Pirate Code (24 page)

Sixteen

“Look, I carry only ballast. Shingle and rock. We’re heading down the coast but I didn’t fancy continuing in this foul weather, not with the
Señora
aboard. So if I am not importing anything how the hell do you work out I have to pay import tax on top of a mooring fee?” Jesamiah’s fingers were twitching towards where his ribbons would be; this oaf before him, the harbour master, was a bald-headed, round-bellied, money-grubbing idiot. He’d not yet met a harbour master who wasn’t.

For the third time Jesamiah repeated himself, slowly and clearly in precise Spanish. “I have nothing to unload. My hold is empty.”

“But you brought things ashore.”

“
Sí
. My passenger,
Señora
Ramon Escudero, had her clothes’ trunk with her. She is a woman, what do you expect? Women always travel with a hold full of luggage.”

“Then you have a passenger, so there will be duty to pay.” The harbour master held out his hand. “Pay me, mariner, or I will impound your boat and have you thrown in gaol.”

Jesamiah gave up the argument and fished into his pocket for a handful of coins. “You’d better bloody keep a close eye on her mate; if I find one scratch on her hull because you’ve allowed some lubber to moor too close I’ll shove these pieces of eight where the sun ain’t ever goin’ t’shine. Understand?”

Jesamiah slammed them down on to the neat and tidy desk, scrawled his name against that of the
Kismet
in the harbour book and stomped out.

Cramming his hat tight on to his head and tucking in his chin, he ran up the incline of the cobbled road to the
Sickle Moon
, a tavern slumped beneath an overhang of rocks. Those rocks had probably hung suspended from the hillside for centuries but had always appeared precariously dangerous to Jesamiah’s eye. A painted sign of a new moon hung from a bracket fastened to the rock face. Pausing, his hand on the doorlatch, he took a quick glance up the narrow, steep, street. No one. The place was deserted. Hardly surprising with the rain lashing down like this, anyone with an ounce of sense was tucked safe indoors. He peered the other way, down towards the harbour and caught a glimpse of a shadowed figure hurrying away from the cluster of official buildings. She looked vaguely familiar, much like the woman he had seen in rain-swept Nassau – nay, what was there to go on? The swirl of a grey skirt and the glimpse of wet hair? She could be anyone! He chuckled. So, that was the cause of the harbour master’s annoyance. He’d had his private, probably illicit, pleasuring interrupted.

Ducking in below the door lintel, Jesamiah met with the warm fug of steaming woollen coats, male sweat, tobacco, lamp-oil and smoke. A dozen men sat at tables made from old barrels. Two men were playing cards, another two were arguing over something, although not heatedly, more of a spirited discussion with accompanying, highly animated arm gestures. The entire room fell stone silent as he strolled in and crossed to the bar where a sallow-faced doxie was propped up by her elbow. Watching him, a slight frown creasing her brow as he approached, she pulled her bodice down slightly to reveal more of her already well-displayed bosom, and tweaked her skirts, showing a generous glimpse of ankle.

Normally he would have gone straight to lean alongside her, with a rum in one hand and one of her well endowed breasts in the other. Ah well, business had to come first. And he was not quite sure if the same embarrassing thing would happen here as it had in the
Kismet
’s cabin – or more precisely, had not happened. At this moment he was not prepared to risk another disconcerting experience of embarrassing impotence.

“Hello Mireya,” he said, standing a few yards in front of her, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Remember me?”

She sidled over to him, took hold of his chin and turned it to left and right, studying his face critically. “I see a man where there was once a boy. You are not the fresh-faced youth I bedded last time you were here, Jesamiah Acorne. Are you a man now in other areas as well?” Her hand went towards his crotch but he clamped his fingers around her wrist and backed away.

“I’m a respected captain now, darlin’, these lines of maturity on m’face are the marks of responsibility, and I take m’responsibilities seriously. I’m ‘ere on business, not pleasure.”

“Last time you were here you said nothing was more important than pleasure.”

“Well I were right,
nothing
is more important.” Glancing around the tavern he saw no other face he recognised. “Where’s Emilio? His wife?”

Mireya tossed her head, sniffed and then shrugged one brown-tanned shoulder. “Dead. Been dead these four years. The
Sickle Moon
’s got new owners. He don’t treat me as well as Emilio did though.”

Jesamiah was sorry to hear the news, Emilio had been a good man, a good smuggler and a good friend. His wife had been good in bed too. He was not going to say that to Mireya, however, for she was one of those tavern whores who liked to keep clients to herself.

“What did they die of?”

