Pirate Code (22 page)

“Am I not fortunate,” she said with a coughed giggle, “to have such a handsome young man come visiting my sick bed? If I were many years younger, then how fast my heart would be beating!”

“Many years? Nay,
Señorita
, surely you are yet but a girl?” Jesamiah responded.

She laughed, had to pause to cough blood into a linen kerchief, then gain her breath. “How I do love a gallant!”

Like the rest of the plantation, this living room had seen better days. Although it was clean and tidy, the walls were shabby and there were lighter patches where pictures had recently hung – several gaps on shelves and in cabinets. For how long had these two been selling their possessions in order to survive? For as long as there had been no indigo? For more than ten years?

‘Cesca sat on a stool beside Señora Mendez, chatting quietly of family and women’s things, while Mendez served Jesamiah wine. It was passable stuff to drink, but only just.

“This van Overstratten. He is a businessman?” Mendez asked suddenly. “He understands the running of an estate? What is needed?”

“Primarily he is a wine merchant, but he also owns a few sugar plantations. He may know how to regenerate life here, but I doubt it.” Thought,
although he’ll be a better owner than ever Phillipe was
. “I am surprised my brother did not take more interest. Indigo is a crop worth growing.”

The Señor shook his head, exhaled a long sigh. “The soil is wrong, the estate has never been profitable, and your father did not require an additional income. He paid us to keep it from becoming a total ruin in the hope that his son would one day be interested in taking responsibility of it.” He looked up sharply at Jesamiah, said accusingly, “He never did. Why was that I wonder?”

“I have no idea why Phillipe abandoned you,
Señor
. For my part, until today I had no idea you, or this estate, existed.”

“We have received not a shilling since your father passed away.”

Jesamiah shrugged, sipped at the wine, grimaced. It really was poor quality. “Yet you have managed to survive. From the little I know of producing indigo, the Carolinas are becoming dominant in the market. The old days of it being a rare commodity shipped from the East Indies to Europe are long gone.”

Mendez leant forward to refill Jesamiah’s glass; “True. Once, only the rich could afford indigo. When the great artists made their portraits of Our Lady they gave her blue to wear because indigo was the highest honour they could grant Her.” He smiled, “But now it is grown in the Colonies and used to dye cotton cross-weaves like the new
de nim
that is becoming so popular.”

Jesamiah shook his head, put his hand over the glass; wanted no more of this rank cat’s piss that passed for wine. “I am sorry for your situation,
Señor
, but the matter is nothing to do with me. Stefan van Overstratten is the owner now.”

Mendez gazed at him steadily, a proud man, unused to begging. “What will become of me and my wife? She is dying and I am too old to serve a new master.”

Ashamed of his earlier outburst, Jesamiah felt pity for them both. It was his dead brother he had been annoyed with, the ungrateful wretch, not this couple who had been trying their best to hold together what little there was. But how could he make promises? That was for van Overstratten to do.

Oh bugger him
, he thought.
If my father liked these people then they are good enough for me
. “I personally will see to it that the Dutchman attends your needs, and if he does not comply, then I will provide you with a suitable home. That is, if you are prepared to accept the aid of a pirate?”

Lifting his head Frederico Mendez challenged him. “And why would you do so?”

Setting his barely touched glass down on the side-table, Jesamiah answered with a half smile. “Because as I said earlier,
Señor
, I have no need to prove myself. Unlike my brother I am not a bastard. I did not love my father as much as I should perhaps, but I respected him, and I believe he had respect for you.”

Señora Mendez had overheard, she was trying to rise, her grateful tears brimming, her frail body trembling. “You are so kind,
Capitán
Acorne, but we could never repay your generosity.”

“All I want is the brandy Wickham left with you for
Señor
Escudero, and those sixteen barrels and ninety seven kegs of indigo.”

Silence held its breath. Outside the window a bird shrilled in a swirl of wings and squawked alarm, a man called something, the words indistinguishable. Jesamiah recognised the voice as that of the
Kismet
’s sailing master.

