Ill Wind and Dead Reckoning: Caribbean Pirate Adventure (Valkyrie) (11 page)

I stretched my hand out to the door, then stopped. I did not want to go in there. I did not want to face the evening that lay behind that carved piece of wood.

‘Klara.’ I could hear Erik’s Dutch accent even through the timber. ‘What’s keeping my wife? Leave that there and fetch her. She’s neglecting our guests and I won’t have it!’

I took a deep breath and reached for the door again, forced the handle down, and stepped into the dining room.

‘Finally! What kept you?’ Erik said in greeting. ‘You have the right idea, gentlemen,’ he addressed the room. ‘A life at sea – no women to contend with.’ He laughed. ‘Sit down, Gabriella.’

I walked the length of the room to the empty chair at the bottom of the table and tried to ignore the laughter of the dozen men seated at Erik’s pleasure. His buccaneers – the men who brought my husband, and his father before him, the riches to build and furnish this house. Pirates, even if they preferred to avoid that title, instead calling themselves privateers, buccaneers or Brethren of the Coast.

I had lived on the island of Sayba, in the northern Caribbees, with Erik van Ecken for three years. Surrounded by jungle and sugarcane, Brisingamen was a beautiful house: built of brick, it had four storeys at its highest and was painted gold. The long lower floor had a decorative and comfortable veranda with a series of seven arches, and the centre of the next was topped directly by a steep roof to the width of the middle three arches. Either side of the middle section were two third and fourth floors with shuttered windows and topped by gables built in the Dutch taste of carved pediments with curves and swirls added to the basic flat triangle. Most women would be envious, but they didn’t know Erik.

I took my seat and glanced up at Klara as she spread a napkin on my lap and filled my glass. We both knew well how these evenings ended. At least I’d only have my husband to contend with; she had no idea which of the loud, coarse, stinking men at this table Erik would decide to reward with her favours. Blake, Hornigold and Sharpe were the main contenders, but my husband had a warped sense of humour and all the men here were hopeful.

‘Look at me when I’m talking to you!’ Erik slammed his fist on to the table, silencing the room. I looked up at him in alarm; he was drunk early. That did not bode well. ‘Three years, and you still haven’t learned to look at me when I talk to you! Do you have this trouble with your crews, Blake? No, ‘course you don’t. Maybe I should send her to sea and let you whip some obedience into her.’

His favourite subject was our marriage and my failings.

‘God bless my dear father, he had a good head for ships and business, none at all for women. Saddling me with this useless barren English whore.’ He looked around the table to make sure he had everyone’s attention. ‘He went to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to sort out the customs official there who was getting greedy, and came back with his daughter for my wife. Her own family didn’t want her, which should have been Vader’s first clue. She can’t run the house properly and lets the slaves get away with anything, especially this one.’ He slapped Klara’s backside as she placed a joint of beef on the table. ‘I’m sure she thinks they’re friends. My wife needs to learn her place. It’s a pity the cage is full, although it would be a shame to waste her like that.’

I looked up sharply. The cage was barely big enough to hold a grown man, and once Erik put someone in it, they did not come out alive. The local wildlife wasn’t fussy about its food being dead before it dined, and any victim was left there until his bones were picked clean.

‘Ahh, thought that would get your attention. I know everything that happens on this island, you forgot that when you let that . . . that filthy swine touch you, didn’t you, Gabriella?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘What am I talking about? What am I talking about? I saw you! You let him touch you!’

Then I realized and my heart plummeted. I looked at Klara; she’d frozen in place.

‘What? Do you mean Wilbert? I tripped, he saved my fall! What have you done to him?’ Wilbert was one of Erik’s slaves.

‘You know exactly what I’ve done to him. I’m not having one of those animals touch my wife! How did he look, Blake?’

The men would have passed the cage on the approach to the house.

‘Like he’s remembered who’s the captain here.’ Blake laughed.

‘Erik, please.’ I knew begging wouldn’t sway him, but I had to try. ‘Please let him out, he only tried to help me, he doesn’t deserve this.’

Erik slammed his fist into the table again. ‘
I
decide who deserves what, and don’t you forget it, Gabriella. Maybe this’ll teach you not to be so friendly. Now eat your dinner!’

I looked at my plate. I knew more words would anger him further, but I could feel Klara’s eyes on me. I knew she loved Wilbert. I couldn’t look at her. I could do nothing for him. I couldn’t even try. I’d only make things worse. I picked up my knife and fork and cut a small piece of meat. I hoped it would choke me.