“Del Gardo strung them up from that beam over there soon after you were last here. Said they were rebel spies. Said they were too friendly with you English.” She sneered the last, disgruntled that he had turned her down.

Involuntarily Jesamiah looked towards the beam she indicated with a toss of her impertinent chin. Double chin, she was beginning to run to fat, was not the pretty thing he remembered from four years ago.

Del Gardo was right about Emilio being friendly with the English, but not about the rest. At least, as far as Jesamiah knew. He had been hoping Emilio would have been able to shed some light on the several conundrums that were bothering him. Damn. He would have to find someone else to ask now. He certainly was not going to solve any puzzles by asking ‘Cesca – she was riddle number one!

“A woman came in just now, a
Señora
Escudero. Where is she?”

Mireya pouted jealously at his question. “If you would rather poke her than me…” She pointed towards a door at the rear.

Jesamiah took her cheeks between his fingers, kissed her on the mouth and with his other hand, pressed a gold coin into her cleavage. Helping himself to a bottle of rum, he unstoppered it and took a long, satisfying mouthful. “I’ll get back to you darlin’. Promise.” More often than not, Jesamiah never kept a promise.

Distracted, he did not notice one of the men finish his ale, set an ostrich-feathered hat over his thinning grey hair and disappear at a jog trot into the rain.

Sauntering to the rear of the tavern Jesamiah turned and winked at the girl. “Tell the landlord I’ll pay later. With the rest of what I’ll owe.”

Appeased, the girl preened and retrieved the coin.

Pushing the door open he could hear ‘Cesca talking. Being naturally curious he paused to listen, taking one or two long swigs of the bottle as he stood there.

“You say a pirate brought you here,
Señora
? Can he be trusted? Do you not think he could bring us trouble?”

“He is not as much trouble as the trouble I will be in if I do not have anything to tell del Gardo when I return.”

Swallowing a fourth gulp, Jesamiah felt intense disappointment swell his innards. He liked ‘Cesca, had been so hoping she was not what he suspected her to be, but then, who was he fooling? For all her fancy ways, she was del Gardo’s whore, and the honesty of a whore was no more dependable than the honesty of a pirate. He pushed the door wide, deliberately let it bang against the wall behind as he swaggered into the kitchen.

‘Cesca was sitting beside a lively fire, her bare feet in the hearth, a blanket around her shoulders hiding the fact that she had stripped to her undershift. Her cloak, the scarlet stockings, embroidered pink petticoat and the red gown dripped from a wooden-framed rack suspended from the ceiling. In her hand a glass of cognac. The other woman, ample in bosom and buttock, and everything in between, was stirring a pot of stew hanging from the iron firehook.

“I take it you know each other?” Jesamiah observed as he joined ‘Cesca beside the fire, steam rising from his wet coat, rain dripping from his hat as he removed and shook it.

‘Cesca grumbled and moved aside as the wet showered her. She could feel her bad temper rising higher, knew she was being silly, but his rejection of her had hurt. She had so wanted Jesamiah there in the
Kismet
’s cabin – had been so ready for him, yet as soon as they had been interrupted he had dropped her as if she were poxed. Why had he not shouted for the steward to go away? Why had he not ignored the wretched man and continued making love to her?

Why? Oh she knew why! Men were all the same, they used women as if they were blocks of wood. No man ever considered that a woman had feelings!

Pouting she snapped, in Spanish, “This is Madelene, the landlady. She does not speak English.”

Jesamiah bowed and removed his coat, hung it beside his hat on a peg. So, ‘Cesca and Madelene were friends? She seemed to know a lot of people, did ‘Cesca Ramon Escudero.

He guessed, from the shrewd way Madelene was looking at him, that he was being assessed for how much he would pay for a tumble with the girl outside. Or herself. If the gossips of fashion were to be believed, it was hips and buttocks that were appealing to men at the moment. Jesamiah did not agree, he was a bosom man. He liked big breasts, and Madelene’s were the size of over-ripe melons about to burst their skin, but he’d never had much of a fancy for a woman old enough to be his mother. For all the amount of enticing flesh escaping over the top of a tight-laced bodice. He chuckled to himself. His preference was for large tits, yet the woman he loved, the woman he wanted as his wife, was so slight she barely sported any bust at all.

Sitting on a chair beside the table, he stretched one boot towards the fire and brought the other foot over his knee to inspect a crack in the sole. No wonder his stocking was wet. “You going to arrange transport to this convent then?” he asked.

“While you were dallying outside, I have already hired horses.”

He grunted. His backside did not much like horses.

