Hamilton's figures. He explained how the shares work. Who gets how much, I mean.” I paused and took a deep breath, trying to formulate how to say what I was thinking in a way that wouldn't get me marooned or flogged. “And he explained how any small change is funneled into the ship's shares as well. We've been doing very well lately with all the merchantmen we've taken. I figure we've amassed at least fifteen and a half thousand pounds. Even with the powder, balls, and all the provisions taken out of the ship's shares, there's still quite a bit of money left from the small change.”

“I'm saving it,” he answered blandly. I knew him better than that, though. He was only telling me half-truths, covering something he wanted hidden from the crew.

“For a situation like this, right? Is His Majesty's Navy using the new gun design?”

“Probably not. They are notoriously slow to accept change.”

“Then why wouldn't you jump at the chance to adapt? Think about the—”

“Enough,” he said and stood up. “There isn't the money for it. That's the end of it. I won't discuss it further.”

I stared at him and then nodded slowly. “Yes, Captain,” I said and returned to my charts. He stalked over to his bookshelf and took down a volume and sat with it.

Was he stealing from the crew? I looked around the cabin, taking note of anything that looked expensive or new. Despite his position as one of the most successful captains on the Caribbean, the man lived a rather Spartan existence. He didn't have a lot of showy clothing or jewelry; in fact he only wore a single signet ring and a small golden earring. There weren't any objets d'arte or expensive books in his cabin, either. Unless everything was hidden away, that is, but I doubted that. Scotchmen were, after all, notorious for their thriftiness.

So what had happened to the money that he claimed we didn't have? Was it merely a question of him saving it? Repairs could be costly and it made a certain amount of sense for him to save some extra set aside in the case of serious damage to the ship. But it made far more sense to get every advantage we could, and the new gun design certainly fit that description.

“It is dangerous to underestimate you,” he said softly. I glanced up and met his eyes. “There is a wickedly sharp mind inside that beautiful head and I ignore it at my peril.” I continued staring at him, not speaking, sensing that a single wrong word would cause him to withdraw. I knew he was on the cusp of telling me something important.

“The money is going to France,” he said. “To the Stuart court.”

I gaped at him. Whatever explanation I thought he was going to offer, I couldn't have possibly anticipated this. “You're stealing from the crew—from your ship—to fund a treasonous rebellion?”

“It is not a rebellion!” He got up and stood in front of me, his hands braced on the surface of the desk as he glowered down at me like an avenging angel. “The House of Stuart are the rightful monarchs of England and Scotland. I will do anything in my power to see James on the throne again.”

“Is your will more important than God's?” My voice was low and tight with anger. He stared at me, confusion plain in his features. “God chose the House of Hanover,” I explained. “Your will, the Jacobites' will, isn't more important than God's. How dare you second guess Him?”

“The throne was
stolen
from the Stuarts, Loreley! God most certainly did not choose the damned Protestants!” He shook his head and straightened, pushing off the desk angrily. “I don't second guess God. I cannot begin to know His mind. No one can. I do, however, know the minds of men, and make no mistake, it is men—not God—who put Hanover on the throne.”

I clenched my teeth, holding back my accusations of blasphemy. What could I expect from the man? He was a papist, through and through. He would never understand that the Reformation freed us from the greed and corruption of his church. I sat in stony silence, my arms crossed over my chest, staring up at the Sebastian. How could I have let myself fall in love with him? And yet... I did, with my whole being.

“Very well,” he said after a long, emotionally-charged silence. “If you're bent on this decision—telling the men that I'm stealing from them and where the money is going—then do so. But before you do, please consider how your decision will affect me. The men will vote to depose me. They'll kill me, Loreley.”

That closed my mouth with a snap of teeth. He said it without emotion, without inflection. It was a statement of fact. And I knew it as such. I could see his body swinging from the yard, face swollen, tongue lolling and black. Tears pricked at my eyes at the thought of losing him. I couldn't. I knew in that moment that no matter what else was said, I would keep his secret because I loved him. “Who else knows what you're doing, where the money is going?” I asked.

“Hamilton. The quartermaster on the French third-rank
Achille
. And now you.”

“The Frenchman is your contact with the Stuarts?” He nodded and I drew a deep breath and released it slowly. I was already keeping one secret that could get us killed. What was one more in the grand scheme of things? “I'll keep your secret, because I love you, because I cannot imagine my life without you,” I said carefully, meeting his eyes and holding them. “But know this: if one of our men dies because of this, I'll tell them everything. And damn the consequences.”

He circled around the desk and took my hands in his. “Thank you,” he said softly and drew me to my feet. He encircled me in his arms and rested his cheek against the top of my head. I was once more reminded how tall he was; I stood equal with most of the crew, but he was a head taller than I. “We'll be headed back to Le Cap soon. Would you deign to dine with me again?”

I drew back a little and looked up at him. “I would like that very much,” I replied.

A smile creased his eyes and he leaned forward, his hands coming up to cup my cheeks, his long fingers curling back into my hair. He pressed his mouth against mine and kissed me deeply, for a shockingly brief moment, before releasing me. He trailed his hand down my arm, gently touching the bandage beneath my shirt sleeve. “Do try to stay alive between now and then, hm?” He winked and then strode from the cabin, leaving me feeling molten and pliable, like melted wax.

