Legends of the Vengeance : The First Adventure (9781310742866) (10 page)

“You liked it there.”

The statement hung between them until
Sebastian nodded.

“I liked what it could be—a home. I liked
the woman Rosa and her son the artist. I liked playing with the
other boys and the busyness at the docks. I liked—” he paused
abruptly, blushing.

“What did you like?”

“I liked the woman’s food. It was
delicious.”

“After a lifetime of Mac’s tasteless slop,
you would like anything that wouldn’t threaten to kill you,” Nicolo
teased.

The call came for his father to leave. He
hesitated, gazing into Sebastian’s eyes. At last, he hugged the boy
once more and whispered in a ragged voice, “I love you, son. I do
not tell you as I should, but I do. Take care. God go with us and
never forget what I have taught you.”

With those words, he pushed Sebastian away
from him, closed the door behind him, and locked it. Alone in the
cabin, the lad sank to his bunk, shaken. It seemed—yes, it did—it
seemed as if his father expected not to return. Never had Nicolo
Soranzo sounded so final in taking his leave.

At that moment, Sebastian wished he knew the
prayers that comforted Jaime—the words that his friend said as his
fingers moved along the string of beads he always kept in his
pocket. Would that Jaime’s God would look favorably on their ship,
protect their men, save them from capture and death. Would that
this God would bring home his father and Jaime safe again. At that
moment, Sebastian felt as though he would do anything to have those
prayers answered.

~~~~~~~~~~

The dory bounced over the waves as Nicolo
and Jaime rowed to the islet. The ship moved onward, straight for
Formentera. The plan would work. It must.

“The islet is small. Do we walk the length
of it to be sure of the best place or choose the first place we
find?”

Nicolo glanced around them as their boat hit
sand. The men jumped from it and pulled it far up the beach. They
could not risk the tide washing it out to sea. Even if they swam to
the ship, the boat might give away their actions.

“I don’t know. I am growing paranoid. What
if—oh, I don’t know.”

“Let’s walk then. It will take time to raid
the island.”

“I have heard that people are abandoning it
because of the raids,” Nicolo added inconsequently.

The islet was tiny, only a few thousand feet
from tip to tip, and with very little vegetation. They found no
trees to use as landmarks, nothing but the shape of the island
itself to give them any idea of how to mark where they buried their
jar. It would not be easy to find again.

“Perhaps if you start at one end and I start
at the other. We count paces and dig where we meet.”

“And if our stride is different, we could be
off by yards,” Jaime protested.

“We practice together?”

“But we have no way of knowing the boy’s
stride when he is done growing.”

“What else can we do?”

Jaime shrugged. “I don’t know. We both make
sense. We must do something, but nothing will be easy to
recreate—even if we are the ones to return.”

“Perhaps if once we find the spot, we put a
rock on it. I could hide my kerchief under it…”

“It would rot before the boy digs it
up.”

“Yes, but there would be some piece
left—maybe. Something to give him an idea.” Nicolo knew he sounded
desperate.

“Let’s do it. How do we know when to start
walking?”

After some deliberation, they chose to count
to five thousand and begin. Jaime went north, Nioclo south. Each
step that Nicolo took felt like a death march—the death of his
dreams. This wouldn’t work. Sebastian, if they even lived to make
it to the Americas, would make a life for himself somewhere. He
would forget or ignore the promise he made to return for the
jar.

At the very tip of land, where water struck
the rocks of the island, Nicolo finished counting before he began
his trek back to what he hoped would be the center. This method
meant that his son would have to bring someone with him. If God
were still a merciful Being, it would be Jaime. Jaime would
remember.

By the time they met in the middle, Nicolo
had lost hope in the plan—lunacy. They’d have to dig deep enough to
be sure weather and time did not wear away the soil. Perhaps a bush
could grow there and anchor it. Bushes, scrubby little things that
grew where there was nothing to fertilize them, were almost all the
vegetation the island could boast.

Jaime dug first. The ground was
hard—unyielding. At last, he crawled from the hole and drove the
shovel into the mound of dirt, leaning on it. Something fell into
