The Pirate Captain (3 page)

“And made fools of Commodore Harte
and
Lord Creswicke,” Humphries said, snickering into his ale.

###

The storm exhausted itself by midday, the clouds withdrawing to reveal a remarkable day. Cate stood at the rail, smiling. Life appeared above and below, giving a sense that perhaps the ship hadn’t fallen off the Earth after all. With nothing but weeks of wave and sky, one readily came to believe the world had been swept away in a flood of biblical proportions. The speck of a bird high overhead was inspirational proof that something else still existed. A high point was a school of small, greenish-silver fish swimming alongside, or coming upon a great mass of seaweed, a miniature floating marine city teeming with myriads of small crabs and jellyfish.

For all its adventuresome sound, the bare truth: sailing was insufferably boring, a mind-numbing constancy of sky and water. Caught between the dread of what awaited at Port Royal and the staggering boredom of the sea, the desire for land was beginning to win. The ship’s time was marked by a watch bell, a baffling sequence of peals that she soon grew to ignore, measuring time instead by the sun or moon. As the watch bells counted off the hours—two rings not necessarily meaning two o’clock—she spent vast amounts of time contemplating the different aspects of waves: how one compared to another, compared to those from the day or week before. When her neck grew stiff with looking down, she looked up through the rigging and sails, and sought hidden shapes in the clouds. At night, she gazed through the port to see how much further the North Star had shifted since the night before. Too dark, too cold, too tired, or too wet were her motivations to retire to a cramped bunk, where she stared out the porthole at the stars, waiting for some shift in the universe to change them.

Idleness having never been her nature, she had tried to become more involved with the ship itself, but soon surrendered in the face of a language that defied comprehension: cat’s head, sheave holes, cheek blocks, cringles, fish pendants, and lizards, with a fore bowline not to be confused with the foretop bowline, which was entirely different from the foretop gallant bowline. She was only slightly confused at being told—with little patience—that there were no ropes on a ship; those things hanging everywhere were called
sheets
. Let one not overlook, however, that a sheet could be a
tack
, a simple change in the wind making it a
leech
.

And so, she watched the antics of a troop of sea hogs—dolphins, as called by some—cavorting in the curve of the bow wave. Their silvery backs arching through the indigo water, they almost seemed to smile up at her before streaking away, only to return to frolic alongside once more. She shielded her eyes from the sun to watch a small covey of birds, their black, tapered bodies sharp against the sky. Swooping, they touched their feet to the water, hovered, and then spiraled skyward.

Chambers came beside her and inclined his head toward the birds. “Mother Carey’s chickens; the wife of Davy Jones. They fly forever, never touching land, hatching their eggs under their wings. Harbingers of storms they are: the more you see, the worse the storm is to be. They say the sea hogs will lead a shipwrecked mariner to shore. If they leap entirely out of the water, ’tis a gale coming.”

“You say that as if you don’t believe it,” she said, intent on the fish.

Her experience with mariners’ superstitions had begun early. The day she purchased passage, she had been hustled aboard, Chambers anxious to weigh anchor that day, since the next was the thirteenth of the month, and no ship sailed on such a date. Sharks had been sighted at the stern, “smelling death.” The subsequent fever and death of Mrs. Littleton and her daughter came as no surprise, and was met with not a little relief. Their bodies were quickly commended to the sea, being bad luck to have them aboard. Women aboard was the worst of luck. The tension had failed to lessen with the passing of the Littletons. One would have thought fewer women would be good news, but it was quickly pointed out that two people had just died. What stronger proof of bad luck did one require?

Calypso, a woman, was goddess of the sea, her name often invoked for protection, as was St. Bride. The bowsprit was the bare-busted figure of a woman, mermaids—harbingers of good luck—were the hope of every sailor, and the ship was referred to as “she.” And yet, women were bad luck.

It defied all logic, but made perfect sense to the men. Not much more could be said.

Chambers’ shoulders moved faintly under his coat. “I’ve been at sea since I was a squeaker near Fitzgibbons’ age. I’ve seen enough to know anything is possible, and nothing is impossible. Whether by the hand of God, or some other power, who’s to know? This humble soul is in no position to question.”

