Pirate Code (33 page)

Thirty Nine

Rue clung to the bouncing and rocking gig that somehow, against all odds, had managed to stay afloat, despite the huge mountain of water that had seemed to boil upward from the destruction of the two vessels. The green face of the wave had built and built and then curled over, white foaming at its crest, to hurtle up the river, destroying everything along the banks as it passed. Bringing down trees and buildings, rocks and rubble. Sweeping live creatures into its gape, and tearing vegetation out by the roots.

One of his strong hands was clasped around the gig’s rigging, the other was twisted into Jesamiah’s collar.

By chance, as the torrential rain had momentarily cleared, Rue had seen him thrown into the sea by the force of the blast as the
Kismet
had exploded. He had cried out to the men to pull for their very lives, staring and staring at the spot where he had seen Jesamiah go in. And he was there, floating face down! His black hair waving, his blue ribbons so distinctive! Rue grabbed, held on, and the rain, mercifully, eased.

Using all his strength, his muscles straining, Rue heaved, struggling to bring Jesamiah’s inert body aboard. It was almost as if unseen hands were holding his captain back, clasping him in a vice-like grip determined to keep him there in the sea. But Rue won the battle, and he rolled Jesamiah over the rail, flopped with him to the bottom of the boat to lie there gasping like a landed fish.

Jesamiah opened his eyes, twisted to his side and spewed water from his lungs. After a while, he struggled to his knees.

“It’ll come back,” he puffed. “The wave will have a pull-back. It’ll go in hard but unable to spend itself, will pull back and spill where it can.” Ashen faced, trembling, he looked at Rue and smiled. “Thank you my friend. Thank you for saving me.”

Rue merely stated, “You are a fool.”

The surge wave, having reached its height and limit of forward momentum was slithering backwards, returning from whence it came, as Jesamiah said it would. The sucking, squealing noise as it retreated to its own domain of the ocean was horrible to hear as it scooped up everything it could in its grasp as plunder. Trees, lumps of masonry and timber. Small, wrecked fishing boats. Lobster pots, barrels, crates. The carcasses of the drowned. Animal and human. For ages it seemed to slide back and back, and Jesamiah and Rue and the men clung to the sides of the tossing gig until their fingernails bled. The sea was angry and it swirled and lashed at everything it could, boiling with its torrents of green, icy death.

But the storm, too, was not finished. In the wake of an ear-splitting crash of thunder another squall came racing down from the hills. Rain scythed across the flooded village of Puerto Vaca and beat down upon the surface of the heaving sea. It stung the men’s flesh, drummed against the planking of the gig and hissed into the several inches of water slopping in the bottom. The sea was churning with its own wrath, fighting back, a great battle between the water of the oceans and its daughter, the rain of the skies. A battle for domination, a force of wills. Two elementals pitched in brutal savagery one against the other.

Rain had always hated her mother, and the Witch Woman had been kind to her.

~
Save Jesamiah. Please Rain, save the man I love. Do not give him to your Mother. She will take him down into the darkness of her world, and he is so frightened of being shut away in the dark
. ~

Rain knew that. She had seen his fear when he had been in that tower. And she had seen his smile and his beautiful eyes. He had smiled at her when he had seen her in her form of the Grey Lady. Smiled and saluted her.

~
No, I will not help you, Witch Woman, I think it is best for you to fight your own battles with my Mother. But I will help him. For so few see me and smile
. ~

The rain battered at the sea with such force that it stirred the surface into a froth of yeasty foam. She drove upon the ocean relentlessly and unremorsefully, without pity or mercy, beating, bullying her mother down. Driving horizontally she forced Tethys to subside, pounding at the high, crested waves until they were flattened into submission.

And then the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. The storm was gone, and the sea was flat and calm.

Forty

Jesamiah and Rue lay in the bottom of the gig, sodden, breathless and battered. The men rested on the oars, their energy spent. The sickening bobbing was easing, and the sky overhead was paling brighter into a fresh blue. The black clouds were rolling away into the distance as quickly as they had come.

“I hope that’s the end of the rain,” Jesamiah remarked. “As much as I don’t mind a dousing, I’m sure I’m getting webbed, bloody feet.”

Rue could only nod, too exhausted to answer.

