Pirates (16 page)

Phoebe scrambled to keep up, holding onto her flower garland with her free hand. “What could this guy possibly have against you that would make him go to all that trouble?” she asked with breathless reason.

“I might have stolen his cargo once or twice,” Duncan answered, without slowing down. “And there was that time off the Ivory Coast, when I burned his ship down to the waterline.”

“Oh, shit,” Phoebe said with conviction.

“Exactly,” Duncan replied.

He left her beside a spring, in the center of the island, with instructions to wait there and be quiet until he returned. He offered no explanation for this desertion except to say he wanted to look around.

Everything should have been all right.

Everything
would
have been, if Phoebe hadn’t screamed.

And she only did that because of the monkey, which dropped down out of a tree to land screeching in her lap.

The British didn’t come, and neither did the pirates, because they were still too far away. But a crowd of natives slipped out of the jungle—a dozen of them, tattooed and scarred, wearing loincloths and carrying spears. They stared at Phoebe, who had just shooed the monkey away, pointing at her clothes, which must have seemed odd to them, and her crown of flowers.

Phoebe’s heart pounded. She was thinking of the crabs she and Duncan had for dinner the night before, and of cannibals and giant bubbling cauldrons and divine retribution. If God’s eye was on the sparrow, she thought hysterically, perhaps He kept track of crustaceans, too.

“Duncan,” she sang, in a puny tone he could not possibly have heard. It was all she had breath for. “Oh,
Dun
can!”

One of the natives dropped to his knees, supporting his
spear with strong brown fingers. Another followed his lead, and then another, until they were all kneeling.

They began to chant. “Doon-can, Doon-can …”

“Oh, my God,” Phoebe whispered, covering her mouth.

They rose, as one, with a certain primitive grace, still chanting, and encircled her. A scream surged into Phoebe’s throat and died there, too feeble to get past her lips. Then, like actors in a bad movie—if only this
was
a movie, bad or otherwise—they lifted Phoebe onto their shoulders like a football coach who has just led an underdog team to victory.

“Duncan!” she screamed.

“Doon-can, Doon-can,”
sang her escorts, bearing her through the jungle and never missing a step.

They took her to a circle of huts in the middle of a clearing and set her on a large rock, which she hoped was not a sacrificial altar. The men had obviously decided she was some kind of goddess, but the women, who wore little more than their male counterparts, were plainly less charmed. They walked around and around the stone, poking at Phoebe with their fingers and sneering. The masculine contingent took umbrage at such disrespect, and a heated altercation ensued, raising dust and making birds squawk in the trees.

Phoebe tried to sneak away during the argument, which involved much shouting and making of gestures, but she was spotted and tenderly returned to her throne in the heart of the war zone.

The women finally subsided, in sullen defeat, and the men circled Phoebe until she was dizzy enough to fall off the rock in a faint. No doubt they were pondering how best to worship such a strange deity. They touched her short hair, and peered into her eyes, and might even have examined her breasts if she hadn’t folded her arms and summoned up a makeshift incantation.

It was only a line from an old Beatles song—the first thing that came to her mind—but she said it with authority, and it must have sounded dire, for her little flock drew back a little way and henceforth kept their hands to themselves.

Phoebe held them at a distance with a glare, which was
more and more difficult to sustain as the day wore on. She had to go to the bathroom, and it didn’t look like Duncan was going to rescue her, and who knew what these people did to their goddesses—burned them at the stake? Dropped them into live volcanoes? Previous deities, if there had been any, were conspicuously absent, and historically, the field had always had a high mortality rate.

At sunset, the natives built up the fire and tried to feed Phoebe what looked and smelled like the digestive tract of a good-sized animal, and she fended them off by reciting every word of Elton John’s last album in a stern voice. There was no telling how long that trick would work, however. Sooner or later, the plot was bound to thicken.

It was sooner, as it happened. There was a great rustling of foliage, and Phoebe’s heart soared. Duncan had come, at last, to save her. She would polish his boots for a year for this and make a real effort to stop talking in twentieth-century lingo just to irritate him …

There was a great hubbub and snatching up of spears within the village, and Phoebe held her breath. Duncan was only one man, after all, and clever as he was, he couldn’t hope to prevail against so many people with that antique pistol of his.

