Blaggard's Moon (29 page)

He wanted to ask her where on earth such things were common knowledge. And then, how could this horrible feeling of exposure ever, by any stretch of the imagination, be called courage? But he said nothing. He just watched her eyes. They were sincere.

“Wentworth.” When she was sure he was there, listening, she said, “I know all about shame.”

He saw a genuine, earnest, gentle person, who cared for him and was willing to share something deep and painful. She didn't want to be his wife, or desire him in any romantic way. He was sure of that—it was what tormented him. But despite those hard facts, he couldn't shake the idea that somehow, right now, she truly cared. And this in turn created in him a feeling quite new to him. But he recognized it for what it was.

It was hope.

“Now wait!” Sleeve complained. “Yer not goin' to make this Wentworth slug into some sort of a hero, are ye? Just when ye got us ready for the Conch to knock the stuffin's out of him fer a dandy, droolin' scum?”

“You know the story already?” Ham asked easily. “Why don't you tell it?”

“Jus' save us all the weepin' and repentin', will ye? Get on with it. Get to the fights!”

“Aye, the
fights
!” others agreed, though not quite wholeheartedly.

“Well, I suppose some of this may be a bit over some of your heads. But there's a story to tell here. Truth is, gents, Damrick needs time to rebuild the Gatemen. It'll be months before we see the battle that settles for all time the row between Conch and his pirates and Damrick and his Gatemen.”

Moaning and other sounds of distress rose from around the room. “Months?” and “You gotta be kiddin'!” and “Just forget the whole fire-blasted story, then, and tell us somethin' else.”

“Whoa, now. I'm not saying it'll take that long to tell it. Why, all I have to say is, ‘It was nearly a year later, when…' and then we're there. What I'm saying is there's some story left between here and there. If I just jumped forward to the fight, how could others know the roles some of you men played there on the island of Cabeeb when it all happened? Delaney. Mutter. Spinner. Even Mr. Trum, and the younger Mr. Trum. You all played your parts.”

“I'll tell that!” Dallis Trum suggested.

“Tell a word and I'll pickle yer hind end and leave ye to rot in the larder!” Sleeve roared.

“Okay then, I won't,” Dallis Trum pouted.

“Now gents.” Smoke mingled with Ham's words, and both drifted lazily through the forecastle. “You can't dock a ship afore arriving to harbor, can you? No, you can't,” he answered himself. His voice kept rhythm with the creaking of the timber, the rocking of the ship. “For you need to sail the whole journey, one league after the next, and arrive to port at the end.”

A confused silence followed. Then Sleeve said, “Aye, but we want to hear the fight.”

Ham was patient. “A story is a journey, Spinner. That's what I'm saying. You can look at the chart of the seas and plot a course, but that ain't the same as actually sailing, is it? Just so, saying there's a fight coming is like looking at the charts and planning the voyage all the way to the destined harbor. Don't mean you're there yet.”

“But there ain't no charts and no seas,” Sleeve complained. “There's jus' you tellin' us a story. And we want to hear the
fight
.”

The others now agreed.

“Think about it. In sailing, you have a big sheet of canvas, thick and heavy, and you catch something invisible, naught but air, and it moves your ship. In storytelling, it's memories and fantasies you catch in an invisible sail, and they push your imaginary ship right along. Too much canvas in a stiff wind, and you'll lay her on her beam-ends, and there goes the ship. Too much canvas in a light wind and your sails luff and flap, and you go nowhere. Same with a story. And gents, you're simply asking me for too much sail.”

“That's 'cause yer givin' us nothin' but wind!”

Laughter.

“All right then. I can't tell the fight just yet, but I can tell you how it smoldered, and what all was at stake, which will make for a bigger, better fight when it comes. For this was a fight started long before Jenta could be persuaded to say ‘I do' for a second time.” Ham watched the smoke from his pipe rise as the questions came fast and furious.

“Wait! Jenta gets married again?”

“To who?”

“She marries Damrick, ye oaf! Right, Ham?”

“Damrick? Yer crazy. It's the Conch gets her!”

“Aye, Conch gets her next, ain't that right?”

“Hold on, what happens to Wentworth?”

“Wentworth's a wetmop! Conch's got her in his aim, Wentworth's good as gone!”

When they finally calmed, Ham said, “Well, if you'll all see fit to let me tell it, we'll all find out together, now, won't we?”

“And so I went all in,” Wentworth concluded. “Both our wedding rings on the table. And this absurd proposition, that he could have you whenever I no longer wanted you, that was there in the bargain as well.” As he unburdened the truth, amazingly, he began to feel somehow stronger. Not in a proud way, not at all. He knew the damage being done even as he spoke, and every word hurt him as it hurt her. But he felt like he was facing something that had cowed him and strangled him, but that was losing its power over him now.

“You told my mother that it wasn't a bargain.”

“Were you listening?”

“Yes, from inside.” She didn't seem the least bit embarrassed by it.

He nodded. He could not fault her for it. “It was a bargain as much as a bet. I lied to your mother about that.”

“You were hiding.”

He thought about that. “Jenta, I know I'm not the man you want me to be. I'm not even the man I want to be.”

“Then be that man. Become what you want to be.”

“It's not that simple.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't know how!” he snapped.

She watched him, not backing off, waiting.

He sighed. He looked away, off into a distance only he could see. Then he looked down at his hands. “I tell myself I won't, but I do it anyway.”

“Have you ever prayed?” she asked.

The forecastle filled with grumbling again.

