by Steve Goble
“I make them,” he said. “I learned some things from the Greeks, and from others. Quite handy, and Fawkes and his men love them.”
“I am not surprised Odin wants some,” Spider said. “I am glad he came through it unharmed. Shipmates, we are.”
Oakes shrugged. “He fared well. Others fared worse. We killed nine attackers, unless there are bodies we have not found yet, and lost three of our own in the affair.”
Spider, calmer now but still watching Ben, inhaled deeply. “Then manpower is a concern, I take it, and I am stretched out here. Might I return to duty now, sir?”
“Soon,” Oakes said. “Be patient. I am troubled by your swoon. There may be an illness at play, something untoward that we should watch.”
“I woke up feeling queasy, sir. I might have eaten too much. The food here is better than what we eat at sea.”
Oakes nodded. “Indeed, I have had plenty a bad meal at sea, and a stomach tossed by wind and wave does not handle rough fare well.” He paused and grinned as though recalling old times. “Perhaps you did merely eat too much. I suggest a day and night of rest, and just a little food, perhaps a bit of drink if you handle the food well enough. Let us give your wound a chance to heal before we send you out to duty again.”
“Aye, sir, if you think it best, but I am accustomed to keeping busy. Might I roam around and inspect the house? I’ve seen much that needs repair already, and I have not even seen most of the place.”
Oakes considered. “That won’t be necessary, I think. The primary concern, for now, is my security and protection, that my work is not interrupted. For that, I need you hearty, and I deem rest would be more beneficial than wandering about with tools and such. But thank you, John, for the suggestion. Perhaps when you feel better and people are not sneaking about on my property, we can see to repairs.”
Damn it.
“Aye, sir. You know best, I reckon. Thank you for the patch. Are you a Naval surgeon, sir? Missus Fitch, she said you sailed.”
Oakes grinned. “I never served as a surgeon. I was, however, a loblolly boy on a frigate, serving under a surgeon who knew his business well and who expounded upon it for all the time I was willing to listen. Those were wonderful days, John, wonderful days! The things I learned, the things I saw were worth every hunk of maggot-ridden bread, every storm-tossed night, every stern look from a surgeon who thought me a dullard!”
Oakes peered toward the ceiling, as though searching for memories. “A curious lad, I was, who paid close attention to the surgeon at his work. Doctor Myerscough, he was, a righteous and learned man, who brooked no laziness, no inattention. That was long ago, long ago.” Oakes smiled, then turned toward the bookstand and turned the wheels to bring a new book to the top. Then he snatched up a quill, dabbed it in the ink, and scratched some notes onto the paper. Spider watched and wished for perhaps the hundredth time he’d learned his letters. He’d met people over the years who had tried to help him, but it was difficult to find time to learn literacy while trying to keep a sloop afloat and dodge cutlass swipes and musket balls.
One day, he thought. I will learn to read and write one day, and I shall write Em a love letter, or a poem.
Oakes resumed speaking and brought Spider’s attention back to reality. “My family did not want me running off to sea, John. My mother, indeed, wailed considerably. But I wanted to go, and so I ran off, changed my name, and set sail as a loblolly boy aboard H.M.S. Spann. It was such an education! A man can learn a great many things by paying attention, Spider John. A great many things. It is, indeed, the purpose God intends for me, I think. To learn things, to unravel puzzles and discover answers thus far denied to men. To ordinary men, I should say. To ordinary men, who dare too little and ask too few questions.”
Oakes finished his writing and returned to the table, where he ran a hand along Spider’s arm. “You are quite a strong man, are you not? Not large, but very well made.”
“I suppose it is all the hard work, sir. Swinging hammers, toting lumber, climbing aloft.” Spider wished he could move away from the man’s touch. He wanted to get away from that goddamned raven, too.
“Indeed, hard work makes good muscles. And you learned more than carpentry at sea, no doubt. You fought well, I am told. You thought well, also. Raising the alarm as you did rather than engaging the attackers yourself was well done on your part. Some of these louts, I dare say, would have simply aimed a gun and pulled trigger and gotten themselves killed in a heartbeat, leaving the rest of us unaware. A cool head in a fight is a rare thing, Mister Fawkes tells me, and I’ve seen enough to believe it, although I am no man at arms, myself. You did well. I believe most of these fools, in your spot, would have fired a shot right at that moment.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ve seen more than a few hot moments in my day, for certain. Why did they attack us, do you know?”
Oakes scrunched his forehead into tight lines and grimaced. “I do not . . .”
“Sir,” said a voice at the door. It was Ruth, holding the door open for two men carrying a third between them. The carried man bled heavily from the leg. He was no one Spider had seen on the grounds before.
“This gent is one of the party who attacked us,” Ruth said. “Took a ball in the leg and tried to crawl away. Left a bloody red trail across the grass plain as day once dawn came. I followed it and found him laying across the wall, trying to escape. Still got life in him, but barely. I thought to keep him that way, so you could question him.”
“Well done, Ruth. Well done.” Oakes snuffed out the candle, and moved it, the pot, and the cat skull to a shelf. “Men, place him here on the table and bind him.”