XXIV

Cap-Français, Saint-Domingue

June, 1717

There was a lingering stench hanging over Le Cap's harbor, a cloying smell that coated the back of my throat and made me nauseated. As we sailed to anchorage, Ben's eyes went flat and hard and he retreated below-decks, probably to our cabin. I turned a questioning look on one of the other crew members. He shrugged and nodded to small, square-rigged merchantman flying French colors. “Slaver,” he explained. “Pack the darkies so tight they ain't got room to breathe. Shit and piss builds up beneath 'em. They ain't even got water to drink, let alone bathe. Keep 'em like that for two, three months at a time. That's what you smell.”

Prior to meeting Tansy and Ben, I had been ambivalent about the topic of slavery. My father did not employ them in our house in London, nor on our estate in Somerset. I understood the necessity of owning slaves on an intellectual level, but Graves's casual murder of Tansy on the beach and his subsequent reimbursement of a paltry twenty pounds for the value of her life made the reality of the beastly practice real and abhorrent.

I left the weather deck and sought Ben out. I found him sitting on his bunk, dragging his cutlass slowly and deliberately over a whetstone. I sat down across from him and studied him. His motions were sure and steady, and only someone who knew him well would see the tension in the lines of his jaw and shoulders. Seeing the slaver's ship in the harbor must have brought up all sorts of horrible memories for him. I wanted to comfort him, somehow give back a little of what he'd given to me in the months since we'd first met. What could I do? What could I say? Perhaps just my presence would be enough.

I sat and watched him sharpening his sword for a full five minutes before speaking. “I'm sorry,” I said softly, knowing the words were hollow, despite the sincerity behind them. “Is that... Did you come here on a ship like that?”

He nodded curtly. “I was seven. The slavers took me and my mama from Abomey.” He fell quiet and our little cabin was filled with the sounds of our breathing and the steady rasp of the sword against the stone. “We survive. Most of them that was with us didn't. I got separated from my mama, and sold to plantation owner near Ocho Rios. That be where Graves found me when I was thirteen. Bought me. Free me two, three years later.”

“Why?” Graves had never struck me as particularly compassionate or altruistic. “Why would he free you?”

“I ask.” I made a soft noise of disbelief and Ben shrugged. “Guess no one ask him before.” He put the stone down next to him on the bunk and slid the pad of his left thumb along the blade. When he drew his hand back, I could see a ruby-red bead of blood clinging to his thumb. He stood and pressed the blood against the hollow of my throat. “So Ezili Danto keep you safe,” he explained when I gave him a questioning look.

“Ezili Danto?”

“She be
lwa
of women, protector spirit. Fierce fighter. She keep you safe when I can't.”

I reached for his hand and held it gently. “I'll be back tomorrow night,” I said as I stood up and slipped my pistol and cutlass into my belt. Then I grabbed my purse—fat and bulging with my savings; I never bought anything more expensive than fruit or books, so I still had most of my shares from the sales of cargo. “I'll bring you a book.” He nodded, the little smile lurking around the corners of his mouth showing me how excited he was at the prospect of a new book, and retook his seat on the bunk, picking up his cutlass and whetstone again.

Once I was topside, I saw Sebastian speaking with Hamilton, their heads conspiratorially close to each other. They were probably scheduling another donation to the Stuart cause, and since we were in a French colony, it would be easier to make arrangements with their contact aboard the French warship. I waited for a moment until Sebastian looked up and smiled at me. We stared at each other across the decks, hunger and desire equal in our gazes, and then he dropped his eyes back to the ledger Hamilton had in his hands. Warmed down to my toes by what I'd see in Sebastian's expression and eagerly anticipating my transformation into a proper lady dining in a proper tavern amongst civilized folk—and by what would happen after dinner in the confines of a proper bed—I climbed over the side of the ship into the jolly-boat and helped row it ashore.

* * *

The marketplace was more crowded than usual. When I asked the fruit seller why, she gave me a peculiar look and answered, “
Ce est la fête de Saint-Jean demain
,” with a casual Gallic shrug. I nodded as if I knew what she was talking about about and wandered into the thick of the crowd, clutching a small bunch of bananas, still puzzling over her words. The Feast of Saint John. Of course! Saint John the Baptist. Midsummer's Day was tomorrow. That meant I'd been away from England for two years now. I could hardly remember anything before waking up on that beach in Nassau after the
Resolution
sunk. It seemed as though I had always been a pirate
and my life before had been just a dream.

I felt a gentle tug at the strings of my purse moments before a small, solid body was jostled roughly into mine my a passing merchant. I whirled, hand immediately going to the pistol at my waist, and locked eyes with a small, dirty boy. In one of his hands was my purse and in the other was a long, thin-bladed knife.