Raising one eyebrow Mendez exchanged a discreet nod of agreement with his wife and flicked a glance towards ‘Cesca who also, imperceptibly, nodded.

“Alas, the brandy is not here. Del Gardo comes, every so often, to poke and pry into the weeds and the ruins. I have never given him opportunity to find anything of worth.”

“So where is it?”

“At the convent of Our Lady de Compostela.” An hour’s sail away, more than that if the wind was not favourable, and then a trek inland.

“I know it. It sits in the hills above the village of Puerto Vaca.” Jesamiah did not add that when he had sailed as a pirate aboard the
Mermaid
, they had frequently put in at Puerta Vaca. They had slid easily in and out under the cover of darkness and those sheltering cliffs. The jut of a headland had made the village a good, safe, place for smuggling. Or so they had thought. Four years ago they had smuggled in a cargo, ironically, of brandy, spent a couple of days enjoying themselves and when ready to sail, had taken on some new hands. Only they had not realised they were del Gardo’s men. When the Guardship came up on them it was obvious they had been waiting to pounce and the bastards had over-powered Malachias’s crew. If they had not escaped from that Tower; had boats not been left for them to row to the
Mermaid
, anchored, thank the Lord, not too far out into the harbour; had those guards supposedly keeping watch not been dead drunk, then the crew of the
Mermaid
, himself included, would have died in the dreadful place. Some had. Very badly, some had.

Jesamiah forced the sickening memory aside. “And the indigo?”

Señor Mendez spread his hands, his smile bashful and slightly repentant. “I may have been mistaken about the indigo.”

Too bloody right you were
, Jesamiah thought.
You were intending to use it for yourself
.

“There is indigo,
Capitán
Acorne, it is stored with the brandy, but there is not as much as you are expecting.”

“How much not as much?”

“I am uncertain. Maybe two dozen kegs?”

Jesamiah rose to his feet. “Sold the rest have ye?” he said. He didn’t blame Mendez, he would have done the same. More or less, what he intended to do – sell it for his own benefit.

‘Cesca’s eyes were bright with excitement. “Will it take us long to sail there?”

“Us?” Jesamiah queried, his own eyes narrowing into a rutted frown.

Francesca sighed. They had argued this same point already, why was this man so belligerent? “You cannot sail without me. If you do, you will be breaking your parole.”

Sod the parole,
Jesamiah thought. Said, giving one of his most irritating smiles, “So I will.” He turned to Mendez. “How do I get the cargo? I ‘ave a suspicion I ain’t goin’ to be able to wander in among all them virgins and just take what I want.”

“You will need to speak to the Reverend Mother.”

Señora Mendez held her hand towards Jesamiah; she was stick thin, he could count every tiny bone that showed through her almost transparent skin. “Please,
Capitán
, would you take her a message? Would you tell her I am ready for my daughter, Angelita, to come home?”

Jesamiah hesitated; that would mean he would have to bring her here. He just wanted to get on, fetch this illusive cargo, find the
Sea Witch
and sail back to Nassau.

“
Por favor
, please. I would go to my God with my heart at peace.”

“You had two daughters then? One is a nun, the other was James Wickham’s mother?”

Now why did I ask that
? Jesamiah thought to himself.
Stay out of this… Fetch the prize then clear off. Don’t get involved
.

Señora Mendez smiled, her dying eyes filled with elusive hope and the expectation of better things to come. “No,
Capitán
. We have just the one daughter.”

“But I thought your daughter had…?”

Closing his mouth, Jesamiah did not finish the sentence. He was already realising he had been fed a bulging pack of lies.

Eleven

Governor Don Damian del Gardo did not trust Francesca Ramon Escudero any more than he had trusted her dead husband. She was English, and for all her protestations of loyalty to the Catholic Faith and the Spanish King, del Gardo was certain that if pushed she would suddenly discover her English roots.