the hole with a soft thud. There in the bottom of the hole lay half
a lizard. He moved the shovel and found the front half of the
lizard buried in the pile. Nicolo shook his head, took the shovel,
and jumped into the hole, scooping out the reptilian carcass with
his first shovelful.

The spade bit the earth, creating the
shallow grave where they would bury Sebastian’s future. Unlike most
graveyards, Nicolo had hopes that this would be a temporary grave.
“It is like Jesus, isn’t it? We bury it and later it will rise
again. You should like that analogy.”

“Except that this jar will not dig itself
out of this dirt. There is the difference.”

“Unless the Jews have it right and the
Messiah is yet to come. You do not see them killing people who do
not convert to their beliefs. You do not see them murdering in the
name of God Almighty. What if Jesus’ resurrection was the greatest
hoax in history? Wouldn’t that make a great story to tell on the
ship of an evening?”

“It won’t work, Nicolo. You will not infuse
your hatred for the church into me. You can keep Sebastian ignorant
while he is young, but when he is older, he will hear—”

“Yes! Exactly! He will hear, won’t he? What
will he think of the church when you tell him the rest of your
fairytale? He will wonder how you can stomach to enter the doors
and confess to the priests of the church that—”

Jaime thrust the spade into Nicolo’s hand.
“He will learn that men are fallible—even men who claim to know and
love God. He may reject God as you have, but if you push as you do
sometimes, he will reject you too. Then where will he be?”

“Safe from the pain of a faith that betrays
him.”

“And alone, Nicolo. No Heavenly Father or
earthly one to turn to. Nothing to comfort him.”

Nicolo’s laugh rang hollow as he shoveled.
“That is where you are wrong,” he argued, rolling the jar with the
tip of the spade. “He will have this. It is all he will need.”

Raid & Rescue

From his cabin, Sebastian tried to ignore
the mental images of what he knew would happen in port. Over and
over, he tried to draw the pile of lemons that Jaime had smuggled
into his room. After each attempt, he washed them away and tried
again. Once he managed a realistic sketch of the pile, but his
skirts smudged them terribly—ruining the attempt. He tried
again—and again.

To his surprise, the men returned much more
quickly than expected. They were angry, frustrated. He listened as
much as he could as they set sail away from the island and to where
they would rendezvous with his father. From out the porthole, he
saw the dory rowing toward them and sighed in relief. It was done.
They would be safe for one more day.

As usual, it took forever for someone to
come let him out of his cabin and out of his dress. Each time those
words entered his thoughts, Sebastian fought back a scream of
frustration. A boy shouldn’t ever have to think the words, “his
dress.”

When the door unlocked, he was surprised to
find Mac there. “Your father sent me, laddie. They’re plannin’
something. I don’t know what that is or what it means, but it be
soundin’ serious from what I heard.”

“What did you hear?”

Mac hesitated. “Well, I don’t know that I
should be tellin’ ye, but there weren’t much on that island. The
raiders came back with little to aid the journey.”

“Journey? What journey?” Sebastian pulled
the dress over his head once Mac’s clumsy fingers got the laces
loosened.

“I’m thinkin’ I’ve already said too much.
You talk to your papa. I’d better be fixin’ the meal. Those men
work up an appetite, don’t they?”

The door shut behind the big, burly man,
leaving Sebastian staring at the dress in his hands confused. He
hesitated. Should he wait to hear or go listen for himself? It
didn’t take him long to decide against the foolish idea to wait.
His father had been acting so strangely that it was unlikely he’d
be given any information at all, and if his father didn’t tell him,
Jaime certainly wouldn’t.

He threw his shirt over his head and grabbed
his jerkin. Dashing down the steps into the hold, he wrestled his
arms into the holes and pulled the garment over his head. He
finally made it to the corner beneath his father’s cabin. Twice the
others almost caught him, but he slipped past and crawled up where
he could hear best and be most comfortable. The men argued about
something—supplies. It made no sense. They could go into a port and
buy some. They could go into a port and steal some. They could even
raid another ship—there it was.

“We’ll go out into the ocean and wait for