Raising his head, Jesamiah searched for the
Sea Witch
, found her hove to where she was meant to be, over by what was left of the mangrove swamp. The mangroves would survive, so would the palm trees, and the vegetation would re-grow. The village, when Jesamiah turned to look was battered and damaged, but much of it had survived. Although the
Sickle Moon
had gone. The overhang of rocks had tumbled down and engulfed it. Jesamiah was not sorry to see its demise.

Every bone in his body was broken, or so it felt. He would not be surprised to find, when he stripped his clothes, that he was bruised blue and black from head to foot. Giving encouragement, he chivvied the men into pulling for his beloved ship. It was over. Finished. What the islanders did with their rebellion was up to them, but del Gardo was dead, and very likely, because of it, so was the rebellion. What was there to fight against now the object of their hatred was removed?

He wondered if he would see ‘Cesca again. Doubted it. Was partially sorry, but then, he did not need her, for he had his Tiola back.

~
Jesamiah
? ~

~
Yes sweetheart
? ~

~
Are you alright
? ~

~
Not really
. ~

~
Will you come and get me? I am waiting for you at la Sorenta
. ~

~
Do you doubt that I would not
? ~

She sent him the feeling of a loving embrace and her lips touching his. No, she did not doubt it.

There were many dead floating in the water. Two Spanish ships had gone down; men had drowned, men had been blown to pieces by an explosion of gunpowder. Some of the bodies were not whole, some had horrendous burns. Gunpowder was not a kindly stuff. Jesamiah vaguely searched the dead, hoping to find what remained of del Gardo. A movement caught his eye. He frowned, peered over the side, saw a man feebly trying to swim. Recognised the bastard’s arrogant face; watched him struggling, watched him trying to reach for a piece of wood to use as a float. Why did the fool not give up and die? Jesamiah looked away, pretended he had not seen.

Tiola would ask. She would want to know what had happened to Stefan. He would tell her he had seen the bastard’s dead body and then all this would be over. No, he could not do that, Tiola always knew when he lied. How could he be honest about it? He is dead, sweetheart, I watched him drown.

Jesamiah swore and ordered the men to alter course. He leant over the side and made a grab for van Overstratten’s hand.

“Stefan, take hold! Come on man, you are alive, we have survived. Make an effort!”

Close to complete exhaustion, the Dutchman looked up and saw Jesamiah Acorne.

“
Donder der op naar de hell
!”

Jesamiah did not understand what it meant, but he could roughly guess its meaning.

“There was no indigo,” Jesamiah said. “Jennings used both of us. We have both been played for fools.” He leant further out, made a grab for Stefan’s coat. Missed. A little bit more… a little more.

Was that movement in the mud-churned water behind Stefan? Debris floated everywhere, several uprooted trees, trunks had already bumped against the gig’s hull. A log was floating towards Stefan. Perhaps he would be better to grab at that?

Jesamiah cried out, urgently reached out as far as he could. “Come to me! Kick hard man! Come on! Come on!”

That was no log! It had eyes and teeth and jaws, and its home among the mangrove swamps had been destroyed, making it angry.

Jesamiah touched Stefan’s fingers, strained forward, caught his wrist, clung on. Gasping with relief he hauled, Stefan’s grip curling into his own. Rue was beside him, also leaning down, reaching out.

“I have you!” Jesamiah cried, “I have you!”

And then Stefan shook his head and stared up into Jesamiah’s eyes. “
Jij wint piraat. Zorg goed voor haar,”
he said, repeating it in English as, deliberately, he let go.

The muddied water churned into a sudden, brief, flurry of white foam and red blood as the swamp crocodile closed its jaws around Stefan and took him under.

The words,
you win pirate
.
Take care of her
, echoed in Jesamiah’s head, and stupidly, incongruously, he sat there in the water at the bottom of the gig, and wept.

Forty One

As the storm abated and the sea calmed, Tiola had spoken to Tethys.

~ Why do you pursue Jesamiah? Why do you try to take him from me? ~

~ Because I have only daughters and I want a son! Because he is mine! He was born in the sea and I want him to stay with me, to be mine! ~

Tiola had thrown back her head and laughed, not unkindly, but amused. ~ But he has always been yours, Tethys! You do not have to take him to where he will become nothing more than bones and rotting flesh to keep him. Always it will be his ship and the sea that is important to Jesamiah, always he will answer and come to you when you call, not to me. He loves me, but he is a part of you. He is of the sea. He always will be. But if you take him now, he will die and the light and the life that is his will be gone forever. ~

Tethys was silent as she listened and she mulled the words in the shifting tides of her mind.