Then a man stepped out of the trees, and Phoebe almost screamed a warning, but a grim realization stopped her. This was not Duncan; this was an ugly, long-haired pirate, with a complexion like cornmeal and part of his nose missing. He wore high boots and a striped shirt and one gold earring, and Phoebe would have appreciated how well he suited the part if she hadn’t been so busy sliding to the ground in a swoon.

She awakened all too soon, to find the man talking to the natives in their own tongue. He was surrounded by other pirates now, all of whom had bad teeth, if they had any at all, and were surely disappointments to their mothers. There was an exchange of money—Phoebe wondered, in her lightheaded state, what a good goddess was going for these days—and then she was carried off through the jungle.

She considered struggling, decided it would be futile if not outright stupid, and tried to think of an escape plan.
Nothing came to mind, but the effort kept her from panicking, at least until she’d been taken on board a stinking ship and tossed into the hold like so much ballast.

By then, Phoebe was sure Duncan hadn’t rescued her because he was already dead, or being held in some other part of the ship.

No. She brought her frantic, runaway thoughts under shaky control. The fact was, she didn’t
know
where Duncan was, or what had happened to him. Something almost certainly had, and it was unlikely that that something was good. Only one thing was absolutely clear: If she was going to be any help to him, she’d have to help herself first.

P
hoebe sat in the darkness, feeling like Jonah in the belly of the whale, but without the happy prospect of being barfed up on some distant shore in three days, safe and sound. She huddled, almost in a fetal position, with her knees drawn up under her chin and her arms tightly clasped around her shins, taking slow, shallow breaths, like a creature lapsing into hibernation. She concentrated on the measured
thud-thud-thud
of her heartbeat, to keep herself from thinking of what would happen when Mornault’s inevitable summons came.

A scrabbling sound at the door interrupted her meditation, and she raised her forehead from her knees, mutely terrified, her skin clammy with sweat. There was a creaking of hinges, followed by a muttered imprecation. The portal was flooded with light, and then blocked again by the figure of a giant.

“For God’s sake,” hissed a familiar voice, “don’t scream.”

Duncan.

Phoebe could hardly believe it; indeed, she thought she must be hallucinating. All the same, she scrambled awkwardly
to her feet and staggered toward him, tripping over crates and coiled rope, and an involuntary mewling sound flowed tremulously from her throat.

Duncan took her into his arms and held her fast for a few moments, and she knew then that he was real and could have died of the relief. Overhead, Mornault’s men were making a great deal of noise.

“How did you get here?” Phoebe whispered, holding on to the front of Duncan’s shirt with both hands and allowing herself to be weak. She could always deny it later.

“Never mind that,” Duncan said. “We have to get out of here.”

Phoebe had been in such a deep state of shock that she didn’t realize his clothes were wet, that he smelled of kelp and brine, until that moment. “You didn’t
swim
?”

“I did, and so will you,” Duncan replied, already leading her out of the hold and into the narrow passageway beyond.

“But how …?”

“There is a game of dice going on in the galley,” Duncan told her in an impatient whisper as he pulled her up some steps. “I believe you are the prize, and if you don’t tame your tongue and make haste, they’ll have the both of us.”

Phoebe quelled her other questions and followed Duncan across the darkened, empty deck. There was a crescent moon out, offering precious little light, and when her rescuer started over the side, she balked, but only for a second. They’d been lucky so far, but casino night might end at any time, which meant they would have a crew of sore losers to deal with, as well as an eager winner, primed to celebrate.

She followed Duncan over the rail, only to find him poised to slide down the anchor rope and herself left with no choice but to do likewise. It was a long drop to the water, and even if she managed to avoid doing a belly flop, there would certainly be an audible splash.

Closing her eyes and holding on to the rope with both hands and both legs like a fireman descending a pole, Phoebe lowered herself down and down, into the waiting sea. Duncan was there already, of course, and he put an arm
around her waist, because she was already foundering a bit, and spoke into her ear.

“You’ll have to leave the gown,” he whispered. “It’s too heavy.”

