Voyage of Plunder

by Michele Torrey

  Then he was untying my bonds. I groaned. He lifted me out of the bed, saying, “I've got you now, Daniel, my boy. You're safe. No one's going to hurt you ever again.”

  And he carried me away, onto the open deck, fresh air in my face, the dampness of my tears cool upon my cheeks. My head sagged. I closed my eyes. Heard the beat of his heart.

  It was as if I were four years old again. A boy. Clasped tight in Josiah's arms. Breathing in the scent of rum and tobacco.

  My favorite smell…

  e Lost the Surat Merchant and her cargo as well. For she had burned, an inferno, flames snapping taller than the highest mast, until she sank from sight, a steaming hiss of bubbles.

  With the death of Fist, the men of the Defiance had quickly regrouped and voted their quartermaster as captain. Josiah continued as commander of the fleet. The men of the Defiance and the Sweet Jamaica were getting desperate, however, for since they had not participated in the capture of the first merchant ship, they had as yet received no prize.

  After a half day spent licking their wounds, the three pirate ships chased down and successfully plundered two more ships of the pilgrim fleet, taking more than ten days to do so. Fortunately neither of the ships was filled with soldiers, as the Surat Merchant had been. Instead, like the Jedda, they were filled with wealthy passengers and enough booty to make every pirate giddy with dreams of the easy life.

  All this I learned later, for I was incapacitated in Josiah's cabin, shivering with fever, frozen to my marrow though the air dripped with heat and moisture. My left hand and arm swelled, turning an angry red. Foul liquid seeped from the wounds.

  I vaguely remember an Indian woman coming into the cabin. Stooped, wrinkled, and brown. Silks swishing. Brushing away the flies from around my face. I remember the smell of heated herbs, her making me drink something bitter, hot bandages upon my wounds, steaming hot, but still a relief—blessed relief. I loosened my tongue enough to thank her. Told Josiah to give her half my share, that she was a good woman. At least that's what I think I said, for I mumbled, tongue thick as paste, and could scarce remember who I was from one moment to the next.

  I don't know how many days passed before I finally awakened, my head clear.

  I was alone in Josiah's cabin. It was daytime and, judging from the sounds and the heel of the ship, the Tempest Galley was under sail, moving fast.

  My left hand and upper arm were swathed in bandages. Another bandage wrapped around my head, covering the gash on my forehead. I tossed aside the thin covering and sat up. Immediately the room spun in a dizzy whirl, and I fell back heavily on the bed, realizing at the same time that my body was dressed in nothing but a silk banyan.

  Slowly, Daniel, slowly, I told myself.

  I sat up again, gritting my teeth. Feet dangling, head pounding, I hesitated only a moment before unwrapping the bandage covering my hand, dreading what I would find.

  A cry escaped my mouth. My God! I'm mutilated! My little finger and the finger next to it had been sliced off down to the base knuckle. Only two fingers and a thumb were left. The wounds were pink, slightly swollen, crusted over. I sat for a while staring at my hand, horrified, flies buzzing around me. Finally, carefully, I moved my hand, biting my lip against the pain. I made a fist, flexed the remaining fingers, open, closed. It's ugly, but it moves. It works.

  Surprising myself, I smiled, thinking, It's better than being dead.

  And with that thought, my stomach growled, and I realized I was ravenously hungry.

  I rewrapped the bandage and stood, hugging the walls, the furniture. Out I staggered onto the upper deck, the sun piercing the backs of my eyes like a hot iron. I blinked, only then becoming aware that everyone was staring at me. Josiah climbed down the fo'c'sle companionway and strode across the upper deck toward me. He was smiling, his eyes bright. “Daniel! You're up!”

  I fought the urge to embrace him. Instead, I said in a voice cracked with disuse, “I'm hungry.”

  “Is that all you have to say after two weeks of lying about like a prince and doing nothing? Cook! A bit of service here, if you please! Prince Daniel desires some food lest he wither and perish. And some fresh clothes too, you lazy lot of scoundrels! Look lively now!”

  Aye, Captain!” Abe hollered from where he stood beside the giant pots, located in the open area beneath the fo'c'sle deck. “A feast of all feasts coming right up! A prince's delight! We'll have that boy climbing the shrouds faster than you can whistle!”