one of the ships leaving Seville. It isn’t optimal, but it will
work. There should be some consistently for the next few
weeks.”

“It’s risky, Captain! You know that. If we
go out into those waters with our small ship and too few supplies,
we’re going to die!”

Jaime’s quiet voice broke through the other
men’s voices. “Has Nicolo ever let us starve, Eduardo? Has he? How
can you speak with so little confidence in him?”

“The men will revolt if a ship doesn’t come,
and soon. You know this, Jaime. They are loyal but there is a limit
to their loyalty.”

The words spun in his mind. Why would the
men revolt? Why would they be hungry? They go out, if the ships
don’t come from Seville, they come back and raid. It wasn’t a
difficult idea if even he could think of it.

“What about Sebastian? Will you risk the
boy? How can you risk the boy after all we’ve done to help you keep
him alive?” Eduardo had grown desperate if he brought up the
captain’s son!

Sebastian wanted to scream and ask why it
would be a risk. It didn’t make sense. What were they talking about
now?

“We will go. We will find a ship just
leaving Seville or even Cadiz. We will capture it and gain
supplies. We will succeed because we must.”

“You aren’t being realistic, Nicolo. The men
will be upset to find themselves headed to the other side of the
world. This isn’t just down the coast of Africa. This is the
Americas. We don’t know the route. We don’t know anything. We’re
lost. This is dangerous!”

Sebastian missed the next words.
The
Americas?
Why were they going all the way there? Would their
ship make it? What would they do? They didn’t have enough supplies.
Why couldn’t they load up first? Why didn’t they take a new ship
even—a stronger one that would make it across that long
stretch?

“—find people to help there? Where? What
about Hector? You promised him fortune.”

“And he’ll get it!” Sebastian’s father
roared. “When have I ever broken my word? When have I not helped
someone I promised to give a new life?”

A door slammed and silence echoed above
him—ominous, it felt ominous. What would Jaime say? Did his friend
know he was down there—listening?

“Nicolo, it is Eduardo’s job to be the voice
for those men. He is right. They will feel betrayed by you. You are
not giving them the opportunity to follow. It is almost
kidnapping.”

“I will explain. They will understand.”

“You are blind if you think that these men
are not going to feel like slaves rather than your army of
protectors.”

His father said nothing for several long
moments. A minute passed—two. “I will make it up to them. They will
feel wronged at first. I know this. But I know my men. For all my
faults, I am not blind to their loyalty. They will understand when
I can explain. We must get us safely away where I can explain.”

A shout from somewhere sent Nicolo from the
cabin. Sebastian started to creep away when he heard Jaime say,
“And Sebastian needs to remember this when he thinks his father
does not care or understand. Sebastian should see the torment his
father goes through to protect him.”

Now Sebastian did slink back to his cabin.
He sat on the bed, laid himself out, and then stood once more. His
eyes sought the porthole. He gazed out over the water and tried to
imprint it all in his memory.

The realization that he might never return
hit him hard. As much as he hated the life they led, as much as he
ached for a new one in a quiet village somewhere, it was the only
life he’d ever known. He’d learned to talk, swim, almost learned to
walk on the decks of
The Vengeance
. One of the men his
father helped taught him to play the flute while the waters of the
Mediterranean Sea rippled beside them. He’d also lost his first
flute in those same waters.

If they made it to the Americas, what would
it mean for them? Excitement filled his heart at the idea that
maybe without the connections his father had in Europe and Africa
he would have no one to help. The men would take up jobs on other
ships or maybe start businesses in ports along the coast. They
could live in Chile. Sebastian smiled. Yes. Chile. It was the only
name he knew from the area. There were pirates and buccaneers in
the Caribbean. Would the buccaneers consider them competition?
After all, most of the buccaneers were anxious to capture Spanish
ships and those would likely be the ships his father wanted. The
Spanish had huge galleons full of gold, silver, and setting out for
Spain meant they’d be loaded with food and other supplies. Everyone
would be after them.