~ Do you want him as a corpse, my Lady of the Sea? Or do you want his laughter and his joy, his strength and his beauty? ~ Tiola paused. Waited for an answer. It was a long time in coming. ~ Where the sea is trapped upon the shore, there is no movement, ~ Tiola added. ~ There is no tide, there is no surf, there are no waves. Just old, stagnant water that dries to nothing more than salt. Do you prefer that pool as your realm or do you prefer the wide freedom of the glorious ocean? Would you prefer the dead bones of a man or the vibrancy of his life? ~

Tethys was crooning, almost crying, the sound that of the waves upon the shore.

~ Jessh.. a..miah. Jessh… a…miah. ~

~ I say again Tethys, he always has been yours. He always will be. He loves you. He cannot exist without the sea. ~

And at last, realising the truth of it, Tethys subsided into the depth of her realm, and was content, for he was, indeed, hers. As the Witch Woman said, he always had been. Always would be.

And always, for Tethys, was a very, very long time.

Forty Two

Thursday Evening

Jesamiah slept for almost two days. He awoke once and cried out in misery, but Tiola was there, beside him, her arms around him, her voice crooning and comforting, hushing him back to sleep. Over and over she repeated that it was alright, that everything was alright. He buried his head in her lap and wept, and murmured that it was not.

“‘Cesca told me the truth,” he admitted through his tears. “All those years when I was a child I endured the humiliations and the pain and the fear. I need not have done. I should not have done.”

Tiola, kissed him, held him tight and close, said nothing, let him talk. Let him release the hurt that was eating into him.

Jesamiah looked up at her, tiredness etched into his bereaved face. “My father,” he said, “had only one son. He gave the other his name out of honour for the woman, but the child was not his son. He had no right to the name Mereno. Had no right to be there in Virginia. Had no right to anything.”

“Oh Jesamiah, Jesamiah!” Tiola’s heart was breaking along with his.

“I suffered all that for nothing. Phillipe was not my brother.” His breath shuddered as he finally acknowledged the truth and confessed it to the woman he adored. “Del Gardo fathered him through an act of rape. My father gave his mother refuge, a home and a name, but he was my father. Not Phillipe’s. My father gave him everything that should have been mine. Even his love. Why? Why?” Jesamiah’s distress was consuming him, all those years of pain and fear running in a blind panic of returning memories.

“Papa knew how Phillipe treated me, he knew of the cuts and the bruises and the fear, but he did nothing. He knew all that and knew he was not my bloody brother! Knew he had no right to be there! Papa was my father yet he abandoned me to the sadistic evils of that fucking bastard!”

His voice cracked as he spewed the next words. “The times Phillipe called me a bastard, the times he made me call my mother a whore! And it wasn’t me! It wasn’t
me
who was the bastard, nor my mother the whore!

All Tiola could do was hold him and hush him to sleep, and hope the pain of knowing the truth had not stabbed too deep, that eventually he would come to understand why his father, why Charles Mereno, had acted as he did.

One day, perhaps, she would be able to show him why. One day, but not now.

Forty Three

Sunday Afternoon

Exasperated, Jesamiah swept the charts scattered over his mahogany table to the floor, strode across his cabin and taking the rum from the cabinet poured himself a more than generous measure.

“That will not solve your problems,” Tiola observed, not looking up from the book she was reading. It was one of the things she loved about Jesamiah, his ability to take a breath and carry on, regardless of what cruelties life hurled at him.

“No, but it makes me feel better.”

With a sigh, Tiola uncurled her legs and leaving the book on the window seats went to him. She threaded her arms around his waist and tucked her head into his shoulder. “Can I help?” she offered.

“Aye, you can conjure up a wind that will take us far away to where there are islands with plenty of fresh water and meat. Where there are no storms, no waiting gallows, and no bloody Royal Navy frigates under command of a certain Commodore Edward Vernon about to appear over the horizon, ready to blow us to Kingdom Come.”

