Blaggard's Moon (55 page)

Then, as though from a nightmare, she heard the voice of Conch Imbry. It was muffled, quiet. But it could not be mistaken. She froze, listening. And then she heard him quite clearly.

“Don't!” he barked. “Don't ever say that name! Call her the wench, call her the wanton, call her any hard and evil thing ye please…but not that name.”

“The wench then.” That was Mazeley. His quiet, confident voice made her shudder. He seemed so rational, so…normal. And yet he did evil all day long, every day, every night.

The voices dropped away again, so that she couldn't make out the words. They kept talking, and they were talking about her. She wanted to get farther away, to turn and swim, but felt she should hear more. It would be important to know. Slowly and carefully, she moved in closer.

“Well, I'm glad to hear ye say that, Mr. Mazeley. Rankles me when ye always know. 'Specially when ye don't.”

“I think we must assume that the Gatemen hold those ships. And even if they don't, if we take them down the message will be clear.”

“So…attack the rogue tubs regardless, send 'em to the floor with whatever goods they got. Ask no questions; take no prisoners. That's what ye recommend?”

A pause. “Yes, sir.”

“I like it. Wentworth's dead. So now we bury his ships under a few hundred feet a' water, Gatemen or no. We find Damrick and the wench, kill 'em ever' which way over two, three days' time, draw it out so there's plenty a' pain and cryin' and wailin', then we hang what's left of 'em up in Skaelington bay where all can see. And we're done! Then I can see fit to move on to more interestin' matters.”

“Aye, sir.”

The footsteps moved off, headed down the docks away from the castle, toward the
Shalamon
.

“What do we do now?” a voice above her asked. It was a young voice, its owner hardly more than a boy.

“You can do what ye want, but I'm followin' the Cap'n.” That was an older man, who spoke with a sneer. A group of men shuffled off, their footsteps creaking in the direction of the bay.

Jenta felt she should follow, too, but by the time she made up her mind to do it, they were too far away. She'd never keep up. She looked up through the dock. The rain was still dripping down, but now she noticed something lying on the slats, blocking the light in regular intervals. Cargo, maybe. Boards laid side by side? As she swam underneath one of them, she saw a hand. Then she saw a leather lash around an arm. She gasped, and put a hand to her mouth. These were bodies. This was her crew, the Gatemen killed in the attack on
Success
.

Her heart pounding, she swam along under them, craning her neck painfully, searching one after the other, treading water, peering up, blinking into the dripping rain, trying to identify the one body that she prayed would not be here. She looked for the hair, the long dark hair that would identify him.

“Oh, Damrick,” she pled aloud in a whisper. “Damrick, Damrick. Please don't be here.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” a ragged voice said from the seawall behind her.

She spun around, splashing, peering into the darkness. She saw a movement, a hand. Then she saw his face. She swam to him, tried to climb up where he was, taking his hand, his arm, but he winced and shut tight his eyes against the pain. She slid back down into the water. She gently took his left hand in hers. It felt cold and lifeless. She kissed it.

Then she saw his twisted leg. “Damrick, what happened?” She spoke softly, but urgently. She could see him clearly now. He was pale and his lips were blue. The moisture on his face was not all from the rain. She felt his cheeks, his forehead. He was cold. But his eyes were warm.

“Damrick, your leg…”

He shook his head. “I'm sorry. I meant…never to leave you.”

“Oh, Damrick. You never left me.” She looked around in desperation. “We need to get you out of here, get you some help—”

“No,” he said. “We can't let them find me. It's better this way.”

Fear grew in her, then anger. “You can't give up!”

“He got me, Jenta. The priest was wrong. Conch has won. It's over.”

Her anger turned back to pain in an instant, a deep stab that shot through her body. She looked at him, watched his eyes. They were as calm as the sea. “Please,” she begged him. “You can't go now. Not yet.”

He swallowed. It was a painful effort. “I've been lying here,” he said with difficulty, “praying. Like my mother did.”

She wanted to say something, to do something. She wanted more than anything to climb up with him, and hold him. But all she could do was hold his hand while her soul was being rent in two.

“I prayed for you,” he said. His breath caught. “And God brought you here.” Light was in his eyes, but it was distant.

“I'm here. I'm here.”

“He helps the helpless. That's what she always said.” His eyes closed. Then he opened them again. “That's why He never helped me. Until now.”

“Of course He's helped you.”

Damrick just shook his head. “It's not so bad as I thought it would be.” Then he coughed. “I have something to say.”

“I'm listening, Damrick.”

“I want you to live.” He looked her in the eye. “Promise me.”

It was a strange request. His mind was going. “I promise. Damrick, don't leave.”

He shook his head. “Go back to Mann. My father is in hiding. I'll tell you where. Go to him.” He coughed again. Blood came from his mouth. She wiped it away. “Do you promise?”

“Damrick…” Tears blinded her, and she cursed them silently. They kept her from seeing the only thing on earth she wanted to see.

He raised his head. “Do you promise?”

She bit her upper lip. The tears streamed now. She nodded. “I will.”

He nodded, and relaxed.

“Damrick, you don't have to go. Listen, can you hear me?”

He nodded.

“You stay, all right? You just hang on. We'll both go home to your father. We'll build a cottage. A cabin. Okay? It'll be way up in the woods.” She nodded, though he couldn't see her now. “Far away from the ocean. And we'll have chickens in the yard out front. Fresh eggs every morning. There'll be a cow in the pasture. We'll have milk and cheese. Won't that be wonderful?”

He smiled, his eyes still closed.