He threatened to kill the boy often, but the woman was too stupid to realise it was an empty threat, that if he were to do so he would lose the only hold he had over her. Although he was now beginning to wonder if it mattered. She had neither enthusiasm nor talent in pleasuring him, unlike the pretty, almond-eyed, dark-skinned girl he had recently taken to using and who appreciated being promoted to the position of Governor’s Mistress. What slave would not be eager to earn a chance at regaining her freedom?

Add to that, Francesca was losing her looks. Dark circles were often ringed under her red-rimmed eyes; the woman wept too often. And she had told him so very little of interest. Unlike his other spy who had, four years ago, informed him of the rat’s nest at Puerto Vaca. A stop had been put to the vermin there, but Acorne’s arrival had made del Gardo wonder how many of the nestlings had escaped the noose. At the time he had not been convinced the troublemakers had all been exterminated, despite torturing the Escuderos for information. Killing the son had been a mistake, but he had been so very, very angry at the contrived escape of those English pirates.

He was certain it had been organised by Louis Escudero, but the old man had not admitted a thing. One of them, though, had supplied best brandy to the night guard and arranged for the doors to be left unlocked; for boats to be made ready. A pair of stubborn, dumb mules those two men. Escudero had still said nothing, even after he had witnessed his son’s death. Nor had he said anything since to incriminate himself, not even to disclaim the official explanation that Ramon’s death had been an unfortunate accident.

It had galled del Gardo even more when discovering, much later, that one of the pirates imprisoned in the Torre del Homenaje had been the younger son of Charles Mereno. If he had known it then, the bastard would have suffered. He would have strung him up and personally peeled every piece of skin, inch by slow inch, from his body.

How he had refrained from doing so when Acorne had strutted in as confident as a madam in a brothel, claiming to want to fight for Spain, he would never understand. Except, Don Damian del Gardo knew of several different ways to skin a man alive, and it was not just Acorne’s hide he wanted. He needed the man known as Chesham. Oh, he knew about the English spy who went by the code name Francis Chesham, but who he was he had yet to discover. There had been several men and women tortured, but they had either not talked or had not known. He had so hoped to find out from Francesca. Again he wondered whether she had outgrown her usefulness. His spy in the rat’s nest at Puerto Vaca had frequently informed him of Wickham’s comings and goings, but nothing of Chesham. Del Gardo smiled to himself as he fingered his neatly trimmed, pointed beard. So sad that Wickham had drowned. So unfortunately sad, his ship springing a sudden leak like that, and nobody had suspected a thing. What imbeciles these rebels were!

Was Wickham Chesham? There was that possibility. Del Gardo continued to stroke thoughtfully at his moustache and beard. He was supposed to be listening to the monotonous drone of his chief financier who was mumbling something about no more money to finance them through the next week, let alone a war. If he did not trust Francesca, nor her father-in-law, he trusted Acorne even less. He was convinced the pirate would end up at Puerto Vaca where Wickham had so often come ashore with his smuggled kegs of brandy and barrels of indigo. Had the fool really thought that del Gardo did not know of it? Had he thought that by ensuring the set spy was out of the way on those contraband nights that he would get away with flouting the law? The idiot. Had it never occurred to him that del Gardo was not a fool? That there was more than the one spy at Puerto Vaca?

That was where the answer lay about Chesham, he was sure of it. Wickham had been clever, outwitting his set spies, running rings around everyone. Hah, he had not been so clever at the end though, had he?

Abruptly, del Gardo got to his feet and swept the financial adviser aside.

“Stop your whinging, you imbecile. Go steal what we need. If I do not find the leaders supporting this den of rebels we will have no need of financial assets; we will all be dead!”

He swept out, barking for a messenger to be sent to the captain of the guardacostas, and for his own ship,
la Santa Isabella
to be made ready.

Twelve

Why he was doing this, Jesamiah had no idea. The only conclusion he had come to was that he had been out in the rain too long and it had rotted his senses.

In Spanish he ordered the man at the tiller to nudge the
Kismet
a point closer to the wind, automatically checking the set of the sails on her two soaring masts as he did so, watching for that slight quiver that told him he could push the vessel no harder or he would be dealing with split canvas.