  And to my surprise, Caesar sprang to his feet and returned momentarily with my clothes, freshly washed and folded and smelling somewhat clean—comparatively speaking, of course. “Josiah say you save my life, Fat Boy.” Caesar grinned, handing me my clothing. “Caesar say thank you.”

  I stammered out my thanks, confused and embarrassed by the royal treatment.

  Each limb trembled as though I was a babe just learning to walk. My heart raced and skittered. My head started to throb. I needed to go back and rest.

  Josiah must have read my thoughts, for he ushered me into his cabin and helped me dress. Like a father with a young child, I thought.

  By the time I was clothed, Abe entered and set a bowl of food on the table. “Careful you don't burn your mouth now. It's hotter than Hades. Don't overeat either—you've been sick, you know. We've all been praying for your recovery. Much as pirates pray, that is, and much as the good Lord is willing to listen to hell-bound rascals such as us.”

  “Thanks,” I said, seating myself at the table. Abe left the cabin, closing the door behind him.

  The stew was delicious—a spicy mixture of fish, eggs, chicken, olives, garlic, oil, palm hearts, and turtle meat. But after just a few mouthfuls, I was already full, disappointingly full. I took one last bite and pushed the bowl away. Only then did I realize that Josiah sat opposite me, smoking his long pipe, watching me.

  With a creak of rigging and timbers, the ship increased her heel. My bowl of stew and the goblet slid across the table, the bowl stopped from falling over the edge by the table runners, the goblet stopped when Josiah wrapped his long fingers around it.

  “Tell me what this is,” he said, his voice sounding like I'd always remembered it, silken. He slid my leather crossbelt, underside up, across the table toward me.

  I swallowed my food with a gulp. Quick as a wink, I snatched up the belt, slipped it over my shoulder, and buckled it across my chest. “Nothing. Just my crossbelt.”

  For a while Josiah was silent, seemingly content just to watch me. I grew uncomfortable under his gaze. Did he guess? Does he know it's a map? Does he know I hoard a treasure that I refuse to share? A treasure that I plan for good, not ill?

  The corners of Josiah's mouth hinted of a smile. “Anyone knows that the first order of business when torturing someone for information is to check their person thoroughly. But then, Fist always was more brute than brains.”

  He knows! Josiah knows it's a map!

  He continued, “The men think you killed him.”

  “What?” My jaw dropped with surprise. Me? Kill Fist?

  Josiah shrugged. “I saw no reason to tell them otherwise. Let them think you can beat the best of them. It will make you safer in the long run. And now you are no longer a boy in their eyes. You are a man.”

  I glanced at my hand, bulky with bandages. I wondered what would happen to me now that I had only eight fingers.

  Josiah stood. “Get some rest, Daniel. You're looking pale and none too steady.” He walked to the door.

  But there was something burning inside me. Something that had been nagging me upon awakening. “Josiah?”

  “Yes?” He turned, hand on the latch.

  “Thank you.” When he said nothing, I continued. “Thank you for saving me.”

  Josiah blinked as if surprised. “You're welcome.” Again he turned to go.

  “Josiah?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why? Why did you do it? Why did you save me? You have always protected me. Why?”

  Jo
siah paused, seeming to think, searching my eyes all the while. Finally he said, “I can't explain it. Not yet anyway. Perhaps someday I will.”

  “Josiah?”

  “Yes?”

  “Please don't take this the wrong way. But—but I must still see you hang for your crime. It is my duty As a good son. You understand that, don't you? You have saved my life, but the life of my father is still forfeit. Please understand, please. It is what any good son must do.”

  Again Josiah blinked. “Get some rest,” was all he said. And he left, closing the door softly behind him.

  For the rest of the day I cried miserably. Wasn't that what I was supposed to say? Am I not a good son? A son who witnessed his father slain for the sake of honor? Where is my honor? My father's honor? Am I not a good son?

  When darkness came, I finally fell asleep. Yet my sleep was tormented, tossed with unsettled dreams.

  Timothy, holding his innards.