“He ain’t going to fight you, master,” one of the men said.
“Bind him.”
They obeyed, fetching rope from a trunk under the table.
Ruth appeared to have come through the fighting with no injury save a scratch on her cheek and a slightly bruised and cut lip. Her blouse was torn at the shoulder, and her breeches showed a splotch of blood—although that might have belonged to someone else. She shot Spider a quick glance, and he thought perhaps he was supposed to find a meaning in it. But whatever message she meant to impart was lost on Spider.
Oakes took a knife from the wall and walked toward the wounded man. He cut away the gore-soaked breeches to expose the wounded leg. “Oh, my. No saving this, I think.”
Oakes walked around Spider and headed to the table beneath his hanging implements. He opened a drawer and lifted something out.
When Oakes turned, he was holding a saw.
“This will be unpleasant.”
30
Spider had seen two amputations in his day—one a leg, and one an arm—and he had no desire to witness another. He turned his face away and closed his eyes.
Still, he could envision what was happening, and he could hear the operation as well.
“Open his jaws, there,” Oakes said. That would be for the placement of a wood rod for the patient to bite down on.
“He’s out like a dead pig,” one of the men said.
“I have read Charrier, have you?” Oakes spat. “Do as I tell you, and do not attempt cogency. When I commence sawing, by God, he might well awaken, if he has any real life left in him. Do you want him to clamp his teeth down on a wooden dowel, or on your goddamned finger?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Where is Peter, for the love of God? Where is Simon?” Oakes had to force the words out through jaws clenched in anger.
“Mister Fawkes ordered them downstairs, sir.”
“Ruth, dear, we will need cloths. Prodigious amounts of cloths, more than we have here. This man has lost blood, but he still has more to lose. And a couple of buckets, please. And pass the word to Mister Fawkes, please. I will want him to help with the interrogation and to explain to me why my best assistants are elsewhere at a crucial time!”
“Aye, sir.”
Spider watched her go, and in his helpless state he envied her. He envied the pair ofknives on her
belt, too. She was back almost instantly, though. “Mister Fawkes is here, sir.” Then she ran off.
“Removing his leg, are you?” That voice, full of smirk, came from Fawkes.
Spider looked at Fawkes. The man had a nasty scrape on his cheek, fresh and red, but no other apparent injury from the fighting.
Oakes answered Fawkes. “Aye. He probably is going to die from the amputation, but he most certainly will die without it, and it will be a slow, agonizing, painful death. There is no good choice for him, I am convinced. And his odds are worse because, I understand, you sent Gold Peter and Simon off on some damned errand? They are the only men you’ve brought me with the intelligence to aid me competently!”
“I did send them downstairs,” Fawkes said. “Someone trailed me to the house. I got no glimpse of him, and I tried to act unaware in hopes of luring him closer. Like the pirate hunters do, you see. Fill a merchant ship with fighting lads but keep them out of sight until the pirates pounce. My fellow did not pounce, however, so I came inside and sent Peter and Simon to spring a trap on him. They told me we had a captive up here, and I came to help ask him some questions.”
Spider’s mind raced. Was it Odin who had trailed Half-Jim? Was that what Ruth had tried to say with her eyes? And why would she want to warn him of anything?
“I need my assistants here, Mister Fawkes, not off guarding the property. You have ruffians enough for that duty.”
“Our guards are in somewhat short supply of late,” Fawkes said, seeming somewhat amused. “Why not simply wake this poor bastard so we can ask our questions? We do not plan to keep him alive after that, do we?”
“Do you question my judgment, Jim Fawkes?”
“I think you just want to cut this bastard’s leg off and kill him now more than you want to know who attacked us, and why.”
Silence, for twelve heartbeats. Then Oakes turned to his helpers. “You, there is a wide blade on the hearth. Heat it, until it glows. And you, fetch me that.” Spider watched the men move quickly to obey Oakes’ orders. “Mister Fawkes, we know it was likely Bonny’s men who attacked us, else a group gathered by Mister Wilson. It scarce matters who launched the attack, so long as you’ve fended it off. Have you? Entirely?”
“We have,” Fawkes said. “And aye, Bonny’s smugglers hit us, most likely, judging by the weapons they carried and the way they fought. We collected a few nice guns and shiny swords. But I’d like to know if they brought their full force, or if there be others out there somewhere who might come over our walls. This fool can tell us that, perhaps, if you don’t kill him first.”
“He won’t awaken, I surmise, no matter what I do,” Oakes said. “But he presents me an opportunity.”
Fawkes laughed softly. “I suppose he does.” He glanced toward the jars on the shelves, focusing on the row at the top.
Spider followed his gaze. The jars were all the same size, and each was corked with a small length of hose emerging from the top. Clamps held the hoses tightly shut. Some of the jars held dark fluid, in varying amounts, while others seemed to be empty. But all of the hoses were clamped.
One of the men walked around Spider’s table and took a length of hose down from a peg. One end of it seemed to be attached to a mask of some kind. The man returned to Oakes. Spider, curious, turned his head to see what was being done.