“She is a good little craft,” he said to ‘Cesca, who was leaning over the larboard rail watching the foam froth away into the white-capped rollers. “Your father-in-law knows a good boat when he sees one.”

He thought it was a neutral thing to say; they had exchanged another round of harsh words before leaving la Sorenta, ‘Cesca insisting on coming and Jesamiah insisting she was to remain behind. The first half hour after setting sail he had not spoken a word to her, annoyed because he had lost the argument.

Breathing in the invigorating tang of freedom ‘Cesca turned around to lean her back on the rail, to watch Jesamiah. His right hand, she noticed, was often fiddling with his acorn earring or twiddling a curl of his hair. An unconscious, and she had to admit, endearing, habit.

“My father-in-law knows many things,” she answered enigmatically, her voice a purr. It had been Jesamiah who had argued, not her.

Walking unsteadily across the few yards of the sloping quarterdeck, her red gown with its embroidered pink petticoat and supporting whalebone hoop, was caught by the wind and lifted upward at one side, showing more of what lay underneath than was decent. Scarlet knitted silk stockings with pink-ribbon garters. Long, enticing legs with a glimpse of white flesh at the thigh.

Had the wind not been blowing a force of knots, Jesamiah might have wondered if she had organised it deliberately. The view was certainly having the right effect.

She laughed, pushed the ballooning gown down and joined him beside the tiller. The sails were stretched tight, almost to their limit, the rigging and stays mithering at the intense pressure put upon them. Again Jesamiah asked the helmsman to adjust the tiller, skilfully keeping the
Kismet
on the right edge of strain.

“I’d advise you to not wear those hoops while aboard,
Señora
,” he said, trying to sound casual and not at all interested in what he had glimpsed. “Fashion is designed for court balls and the drawing room, not for a wet and windy deck. You would be better off below.”

“There is nothing to do below.”

What do women do to amuse themselves at sea
? he suddenly wondered. Apart from Tiola the only females he had known aboard a ship were whores, and they had never been at a loss to know how to amuse themselves. Tiola had been with him on the
Sea Witch
for those few days after she had rescued him from Phillipe, but she had been busy patching up his many hurts.

“Can’t y’sit and sew, or read?”

“No, I cannot,” ‘Cesca snapped.

The ship heeled to larboard, spray sluicing over the bow and into the waist producing a shouted grumble from the men. In their mutually combined opinion this temporary captain was pushing the
Kismet
too hard. They had laid wagers on how soon her canvas would rip, or a sail blow out. Several, shaking their dripping hair, had the nerve to glower at Jesamiah. One man partially raised a clenched fist, lowered it as soon as his companion nudged him to caution. Jesamiah pretended he had not seen, merely making a mental note of the man’s face. Had they been aboard the
Sea Witch
he would have been tipped over the side by now.

There were fifteen on the crew, including a carpenter, galley steward and the sailing master. A landlubberly lot, used to sailing coastal waters in good weather with a kind wind.

“Tell me,” Jesamiah said, “I’m curious. I was told Wickham’s mother had killed herself. Threw herself off a cliff.”

“Who told you that? Why would she?”

Jesamiah regarded ‘Cesca steadily, eye to eye. “Maybe she was picky about the company she had to keep.” By the momentary silence he guessed ‘Cesca knew exactly to what he was referring.

“Let us say she took the opportunity to serve a higher authority. And the one she had served, because of his conceited pride, did nothing to quell the false rumours when they began to circulate.”

Jesamiah understood her meaning. Where else could a woman go for safe protection from a monster who committed rape? Convents, as he well knew, were not entirely populated by young virgins innocent of carnal matters.

Kismet
rolled with the next wave and ‘Cesca lost her balance. With a squeak of alarm she stumbled, by good chance, fell into Jesamiah’s arm which he, conveniently, stretched out to catch her.

As a supposed accident he had not seen it better done. She was good, this woman. But then, she had said she had been an actress, apparently, she had not lost her talent.

