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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

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BOOK: Mad Morgan
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As Morgan prepared to recite the Articles and distribute the plunder, he glanced around until he caught a glimpse of Nell Jolly in the shadows, just beyond the fringe of light. In her breeches, blouse, and baldrick she looked ready for a fight, a strange attitude, seeing as they were among friends—dangerous friends to be certain, but not here by the pyre, not on the night of Reckoning and the distribution of the spoils. He nodded in her direction and she started to wave on reflex, but the gesture was brief and lacked warmth. She glanced in Elena Maria's direction, scowled, and retreated into the darkness.
“‘Article One,'” said Morgan, puzzled by her behavior. “‘Every man has a vote in affairs of moment and equal title to the fresh provisions, or strong liquors, and may use them at pleasure unless for the good of all there is a vote for retrenchment.'”
“Well said,” shouted one of the freebooters, a red-cheeked, dissolute scalawag with a peg leg and pocked face. “I'll drink to that.” He drained the last of a bottle of rum and tossed the empty vessel into the black tides.
“‘Every man is to be fairly called in turn, by list, on board of prizes. To desert your ship or your mates in battle is punishable by death or marooning.'”
“
Ninavyoona.
As I see it, keelhauling is too good for such a man,” Rafiki Kogi blurted out. “We ‘hang' together or let him hang alone.” And again the crowd concurred. Morgan continued to read from the parchment in his hand, describing the conduct of the crew concerning women, and that any drinking past eight o'clock in the evening was to be done in the open, above deck, and that every man should keep his pistols and cutlass clean. At last he came to the passage they had been waiting for.
“‘The captain and the quartermaster are to receive two shares of a prize, the master and boatswain and gunner, one and a half shares, and the remainder of the crew, a half share.'”
“Then hurry up, Captain Morgan. I'll make my mark and be done with it,” another man called out. Many of the crew voiced their consent to this suggestion. But Morgan continued on to the last point.
“‘Every man's quarrels are to be ended onshore, at sword and pistol.'”
“You have said it!” LeBishop shouted, advancing into the circle of light. He had caught Elena Maria by the arm and forced her from the
protection of Morgan's men. Israel Goodenough and Rafiki Kogi glared at one another, each man blaming his companion for a lapse in judgment.
Morgan's expression grew dark and threatening. He dropped the articles in the sand, crunched them underfoot and approached the Black Cleric. “Let her go,” he warned.
Elena Maria struggled against his iron grasp, but the churchman's strength was surprising. One moment she had been a mere spectator, one of many, yet standing apart, separated from the throng by an aura of nobility. Then suddenly she had felt LeBishop's talons dig into her arms, his forward motion sweeping her into the circle of firelight.
“Certainly I will let her go. But not before I carve my name in her. The señorita may be a queen in Panama, but here she's only a pawn in Port Royal, to be used as a man sees fit.”
“My word is upon her,” Morgan said.
“Mind you, Henry,” Calico Jack called out. “The Cleric has God on his side.” The pirate chuckled at his own cleverness. Anne Bonney nudged her way forward; she seemed excited by the prospect of a duel between the two captains. LeBishop was without peer. She doubted any man could best him. But then, Henry Morgan was unique in his own right. Although he never looked for trouble, she had never known him to run from a fight. He did have a golden tongue …
El Tigre del Caribe?
A fox, more likely.
“I am not some piece of property—” Elena Maria snapped. The crowd laughed. Their amusement was most disconcerting, as if they knew something she did not. “How dare you lay hand on me!”
“Avast there, señorita. Stow your pretty speeches. None fear you here. Say no more or I'll lay more than than my hand on you, by my oath.” LeBishop looked at Morgan. “Your word, do you say? I put my mark on the Articles, same as you.” The Black Cleric released his hold on his captive and flung aside the flaps of his coat to free the hilt of his cutlass. “And I am entitled to my share. Unless you want to split her in two, then we must settle this thing, right here and now. I will take my share in the woman and claim her as my own. If you do the same, then so be it. We shall see which one of us leaves the circle.” He held out a fragment of a page torn from his Bible and placed it in Morgan's outstretched hand, then caught hold of his cutlass and prepared to free the weapon.