  Pirates dangling. Jerking. Struggling to breathe. Faces turning purple. Hemp digging deep.

  Faith patting my head, her face shrunken and starved, a babe in her arms—a tiny shriveled skeleton.

  My father, arms outstretched, palms upward, pleading, Forgive, Daniel. There has been enough bloodshed.

  Forgive…

  e were headed back to madagscar, to the island of Saint Mary's.

  My plan was simple. While we careened the ships, relaxed in the sun, enjoyed the bounty of the island's foods, I would fetch my treasure, bringing it aboard a little at a time so as not to attract undue attention. I would stow it away in a secret place I had secured, deep in the shot locker. And when we returned to America, I would be free to go my way, as would any pirate who wished to do so, our contract with one another complete.

  Whether I would bring Josiah to justice for the murder of my father, I admit I no longer knew, despite what I'd told Josiah. I prayed to God for guidance, but, like so many times before, God was silent on that account. Josiah had saved my life, yet he had murdered my father. As my father's son, I was duty-bound to seek revenge, to demand justice. Was I not?

  I was beginning to realize that revenge was a burden—a terrible, terrible burden that gnawed my insides relentlessly. I wanted to be rid of it, yet how could I forgive the murderer of my father?

  Even though it had been a week since my recovery, I had yet to move out of Josiah's cabin. Instead, Josiah strung a hammock in the corner and slept there while I still slept in his bed. I awoke many nights screaming, dreaming of turbaned heads rolling across a deck, of a man staring at me as I ran him through with my cutlass, of blood sprayed through the air like mist, of Fist standing in fire and brimstone, of Josiah dangling from a noose, face blue, neck askew.

  “Daniel, my boy! Tis a nightmare. Just a dream!” And he would shake me awake as my cries faded away.

  One night, I bolted upright in bed, sweating, heart pounding, the hair on my arm raised in gooseflesh as the echo of my shriek faded throughout the ship. Dear God! Now there was nothing but the gentle sloshing of the water on the ship's hull, the familiar creak of timbers, the squawk of a parrot overhead—a pet of one of the pirates.

  “Daniel?”

  “Aye.”

  “Are you all right, my boy?”

  The nightmare lingered like a foul stench, wretched and sickening.… “He was cutting them off, one by one. I couldn't stop him. I kept calling for you but you were dead.… He told me you were dead. I—I—” My voice faded away, and I sank back into the mattress, shuddering, remembering.

  After a while, I heard Josiah get out of his hammock and fumble in the darkness. A flame flared as he lit the overhead lantern. Weak light now filtered through the cabin, casting deep shadows. Josiah shut the lantern casing and looked at me, his face shadowed. “There's something I must tell you.” So saying, he poured two goblets of wine and set them on the table, hands trembling. I was astonished. I'd never seen his hands tremble before.

  Crawling out of bed, I sat on the chair and drank deeply of the wine.

  After fiddling again with the lantern, after topping off my goblet with more wine, after tying back his hair, which had become tousled in the night, and lighting his long pipe, Josiah sat across from me. I could see his eyes now, liquid black in the dim light. They were troubled … afraid, even.

  Afraid? Captain Josiah Black—the most sought-after cutthroat in the world—afraid? An unsettling feeling crept over me, that long-ago feeling that my life was about to change. My breathing quickened. I was uncertain if I wanted to hear what he had to say, yet I knew I had to.

  He ran his tongue across his lips and cleared his throat. “Daniel…”

  Aye. I'm listening.”

  “There's something you need to know. Something I should have told you long ago.”

  Josiah seemed to struggle with the words. He took a drink of wine, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

  “When I was a younger man, I was—I was in love.”

  I stayed silent. My hand throbbed and my stomach growled. I was hungry again.

  “She—she was beautiful. Young like me. We were fools, she and I. Fools in love. We thought the world would part before us, like Moses parting the Red Sea. We thought nothing could stop two people so deeply in love.” He snorted, a laugh of derision. “But the world does not suffer fools gladly.” Josiah gazed at me, as if begging me to understand. “I was a privateer at that time, living in Boston—you do know what a privateer is, don't you?”