We acted simultaneously, my pistol exploding with a thunderous report and his hand darting forward towards my stomach. Blood blossomed on the boy's chest and he stumbled backward, pulling his hand away from my stomach with a twist of his wrist. My body went numb from the waist down, like someone had just hacked off my legs, and I fell into the dirt. How could he have hurt me so badly? He only had that little stiletto. I reached down to make sure my legs were still attached and felt something hot just below my navel. My hand came away coated with thick, red blood. My blood. Dear God, the little pissant had stabbed me!

I was suddenly cold, so cold, and my teeth were chattering. How was that possible? It was June and the air was so thick with heat and humidity that sometimes I felt as though I was swimming instead of walking. I locked eyes with the boy, who was still clutching my purse, and watched with a certain amount of satisfaction as his lips curled in a grimace of pain. Stupid child. That would teach him to steal from a member of the
Jezebel
's crew.

I could hear distant screaming and saw a circle of feet forming around me, blocking my view of the cutpurse. While I was glad I'd hurt him—maybe he'd learn to be a better thief after being stabbed—I didn't necessarily want him to die. But if I couldn't see him, maybe he would die, and it would be my fault. I attempted to see through the forest of legs, but they wouldn't move, wouldn't cooperate.

Rough hands hooked beneath my armpits and around my ankles. I struggled against them and screamed in pain as something tore inside me. The world went black for a moment and when it came back, I was lying inside a building somewhere, staring up at an incredibly dirty ceiling. I watched with a remote interest as a small green lizard trundled slowly across my field of vision. Was it my lizard, the one that had amused me and kept me company before Ben came into my life? Faces surfaced and sank away at the edges of my vision, but none of them held still long enough for me to make out who they were.

I was suddenly hot. My belly felt like a red-hot fire poker had been shoved all the way through me and left there, burning and searing my flesh. I tried to cry out, but sheer agony stole my voice. The world went away again and this time when it came back, I saw Ben and Sebastian hovering above me.

I tried to smile at them, tried to speak but my mouth wouldn't work right. I couldn't form words. Only pathetic, wounded animal sounds escaped my throat, the same noises I'd made the night Graves had raped me, and I looked around for him. Wasn't he dead? How could he be hurting me if he was dead? Was this Hell? Was
I
dead? Hell was supposed to be ever-lasting fires and brimstone. And if I was dead, why were Ben and Sebastian here, too? Were they dead as well?

Another face, this one older, calm, capable and vaguely familiar, replaced Ben at Sebastian's side, and I grunted unhappily. I wanted Ben back. Ben said he would protect me. I was suddenly scared and reached out for him. My hand brushed against my bare skin and I looked down, seeing that my shirt and the bindings had been ripped away to expose my breasts. Oh, no. My eyes widened in panic and I groped at the torn edges of my shirt, trying to close them over my nakedness.

Panic replaced my fear and I looked around for Sebastian. I found him heatedly talking to Hamilton. They were pointing at me, yelling angrily. Hamilton was shaking his head and turned to walk away, but Sebastian grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. His fist connected with Hamilton's face and then the older, calm face swam back into view, blocking Sebastian and Hamilton from my sight.

He—Ferro,
that
was his name! He was a surgeon we'd taken from a Dutch ship—gently pushed away my hands, which were still trying to close my torn shirt over my chest. “You don't have anything I haven't already seen elsewhere, girl,” he said. “Let me examine you.”

I went still and felt Ferro's gentle, impersonal hands moving over my body. I looked back at Sebastian and saw that Ben had pulled him away from Hamilton, whose nose was bleeding heavily. Why had Sebastian hit Hamilton? Weren't they friends? Was it because of me? Did Sebastian think Hamilton stabbed me?

I tried to sit up so I could explain that Hamilton hadn't stabbed me, that it had been a stupid child, but pain once more gripped me in its fist and crushed the breath out of me. My vision went black again and it felt like hours passed before I could see again.

I looked around for Sebastian and Hamilton, but found them gone. The only face I could see was Ferro's, still above me, his hands still poking and prodding. He had a crease between his eyebrows. It the same look I'd seen on my father's face when my pet cat had been savaged by a stray dog. My cat had died and that look—a mixture of helplessness and frustration and anger—was caused by the sheer inability to stave off the inevitable.

“I'm dying,” I said. Ferro nodded almost imperceptibly and laid his hand gently on my shoulder. Hot tears leaked out of my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. He gave my shoulder a squeeze and held up a bottle. I could barely make out the words “Tincture of opium”.
Laudanum
. He was offering me an eternal rest without pain. I suddenly, achingly wanted nothing more than the sweet oblivion promised by that small bottle of brown liquid. I reached for it, but my hand was roughly shoved aside. Ben appeared, anger and loss etching deep lines into his face.

“You be having none of that,” he said. “You not be dying. I said I protect you. We're going to see Manman Vivienne. I say Ezili Danto be watching you, and so she be. You be safe soon.”

“Sebastian,” I said, working hard to form the word.

Ben shook his head. “Captain be dealing with Hamilton just now. I take you to see Manman Vivienne now. You rest.” A long rest suddenly sounded like the best thing I'd ever encountered, and I obediently closed my eyes and the pain, the heat, and the cold all disappeared.