He stood quietly watching the fish, falling into one of those pensive silences of his that always left her feeling a bit off kilter.

“We’ll be making Kingston in three, mebbe four days.”

The announcement was a bit redundant, since that had been the subject of conversation every meal since sinking England. Still, the prospect of the seemingly endless journey coming to an end left her feeling a bit odd.

And then what?

“We’ll be putting on cargo—molasses and sugar and such—bound for Virginia Colony.” He drew thoughtfully on the cold pipe. The green eyes darted from the fish briefly to her, and back. “I was thinking…perhaps if your brother has no place for you, I have a sister there—in the Colonies—with a household. I was thinking perhaps if you wished…”

The suggestive lilt in his voice said everything else. A cold pit grew in her stomach, Cate’s knuckles whitening as she gripped the rail. “How long have you known?”

He smiled around the pipestem. “If there’s one thing you learn at sea, it’s to judge a person. You’re running from a husband?” He pointed his gaze at her wedding ring, the silver gleaming as brightly as the dolphins.

“No, not exactly.” She clutched her ring if for no other reason than to protect the memories it held. His concern seemed sincere, but she worried of how far he intended to probe.

A cry came from the foretop, followed by Mr. Ivy appearing at Chambers’ elbow.

“Beg pardon. Sail, sir.”

“Where away?” asked Chambers.

“Larboard quarter astern.”

The news was received with no more than the lift of a sandy brow. More revealing was the flexing of his jaw muscles and lips tightening to white around the pipestem.

“Tell your man there’s an extra half-ration if he’s correct. The eyes can play tricks on a man out here; no sense in rewarding false alarms.”

Heart pounding, her attention had swiveled instantly to the horizon behind them. It was one of those days when the running seas took them to the top of the world one moment, only to be surrounded by water the next. The ship maddeningly seemed doomed to the latter just then, a wall of deep blue blocking her view.

Chambers paused before turning away to look up once more at the soaring petrels. “Seems they brought a storm after all.”

###

Reports came throughout the day. The moment finally came when the
Constancy
and the distant ship crowned a wave simultaneously and Cate saw the ship for the first time. A speck barely the size of her thumbnail, the sails stood strikingly white against the backdrop of deep-colored ocean and gunmetal clouds. The next instant it was gone, leaving her to wonder if she had actually seen it, or after having strained for so long, her eyes and imagination had obliged.

Cate closed her eyes. The image remained. It was no figment.

Once seen, the ship was twice alluring, and Cate stood through the intervals of watch bells, waiting and watching. As wind and water allowed, she spotted it, always at the same angle, always incrementally closer.

In the last rays of daylight, Chambers sent a man aloft with the spyglass, pacing the decks until the report finally came, in breathless, eye-rolling gasps.

“’Tis the
Sarah Morgan
, sir!”

“By what means?”

“Black ship with blood dripping the sails, sir.”

“Blackthorne’s ship,” was Ivy’s whispered aside to Cate. “Her decks run red with the blood of her victims. She’s carried on the back of Calypso.”

“Nay, ’tis Neptune hisself, a-risin’ on a prodigious sea-horse a-pullin’ her. I spoke with a tar what seen it with his own two eyes,” came a voice from behind her.

Chambers swore an uncharacteristic obscenity as he looked aft. An awed murmur emitted from those nearby and word echoing down the deck. He glanced west, toward the impending sunset, and then told Ivy, “Douse the lamps. They’ve spotted us, but no sense in advertising our whereabouts. They’ll lay off for a bit to size us up,” he explained to her questioning look. “See who we are, how we’re armed, or if we’re worth taking. ’Course, it could be just another ship, crossing paths. It happens,” he added, without conviction.

It seemed a blessed unlikely proposition: since sighted, the ship had veered straight for them, like a hound on a scent.

“We can only pray for a dirty night in which to hide. Otherwise, we’re as plain as a...a...as black on white,” he finally managed.

Contrary to Chambers’ hopes, the night was regrettably clean, with friendly winds and forgiving seas, the water no more than a rustle at the hull. Once the sails were reefed and trimmed for the night, the decks fell quiet, leaving everyone with nothing but their own thoughts. Sails aglow in the moonlight, the pirate ship was easily spotted, steady and constant as an ever-nearing North Star.

