Fortune Trilogy 1 - Fortune's Mistress (20 page)

“Anything. But ye must help me to get James free.”

“No. No say that. You hear.” The Indian’s eyes clouded with emotion. “Kutii all time guard to treasure ... guard to Inca royal house.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know that. You were captured by the Spanish in your own land ... in Peru.”

“Spanish come. Kill men, kill women, kill baby. Take treasure. Kutii fight. Have great shame to live when others die. But no take life. Wait for star woman. You come. Save Kutii. Save mother, wife, daughter.”

“But ... I don’t understand. Are they ... your family ... are they prisoners of the Spanish? Slaves, as you were?”

Kutii stiffened the fingers of his right hand and brought his arm sharply out from his body. “Dead. All dead.”

“Then how can I save them?”

Slowly, bit by bit, he managed to convey to her that it was not the bodies of his loved ones he expected her to save, but their immortal souls. Tears filled Lacy’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she listened to his anguished plea.

“You daughter of my spirit. Must be daughter of my blood,” he said. “Star woman’s blood, Kutii’s blood, all same. Treasure belong you. Wait for you. So long as you remember—” Again, he tapped his forehead. “Remember Kutii, he never die. So long as blood of star woman live, Kutii’s people live. Spirits never die, so long as be remember. You make royal child of Inca with Jamesblack. You tell story of Kutii, Kutii people. That child remember. That child tell. Always Kutii spirit live.”

“How?” She took both of his hands in hers. “Your ways are not mine, dear friend. I don’t understand ye, or half what ye say. But for love of you, I will do whatever ye ask me. And I will always remember you in my prayers.”

“So.” He smiled, and the night-black eyes glistened with moisture. Tenderly, he took her left hand and raised it to meet his right one. Their fingertips touched, and he began to chant in a language that was totally foreign to Lacy.

She crouched in silence as Kutii wrapped a vine around her joined wrists and then wove it between their fingers. With his free hand, he pulled a long thorn from a bush and used it to prick his right index finger. Then he did the same with her left one and let the fine trickles of blood mingle.

“From this day I swear to protect you,” he whispered fervently. “Until the sun ceases to rise over Machu Picchu, and the moon ceases to shine on the sea, I take you as my daughter. Now ...” He looked deep into her eyes. “You must say, but say father.”

“Until the sun ceases to rise over ...”

“Machu Picchu,” he urged.

“Machu Picchu, and the moon ceases to shine on the sea, I take you, Kutii, as my father.”

“And I will never forget,” he said.

“And I will never forget,” she murmured. “And I will tell my children of Kutii and his people, I so swear.”

He leaned forward and brushed her brow with his lips. “It is done,” he pronounced. “We are bound for time out of time. I will keep my promise to protect you and all of our blood.”

“And James,” she reminded him. “You’ve got to help me get James loose.”

“He belongs to you. Kutii protects his own—in this world and the next.” Slowly, he untied the vine that held their hands together. “I help. But . . .” He raised a finger in warning. “First, you sleep. Lose much blood. You heal.”

“I can’t let him think that I’ve abandoned him,” she protested. She tried to stand up, but her knees betrayed her. She swayed and sank back down on the thick moss.

“Star woman think of child,” Kutii said sternly. “El Capitan no have gold. He want gold. No hurt Jamesblack. You sleep now. Head heal.” His features hardened. “Gold belong star woman. Belong baby. No belong Ma’hewkay.”

“And little the whoreson will get of it, if I have my way,” she assured him. “But if I have to bribe him, I will. I can find what we threw over the side of the
Silkie.
I’m sure I can. I’ve some treasure hidden in the cave, and I’ll add that to it. I’ll go down to the wreck for Captain Kay, if I have to. He’ll be hard put to find anyone else who could go so deep. I—”

She broke off suddenly as overwhelming dizziness swept over her. “Kutii ... I ...” she began. “No!” She seized his hand. “No. I don’t want to ...”

In the blink of an eye, she slipped from reality into a vivid
seeing.

She was still screaming when Kutii muffled her cries with his hands. He rocked her against him as she sobbed out what she had seen. “Matthew’s going to kill James,” she said. “He is.”

“Shhh,” Kutii soothed. “The time be not yet, daughter. Jamesblack lives. Sleep now. Heal. Together we stop Ma’hewkay. I, Kutii, promise. You shall have Jamesblack. You shall have the treasure.”

