Pirate Code (29 page)

Twenty Seven

Stefan was pleased with himself, it could not have gone better had he planned it. The Spaniard had turned out to be
la Santa Isabella
, Governor Don Damian del Gardo’s flagship, with the Governor himself aboard. And he had been most interested in what the Dutchman had to tell him about Jesamiah Acorne. Interested enough to invite him aboard.

Sitting in the pleasant surroundings of the Governor’s dining room aboard the ship, the table scattered with the debris of a most excellent meal, Stefan felt a warmth of contentment wash through him. It could have been the company. He was surprised, for he had always assumed Spaniards to be harsh and arrogant men, yet these were most congenial companions. Or it could have been the after taste of the roast pork, or the brandy, or the fine cheroot he held between his fingers, but it was more likely to be the pleasing fact that, according to Don Damian del Gardo, Jesamiah Acorne was not going to see the coming of another dawn.

Stefan inhaled deeply, then watched the smoke plume from his lips. He had to make conversation through the first officer, the only one who spoke a mutual language of French; Stefan knew no Spanish, the others very little English, and no Dutch.

“Forgive my questioning, but can you be certain Acorne will be at this village we are making for, Puerto Vaca, you say? He is not always a predictable man.”

The first officer translated and Don Damian leant back in his chair, belched, then patted the bulk of his stomach. “I think I can safely predict he will be there. I have signal stations along my coast. His movements have been closely watched, one way or another. I merely wait to spring the trap that he and others of this silly little rebellion have so casually walked into.”

His grin was self-satisfied. The men around the table laughed, one even applauded.

“These rebels think they are so very clever,” Don Damian added, gloating. “Yet they have no idea of the woman who has so consistently betrayed them. When they find the courage to creep out from their sordid little hovels and try to march on Santo Domingo, they will be cut down like weeds with a scythe. I have no fear or worry of them.”

About to translate, the first officer was interrupted by a discreet knock at the door. The officer of the watch. A brief exchange, a few flurried words and Don Damian ordered the brandy to be sent around the table again.

“What is it?” Stefan asked, leaning sideways to talk discreetly to his willing translator. “What has happened?”

The first officer turned his head to speak into Stefan’s ear above the sudden roar of the Governor’s guffaw of amusement.

“It seems we may catch the two birds with the one stone. Is that not the English expression?”

Stefan spread his hands, looked blank.

“We have come up with our guardship, she has taken us a fine English prize it seems, but that is incidental. We have the
Sea Witch
cornered. She is anchored at Puerto Vaca.”

Stefan did not quite understand. He thought they had said Acorne was already there. He shook his head, he must have heard wrong, but he was pleased. If the
Sea Witch
was there, then maybe so was his indigo. He did begin to wonder how he was going to be able to get it, as his sloop was now sailing in consort and was under the constant eye of the Spanish. Ah, he would worry about that later. He had to find that damned thieving scum of a pirate first!

He also wondered why these men had been talking of another vessel called the
Kismet
. Of what relevance was she? But with Acorne penned like a monkey in a cage, what, at the moment, did the rest matter?

Twenty Eight

The acrid smoke from tarred torches filled the night air, and the covered lanterns bobbed, making wildly swinging shadows and eerie pools of light ahead and behind. The laughter and excited chatter had died away after the first mile, most of the men were riding or walking in silence; only the murmur of low conversation and the occasional muttered curse broke the natural sound of the night noises.

Juliana Maria, the Reverend Mother, was riding at the head of the column behind the gruff Spaniard who took the lead. Somewhere ahead of them a man was riding point.

So many things had become clear to Jesamiah; as many remained to be answered. His main thought was that he did not much like being used. And used he had been.

“Jennings manipulated me coming here right from the start, the bastard. He’ll owe me for this,” he grumbled.

“Diego spoke often of Captain Jennings,” ‘Cesca said, her horse’s head level with his left leg. “Is he a friend?”

“Not any more he ain’t.”