One hand fluttering dramatically to her breast, ‘Cesca clung to him with the other arm, her body pressing close, not minding the dampness of his coat or the wet dripping off his spray-soaked hair. Her own, she supposed was as damp and straggled.

She peered into the mist of low cloud that shrouded the mile-distant coast. “How much further?”

“Not far. An hour maybe? We’re having to beat up against this wind, we’d have been quicker if it had been blowing from the opposite direction.”

Shifting his balance to compensate for the lifting dip and roll and the extra weight of ‘Cesca leaning against him, Jesamiah studied the sails, waited a moment, watching for the foretopsail to quiver… There!

“Hands make ready to wear ship!” he yelled. “
Señora
, I am rather busy at this precise moment. I repeat, you would be more comfortable in the cabin.” He said it with a firmness that implied he would not be gainsaid yet again.

Turning to leave, she lowered her lashes to peep at him. “Will you join me later,
Capitán
? It would be a warmer and dryer place to converse.”

“I ain’t particularly interested in conversation, but if you could get that slovenly whoreson who has the nerve to call himself a steward to make me coffee, then I will come below as soon as I’m certain these idiots won’t sink us.”

He smiled as she made her way along the deck and gingerly eased herself, backwards, down the narrow steps of the companionway ladder, her hands gripping the rails as if the whole ship was about to rear upwards. Actress she may be. Sailor she was not.

“Get a bloody move on!” he bellowed, his attention going back to the hands who were idling in the waist. “I said stand by to wear ship, why the fok ain’t ye at y’stations?”

That was better, a couple of them actually trotted. Aboard the
Sea Witch
they would have run. Patiently, he waited for them to reach for the larboard braces, for their fumbling fingers to loosen off clewlines and buntlines. They were slow, not showing the deftness of his own men. Jesamiah took a breath, swallowed the urge to roar a reprimand. These were not pirates; they had never sailed this ship to save their lives, had never made a fast Chase after a Prize and had never fought their way aboard a fat-bellied East Indiaman ripe for the plucking. These were fair-weather sailors. For all her sleek lines, fresh-painted white hull, gleaming brasswork and spotless varnish, he did not think that the
Kismet
had been at sea in a storm since the day she was launched.

“Stand by aft!” He wiped a new burst of wind-blown spray from his face with his sleeve, frowning, studied the set of the sails; watching, listening to every mutter and mither the
Kismet
made.

“Let go an haul!” Then, impatience getting the better of him, “Shift yer fokken arses! Look lively there – another hand on the forecourse for fok’sake!”

Easing on the one forecourse yard would exert too much pressure on the sails and cordage; all the yards had to swing together, and the course was the hardest to turn.

As the tiller was put over the canvas cracked and billowed high above, and the taut, sodden rigging screeched and complained. The sea churned into white foam under the lee rail as the
Kismet
came round.

“Meet her!” Jesamiah bit back another cursed oath, waited. “Alright, that’s fine, let her fall off a point
por favor
.” Added, “You did well all of you. Well done. I’m impressed.” He wasn’t, it had been done tardily and without care, but he was a firm believer in dangling carrots, not beating with sticks.

The floggings will cease when morale improves
. Jesamiah laughed wryly to himself; a favourite jest of Malachias Taylor. He had shouted that often when the men had been in a disagreeable mood. It had always raised a smile.

The masts swayed upright and then leaned over as the wind took the sails within its full thrust. Had he decided to tack instead of wear ship they very likely would have missed stays, and then they would have had to start all over again, lose time and maybe damage the ship. Pirates could not afford the safe effort of wearing ship. Tacking was quicker, though more difficult, for the men had to be sharper. In a fight, fiddling about with sedate manoeuvres could be the difference between win and lose, life and death.

Ah well, never mind, these men were not his crew, and this was not his vessel. Thrusting his hands deep into his coat pockets, Jesamiah ordered the master to carry on and slithered down the companionway. He may as well keep ‘Cesca company for half an hour. Unlike her, he could think of many things to amuse them both.