“Now you lot,” Ham told them, “you don't know much about this sort of thing, and I can tell you don't want to hear about it from me. But such things happen in this world. People don't only turn to doing bad, you know. They also turn to doing good. And here's the part of our story where a man tries going the other way. My own daddy was a priest on the Nearing Plains, and so I've seen it happen more than once. I know how it goes.”

There was silence.

“All right, I won't give you the particulars. You want to hear it, you come to me sometime and ask. But I'll tell all you this much, there was
prayers involved, and there was readings from the Holy Scriptures. For our girl Jenta had been raised right in that regard. Shayla, her mother, didn't abide by such things, having been treated unkindly by church-people her whole life. Still, she sent Jenta off to Church School every Sunday. Because that's what the fine people did. And there, Jenta learned a thing or two she never did forget.”

“Like what?” young Dallis asked.

Ham paused. “If I was to wager that the Trum brothers saw the inside of a church many a Sunday morning, would I win that bet?”

Dallis glanced over at Kreg. Kreg shrugged. “Sure. But we didn't learn nothin' we didn't never did forget. Did we, Kreg?”

“Nothin'.”

“Ah. I see. Well, you might be surprised at the sort of things get tucked into the nooks and crannies of a young person's mind at church. Big things, stuck in there good and tight, just waiting for a moment when they might work their way out again.”

The boys were silent, roaming their own nooks and crannies, wondering what might pop out.

“We get it.” Sleeve sighed. “She talked religion. Then what?”

“Well, what happened was, Wentworth began to change. He quit his drinking.”

“I knowed it! That's always the first step on the road to righteous ruin!”

Laughter.

“Wentworth stayed home,” Ham continued, “since pubs and dance halls tend to appeal most to those who imbibe most, and tend to lose their appeal most for those who imbibe least. So he and Jenta had their quiet time of courtship after all, just as was planned.

“At first no one quite believed that Wentworth had changed for the better, and then that he'd changed for the better for good. But after a while, when he kept on staying sober, when a new thoughtfulness crept into his ways, when he not only went to church, but to Prayer Meeting of a Wednesday, and then to Men's Breakfast of a Friday morning, and as weeks turned to months and a kind of gentleman began to emerge from the wreckage of a squandered youth, well, the whole city began to marvel. And they rightly gave full credit to Jenta Stillmithers. She had been the toast of the Summer's Eve Ball, but now as autumn approached, she was the toast of the town. Even Shayla was amazed. But then again, so was Jenta, for while she had opened up the Scriptures for Wentworth
because she knew them, and she knew he needed them, truly she had not expected anything like this result. So pretty much everyone was just pleased as punch. Everyone, that is, but the Conch.”

“Here we go,” Sleeve sniffed. “Finally!”

“Indeed. And the Conch had good reason to be displeased. Not only did Wentworth's turnaround threaten what was a very good hand of pirate's poker, it very quickly became a threat to his livelihood as well.”

“I don't understand this column, Father,” Wentworth said, looking at the ledger open before him. “What are all these payments to an entity called ‘Protection Fund'?”

Runsford Ryland looked up from his papers, peered over his eyeglasses. His son stood at the other side of his huge desk, paging through a thick book of accounts. “It's a hedge against trouble,” he told his son. “An account to defray the risks of business on the high seas, particularly in these perilous times.”

“It's an extraordinary amount. Let's see…ten percent. Ten percent…” He did the calculations in his head, his finger running down the numbers. “Almost fifteen percent on this one.” Then he looked up. “You're setting aside over ten percent of your revenues from every cargo contract. Not profits, but revenues. This must be one of our largest categories of cost.”

“It is.”

“Who manages this fund? How is it drawn down?”

Runsford took off his glasses and leaned back. “You're eager to learn all about the business. I'm glad to see it, finally.”

“You've given me a fleet to manage, and I intend to do it well.”

An accountant entered quietly, handing Runsford Ryland a sheaf of paper. “That pleases me greatly,” the father said to his son. “It's only three ships, but I think it will give you every experience you'll face managing all seventy-four of them one day.” He glanced at the paper. “Oops, I misspoke. It's now seventy-five!”

“Congratulations.” Wentworth looked pleased, but then a sudden sadness crossed his face.

“What is it, son?”

“I've wasted so much time, and caused so much harm to so many. You the most. I want to make up for that now.”

Now the father rose and walked around the desk, put a hand on his son's shoulder. “You're a Ryland. I knew one day you'd come around.
There's no sense looking back.” He closed the ledger with his other hand. “All these details will be understood soon enough.” He tucked the book under his arm as he steered Wentworth toward the door. “To understand them aright, though, you must see them in the broadest possible context. How a business wins its permits from the government, and how the government keeps the peace. Only by understanding the large levers that are pulled by those with power can you begin to realize all that must be done to ensure that the stream of gold coins continues to find its way into these Ryland accounts.” He held up the ledger. “Let's meet at lunch, and we'll talk about these larger things.”

“I'd like that very much.”

Runsford patted his son's shoulder.

“May I take that, please? I'd like to study it further.”

“Oh, yes.” He handed it to his son slowly. “We'll talk at noon.”

Runsford Ryland went back to his work. Five minutes later he looked up and saw, through the glass window of his private office, his son deep in conversation with an accountant. The two of them were studying a column of figures. The accountant was jabbering on, looking somewhat frightened, somewhat apologetic. Wentworth's brow was furrowed. Then the son raised his head, a faraway look in his eye. He turned as though drawn, and met the gaze of his father.

Wentworth's look was blank. Runsford's look was grim. Then Wentworth lowered his eyes back to the book. He thanked the chattering accountant, and walked out of the office building, carrying the book with him.