“No.” She wept harder. “Ye don’t understand. Even if I save him, he’s going back to England. I can never go back. I will stay here in the New World with my child. I can’t have James. I won’t let him die ... but ... but I can never have him.”

“You will have Jamesblack,” the Incan repeated again as he stroked her hair. “I, Kutii, will give him to you.”

O
n the third night after the
Silkie
was destroyed by the cannonball, Lacy and Kutii dived by moonlight to the mouth of the underwater cave. Before they’d left the beach, she’d tied a cord of twisted vine to the Incan’s wrist and fastened the other end to her own wrist so that they wouldn’t become separated in the black water.

Using the tether, Lacy led Kutii though the narrow rock opening to the underground river. After a short swim, they surfaced inside the cavern, above the waterline. They gulped fresh air in the near Stygian darkness, then Lacy took Kutii to the ledge on the north wall where she’d left her hoard of treasure.

She’d not known why it was necessary for Kutii to enter the cave again, but he’d insisted. He told her that he needed to touch what she had deposited here, and to fix the objects in his mind. She left him there with the gold while she swam back into the sea and searched for the bundle they had thrown from the
Silkie.

Lacy had fixed in her memory the location of a crack in the limestone cliff wall. The water here was much shallower than it was by the wreck. Going down thirty-five feet was child’s play. Taking care that Matthew Kay’s henchmen posted along the shore did not see her, she dived again and again. When she’d covered the area, she started over, determined that what she and James had wrested from the
Miranda
with such difficulty would not be lost. This time, she was successful. She returned to Kutii with the missing bundle of treasure.

“You come,” he insisted, helping her up out of the water inside the cave.

Clutching her hand tightly, Kutii led her along the narrow ledge of limestone. Then they climbed a series of natural steps in the rock, and passed through a tunnel on their hands and knees.

Lacy gasped with wonder as she entered a vast room lit by what seemed to be twinkling stars. Icicles of colored stone hung from the ceiling and protruded from the floor in giant fingers. “Is this real?” she whispered, “or am I seeing it in a dream?”

Her voice echoed through the blue, eternal twilight, resounding back to her over and over again. “... in a dream ... in a dream ... in a dream ...”

Kutii stood up and pulled her to her feet. The air was fresher than it had been closer to the sea, but Lacy could still hear the faint ebb and flow of the tide. She shivered; the cavern temperature was cool and her body was wet.

“See.” Kutii pointed to a raised basin between two enormous ice-blue stalactites. He had piled the treasure there; a great heap of gold and silver jewelry, gem-studded goblets, masks and headdresses of beaten gold, pearls, and emeralds, and golden statues of animals and birds. Reverently, he added Lacy’s bag to the collection. “This be place of gods,” he explained. “Sacred place. No evil come here.”

“Is there a way up to the jungle?” she asked him in a low voice. “The light’s coming from somewhere, and the air’s pure.”

He shrugged. “No find.” He pointed to the back of the cavern. “Cave end in stone. Only by sea come.” He said something in his own language that she couldn’t understand, then switched back to his broken English. “Evil man, woman, come this place, gods destroy.” He placed a fist over his heart. “Gods see into heart. No fool. Bad man die, all die.” He pointed again to a shallow alcove.

Lacy shuddered. The remains of a human skeleton lay scattered on the floor. The skull lay at the base of a stalagmite. Over countless years, limestone deposits had dripped onto the bones, until they and the skull had become a part of an infant stalagmite.

“We go now,” he said. “Treasure safe here.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but there’s something I think I’ll need.” Kutii waited in silence as she went back to the raised basin and retrieved a necklace of golden disks from the heap of glittering jewelry and slipped it over her neck. “I have a reason—” she began.

The Indian shook his head. “You are the star woman. The gold is yours.”

Together, they returned to the place where Lacy had emerged from the water. There, in darkness, she took the end of the vine, tied it to their wrists once more, and slid into the underground river. A few minutes later, Lacy led the Incan safely out of the cave mouth to the ocean’s surface.

They climbed out of the sea on the jungle’s edge where they had waded in earlier. There, a sentry lay huddled against a palm, still bound and gagged. Kutii had wanted to silence the man forever, but Lacy had seen no need for bloodshed. “I won’t kill a man unless it means our life or James’s,” she’d whispered to the Indian.

