Minerva's Voyage (21 page)
I couldn't believe it. “Sire, you're alive,” I managed to mutter, stupidly enough, before letting the medallion drop so it was truly his again.
He groaned. “Just barely. The demon thought he got me in the heart, but it was my arm. It bleeds apace. Tear off the hem of my robe.”
I did so with some difficulty.
“Now wrap it tightly as you can around my left arm.”
I did as I was told, thinking all the while how close his arm was to his heart, and how easily he might have been slaughtered. But as I helped him to his feet, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.
Hell's Bells and buckets of blood. It was Proule. He staggered up and started towards us, both hands wrapped around the knife handle. He was attempting to pull it out of his own belly, no doubt so he could stick it in mine. A strange gurgling sound was coming from his throat. “I've ⦠got ⦠yer ⦠now, Cockroach.”
His mouth opened wide. I could see every blackened tooth in his head. I screamed.
I took off in a panic, half leading, half dragging Dudley. He had saved my life. Now I must save his. But though we travelled at a snail's pace, Proule was even slower and we soon left him behind. Finally I thought I heard him slam back down. Somewhere in the deep woods, Tempest barked. Then there was silence.
As we limped towards the shore, I took care to keep an eye open for Scratcher while I looked for Fence in our secret places in the forest. But Fence was nowhere to be found. We finally discovered him down by the boats, by which time, in my mind at least, he'd died a hundred different deaths. And so had I. In my imagination I saw Proule or Scratcher advancing towards me, knife raised. But whoever had the knife, the vision always ended the same way. I was killed in some barbaric manner in the dead of night, leaving Dudley alone and unprotected. But now, as we came to the shore, it was dawn. The sky cracked red as the orange sun rose through the canopy of trees.
“Thanks be. Did Scratcher find you?” I asked Fence.
“No.” He was panting. “Would I be here if he did? I heard someone crashing through the trees and quickly snuffed out the light. âMy shillings, my shillings,' he shrieked, before stumbling on again. âI'll get you, see if I don't.' It was Scratcher, right enough. I was greatly afraid. But I never saw him, and he didn't catch sight of me. God save us, what's wrong with his majesty?”
“Hurry, help me get him into the pinnace. He was stabbed in the arm trying to keep me from harm.” I smoth
ered my sobs with a cough.
“I have something I must tell you, Robin, before we leave.”
“What? Not now. Take his other arm. Quickly. We need to get him on board so he can lie down. He's lost a barrelful of blood.”
Fence grabbed Dudley and we splashed our way out to the boat.
I struggled into it, hauling Dudley in after me as if he were a catch of fish. For such a slight man he was a ton weight. Fence slung himself over the rail and we laid the old man, who seemed asleep, on the deck.
“I don't have the shillings,” Fence admitted now we'd settled Dudley as best we could. “I left them in Mary's hut, in her red pouch, while she slept. It was the honest thing to do.”
“No matter. She can have her ill-gotten gains.” We had saved Dudley, which was worth so much more to me. I was now untying a rope, which seemed to me to be the sailorly thing to do. But I was still a mere apprentice in matters seafaring.
“They'd be more ill-gotten if
we
kept them. But I thought you'd kill me.”
“True it is, I'm glad to see you. There's been so much bloodletting that I thought I might not. And we have inherited, you might say, something far better than a few measly shillings. We have Dudley. We have his trust. And he has the Phoenix medallion. Wherever we end up, he'll look after us, and we him.”
Fence retied the rope. “Right you are. Just do what I tell you, Robin, as regards shipshapery, and don't mess with the shrouds without permission, lest we sink.”
That told me off, good and proper. “Aye, aye, sir.”
“Take hold of that chain,” he instructed, so I did.
As we made preparation to get underway, I related everything that had happened. When he heard how Dudley had nearly been killed, he wept quietly as he worked.