The track narrowed again and she had to drop behind; not for another ten minutes was she able to resume a conversation. “When del Gardo forced me into his bed and first violated me, I joined the rebellion. Until then I had no interest in the things men pursued, but I did care for my husband and my son. And I began to care deeply about that monster being deposed. I cannot believe it is at last about to happen.”

Jesamiah made no comment. Some of these men here seemed to know what they were doing, the Reverend Mother certainly did – but most of them were farmers and servants, probably one or two were slaves. Their weapons were old, some, he had noticed, were rusty and bent. They were nothing more than a hotch-potch rabble. If the others being summoned to the rendezvous, a few miles from Santo Domingo, were of the same uninspiring quality, then this rebellion would be over before it started.

How many, he wondered, will turn tail and run at the first sound of gunfire? Few of them will stand and fight against a trained soldier. He shrugged, it was none of his business. All he wanted was his cargo, although he had extreme doubts about the existence of any indigo. These mules were carting something though. Gold with any luck. Whatever it was, he was going to have it.

The full moon sailed out from behind a ragged patch of cloud to peep briefly at them before hiding her face again, and a breeze ruffled the trees. The quick glimpse of light had illuminated the dark, night-shadowed sea spread way, way below, creating a silvered path that looked solid enough to walk on. Not a sail in sight, not that it would be easy to spot a ship that was being sensible and not sailing with her topgallants spread.

Already he was missing the sea, craving its motion, its smell. He wanted a deck beneath him, not an uncomfortable horse. Wanted to be on board a ship, not riding down a steep hillside in the dark with a bunch of rebels who would probably get themselves killed in their first skirmish.

“Did Juliana Maria give you the gift for Captain Jennings?”

Jesamiah patted his pocket, nodded. “She did.”

Some of the mules, always contrary creatures, were nervous of the dark and the moving shadows. Maybe they were catching a little of the apprehension that was there in some of the men. The sound of a waterfall tumbling down the hillside and of animals splashing through the hollowed pool, which Jesamiah remembered from the trek upward, disturbed the night. Then the sound of cursing and men starting to shout, the column shambling to a standstill. The anxious bray of a frightened mule, more splashing and vigorous shouting. It appeared the animal was refusing to step into the deep water.

“Cut its throat if it won’t damned move!” someone roared, his voice louder than the rising stir of activity. Their fiercesome leader, Jesamiah assumed. He had intended to ask ‘Cesca his name, but had decided he did not need or want to know. After this was over, except for ‘Cesca, he had no intention of meeting a single one of these people again. Half of them would probably be dead within the week, anyway.

The man on the horse behind ‘Cesca dismounted and marched purposefully forward. Jesamiah had already judged him to be one of those men who claimed loudly to know everything and promptly showed their appalling ignorance.

“I’ll get the son of a knock-kneed nag to move!” he proclaimed, as raising his riding whip, he began to help the mule’s handler to beat the animal in an attempt to make it go through the water. Inevitably, the creature became more terrified and kicked out. The crunch of shattering bone was loudly audible as its handler’s leg was broken. The beating from the other man became twice as savage.

“Fok this,” Jesamiah muttered as he dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to ‘Cesca.

Stretching his aching shoulders and back, realising now that he was on the move again the pull of the lashes had not been bothering him quite so much, he sidled past the several agitated horses and mules ahead and stopped at the edge of the pool. It was deep and black, looked for the world as if it was a gaping pit with no bottom.

On the other side, those who had already crossed were shouting impatient advice, on this side, the man with the broken leg was on the ground screaming his pain. No one seemed particularly concerned about him.

“Listen, friend,” Jesamiah said to the brute with the whip, “stop hitting the animal. Can’t you damned see it’s frightened? You’re making things worse.”

He was tossed a particularly foul obscenity for his effort.

As the Spaniard raised his leg to boot the animal in the belly, Jesamiah moved in fast, punching his fist hard into the man’s back, then again, catching his jaw. The Spaniard dropped like a stone, unconscious.