“Blasphemer,” said Morgan, ignoring the threat. “Gone and torn a page from a Bible, have you? What manner of ill fortune have you called down upon us?”
Thunder crashed and lightning carved a jagged wound across the sky. LeBishop, startled, inadvertently glanced up toward the heavens. When he looked back, Morgan was holding a brace of pistols pointed at his belly. The crowd tensed, expecting the worst, a cold-blooded killing. LeBishop relaxed his grip on the cutlass.
“Then we'll settle this my way, as you have called me out,” Morgan replied. “I shall choose the weapons and the particulars as is my right.”
“It will not save you. No man is my equal with sword or pistol.”
“We'll see,” Morgan replied. “Sir William!”
The physician made his way forward from the crowd. He could not hide his displeasure. “Gentlemen … May I call you gentlemen?”
“No!” Both men growled.
Sir William gulped and went pale. He didn't need the likes of these two men after him. “How may I be of service?”
“Count to five. Then drop your hat. When it hits the ground, we fire.”
“I shall need a pistol,” LeBishop said.
“You will have one of mine,” Morgan said.
“And how many paces until we turn and fire?”
“This will do,” Morgan grinned. “I'll take a walk afterward.” He held out the pistols. “Take your pick.”
LeBishop grudgingly chose the one in Morgan's left hand. “Mad. You're mad. We cannot fight at such a distance. It is suicide.”
“Nonsense. One of the pistols isn't loaded. We won't know which until we pull the trigger.” Morgan glanced over at the physician. The crowd fell silent. One could hear the churning tides and the crackle of split timbers amid the dancing flames. No one spoke.
“Count,” Morgan told his friend.
“But this is madness.”
“No. It's an affair of honor. LeBishop has called me out. Only he can end it.”
The Black Cleric stared down at the flintlock in his hand. It was a sleek, beautiful weapon with a dark walnut grip and a large bore. At this range the weapon would blow Morgan in half. That is, if it was the loaded gun.
“One.”
LeBishop hefted the pistol, tried to judge by the feel and the weight if the gun he held was loaded or not.
“Two.”
Did Morgan know? He must know. Yet he had allowed the Black
Cleric to choose. He struggled to clear the brandy-soaked haze from his brain.
“Three.”
Didn't help. The pistol began to waver in his hand. He stared at the gun muzzle pointed at his belly. The bore looked big enough to hide in. And, he noted, Morgan's hand was steady. The man must know something.
“Four.” Sir William Jolly retreated out of harm's way. All eyes were on the men in the firelight: Henry Morgan the younger, whose daring and wiles had won him the loyalty of most of the populace, and Thomas LeBishop, a man of dark deeds and unpredictable nature. Men feared him. And wisely so.
Fear … LeBishop stared into Morgan's calm gray eyes and caught a glimpse of death, and knew right then and there what had to be done. This was neither the time nor place for a confrontation. Morgan was reckless to a fault. But this was not a game to the Cleric's liking. Better to lose the battle and wait for better odds.
“Hold!” said LeBishop, and tossed the pistol at Morgan's feet. “Another day. Another time. The señorita isn't worth it.”
“A lady is always worth it,” Morgan replied.
Thomas LeBishop shrugged and turned on his heels and started back across the clearing. He paused alongside Elena Maria, touched his scarred cheek, as if to indicate the same might be in store for her. But the señorita refused to be intimidated.
“Would it had been your throat,” she whispered.
“LeBishop!” Morgan called out. The Black Cleric turned and his eyes widened as Morgan raised the weapon in his hand and pulled the trigger. Fire flashed in the pan. LeBishop winced, expecting the impact to follow. But the gun did not fire. He stared at the pistol in the sand, realizing he had held the loaded one. Nervous laughter filtered through the crowd.
Bluffed!
