Blaggard's Moon (10 page)

The man swallowed hard, emptied suddenly of bluster. “No, we just heard tell. Heard people talkin'. Didn't mean nothin' by nothin'. If we insulted your ship or your captain, then we're right sorry, and we take it back. Don't we, Shoe?”

His partner nodded. “We take it all the way back, to where it ain't no more. Won't you boys have a mug with us?”

“I'm not looking for a drink or an apology. I want to know about the warrants. How long have they been sworn out?”

“How would we know that?” He looked at his partner.

“Days? Weeks? Months? Years?” Damrick demanded.

“Months, anyway,” Shoe offered. “I guess. The sheriff's office is up in town. He'll know, if you need it for certain.”

“And there's an office here at the docks,” the other said. “You could check there. If it ain't closed down on account of the riffraff floatin' in.”

“Why would it be closed on account of riffraff?”

The man shrugged. “Gets a little wild when certain ships pull in. Then the deputies take their prisoners up to Mann. They come back when it settles.”

Damrick's jaw tightened. He turned and walked away without another word. He stopped at his table, tossed a small coin next to his mug of ale and his bowl of half-eaten stew. “We're going to see a deputy,” he told Lye.

Lye looked down at the table. “But why not finish the stew first…?”

“I don't have the appetite. Do you?”

Lye blinked at his own steaming bowl and swallowed. “I guess not.”

Damrick's look suddenly turned darker. Then he walked back over to the bar. As he did, Lye levered a large spoonful of stew into his mouth. And then another.

“What ships have pulled in recently?” Damrick asked the barkeep. “What ships would cause the deputy to take his prisoners to the city?”

“Well, the
Savage Grace,
for one.”

Damrick studied the man. “You're saying that ship is here?”

“Not in port, no. Anchored near the marshes south, they say. Out by the Dark Inn over that way.”

Damrick scowled and left them again. On his way past the table, he looked at Lye, who was barely visible under the large cloth napkin he was using to wipe his mouth. “Finished?” he asked.

Lye nodded, wiping his mouth furiously, unable to speak for the quantity of stew within it. He followed Damrick.

“Mr. Ryland, this is my daughter, Jenta Stillmithers. And Jenta,” Shayla said, turning a warm look in his direction, “this is our benefactor, Mr. Runsford Ryland, of Ryland Shipping & Freight.”

Jenta bowed her head as the elder of the two men in the plush stateroom took her hand, and kissed it. She was sure that Mr. Ryland must be
a very powerful businessman; she could feel it in his presence. He struck her as truly sophisticated, more so than the sunny, playful Mr. Frost had been. He was not at all unattractive, even though rather plump around the belly. His clean-shaven face was ruddy and healthy. His hairline receded, but went gray only at the temples. His features were long and narrow, holding spectacles that seemed mostly ornamental. She curtsied.

“Charming,” Runsford said, looking carefully at Jenta. “Truly. Miss Stillmithers, allow me to introduce you to my son, Wentworth Ryland.”

The elder passed Jenta's hand to the younger, who kissed it with evident pleasure.

A shipful of pirates booed.

“I'm very glad to meet you both,” Jenta answered, withdrawing her hand as quickly as she dared. “And I thank you for your generosity.”

“Infinitely charmed,” Wentworth said. He was lean like his father, leaner and paler and taller, but with slightly stooped shoulders. His manner was aloof and refined, but he smiled just a bit too broadly. His teeth were imperfect, and this, together with his grin, gave him just a bit of a wild, hungry look.

“And where is Mrs. Ryland?” Jenta asked, looking around the stateroom.

“She's ill…and so I'm afraid she's stayed back in Mann,” Runsford offered quickly. He shot a glance toward his son, a look that seemed to Jenta like a warning. Jenta then glanced at Shayla, who displayed no surprise, not the merest trace.

“And do you find your quarters comfortable?” the elder Ryland asked.