Finch bustled in, grumbled about the mess. “Can’t you keep this bloody place tidy fer one bloody minute? What’m I supposed to do fer yer dinner then? I got a nice bit of ox tongue.”

“That’ll be fine Finch, thank you,” Jesamiah answered.

“An what’ll I do with that Spaniard, de Castilla? Do I let ‘im out now or keep ‘im locked away?”

“Let him out if you wish.”

“‘E keeps as sayin’ ‘ow he wants to join us.”

“Whatever for?” Tiola asked, astonished. “I thought he hated us, hated Jesamiah?”

Finch was picking up the charts and sliding them back into their drawer beneath Jesamiah’s desk. “‘E do. Apparently ‘e ‘as a wife ‘e ‘ates even more.”

Jesamiah laughed. “Half the men aboard the
Sea Witch
are here for the same reason.” He tapped his finger on to the tip of Tiola’s nose. “Start worrying, lass, when I talk about transferring to a different ship.”

“You want coffee then?”

“Yes please Finch.”

Sniffing loudly Finch laid the last chart on the table. He stabbed a tobacco and tar-stained finger in the middle of it. “It’s this one you want. The Bahamas. New Providence Island.”

“Thank you Finch. You may go.”

Alone again, Jesamiah rested his chin on Tiola’s head. “I don’t know why I put up with him.”

“For a similar reason as to why I put up with you?”

“What? Because he’s handsome, charming, fun to be with and good in bed? I don’t think so!”

Tiola laughed, which made Jesamiah laugh.

He needed to make peace with himself, and his past, but he also had to make peace with the present, for Commodore Vernon would be seeking him out and there were things he had to say to Henry Jennings. Several bones to pick over. And a few diamonds to be delivered?

Jesamiah had thought to keep the large handful he had in his pocket, but then he had figured that perhaps were he to get them to Jennings he could bargain some form of pardon for the crew.

“Finch is right, you should return to Nassau.”

Jesamiah snorted and walked away from Tiola, went to the rum for a refill. Maybe, but not just yet. He had to gather the courage to sail into a lion’s den first.

“Jennings sent you to Hispaniola, my luvver. You did what he asked of you. He can sort things out.”

“Oh aye, sort things as far as the noose!”

“Your coffee.” Finch trundled in with a tray of coffee pot, sugar bowl and cups. He liked to do things properly when Tiola was aboard. Beside the pot rested a black leather tobacco pouch.

“You’ll be needin’ this an’ all I reckon. I assume you’ve been lookin’ all over fer it? Bloody fine Captain you are, loosin’ things so bleedin’ important. Get us all ‘anged one day, the way you bloody carry on.” He stomped to the door, said as he went out. “Dinner in ‘alf an ‘our.”

Tiola was at a loss.“ Why would you be wanting to look for a tobacco pouch? You do not smoke.”

Frowning, Jesamiah set his rum glass down and slowly picked the pouch up. “It belongs to Henry Jennings. He dropped it that night twelve days ago when I had to run from Nassau.”

My God
, he thought,
was it only twelve days? It feels more like a lifetime.

“At the time I wondered…” He paused, said slower, “At the time I half wondered if he had deliberately dropped it.”

His fingers flew to open the pouch, excitement lighting his face. “The wily old dog!” he laughed. “The cunning old bastard!” He pulled out the folded paper inside, opened it, laughed again and twirled Tiola around his cabin.

“Finch!” he yelled, “Finch, I love you, you miserable old git.”

From the galley a rattle of pots and pans and a scathing, extremely rude, retort.

Tiola was reading what was on the letter. It was signed by Henry Jennings and bore Governor Woodes Rogers’ official seal.

“It’s a Letter of Marque, sweetheart,” Jesamiah explained. “It states that in the interest of declared war with Spain, whatever action I followed I was doing with the express approval of the King’s representative of the Bahamas Colony of Nassau, New Providence Island. We’ve been legal all the time! We can go home with flags flying and heads high – and not have a single word spoken against us!”

He laughed again, grinned like the rogue he was. “And thinking it over, I might just as well be keeping those diamonds for m’self, eh?”

Rain was happy as she danced off across the land, for the black-haired Witch Woman had said that there was nothing more beautiful than a clear, rain-washed, sapphire-blue sky, and the glorious arc of a perfect rainbow.