“Dead man cast no spears,” Kutii had warned.

“We’re not murderers,” she’d replied stubbornly. “He can scream all he wants once we are back in the jungle. What can he tell the captain? That we went swimming in the moonlight?”

She’d had her way, and they’d spared the sailor. Lacy devoutly hoped she wouldn’t live to regret it. What she had to convince the Indian of now was even more difficult.

“I must face Matthew Kay alone,” she said after they’d both slept for a few hours, and Kutii had examined the cut on her head, and pronounced it well on the way to healing.

“No. Kutii come.”

“Kutii not come.” She unclasped the necklace of golden disks from around her throat, the single object she’d brought with her from the hoard in the cavern. Each circle was of beaten gold, wafer-thin and inscribed with mysterious markings. “I’ll bait Captain Kay with this, and I’ll promise to dive for more gold if he’ll let James go and cut us in on the treasure.”

“He take gold and kill you.”

She shook her head, and a hint of mischief danced in her cinnamon-brown eyes. “I’m a star woman, remember. You said so yourself. He can’t kill me. I’m immortal.” She stood up and cupped the priceless necklace in her hands. “There’s more than enough gold in the cave to keep James and me for the rest of our lives. I’ll pretend to keep my bargain until we can get away.”

“Kutii come.”

“Kutii can come with me when I leave this island. But now I need you to stay in the jungle. You’ll be more help to me if you’re not a captive. Kay won’t think he needs you. If James is badly injured, he knows I’ll be defenseless without you. He might well have you shot, or he might put you in chains and sell you back to the German.”

The Incan regarded her through narrowed eyes. “Fear for Jamesblack make you—”

She cut him off with a quick motion of her flattened palm, a hand gesture he often used. “No. I will not be careless or foolish.” She cupped her flat stomach. “I have my child to think of. Trust me, Kutii. I have known men like Matthew Kay all my life. I can deal with him.”

Can you?
her inner voice demanded.
Or are you
risking everything for Jamie? Are you so sure he’d do the same for you?

For one awful moment, the vision of James falling forward into the sand splashed across her mind. The red blood blooming like a rose on his white shirtfront ... the puzzled look in his eyes.

Lacy swallowed hard and banished the frightening image. James’s death at Matthew’s hand was in the future. She’d changed the future before. She’d change it now.

Her lower lip trembled as she gazed into Kutii’s sorrowful eyes. “I must try. And if I fail, you’ll be free to save me.”

“So.” He nodded his head once sharply and stood up. “You fear your own power, star woman. No fear. Learn to use.”

“I never asked to be born a witch.”

“Kutii never want leave mountains. See family die.” He shrugged. “Brave man ... woman ... face what is. You star woman. You no have fear to see. Use vision.”

“I need to make a bargain with Matthew Kay. Take me to the ship. Please.”

“I take,” he said grudgingly. “But you listen father. Use power. No fear to see.”

“I’ll try,” she promised.

Three-quarters of an hour later, Lacy emerged from the trees onto the beach. One of Captain Kay’s sentries was walking gingerly a few steps ahead of her. Lacy wore the sailor’s shirt over her own tattered garment and held his musket with the muzzle aimed in the exact center of his back.

Kutii had captured the one-eyed buccaneer for her. The Indian had moved so silently out of the thick foliage that Lacy hadn’t seen him until the white man was belly-down on the jungle floor with Kutii’s knife at his throat.

Kutii remained in the forest as she’d begged him to, but she was certain that he was watching her from the trees. Her back felt itchy, as though Kutii’s heathen, black eyes were burning a hole in her skin.

It was one of the worst things about being a witch, she mused, as she prodded her prisoner forward with the musket. A witch constantly had to contend with spooky things that normal people never encountered.

Two sailors were drawing a longboat up onto the beach. Beyond them, the square-rigger
Adventure
was anchored in the cove. A third man, in striped shirt, bare feet, and full breeches, leaped to his feet and shouted an alarm as Lacy and her prisoner stepped into the clearing.

“I want to see Captain Kay,” Lacy shouted. “Tell him Mistress Lacy Bennett of Cornwall has come a-visiting.”

 

“Mother of God!” Lacy swore when she peeled off the bandages on James’s back an hour later.