“Quite agreeable,” Shayla answered quickly, and now she cut her eyes toward her daughter—definitely a warning. In fact, the cabin they shared aboard ship was far below decks, dark and cramped, hardly big enough for one. And though it seemed generally clean, they had found a dead rat in the bottom of their one small cabinet, and being ladies they had required the services of a cabin boy to remove it—an earthy young man who had found the situation highly amusing.

“I'm so glad,” Runsford said easily. “Thank you for dining with us. Come have a seat, won't you?”

Jenta looked around her, finally feeling that it was appropriate to do so. If Runsford's intent was to quarter his two guests in a cabin that
encouraged them to linger here instead, it was working. This stateroom was more elegant than any room in any house that Jenta had ever seen. One deck below the captain's quarters, and running the width of the ship across the stern, it had all the comforts of a luxurious apartment. Walls were draped in tapestries; thick woven rugs covered polished wooden floors. A small dining table stood in the center, covered with white linens. A bar with four stools stood to Jenta's right. To her left and back, up against the stern windows and behind a modest silk screen, was a large double bed complete with decorative headboard, a tall post at each corner.

“My, what wonderful accommodations,” Shayla offered. “Quite comfortable for the two of you.”

“Yes, though it's just me at the moment. My son has his own stateroom. Would you like something before dinner? I have a fine sherry…”

Pirates winked and nodded at one another.

“I'd love some,” Shayla answered.

“How about you, Miss Stillmithers?”

“No, thank you. My stomach is a bit unsettled as yet.” This was only partly true. The other part was that Jenta simply did not have any desire to imbibe here, now, with the younger Ryland still ogling her. He made her very uneasy. Her mind drifted to the young sailor she had seen descending the gangway. She still had no idea of his name, or he hers, but nothing about Wentworth survived the comparison.

“I will pass as well,” the young man said quickly. Not only had he yet to take his eyes off the girl, he still held his hand aloft, half open, where she had pulled hers away. As he spoke he closed his fist delicately.

“Come, sit,” Runsford repeated, holding out an arm toward the table.

Wentworth rushed ahead to pull out a chair. “Miss Jenta, please.” His intense eyes urged her toward him. As Jenta sat, he took the napkin from the china plate, shook it open, and laid it in her lap.

“He ought not to be doing that!” one of the pirates shouted.

“The blaggard!” answered another.

“But you see, he didn't touch her or nothing of that sort,” Ham said easily. “It's a polite thing, that about laying out the napkin, but usually done by a steward or a servant.”

“He ain't no stewart! Who's he think he's foolin'!”

The others murmured agreement.

“Ah, and unfortunately, the lot of you are all quite correct,” Ham confirmed, “though how you figured it out I wouldn't know, utterly unfit for making judgments about staterooms and napkins and sherry as the sorry likes of you are.”

Self-congratulations could be heard amid confirming laughter.

“Aye,” Ham sighed, “Wentworth Ryland was smitten, from his first look at Jenta.”

Delaney felt a twinge in his thigh, the left one, and he unlocked his ankles to stretch the offending leg out before him, wiggling his toes to keep the blood flowing. He didn't need to be getting a cramp. He moved back and forth on the post from one buttock to the other.

“Smitten,” he said aloud, letting the word linger as he watched his toes curl. That's what Wentworth was. Jenta too, but not with Wentworth. Delaney knew what that was all about. He'd been smitten with his girl, Maybelle—“Smited,” he concluded after a moment's ponder. He remembered when the priests had used such a term to threaten him, telling him that God would smite him if he kept stealing for his Pap.

Delaney now looked down at the swimming fish. They had risen to the surface, and were watching him. “Ignorant bunch you are. Ye don't know nothin' about nothin'. See, if a man don't do right, then he gets smited. Sounds bad. But it turns out that being smited feels all warm and tingly at first. But then, it goes on to make a man start to thinking and doing things he never thought he'd think or do, and all for a lady's attention. After a few years he realizes just how bad he's been smote. And by then it's too late.”