“But, if Proule has died,” he said after a few minutes, “and Scratcher is off in the woods, no doubt terrified of what the others will do if they find him, why need we go at all? And what right do we have to take the boat?”
“Proule, I'm pretty sure, is dead as a doornail.” I shivered at the thought of him tottering towards me, blood dripping, knife stuck and twisted in his belly as he tried fruitlessly to pull it out. No one could survive such a grave wound to the innards, not for long, anyway. And if he did succeed in pulling the knife out, he would bleed to death, like a stuck pig, all the faster. “But Scratcher is another matter. He's still alive, he's desperate, and he has nothing to lose. And we're the witnesses to his cowardly doings, remember.” I still imagined him behind every tree, every rock, ready to spring forward and kill us. Even Winters might not be able to stop him. His hatred ran too deep. I had bested him, after all. “And for the love of God don't complain that we'll be stealing the boat. We have no choice if we want to live till Easter. And we have Dudley aboard. He would order us to commandeer it if he were awake. So we'll pretend he has done just that.”
Fence took up the ropes again. “Aye. It will be a hard trip, Robin, even though the pinnace is well set up. A boat with one mast can be almost as difficult to handle as one with three, mayhap more so, as it doesn't have the weight. We'll get tossed around something awful. We won't get a wink of sleep. And we'll have to look after his majesty. Pray God he makes it through the voyage.”
“He will. He says it is only a flesh wound.”
“He can talk then?”
“Yes. A little. Never mind the dangers.” I tried to sound brave, though I knew I'd soon feel green as a salad on account of the waves. “We'll manage somehow. You'll teach me the ropes, as you said.”
“My glove!” Fence exclaimed suddenly. “It's still on Boors Island.”
“We can't stop for it. Fence my boy. When we reach England, I'll buy you an entire pair of gloves.”
“Thank you, Robin.”
“And if I haven't the cash to buy them straight off, I'll pinch them off a barrow.”
Fence made a face, but then laughed aloud, used as he had become to my roguish ways.
“Which way will we go?” I asked.
“West, then north along the coast, past Virginia, thence to Newfoundland, where with luck we might get picked up by an English fishing boat, and then home. His majesty will have to stay disguised. He will have to remain plain Arthur Dudley. Pray for a fair wind.”
“Aye, aye, cap'n!” We'd swapped places. Fence was my gov'nor now. I judged it the wrong time to tell him that England might not be the place to go if we wanted to keep our heads. Perhaps we would find a home in Jamestown, Virginia, or somewhere north of it, even Newfoundland.
As we hoisted the sails, I saw movement in the trees beyond the shore, and my heart lurched. But it was only that stupid mutt Tempest. He piddled twice, bounded across the sand, dog paddled through a few feet of water, and barked to be pulled up.
“I hope you'll be our only tempest on this voyage,” Fence told him, as he lifted him into the boat in a bucket.
“Amen to that,” said I, grinning like an idiot. But a mile or so underway, with me bathing Dudley's head with sea water, Fence, who was a devil for remembering, suddenly yelled, “The supplies are still in the forest. We have to go back.”
“And be caught by Scratcher? Not on your life. We've a pail to catch rainwater and we'll fish, at least until I think of something better.” Not that I knew how we'd fish with
out rod or net. Or when it would rain, if at all. The sky had turned from orangey red to a piercing blue.
But as luck would have it, as we passed Boor's Island, we saw a man, his face half hidden by a cap. We dipped beneath the rail, but after a moment I took a quick squint. It was our old friend Piggsley, searching for crabs by the rocks. I stood up and he waved to us. With no little trouble we steered the ship close to the shore. I splashed over to him and told him our tale â well, a goodish part of it, anyway. I thought it best not to mention that the old man we'd brought with us either was, or thought he was, the King of England. Piggsley considered for a moment before saying that he wanted to come along. “Not doing anything worth a piss in a pot here, Ginger Top. And Boors be'ant fit to be in charge, the mad blighter. No worries about food, laddies. We s'll stay close to land when we can and we s'll find it as we goes.”