“The days will be warm, all summer long. You'll shoot squirrels, and deer.” She put her hand against his cheek. “And in the winter, we'll have a fire in the fireplace, and a big yellow dog asleep in front of it. A lazy old thing that's good for nothing. And you'll go out in the snow to cut firewood. And our children will watch from the window.” She paused, her voice cracking. “Our children, Damrick! You have to stay. You have to stay for them.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. He seemed nearer. Closer to her.

She felt hope. “You'll come back inside with the firewood in your arms, and they'll run to the door! You'll set down the wood and pick them up in your arms. Then they'll take your mittens and your scarf and hang them by the fire. Oh please don't go, Damrick. Stay with me. Stay with us!”

His smile faded. “Jenta,” he said. He looked at her.

“I'm here.”

“You saved me.”

“No, Damrick. You saved me.”

He shook his head. “I rescued you. But you saved me.”

She couldn't understand. She'd gotten him killed. Then she realized he was talking about something more. He was talking about the next life. “Oh, God,” she began. And she continued. She prayed aloud, a fierce and aching and damaged prayer, for him, for his soul, for his life…and then for his eternal rest. She hadn't meant to pray it, but the words just came.

She opened her eyes, and looked into his. She saw firelight there now. She saw it flickering. She felt the glow of a hearth. Great warmth flowed from him. And then she was there, inside that light, inside that warmth. It was the two of them, one flesh, one spirit, and they were home. His hand was warm, his cheeks were ruddy, his eye was sharp and full of mirth. She heard a child laughing. And then he sighed, and the light in his eyes receded. It just pulled back, slowly at first, like a lantern on a departing carriage. She thought, she believed, just for that moment, that she could go with him, that she could follow where he went. She tried to follow after him, in her heart, in her spirit. She called his name. But the lamplight dwindled quickly. And then it flickered out. His face was gray. His hand was cold. His eyes were silent.

Jenta stayed there in the water, holding her husband's hand for a very long time. People came and went above. She heard little. After a while she noticed the dock again, the people above, the coldness of the water.
A few comments filtered through, spoken about the Gatemen, spoken about Damrick Fellows, spoken about her husband.

“He keeps riling up all those who want to fight the pirates,” one voice said, “and then he gets 'em killed.”

“Yeah. Then he goes gets more.”

“Seems he's helping the Conch more than anyone else.”

A snort. “Conch's probably paying him a bundle.”

A laugh, and the footsteps moved on.

The cold suddenly reached deep into Jenta's bones. She did not want to leave. She wanted to stay, and die with Damrick. More than anything else, she wanted to leave this wretched earth and be with Damrick, where there was light and warmth.

But she had made a promise. Now she knew why he had insisted. He had known. He knew what it would be like for her, when he was gone. And that gave her some comfort. Finally, she let go of his hand. She moved closer, and pulled herself out of the water until she could place her cold lips on his cold cheek. And then she slid back down, under the surface, under the water. Strange, distant echoes sounded, and she couldn't tell if they came from without, or if they were just the hollow places deep within her, echoes of what was no more. She surfaced.

And then she swam away, under the docks, in the direction of the castle.

“Any end's a good end,” Delaney said out loud to the air, wiping away a tear. He hadn't cried listening to Ham, that night in the forecastle when he'd told that story. He'd only felt the sting of shame. Now he looked for his fish, suddenly wanting their company more than anything. But he could only see one or two, pale below the dark surface of the pond. He spoke to them anyway. “That's how it is when ye've made the right choices. Any end's good when ye've done right.” He shook his head at their inattentiveness. “You little boys don't know about that. But it's true.”

Delaney hadn't made the right choices. Not nearly. But he hoped he could make a few now, at least in his mind and his heart. He hoped he could face his end as Damrick had. He knew no one would hold his hand or spin him yarns of comfort or pray for his soul. But then, he deserved none of that, either. He'd done nothing in his life to earn such things.

Now that he was thinking on it, now that he was looking straight at it without flinching, Delaney knew exactly what he had done. And he knew what it meant. He had sworn allegiance to a pirate, and within minutes
of the vow he had killed a good, good man. A weak man, to be sure. But one who had been bad, and then turned good. Within minutes more, he had shot at, perhaps killed, some of the best men there ever were, better men than Delaney had ever known, far better than he had dreamed of being himself. Damrick Fellows. Murk. Stock. Lye Mogene.

He looked around at the tall grasses, and they rustled. He heard low voices, mutterings. How long had this activity been going on? He didn't care. “I never knowed it,” he said aloud. “I never knowed what I done, ye cursed Hants!”

The reeds went quiet.

But the sense that he could justify himself on any point evaporated with the echoes of his words. He was a stupid, blundering imbecile, wandering from bad to worse, doing things that had consequences he didn't understand, didn't want to understand, and pretended he could ignore. Not knowing wasn't an excuse. It was just more proof he deserved to be condemned. His stupidity was in his soul, not in his mind.

Delaney sniffed, wiped the corner of his eye. Damrick died right. Avery died right. Just as they should have, somehow, even though it was unjust and they didn't deserve it. And now the image, the memory, rolled back. Not Ham's story, but the actual event. The memory he'd kept at bay, at all costs, never to let back into his mind. The one he knew was always there, always waiting, waiting to condemn him. It looped around his ankle and pulled him down.

And there it was.

“I'm sorry, young fella,” Delaney said to Wentworth. As he said it, his mouth went as dry as a hot summer wind. Conch's pistol hung like an anchor at the end of his arm. The sun beat down, but he could feel the humidity of the storm brewing, moving in. A crow squawked, flapped its lazy wings upward. And the sickly man's head came up, slowly, his eyes like lanterns in the dark, searching, searching, finding Delaney. They were not accusing. They were soft and distant and thoughtful. Mournful. Like a man who'd seen too much.