As he watched the fish he realized that it was his wiggling toes that they were eyeing so hungrily. “Ye like these little critters?” He wagged his whole foot now, and the
Jom Perhoo
began buzzing around at the surface of the water, agitated. “Ha! Yer smitten! Fall in love with my toes, go ahead! See what it gets ye! Whole lot a' heartache is all.” He thought for a moment, then drew his foot back to its place on the post. “Leastways, I hope that's all it gets ye.”

Gloom settled back down on him. Maybelle Cuddy. He had been smitten, and so had she been, but he had let her go. They had ended for no reason. At least, no reason that seemed like reason enough.

Maybelle was a barmaid. Just a simple barmaid in a simple pub near the docks of Split Rock. Maybelle was plump, and Delaney was skinny. She was young and full of laughter, and he was older and more serious.
She had family, and he had none. She'd been schooled and he had not. But he had loved her, and she had loved him. Just for a while. A few short weeks in port, while his ship was refitting and repairing. Their hearts had melted together, somehow. That was how it felt.

Her daddy had put an end to it when he found out. And respecting him, and knowing himself, he had kissed Maybelle on the cheek and held her soft warm hand in his and looked into her eye, and then he'd sailed away. He'd turned his heel.

It was years later, next time he came to Split Rock, that he found her married and nursing a tiny baby boy. She was sad to see him, though there was still a trace of that same light in her eyes. They had nothing much to say as she dandled the baby, showing him off. Delaney grinned and clucked and made faces until the baby laughed. He didn't touch the child, though. He reached out once, thinking he'd pat its head or something, but then he remembered himself. This was another man's son.

He didn't touch her either, though they did speak to one another in sweet tones after that. And he remembered fingering his cap as he talked to her, and it felt like silk in his hands. And he saw, or thought he saw, that same longing in her eyes, that same spark that once was.

That was something.

But then he said goodbye again. He'd kissed her the first time he left, but this time he just kind of wagged his fingers toward her. He turned back to see her one last time, when he'd reached the door, but she wasn't looking at him anymore. She was cooing at her little child.

And he knew he'd never, ever kiss her again.

Why hadn't he stayed, that first time? Why hadn't he decided to make himself into a good man, to prove to her daddy he'd make an honest, true husband? He could have, back then. He was still a true hand, then, like Avery Wittle. He could have made a stand. But he had sailed away, and he'd broke her heart. And his own. She'd married another. And he'd gone from bad to worse and then to piracy, and now would die a bitter death.

Something in the undergrowth moved. He watched for a moment, his heart heavy. But nothing more happened. Just a critter. Darkness was coming, and it would swallow him up. It would rip him apart.

It would eat him alive.

He wished all of a sudden he'd fought harder when he'd fought. He wished he'd taken crazy chances like Damrick Fellows did. Then maybe he wouldn't be here, waiting to get killed. He didn't have the skills of a Damrick, so he'd have gotten himself dead a lot earlier, and a lot better,
surrounded with sweat and blood and men, his lungs sucking in gunpowder smoke and blowing out steam, his hand flashing and jabbing and slicing, doing something he was good at doing. Then maybe he'd have been worth at least a story or two, if not a song.

After the jail, Damrick's next stop was a general store, where he had the clerk lay out on the counter every weapon he had for sale—an arsenal of swords, pistols, knives, axes, adzes, and muskets.

“Who you so mad at?” Lye asked him.

Damrick didn't answer. He chose two small pistols and two large ones, a skinner's knife with a sawtooth back ridge, a short blunderbuss, and a three-inch boot dagger.

“You ain't thinkin' about turnin' against the Navy, are ye?”

Damrick stopped. “No. I'm going to do what the Navy didn't. You better stock up, too, if you're coming with me.”

Lye blanched. “Those are just for you?”