James winced and sweat broke out on his pale forehead. “Leave it be,” he protested. “It will heal.”

“Heal?” she snapped. “It’s a wonder you’re not dead of gangrene! What maggot-brained son of a sea cook is responsible for this?” She glared at Matthew Kay. “You’re the captain here. Do something! I need hot water and soap. If ye wanted him dead, why didn’t ye just whack him on the head instead of letting some clod brain sew him up with wood splinters under his skin?”

Matthew’s complexion turned a violent shade of puce, and he whirled on the cabin boy. “You heard the lady. I want hot salt water and lye soap. Now.”

“Yes, sir!” The pimply-faced youth didn’t pause to feel the weight of his master’s fist. He darted out of the captain’s cabin, leaving Lacy and Matthew Kay alone with James.

“No,” Lacy ordered when James would have stood up. “Don’t move.” She glanced at Matthew. “I suppose you do have rum.”

“Aye,” he admitted.

“Give it here,” she said.

“Don’t be hard on Matt.” James grinned. “He tried.”

“Better you’d dumped sea water over him and left his wound to bleed,” she chided. “I want to see the man who made this mess. I’ll warm his ears for him.”

Matthew turned even redder. “I sewed him up,” he mumbled.

“You what?” Lacy asked.

“I sewed him up. Hellfire and damnation! He bled enough. I thought it was clean.”

“I’ll need tweezers, scissors, and a needle. Have ye silk thread? It looks like ye stitched him up with hemp.”

“I’ve tended men afore,” Matthew complained. “Some lived, some died, but none made a fuss about my doctoring.”

“Then they must have been as lack-witted as you,” she retorted. After uncorking the rum bottle, she took a drink, then passed the bottle to James. “Take some,” she urged. When he did, she reclaimed the bottle and poured a little into his open wound.

James swore so foully that it brought a blush to Lacy’s cheeks. “Would you murder me?” he gasped. “I was on the path to recovery until you came aboard.”

Lacy grimaced. “I’m glad ye think so.” She looked at the captain again and wondered for a moment if she had only imagined the vision about Matthew shooting James. It was clear to her that Matthew Kay cared about James deeply. There was nothing in Kay’s demeanor to suggest that he considered James a prisoner. And the captain had shown her nothing but courtesy since he’d met her on the beach and escorted her to the ship.

“All I wanted from you was a fair share of the treasure,” Kay had said while the two of them were being rowed back to the square-rigger. “I never meant harm to you or James. He’s been like a son to me. I can assure you that the gunner who fired that volley won’t ever make the same mistake again.”

Was it possible that Matthew Kay could be trusted? That she and Kutii had both judged the captain wrong?

James cut through her reverie by snatching the rum bottle from her hands. He drank deeply and passed the bottle to Matthew. “Have some. If we don’t drink it, she’ll waste the lot by bathing me in it.” Matthew accepted with a good-natured chuckle and settled into a high-backed chair to finish off the spirits.

A furtive movement in the shadowy hatchway caught Lacy’s attention. As she stared intently at the deck expecting to catch sight of a rat, a cat strolled into the cabin, pranced over to Matthew, and leaped up into his lap.

“Harry!” Lacy said in astonishment. “That’s my cat.”

Harry padded in a circle and curled up, purring loudly. Matthew stroked the cat’s gnarled head and scratched him behind his missing ear.

“That’s my cat, Harry,” Lacy repeated. “I thought he drowned when the
Silkie
went down.”

“Wasn’t it fortunate we only lost the gold instead of poor pussy,” James quipped sarcastically.

“He was the first thing we pulled out of the water,” Matthew said. He flashed a grin at Lacy and she realized that in his younger years, he must have been an attractive man. “I like cats. I’ve always been fond of them.”

Lacy went over to the cat, bent down, and petted his head. Harry gave her a disdainful stare and yawned.

“Damned good-for-nothing cat,” James said. “Why isn’t there ever a shark around when you need one?”

Matthew covered Lacy’s hand with his own. “You can see that you’ve no future with that man,” he said. “A man who hates cats has no imagination. You’d do much better to cast your net with me.”

“Better Harry than either of ye,” she answered lightly, pulling her hand free. “What does any woman get of a man but trouble and heartache?”

At that instant, the cabin boy returned with a steaming basin of water. He cleared his throat loudly. “Sir,” he said. “Here’s—”