Madelene served stew into a bowl, placed it on the table in front of him. It smelt good. Goat stew with a thick gravy, spiced with ginger and herbs. One or two blobs of fat and lumps of gristle floated on the surface, but used to food that was stale, mouldy, bad and riddled with weevils, Jesamiah did not notice. He wolfed it down.

Belly full, Jesamiah tipped his chair back, balancing by resting the holed boot on the edge of the table. He stretched, realised the lash marks on his back were uncomfortable but were no longer hurting. Tiola had said her salves would heal them quickly.

Irritably he removed his foot and let the chair drop, square, to the floor. Why had he remembered her again? He would have to learn to stop this. To stop seeing her face, hearing her voice. Stop wanting her. He drank more of the rum, said to ‘Cesca, “I assume you’ve sorted yourself a bed for the night?”

‘Cesca had remained seated by the fire; she made a valiant attempt to be congenial. “There are three rooms upstairs. One belongs to Madelene and her husband, one to that spot-faced slut outside, and one for weary travellers. I have taken that room.”

Dare I? Dare I try once more
? she thought.

Gathering the blanket tight around her she rose, swayed over to him, emphasising the movement of her hips. Deliberately allowed her covering to slip slightly, exposing a good portion of her breast, and a glimpse of the nipple as she bent forward to whisper into his ear.

“You are welcome to share.”

Jesamiah knew all about the number of rooms upstairs. He gulped a few more mouthfuls of rum. It had been a long day. Last night had been longer. He was tired and had no intention of sleeping with her, just in case of… well, in case he couldn’t get it up. He was more than a little drunk after all.

What if it was permanent? What if Tiola had put a spell on him to ensure he remained faithful? He dismissed the idea. She had promised she would never secretly use her Craft on him. Maybe it was just one of those things that occasionally happened?

Or maybe not.

There was only one way to ensure he maintained his reputation. He had to decline her offer.

Placing one hand over the revealed breast, he smacked a kiss on her lips. “If y’care to nip upstairs and get the sheets warmed, I’ll mebbe fit ye in as soon as I’ve emptied me bladder, passed this wind and got me shillin’s worth from that wench out front.”

‘Cesca slapped him. He didn’t blame her.

The door slammed as she walked with dignity from the kitchen, he heard her run up the stairs though, heard her chamber door slam.

Bugger
, he thought,
bugger, bugger, bugger
.

Avoiding Madelene’s disapproving glare he drank more of the rum and considered moving to what promised to be a more comfortable chair in the corner, but he ought to check on the
Kismet
, ensure her mooring lines had not come loose. He stood, a little unsteadily, reached for his hat and coat. Said nothing as he sauntered out. There was nothing, really, that he could say.

Seventeen

Sunday Night

La Sorenta. Stefan van Overstratten had expected more than a ramshackle hotch-potch of mud huts and lean-to shelters most of which were falling down. All he could see of the two enormous storehouses were lighter patches of bleak, grey, evening sky through the gaping holes in the walls. Except for the black silhouette of beams and rafters, neither of them had a roof. The house was a ruin – the fields? Perhaps it was just as well he could not see the fields.

“This is disgraceful,” he bawled, swiping at a clump of ragged weeds with his walking cane. “A shambles, a pigsty, a…” He faltered to a stop, lost for suitably expressive words.

There was nothing Señor Mendez could say as a counter argument. It was all true, and twice now the plea that this was not of his doing had fallen on deaf ears. The Dutchman, justifiably, was in a rage. Mendez kept silent and took the verbal blows. There was no use in denying what the man could see with his own eyes.

Stefan’s rage was made the more potent for the person he ought to be shouting at was a corpse somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Mereno had cheated him. All this waste ground was of no recent demise, the place had been decrepit for years. His anger was heightened by the fact he knew this to be his own fault. He had told Phillipe he was in the market to buy more land, had already purchased a tobacco plantation from him – that had been a flourishing establishment, but only small, two hundred acres. La Sorenta was to have been his triumph over his brother-in-law. Now he knew why Phillipe had sold it so cheap. Now he knew why the bastard had wanted to leave Nassau in such a hurry. And Acorne had killed the cheating whoreson? Stefan never thought he would be grateful to that pirate for something.

Frustrated, defeated, Stefan sank to the top step of the shallow flight that led up to the house and dropped his head into his hands. This estate was a ruin, and so was he.

With a deep, sorry, sigh and lifting his head, Stefan faced his one, last, hope of survival. He asked; “The indigo. Please tell me there are barrels of indigo stored here.”

Señor Frederico Mendez spread his hands, lifted his shoulders, let them fall. What could he say? He could only tell the truth.

“I am sorry,
Señor
, there is no indigo here. There has been no indigo here since
Señor
Mereno died, more than ten years ago.”