Before LeBishop had a chanced to react, someone began to play a fiddle, another man a fife, another, a walking drum. The crowd broke ranks and closed round the fire. Rafiki and Israel Goodenough hurried up to Morgan, to clap him on the back and congratulate him on surviving a second confrontation with the notorious Black Cleric. Morgan worked his way clear of his crewmen and caught up to Elena Maria. He took her hand in his hand as the celebration got under way. He avoided Madame Palantine, maneuvered out of the clutches of
half a dozen other women, none of whom were strangers. It was time for all the Brethren to claim their spoils and then dance by the fire, dance by the bay, drink and dance in the streets until the storm came to sweep them all away.
T
he governor of Jamaica sat before the cheerful blaze in his fireplace, dozing, dreaming. The slumped shadow of Sir Richard Purselley in his wingbacked chair flitted across the neatly arranged books of his library. Purselley's head, with wig slightly askew, rested against the cushioned backrest, rising and falling as he inhaled and exhaled. Now and then, his lips pursed, he muttered in his sleep, stirred, once almost reached out, then repositioned himself, never quite escaping the hold of his dreams, not quite waking yet never sinking into deep slumber. The droning downpour provided the perfect accompaniment to lull the mind. Echoes of distant thunder, the steady
drip drip drip
from the eaves of the house, the patter of droplets striking the shutters, soothed his nerves, conspired to prevent him from waking up.
Sir Richard had begun the evening with the best of intentions, settling down with a glass of cream sherry, his lap desk, and the collection of notes and half-scribbled pages that comprised his work-in-progress, a manuscript entitled
Marooners of the Cay,
being an account of a dashing young English officer's adventures after being shipwrecked on a Caribbean island. He'd finished a preface. The rest of the book consisted of chapter headings followed by the beginnings of scenes that went nowhere, and trailed off into unfinished phrases, all of which bore mute testimony to the author's lack of discipline and
inability to nurture a paragraph after the first blush had faded off the bloom of a well-thought opening sentence.
His lap desk was balanced precariously upon one knee and the arm of the chair. Half a dozen pages littered the floor at his feet, a quill pen had come to rest upon his purple velvet dressing coat, leaving a circular black stain where the ink had leached into the cloth. Sir Richard grumbled and shook his head as his manservant Joseph, a white-haired old figure in a brocade waistcoat, fine cotton breeches, hose, and buckled shoes, appeared in the doorway to the study and considered whether or not to “let sleeping dogs lie.” His wrinkled, dusky features furrowed as he considered his options.
“Sir Richard does not like to be disturbed when he is working,” the manservant said. He glanced around at the English officer standing behind him.
Captain Alan Hastiler nodded and gently forced the old man to stand aside. “I think the governor will want to grant our visitor an audience even at this unseemly hour.” Hastiler shrugged out of his cloak and handed the rain-soaked garment to Joseph. “Don't go far, old man. I shall require it again—too soon, I dare say.”
“And the … uh … young woman?” Joseph asked, lowering his voice. He shifted his stance and looked down the hall toward the front wing of the house. Just inside the foyer, a pair of double doors opened into a broad, high-ceilinged councilroom where Purselley held court much like some regent of old. Here in this room, Purselley presided every afternoon during the week, granting audience and resolving disputes, exerting the authority of the Crown over all Jamaica, including Port Royal.
“Yes, quite so, the young woman,” Hastiler said, stroking his square chin. His brown hair was close-cropped into tight ringlets lying flat against his skull. “Attend her. Bid her remain in the councilroom. The governor will address her soon.”
“As you wish, sir. But His Worship …” The old man was clearly fearful of upsetting the governor.
“Everything will be fine,” Hastiler said, and shooed the manservant back down the hall. The English officer continued into the study, gingerly crossed the room until he stood before the hearth. Despite the brisk storm and howling gusts of wind, it was still too bloody warm for a fire fit for a midwinter's night in the Orkneys, although it gave him the opportunity to dry his uniform. The captain quietly appraised the governor for a moment. The man was young, willful, disdainful of
others. Hastiler suspected Sir Richard was better suited to the life of the court, with its intrigues and romances. The Spanish Main was no place for brittle men.
Hastiler sighed and shook his head and wondered, whispering, “Well now, young Hotspur, whose mistress did you take a'romping in bushy park for you to have been so banished? Your courtiers here are brigands and cutthroats. Fortunately for us, they'd rather whore and drink and carve one another—heaven help us if they ever come together.” Morgan came to mind. Hastiler had a grudging respect for the man. But the officer also knew the brash privateer was probably the most dangerous man on the island.