“One second,” I said. I ran into the spinney to dig out Fence's glove before Piggsley and I waded back to the pinnace.
“Here be some seafood to start us off,” said Piggsley. He threw the crabs he'd caught onto the deck, and Tempest, stupid brute that he was, tracked one till it turned around and pincered him on the nose. It was much harder than Fence had ever pinched him. It was as hard as when St. Dunstan pinched the Devil's nose with red hot tongs. In spite of everything, I laughed as I knocked the crab off the cur's much beleaguered snout. He yelped and crawled to the prow.
“And if we hugs the land,” Piggsley went on, “we s'll find some fine tortoises around the coast a piece. Jes' one of'em'll keep us fed while we's crossing nor'west to the shores of Virginie. Fresh water up that way, too.”
“And after that?” I asked.
“If the winds be kind, we s'll stop in at Jamestown, where we was first headed. To see if the streets be really paved with gold.” He winked. “And there too we s'll load up with provisions before going on.”
“And if the winds aren't kind?”
“If they be'ant kind we s'll hole up on an island somewhere. At least we s'll be our own men, none of that bowin' and scrapin' and eternal catchin' of flies both seen and not seen, for Sir Thomas Boors.”
“We now have an expert in all things nautical,” I said, pleased. “Not discounting Peter Fence, of course. No offence meant, Fence.”
Fence was busy stretching the fingers of his salt-stained glove before pulling it on. “None taken, Robin. Please take command, Master Piggsley.” He saluted.
“Much obliged to you, Master Fence. You s'll make a fine first mate.” As Piggsley put his hand to the tiller, he began to sing:
I sees a wreck to windward,
And a lofty ship to lee,
A sailing down all on the coasts
But on sails we.
Look ahead, look astern,
Look the weather in the lee,
Blow high, blow low,
As on sails we.
Pull, pull me hearties,
All on the glitt'ring sea
The sails be full, the shrouds be taut
And on sails weâ¦
“Bound for England,” shouted Fence
.
“Or if not England, then somewhere else. As long as we all stay together.”
“Yes, as long as we all stay together,” echoed a rusty voice behind us. It was Dudley. “I still hope to get to England, but it is no longer my first concern. I have been too long alone to deny myself the comfort of companionship.”
I was greatly relieved. Mayhap the seepings of his own blood with their whispery omens of death had changed his thinking.
“We'll be fine,” I said, “just as long as we stay above the waves.” I was already beginning to gasp at the ups and downs of the boat, and had a whirligging in my bonce. I was feeling right greenish, as Fence would say. But true it is, I was also beginning to feel the faintest tickle of pleasure that ran all the way along my spine to my toes. We were sailing past the rocks near the Bermudas without hurt or hurricano. We had beaten those savage tripeheads, Proule and Scratcher. And even if Scratcher was still in the forest chuntering to himself that he would get us in the end, so what? We'd left him far behind, the worst devil in the Isle of Devils. Soon, if the weather stayed fair, there would be hundreds of miles of ocean between us. And for the first time in my life I had real friends, companions who were as good as or better than family.
Thus set off the strangest crew that ever sailed the seven seas: an old mariner with a kind heart and a trunkful of seafaring experience; a young rapscallion with a whoosh of wickedness about him who could finagle his way out of any tight spot (when not feeling like to puke); an honest cabin boy who was loyal and strong and would work till his hands blistered; a loud-mouthed mongrel (the less said about him the better); and of course, a wise king who, when recov
ered, would guide us all. It occurred to me there and then that if we didn't make it to England (and I rather hoped we wouldn't), we had everything necessary for a thriving colony on some undiscovered island or the long coast of Virginia. Much heartened, I began to sing along with Piggsley. Fence, Tempest, and a quavering Dudley joined in the chorus, as
on sailed we
.