  I nodded. A privateer was issued a letter of marque from the government that authorized him to raid and plunder the ships of enemy nations. It was like being a pirate, except it was a legal and acceptable method of war.

  “I was commissioned as a privateer by one of the colonial governors. Given the finest ship in the fleet.” Here Josiah hesitated, then looked away. “But, unknown to the governor, the woman whom I loved was his daughter—his only daughter.”

  “So what happened?” I asked, leaning forward.

  Smoke from the long pipe swirled about Josiah, rising in slow curls. “I went away on a privateering voyage. A very successful one, I might add. In the interim, unknown to me, several things happened.”

  “What things?”

  “First, she discovered she was with child. My child. Second, her father learned of our clandestine relationship and forbade her ever to see me again, calling me a bloody scoundrel, a Judas, a philanderer, and things much worse than that.”

  “And?”

  “In outrage and in a desperate attempt to salvage his daughter's honor, he quickly arranged a marriage with one of the town's leading citizens. A merchant.”

  I swallowed hard. Part of me wanted him to continue. Part of me wanted him to stop, to not say another word. Not now. Not ever. “Go on,” I said, my voice a whisper.

  “So, within a month of my leaving on my privateering voyage, while I was still dreaming of the day we could be together forever as husband and wife, they were married. Her merchant husband was never the wiser, raising the child as his own, always believing the child was his.”

  Josiah stopped and looked full at me.

  I could no longer meet his gaze. Tears filled my eyes. The goblet shimmered in the lantern light. When I took a drink, it was my hand that now shook.

  “When I returned from my voyage, the governor declared me an outlaw. A pirate. Denied that he'd ever signed a letter of marque on my behalf. And for the life of me, I could not find the letter. Likely he had one of his cronies steal it.” His fingers whitened as he squeezed the goblet. I saw rage in his eyes—a long ago, hurt-filled rage. “He confiscated all the goods I had obtained and threw me into prison to await trial. But I escaped.”

  “What then?”

  “I was furious, of course. I commandeered my former privateering vessel, renamed her the Tempest Galley, and proclaimed myself a pirate. My first order of business was to plunder and burn every ship the governor owned. I ruined him, Daniel. Ruined him utterly. He died not long after. And there's been a pr
ice on my head ever since.”

  For a while I was silent, scarce able to comprehend what I was hearing. “And what of—what of the child?”

  Josiah regarded me, saying nothing.

  “Then at least tell me her name.” Again, silence. “Pray tell me. What was her name? The one that you loved?”

  Instead of answering, Josiah pushed back his chair and crossed the room. He rifled through a drawer at the captain's desk, finally withdrawing a folded letter. For a while he stood fingering the letter, as if deliberating whether or not to give it to me. Finally he sat down again and handed me the letter. The parchment was thin, yellowed, dry, the edges ragged and grayed as if it had been handled a hundred times, a thousand times. Yet the green wax seal was still intact.

  Written on the outside of the letter was a single name: Daniel.

  Josiah spoke. “Her name was Abigail Ball Markham.”

  y dearest Daniel

  The doctor tells me I have not much longer to live—a day, perhaps. I am weak and feverish and it is difficult to write a letter of such proportions, but I feel a weight upon my soul to tell you the truth. I pray that someday you will read this letter and find it in your heart to forgive me-. Perhaps once you know the- truth I will be able to rest in eternal peace, absolved from any deception.

  Before I loved your father, or rather, before I loved Robert Markham, I loved another man. We planned to be married but he embarked upon a privateering voyage before that could be accomplished. Finding myself with child and unwed I went to my father, who quickly arranged a marriage with a very fine man, one whom I have learned to love deeply. Of all things, Daniel you must at least believe that. I love Robert Markham deeply. To this day, Robert believes you are his natural son. I have never told him the truth and forbear to do so, as I believe it would devastate him, for he- indeed loves you as a father loves his son.

  Pray forgive me, Daniel for any pain I have caused you with this revelation. Pray forgive me so that I might rest in eternal peace, for I go to my grave with my heart heavy and filled with unresolved anguish Please know that I have loved you always and will love you forever. This evening I had you brought to me and gave you my miniature in a locket. May you treasure it always as a token of my love for you my son.