Time was wasting. It was an hour before midnight and there was much to do. He cleared his throat. The governor did not seem to notice. The captain tried the tactic again to no avail.
“Sir Richard,” he said—and repeated the name yet again. The rain droned on, restful, constant, and nearly worked its seduction on him. The captain shrugged off his lethargy and leaned over and placed his hand on the governor's shoulder. “Sir Richard.”
Purselley came awake with a start and raised his hands before his face in horror; round-eyed, terror-filled, he thrashed as if attempting to ward off some dreadful image, the awful vestige of his dreams. Papers went everywhere, the lap desk crashed to the floor.
“No! No! Be off, I say, and plague me no more!” His vision cleared and he recognized the Englishman standing before the hearth, recognized his blessed room, blessed stout walls, thrice-blessed port. He grabbed the cup and swilled the liquid like a man dragged from the sea and dying of thirst. He poured another measure. “It is the good captain,” he said, as if reassuring himself he was among his own kind, back in a familiar world. He dabbed the perspiration from his forehead. “There was an enormous raven, with wings black as the pit of hell, and it came soaring out of the darkness like some horrid bird of prey, and its talons were long and curved and cruel-looking. And it came for me. For me!” He managed a deep breath. “But it was only a dream, no doubt conjured by the curried chicken and pepperpot soup I had for supper.” He glanced around.
“Where is Joseph? What are you doing here?”
“I brought you a guest.”
“At this hour? Are you mad?”
“She awaits us in the councilroom.”
“‘She'?”
“A young woman, yes. Perhaps you have seen her before.”
“Appealing?” The officer had piqued Sir Richard's interest.
“As a dagger with a keen edge.”
Sir Richard patted the folds of his coat, oblivious to the ink stain. The room with thick limestone walls pressed in on him like a tomb tonight. He was anxious to quit the place.
The governor led the way down the hall, taking time to light a few extra oil lamps on his way. The hall was devoid of ornamentation, merely a clean, direct passageway, passing alongside the stairway to the rooms above. Out of habit he checked each room he passed along the way: the dining room, a sitting room, a room crowded with wooden cabinets containing assortments of silver settings, dinnerware, and cutlery. A room cleared of furniture save for music stands and an arrangement of chairs left for a quintet of musicians from Kingston. At last he rounded the corner, stepped into the foyer, took a right turn and entered a long wide room built off the front of the house to serve as an assembly chamber. A massive mahogany desk and high-backed chair dominated the far end of the room. The rest of the space was given over to an assortment of benches. The tall windows were shuttered against the storm but the wood panels rattled on their hinges whenever the thunder rumbled.
Joseph was standing near the entrance. Despite his years, the old man stood erect as a ramrod as he bowed slightly and stood aside. The councilroom was draped with shadows, though a cluster of candles illuminated the portion of the meeting room near a door that opened into a public garden and walkway, thus permitting the residents of Kingston and Port Royal to enter by some other way than traipsing through the governor's house.
Sir Richard did not see anyone at first. Lightning flashed and pierced the patches of darkness within the room. He caught a glimpse of a slender figure watching him from the far corner. The governor glanced over his shoulder at Hastiler. “Well?”
“Two of my men stopped her carriage as it turned past the barracks and started up the hill road. They brought her to me. She has … news … concerning the exploits of our Welsh friend, Captain Henry Morgan.”
“Indeed,” said Sir Richard. Now his interest went beyond desire. He folded his hands behind his back and strode into the center of light near the front door. He tried to sound older and wise beyond his years. “Well then, I dare say this is a subject that interests me.” He squinted at the figure in the shadows. “Come, come. Introduce yourself. You will find I can be a most appreciative friend.”
“Sir Richard …” Captain Hastiler motioned for the figure in the shadows to step forward into the light. “May I present Miss Nell Jolly.”