“I don’t go much on cruelty to children, women, animals and pirates,” Jesamiah stated, wiping his knuckles on his coat. “Not when they ain’t able to fight back.” He took up the trembling animal’s lead rope and rubbed its sweating face with his hand, crooning to it; talking nonsense. Slipping off his coat he handed it to the nearest person, then pulling a handful of grass from the wayside, waded into the pool. It came up almost to the top of his boots, even through the thick leather, was ice cold. With a grunt of satisfaction he realised the cracked sole had been mended well.

“Come on then you daft mule-brain, if I can stand in here so can you.” Holding out the grass he tempted the animal forward a step; one leg plunged into the water. “That’s it you lump of brainless bone. Another step. Yes. Good boy.” He let the mule eat the grass, then rubbing its face again, calmly led it across to the other side.

There was movement along the line in front and behind, a ripple of laughter, but the leader, dismounting and pushing past his men, was not so amused. On foot he was several inches shorter than Jesamiah, stockier, running to fat and full of his own self–importance. His fist was raised.

“You no hit my men! You bloody bastard!” he snarled in broken English. He made to draw his sword but with a hissing scrape of steel Jesamiah had his cutlass pressing beneath the man’s double chin.

“You got something to say to me mate? If so, I suggest you say it with a touch more politeness. Savvy?”

The leader’s hand went to one of several pistols thrust through a bandoleer across his chest. With speed, Jesamiah slashed with his cutlass, spinning the gun away, sending it clattering down the cliff face.

“You make another move and it’ll be your hand I send over the edge. Now, shall we proceed or do you want to really annoy me?”

Glowering, the Spaniard walked away, tossing over his shoulder, “I will not forget this insult, English.”

“Viva the rebellion,” Jesamiah quipped as the line of mules began to move and ‘Cesca approached with his horse. He noted as he mounted that she had his coat over her mount’s withers. He grinned into the darkness as he encouraged his rescued mule to walk nicely beside his horse. Whatever was in these kegs, at least he now had hold of two of them.

“I have a talent to make friends,” he said. “It’s keeping them I find difficult.”

‘Cesca laughed.

Twenty Nine

They had reached the woodland, the track winding dark and ominous through its overhang of gloomy shadow. Even the moon had deserted them, for the cloud cover had gathered in.

One of the men ahead, apparently on foot for he had no horse, had pulled aside and was urinating against a tree. As Jesamiah rode past, the light from a lantern caught his face and hat. The distinctive ostrich feather.

“Hey, you’re not with us,” Jesamiah said, partially looking back over his shoulder, then realising he had to duck under a low branch; cursed as another whipped back from the rider ahead and caught his horse’s face. Simultaneously, two distinctive flashes and loud bangs. The smell of smoke and gunpowder. Firearms! The animal tossed its head high, almost hitting Jesamiah’s nose, then, squealing, it shied violently sideways and the mule, bucking wildly, plunged forward. Jesamiah was thrown as the horse stumbled a few paces, tried to regain its balance then pitched onto its nose, quite dead.

In a straggle of arms and legs Jesamiah tumbled down the steep hillside. He grabbed at a branch, which snapped, and grasped another which stopped his fall. Looked up in time to see the mule, still bucking violently, blood cascading from its flank, slip and fall downward crashing through the trees. The night sky lit up in a flare of light and a booming blast. Instinctively, Jesamiah ducked his head and threw his arm across his face as the woodland below him burst into flame. Gunpowder! The kegs contained gunpowder!

Pistol and musket shots were pop-popping, the flash of sparks in the pans; the puff and acrid stink of smoke. Men shouting and cursing, horses neighing, mules panicking. Militia; Spanish soldiers; del Gardo’s men! Ambush!

On his feet again, Jesamiah automatically had his pistol drawn. He took aim, sighted a man above him on the partially burning hillside; fired, did not wait to observe the resulting spatter of blood, bone and brain. Had other, more important things to think about.