Water lapped against the creaking side of the ship, warm as the contents of a bathtub, but alive beneath their feet with all sorts of terrifying creatures. Phoebe was not inclined to argue—her thoughts were focused on escaping pirates and other monsters of the deep—and she shed the tattered dress quickly.

Duncan laid a finger to her lips when she would have spoken.

“Silence,” he told her, in a voice so soft it was hardly more than a breath and yet so urgent that she could not have ignored it. “They will miss you soon, and an alarm will be sounded. We have a long way to swim.” He caught her hand and placed her fingers around his belt. “Sound carries a long way on the water. Do not try to hurry, and no matter what happens, do not scream or even speak. Just hold on to me.”

She nodded, and Duncan moved away from the ship’s side, through its broad, mobile shadow, and she gripped his belt and carried her own weight as much as she could. They had not gone far when Duncan’s prediction came true—someone had counted noses and come up one goddess short.

There was hue and cry aboard the sleek vessel, and lanterns glowed along the rails as disgruntled sailors rushed to peer into the gloom. Bursting with fear, Phoebe bit her lower lip and swam doggedly beside Duncan. The salt water stung her rope-burned palms like fire.

The sails had been lowered, since the craft rode at anchor, and she and Duncan were surely swimming into shallow waters, but there are other ways of giving chase. Phoebe heard ropes whirring over pulleys and the splashing smack of a skiff striking the surface.

Blind panic threatened, but Phoebe clung to Duncan and kept moving.

The light of a lantern spilled over the water, in the end, and found them, and the skiff gained steadily. There were
three men aboard, the disfigured Mornault, the lamp-bearer, and an oarsman.

Duncan stopped, treading water, and pushed Phoebe behind him. “Keep going,” he said.

She didn’t.

Mornault laughed, looking especially ludicrous in the thin, wavering light, with his glittering earring and one nostril open to his sinus passages. “So,” he crowed, “it is you, my friend. I should have known ! Who but Duncan Rourke would have the gall to climb an anchor line like a monkey and steal away my ladylove?”

Phoebe waited, her chemise moving around her like the tentacles of some sea creature, her heart pounding in her throat. Duncan reached back and pried her fear-numbed fingers from his belt.

“Go!” he commanded again in a hoarse whisper, and then he disappeared beneath the surface.

Mornault and his friends were too worried about what Duncan might be doing to bother with Phoebe; the pirate captain swore, peering over the side, the oarsman fretted in antique French, and the old lamplighter stood up, rocking the boat.

Phoebe backstroked a little distance and waited. Whatever happened, she wasn’t going to leave Duncan. He would be furious with her, if they survived, but that didn’t matter. Besides, she was only a mediocre swimmer—had never gotten beyond the “turtles” class at summer camp—and her chances of making it to shore on her own were practically nil.

There was a strange sound, from under the skiff, followed by much shouting. Duncan reappeared at Phoebe’s side, sleek as a dolphin, put an arm around her, and propelled them both through the water. The rowboat began to sink, while Mornault stood up in it, waving his fist and screaming comments about Duncan’s heritage. The oarsman and the guy with the lantern just screamed, period.

Duncan sounded only slightly breathless as he dragged a now-wilting Phoebe along with him. “I know you’re dying to ask,” he said, “so I’ll spare you the effort. The point of
my dagger caused a small leak in the bottom of the captain’s dinghy. An accident, of course.”

Of course
, Phoebe agreed silently. She heard violent splashing in the distance and more yelling. She closed her eyes, aching with weariness, and briny water rushed into her face, filling her nose and mouth. She choked and coughed, and Duncan kept going.

“Pay attention,” he said. “This is an ocean. It has waves.”

Phoebe called him a name even Mornault had not thought to use, and he responded with what might have been a chuckle.

After that, she lapsed into a state much like the one she’d been in while crouched in the hold of the pirate ship. She functioned; she moved her legs and her free arm, drew breath and expelled it, endured her burning hands and the pain of forcing her body to its limit and beyond. An eternity passed, it seemed, and then they reached shallow water at last, and Duncan half dragged, half carried her onto dry land.