 
 
The storm failed to discourage the festival. The denizens of Port Royal enjoyed themselves despite the elements. If a man or woman drank enough, danced long enough, and loved to excess, a little rain didn't matter at all. Elena Maria had participated in carnivals in Panama and was no stranger to spontaneous celebrations, but she had never witnessed anything quite so given over to abandonment as what began in the streets of Port Royal and ended in Morgan's carriage along the shore road.
These Brethren were no shirkers when it came to libertine behavior. Henry Morgan had driven her through crowded streets peopled with all manner of celebrants. Men and women wearing animal masks howled, grunted, laughed at one another, danced and kissed and fondled, enjoyed a careless regard for clothing. There were no heroes here, but rogues and villains and daredevils of the Spanish Main, jostling for entrance to a dozen taverns or brothels or milady's boudoir.
Tempers flared. She saw these buccaneers and the women who loved them circle each other, knives flashing in the glare of lightning, mud-drenched torsos wrestling and twisting while crowds of onlookers cheered them on. Everywhere were music and cries, curses and song, the thick sweet aroma of rum and tobacco mingling with the stench of fire, of lightning-fused air, of sex-slick flesh, burned rice and peas, and the spicy pungent scent of Mannish water, a pepper-laced stew made from boiling a variety of vegetables, fruit, and a goat's head in an iron pot. But this night, the wanton abandonment he had once enjoyed and actively participated in held no appeal for Henry Morgan.
The señorita's presence left him hungry for more than the carnival had to offer. So he led Elena Maria to his carriage and drove away from the town and followed a winding road that stretched between sand dunes and clumps of palm trees and wound its way up from the peninsula to a secluded house built on hillside in a thicket of golden palms and frangipani and flame of the forest, a tulip tree which bloomed in scarlet cups and permeated the air with a dazzling scent that almost made the woman swoon.
Morgan called out for the mare in its harness to whoa, and pulled
back on the reins until he brought the carriage to a halt about a hundred yards from his house. He turned and watched the storm as it broke around them. Forked lightning lit the night. The oncoming waves were capped with iridescent blue foam, the sea itself swelling and falling, crashing against the far cliffs. In the glare Morgan pointed to a precipice beyond his house.
“Two Tainos lovers plunged to their deaths from that point. Rather than submit to Spanish slavery and risk separation, they embraced, bound their hands, and flung themselves to the rocks below.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Elena Maria asked, huddled beneath a blanket. Raindrops splattered on the leather roof of the carriage. She wondered as to the whereabouts of Consuelo. It wasn't like her nurse to leave her alone. And yet she was secretly glad. Whatever happened this night, at least there would be only two witnesses, herself and Morgan the pirate. They were lost in the storm. “Can people really love that much?”
“There is no other way to love,” said Morgan. He had discarded his coat now and placed it over her lap. His shirt was drenched and plastered to his muscled torso. Elena Maria's bodice had also suffered from the elements and clung to her bosom in such a way as to reveal each breast and taut pink crown beneath the sheer lace fabric.
“Don Alonso would not understand such passion, I think,” Elena Maria said. “But do not think he is immune to other emotions. He will ransom me and then exact his revenge. His hatred runs deep. He will never rest until he repays you for your misdeeds.”
“And what have I done?”
“Sir, you are a thief.”
“I have only stolen that which did not belong to Spain in the first place. The Dons loot an entire culture and then complain when a man like me relieves them of their ill-gotten gains.” Morgan laughed and slapped his knee. “By heaven, who is the greater thief?” He gave the horse its lead. The animal started forward.
“You'll know when Don Alonso comes sailing into Kingston Bay.”
“With a ransom I warrant, or …”
“Or what?”
“I'll slit your pretty throat,” Morgan chuckled and ran his finger along her neck, then cupped her face and kissed her full moist lips. Thunder crashed. The earth trembled beneath them. The very air crackled. By the time the kiss ended, the carriage was well on its way to the house by the cay. At last Morgan released her, sat back, and
gulped a lungful of air. By heaven, he had to wonder just which of them was the prisoner. She might be a fine lady, this
criollos,
but she was also a woman of fire and beauty just waiting for the right man to unleash her passions.
He
was the right man, the only man.
BOOK: Mad Morgan
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