Scrambling upward, moving more by necessity than agility, his eyes were riveted on ‘Cesca and her horse which was rearing almost vertical. He shouted as she fell backwards, noting incongruously that she was clinging to his coat, her mouth open in a scream he could not hear above the shooting of pistols, muskets and the shouting. Riderless, the horse bolted, reins and stirrups flying, several equally as terrified mules galloping in its wake. Jesamiah bellowed her name, scrabbled that last yard upward and ran, arms pumping, feet scrambling for a foothold on the track that was already churning with spilt blood.

A face, distorted by the killing-frenzy, loomed in front of him; reversing his pistol, he hammered the butt between the eyes and then stamped on the fallen man’s knee. Elbowed someone else aside – Spanish militia or rebel mercenary he never noticed. No time to reload, it was to be blade against blade at close quarters now.

Men were using fired muskets like clubs. The noises were macabre: the scream of a dying horse and the bray of wounded mules. Grunts of effort and sharp intakes of breath; the occasional curse, and the clash of steel on steel. Men had no breath left for shouting. Every desperate effort was being put into staying alive.

Jesamiah shoved his useless pistol through his belt and drew his cutlass; used it like an axe, holding the hilt two handed, swinging the heavy blade from side to side as he drove forward to where he had last seen ‘Cesca. Strike. Strike again, wrench the blade out from bone, guts and flesh. Ignore the sweet smell and sticky warmth of fresh blood; the sickening squelch as the blade sucked free.

He killed a militiaman by slicing his bloodied cutlass blade through the throat. Where the bugger were they coming from? How had they known to be waiting here? Briefly he thought of the ostrich feather, the two men following them. How had they known they would be coming back down this track? Another enormous bang and whoosh of exploding air, and more of the dark woodland burst into bright-lit clarity, trees were on fire, the flames spreading westward, fanned by the wind. The few mules left fled onward down the track. Incongruously, Jesamiah had time to reflect that at least they were heading for Puerto Vaca.

He slashed to the left, taking the cutlass through a man’s eyes, deep enough to sever into the skull and brain; whirled around, the momentum carrying the cutlass through its own weight to slice through another’s chest. The cutlass, a killer’s weapon, and Jesamiah, for all his congeniality, for all his charm, daring and humorous jesting, was a man who knew how to kill. Especially when he was angry. And he was. Very, very angry.

He had no idea whether a single one of those barrels and kegs had any indigo or brandy in them, or whether they were all gunpowder. While the black powder was useful it was not exactly valuable.

The smoke from fired guns was thick and choking although the
bang, bang, bang
, had almost ceased as the last bullets were fired. A few of the dying men were moaning for help; two injured horses were struggling to get up, but nothing, no one, was in Jesamiah’s mind except the need to reach ‘Cesca.

The glint of a sword in front of him. He parried with his cutlass, the fighting madness devouring him, making him kill by instinct and reaction. A sweating brow; a black moustache. A leering grin a grimace of fear – glimpses only of men appearing briefly before him. Another silver blade lunging, hot fire along his arm, blood trickling down to his hand. He swept the blade aside, struck again, and again, and again with precision and strength, speed and ability. But his injured arm was growing heavy, his muscles weary. He would not be able to fight like this for much longer.

Without pity; strike with your blade, kick with your feet. Do not think – do!

Fight! It’s you or him Jesamiah! Fight
! Malachias Taylor’s voice in his mind. Malachias, who had taught him how to stay alive.

A pistol exploded beside his head, he jerked aside tripped over something, a root, a severed arm? Almost fell, recovered. Slashed at a shape beside him, felt an impact, wrenched the cutlass free, and plunged on. ‘Cesca was screaming, he could hear her above all the other sounds. Could see her – two men were dragging her, one by the arm the other by her hair. One of them had a lantern, its crazed whirling creating a moving pool of light around them as they plunged downward through the trees, away from where the fires raged. Blood was on ‘Cesca’s face, she still had his coat, was clutching it to her as if it were a shield.

Something ricocheted off Jesamiah’s blade, a numbing shock shot up his arm, a pistol bullet most likely. He ignored the pain, glared into a pair of white, staring, eyes heard the hiss of a sword sweeping inward, but he jumped backwards and it glanced off his belt buckle. Instantly he stepped forward, slammed the hilt of his own cutlass into the wielder’s jaw with such force that it snapped the bone.