‘So, Blake, have you dealt with our Spanish problem yet?’ Erik changed the subject and I risked a look at Klara now that I no longer had my husband’s attention. Her face showed no expression and she did not return my glance.

‘He’s not been seen since the fight with Hornigold. He’s hiding somewhere, but we’ll find him. We have a lot of friends in these waters, we’ll find him.’

‘You’d better. I lost a good man in Tarr; you need to prove to me you can fill his boots, Blake. I have to say I have my doubts.

‘And you can stop sniggering, Hornigold. I have no idea why Blake has so much confidence in you, if I had my way you’d be
Freyja’s
cook, not her captain. In fact,
you
can concentrate on finding the Spaniard, you can prove yourself and leave Blake to carry on our business interests – I need more ships, and I need them quickly. My slave sheds are full to bursting, I need to transport them to the Caribbee slave marts before too many die on me. Bringing them across from Africa isn’t cheap, you know!’

Hornigold flushed. ‘I nearly had him! It wasn’t my fault!’ He glared at Erik, but dropped his eyes and quietened almost immediately. No one else spoke and Erik glowered around the table, his point made.

‘Come on, what’s wrong with you all? Eat!

‘Klara? The wine’s running low, fill the jugs. Get on with it.’

I escaped upstairs as soon as the meal was finished and I was no longer required. Lying in bed, I heard the voices below grow louder and more raucous as Erik and his pirates continued to drink. A cheer announced Klara’s entry into the room with more jugs and bottles. I couldn’t bear to think what she had to endure, but I could do nothing for her. I thought again of Wilbert, hanging in his tiny suspended cage, waiting to die, and clenched my fists. I was at the mercy of my husband and could do nothing for the people he tortured. I had to do something. I had to. But for the moment I could only pray. Pray that Erik passed out downstairs and I’d be spared more humiliation tonight.

If there was a God out there, he wasn’t listening. Eventually, I heard Erik’s tread on the stairs, and Klara’s screams from elsewhere in the house. The door slammed open and Erik staggered in. He was only a vague shape beyond the thin tester curtains that kept the insects from the bed, but it was a shape I knew too well. I tried to keep my breathing even – I knew not to show him my fear.

He bent down and pulled the pisspot from under the bed, then filled the room with the stench of himself. He could not stand up straight, and his water hit porcelain, rug, bedding – he didn’t notice. Then he was done and pulled the rest of his clothes off.

Despite my best efforts, my breathing had become faster and shallower. I wanted to run, somewhere, anywhere, but had nowhere to go. The house was surrounded by jungle, and everybody on the island was either in business with my husband or terrified of him. I had to stay with Erik. I flinched when I heard another scream from Klara, and Erik laughed.

He fell on to the bed, got tangled in the curtains, then found his way through. I was too scared to laugh at his buffoonery. He pulled the cover down, shoved up the nightgown I’d put on to cover myself despite the heat, and climbed on top of me.

Nothing. He was soft. He’d drunk too much. I couldn’t help the sigh of relief that shot through my body and immediately cursed myself. He’d heard me, and my head slammed to the right with the force of his slap. Then left. Then a punch to the mouth, all accompanied by insults and hate. It was working for him. I wasn’t going to be spared tonight, after all. He grabbed my gown at the neck and lifted me up until I was half sitting, then he closed his fist and punched harder. I tried to scramble away, but his weight pinned me to the bed. My kicks were ineffectual, and he batted my fists away with laughter. He grabbed my throat and he was ready.

*

I lay on the bed, hugged my knees to my chest, and waited for daylight, Erik snoring beside me. I had long ago learned to cry silently, and the bolster was soaked with my tears. I had to do something. I had to. Klara’s screams had stopped about the same time as my own. We had to get away from here or he’d kill us both. And we had to get Wilbert out of that cage as well. Somehow.

Erik left the room not long after dawn without looking at me. I wondered if he’d even notice if he killed me one of these nights. Probably not. I looked at the door as it opened, my heart in my mouth, even though I knew it wouldn’t be Erik. Klara came in, eyes to the floor, and I looked away. It was always the same the day after a dinner party; the two of us too ashamed to look at each other.

She put her load of fresh bedding on the chest and bent to see to the pisspot. I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed, unable to prevent my cry of pain. Klara was there in a moment and we clung to each other, sobbing.