The crewmen off-duty hunched on the hatch grates. There was no pretext of merriment. The grog ration proved woefully inadequate at lifting their spirits; if anything, they grew more melancholy. On land or sea, a storyteller was worth his weight in gold. The cook served the body, but the storyteller kept the spirit. The
Constancy
’sresident narrator was a man by the name of Barnstable, seemingly the oldest aboard, if for no other reason than the deference with which he was treated. A shockingly deep orator’s voice emitted from his spare, horse-faced frame. The men tended to follow him like chicks after a hen, to perch around wherever he finally sat, eagerly settling in for the night’s entertainment. In desperate need of distraction, Cate hung at the group’s margins to listen.

That night, Barnstable was in his glory. With a mind like the library of Alexandria, he called upon his cornucopia of pirate tales. Each darker than the one before, his stories painted a picture of violence and inhumanity that bordered on madness. The individual pirates became lost in a jumble of barely familiar names, some remarkable only by virtue of their horrific uniqueness: Low, who cut off a man’s lips and cooked them in front of him; Montbars, who nailed a captive’s gut to a tree, and then made him dance.

And then there was Morgan. Rumored to have harbored a hatred of women, he had married fourteen over time, throwing each overboard when finished with them.

Cate shuddered, and not from the chill in the air. “Vile and inhuman,” she said aloud without meaning to.

“’Tisn’t the half of it, missus,” said Sullivan with a roll of his eyes. “If only that were all. Heaven help any woman what’s taken by those slavering curs.”

###

Cate stepped on deck the next morning and her knees sagged. When last seen, the pirate ship had been a foreboding blotch in the night. Now it loomed large.

The ship unfurled her banner into the sun’s early rays, and Cate felt a surge of panic. Larger than the ship’s asymmetrical aftersail, the massive, black banner bore a white skull with a halo at a rakish angle, and framed by a pair of angel’s wings. Red streaked down the skull: tears of blood.

One of the men swore vehemently, his last hopes of false identity shattered. “It’s the
Sarah Morgan.
” He swore again and spit, making horned signs with his fingers. “Blackthorne’s ship.”

“It’s his flag,” said Ivy, resigned. “The Angel of Death. Not even the
Dutchman
can catch her. Ol’ Blackthorne’s outrun the Devil.”

“Some say he
is
the Devil,” hissed Barnstable.

There was no further discussion. Meaningful looks were exchanged, agreeing not to unduly alarm Cate. She appreciated the concern, but it was a bit late.

In many ways, seeing the
Sarah Morgan
so near was a relief. No expert on ships, Cate knew beauty when she saw it and the ship was all of that. Three-masted, with elevated stern and forecastles, she was a bit of a throwback to another era. With an ornate roundhouse and bowsprit, she was by no means fancy or ostentatious; she was a glorious vessel, nonetheless, a lady who knew the value of discretion in her appointments.

In spite of the forewarning, the sight of blood dripping from her deck and sails was still disconcerting. On closer inspection—and small application of logic—the tops had been reddened, but certainly not blood; it would have taken butchering of several oxen for such a vast expanse of canvas. Instead of the traditional bands of colored trim, the sanguineous drool from her deck down between the gunports was actually red paint, skillfully drizzled.

With her guns staring like eyes, the ship was very much alive, exuding a palpable presence.

“Sixteen pounders,” announced Coombs at her elbow, nodding toward the black maws. “She outranges our nine-pounders by a good measure. Another reason Ol’ Black Nate prefers his big ship: those guns would shake apart anything smaller.”

He made a skeptical noise, shaking his head. “Goddamned difficult to fight when we can’t even get close enough to strike, beggin’ yer pardon, Missus.”

Cate now knew what it was to be in the water with a shark. She made a game of how long she could go without looking, all the while knowing the longer she held out, the closer the ship would be, her sails a little larger, the details of her rigging a little clearer. At one point, she turned to find instead of being squarely astern, the ship had slipped her course off to one side.