He wanted to cry out to ‘Cesca, shout he was coming, but had no breath or energy. Someone else was blocking his path – how many were there for God’s sake? Their blades grated with a shower of sparks as the steel ground together, blood-red blade sliding along blood-red blade until the hilts locked and each man held ground. Face to face leering at each other, breath hot, bodies exhausted.

The taverner. The scar on his face unmistakable.

“I’m on your fokken bloody side!” Jesamiah panted, heaving against the man’s superior weight, trying to push him off.

For answer, a snarl and an elbow jabbing into ribs that were already cracked and bruised, and Jesamiah realised that Scarface was the one who was not on the right side. His cutlass felt like a lead bar, his arm so heavy, so very heavy. All the other wounds and abuses were betraying him, screaming their protest, the agony coursing with quivering tension across his shoulder muscles and rippling down his forearm. He would have to submit – would have to… Scarface thrust harder at Jesamiah, pushing him off balance. He staggered, stumbled, and fell backwards. Looked up to see his opponent’s blade, coming forward and down. Knew this was the end. Hoped it would not hurt too much.

He shut his eyes, thought of Tiola. Her dear, sweet face. Her eyes that shone with laughter, the taste of her mouth, the feel of her body against his as he made love to her. Opened his eyes as he heard a shattering bang at close range and a startled grunt.

Angelita, Juliana – whatever her damned name was – lowered the pistol in her hand and gave him a quick smile, began reloading it, the light of the burning trees more than enough to see by.

“I thought you said nuns did not possess guns,” he panted from where he was sprawled in the blood and mud.

Apart from the crackling and roar of flames, the moans of the wounded and the sound of the rising wind in the trees, the clearing had fallen quiet. The others would be making no more sounds.

“We do not. This is not mine, it is his.” She nodded at another dead man nearby. The short, fat, Spaniard, the arrogant leader.

Aye, short friendships
, Jesamiah thought. “I think you’ll find this bastard here, was your tongue-tattler,” he said, nodding towards Scarface and pushing himself, grimacing, upright.

The Reverend Mother, as bloodstained and gore-grimed as himself, nodded. “One of them. That is why I shot him, too many of our people have suffered because of the likes of him. As they say, dead men can tell no tales. But he was not alone, there is at least one other, a woman we think.” But she was speaking to herself. A shrill scream had sheared up from where the trees dropped away. ‘Cesca!

Jesamiah sheathed his cutlass and hurtled down the hillside, her hysterical screams guiding him through the darkness as efficiently as any wrecker’s beacon luring the unwary ashore.

He slithered a fair way, ducked beneath trees, slipped, fell and rolled. His face and hands were caught by clawing branches. He slithered some more, but was up on his feet and running. Shoving branches aside by instinct more than sight. The light dim, but because of the fires, enough to see vaguely by. He tripped over a fallen trunk, was up again. Clinging to a supple branch he jumped down an expanse of bare rock, stood, breathing hard, heart hammering, in an open clearing.

Behind him, and way over to the left, the night sky was lit by the burning fires of the two gunpowder explosions. Nearer, a dim light bobbed through the darkness of the trees, coming towards him, coming closer. He moved quietly behind a rocky outcrop. Barely taking his eyes from the lantern, reloaded his pistol. He had done it so often he did not have to think about it, barely needed to look at what he was doing.

Bending slightly, he rested his left arm on one of the rocks and steadied the end of the barrel on his wrist, only now, in the orange glow, noticing the gash that had sliced through his shirt and arm. It had already stopped bleeding. He’d had worse; it would heal.

‘Cesca had also stopped screaming. As the three entered the clearing she was no longer struggling, and only one of the men had his hand gripped on her arm. Jesamiah took several breaths to lessen his laboured breathing and narrowed his eyes; took aim.

It was a good shot. Right between the eyes, the man with the lantern never knew what had hit him. One second he was alive, the next, dead, the lantern falling to the ground where it rolled down the slope, flickered and went out.