‘How bad is it?’ I asked.

She looked at me, then brought me a glass and I stared at my reflection. Long, dark, wavy hair; pale skin with those freckles over my nose that I hated; blue eyes. My right eye had blackened and my lip was split; I stretched my neck and could see the marks of my husband’s hand there. I could cover those with silk. The damage to my face would be harder to disguise; I’d have to wear the Spanish mantilla again and hide behind a fan. I looked at Klara more closely; bruises did not show up as starkly on her skin, but they were still there, and I noticed she favoured her right arm.

‘Hornigold,’ she whispered.

She wouldn’t tell me what he had done, but she didn’t need to; I could guess well enough.

‘Sit still and close your eye,’ she said. I saw she had a bowl of the salve that Belinda made in such large quantities. It had a strange, sickly smell, but soothed the bruises. She applied more to my neck. I took it from her and rubbed some over my arms and legs and attempted to stand. My legs felt sore and weak, but they held. He hadn’t done me serious harm. I looked at Klara as she glanced away, and sighed.

‘Have they gone?’

‘Yes, just after dawn.’

I nodded. With any luck the pirates would be setting sail and Erik would stay in Eckerstad, the island’s main port a few leagues down the coast. I doubted it was out of shame, but he tended to stay away after nights like the last one. What he did and who with, I didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care. We had some time alone with only his overseer, Rensink, to contend with. He’d been with Erik and his family for most of his life and could be just as brutal, but at least he let us be.

‘Have you seen Wilbert?’

Klara nodded and started crying again. I walked her to the bed, sat her down, and held her.

‘We have to get away, Klara.’

‘I can’t leave Wilbert or Jan.’ Jan was her son.

‘I know. Erik won’t be back tonight. We’ll deal with Rensink, free Wilbert and the four of us will go.’

‘Deal with Rensink?’ Klara sounded incredulous. ‘How? And where would we go?’

I paused. I’d been thinking about it all night, and it had seemed plausible before dawn; now I wasn’t so sure.

‘Rensink likes his rum, and Belinda has given me a tincture to help me sleep before now. If we combine the two, he’ll be senseless by sundown.’ I smiled. ‘Then we find the keys and set Wilbert free.’ It sounded simple when I said it quickly. ‘Is Jan chained with the rest of the men at night?’

‘Yes, but he’s so thin he can slip the shackles.’

‘Good. We’ll have to find our way to Eckerstad and hope nobody sees us, then we’ll board a ship and just go.’ I had another thought. ‘Oh, we might find that easier if we’re dressed as men.’

‘Board what ship? Most of the ships here are pirates or slavers; I don’t know which is worse.’

‘As long as we avoid Blake and Hornigold, we’ll manage. We have to take the risk. Even if we stowaway on a slaver, we can stay hidden long enough to sneak off when they dock at one of the other islands. You never know, we may be able to free the slaves and take Erik’s ship for ourselves!’ I laughed, although I knew it wasn’t funny.

‘What about the others here? We can’t just leave them. Think what Erik will do to them if he comes back and you’re gone. He’ll kill them, never mind that they’re shackled and unable to do anything to stop us.’

I looked at her. We both knew that a large group would be caught. Four of us would find it hard enough to stay hidden. But she was right; I couldn’t leave those men and women to Erik’s mercy.

‘We’ll loose their shackles and let them find their own way.’

‘And what will your husband do when he recaptures them?’

I looked at the floor. ‘We’ll have given them the choice. They can stay if they want, or hide in the jungle – there’s plenty out there.’

‘Belinda?’ Klara asked.

I looked up at her again. Belinda was Erik’s housekeeper and was a large, friendly woman who liked her comfort. I couldn’t see her in the jungle or at sea. She had signed on for five years with her husband, John, as an indentured servant and had been here long before I’d arrived. John died soon after their arrival in the tropics and Erik had forced her to work his passage off as well as her own, but I didn’t think she really minded. Where else would she go now that John was dead? What else would she do? She got her board and food, and she had come to some sort of understanding with Erik so that he didn’t torment her as he did his other Brisingameners.

‘Belinda will have to take her chances. If she knows nothing, she can’t be held accountable. Maybe we should put something in her rum too?’

‘She’ll never forgive us for not saying goodbye.’

‘Yes she will.’

‘Only if we make it.’

We stared at each other’s battered faces again. If we didn’t make it, we’d die; we had no choice but to try.