“And that jar.”
Another man fetched a jug, and Oakes fitted the end of the leather hose into a hole in the cork. “Some glue, please. Hurry.”
One of the assistants fetched a small pot and a brush, and Oakes proceeded to place glue around the hose where it went through the cork. “Must seal it up proper,” he muttered.
This was nothing like any amputation Spider had ever witnessed.
Once the jar was sealed up tight, Oakes handed it to one of the men. “Hold it steady. Do not drop it under any circumstances.”
“Aye.”
Next, Oakes fitted the mask over the wounded man’s mouth and nose, working to make it fit over the short wooden rod in his mouth. Then he strapped it to the man’s head and assured himself that the hose between the man’s face and the jar was intact. “Good, good.”
“What is this?”
“Not now, Spider John,” Oakes said. “This is delicate work.”
Spider looked over toward Fawkes, who only grinned.
“Here, sir.” Ruth pushed her way past Fawkes and placed two buckets on the floor. One of them sloshed, the other was filled with fabric. “Hot water, and cloths aplenty.”
“Excellent,” Oakes said. “Will you stay and watch?”
“God, no,” Ruth said. She glanced meaningfully at Spider again, then hurried out. What is she trying to tell me?
“Now, then,” Oakes said, lifting the saw. “Let us get on with our gruesome work.”
Spider winced. He had felt a sharp blade cutting him more than once, in battle. That always hurt like the devil’s deep hell, but the initial sharp pain passed quickly. Spider tried hard not to imagine how it felt to have a sharp, serrated blade slice into you once, twice, thrice . . .
He hoped to hell the poor bastard on the other table was beyond feeling anything, or already dead.
“I must do this quickly,” Oakes said. “Is the blade glowing?”
“Aye.”
“Keep it in the fire and bring it quickly when I call for it.”
“Aye.”
“And you, wet cloths when I order it, direct on his wounds, do you hear?”
“Aye.”
“Very well, then,” Oakes said, checking the hose one more time. “Let’s be done with it.”
He lowered the saw to the wounded leg, and Spider turned away. A ship’s carpenter, Spider had heard the sound of a saw cutting wood many times. He had heard a saw cutting flesh and bone twice, and never wanted to hear it again.
But there it was, metal teeth through meat and bone. And the poor son of a bitch woke up, screaming through teeth clenched on a wooden rod. Spider could almost hear the teeth grinding into the wood.
“Fuck!” That was one of the assistants.
“Is he going to live through this?” That was the other.
“I endured it twice,” Fawkes said.
“Silence,” Oakes commanded tersely.
The sawing continued, the man screamed and Fawkes laughed. Soon, the wailing stopped, punctuated by a heavy thump on the floor. Spider knew that was the man’s leg.
“The hot blade! Quickly!”
Spider expected more screaming once the searing hot metal was applied to the gaping wound, but there was none. He could hear sizzling blood, though, and smell burning flesh. It was a stench all too familiar to a pirate, one a man could never quite forget.
“Another jar, quickly, and a fresh blade. Hurry!”
Spider heard boots on the floor, glass tinkling against glass and soon a muffled scraping sound, like that of the last bit of honey being scooped from a pot.
“Put this aside. Cloth, please,” Oaks said, less urgently.
Spider heard sloshing.
“Well,” Fawkes said. “That man looks dead.”
“Aye,” Oakes said.
Spider turned around and opened his eyes. Oakes was peering into the jar and applying a clamp to the hose. Blood poured over the table’s edges, some of it falling into a bucket but most spreading across the floor. One of the assistants tossed rags over the gore.
“We won’t get to ask him anything, then,” Fawkes said, laughing.
“Will we see more attacks?”
“I wanted to ask this fellow that same question, master, remember? Now I can’t.”
Oakes said nothing, so Fawkes continued. “I am certain Bonny returned to sea after setting these men ashore to conduct business. She wasn’t there when we ambushed them, and I don’t see her hand in this attack. She’d have planned things better, no doubt. I don’t know when she’s coming back for her crewmen or where they plan to meet, but she can’t have left too many men behind. They were supposed t
o conduct some business, not fight a war. We’ve likely killed or taken most of the bastards by now, I reckon. Still, it would have been a good thing to ask this dead gent about all that. I’d like to know if these gentlemen sent someone to rendezvous with Bonny, and if she might know about us and decide to lead a more competent raid on us.”
Fawkes spat toward the bucket of gore. “I guess we’ll find out when she slits our throats. What do you think, Spider John? Did you ever sail with Bonny?”
Spider peered into the man’s eyes, wondering if he already knew the answer to that question. “I know her reputation well,” he answered. “And met her briefly. Smart and ruthless, they say, and not likely one to forgive. Did you attack these smugglers of hers, steal their goods?”
Fawkes ignored that. “We aren’t going to learn anything useful from this dead fellow, master.”
“Well. I do not believe this man was destined to awaken enough to answer questions in any event, Mister Fawkes,” Oakes answered. “And there is still the fellow you believe followed you, correct? Possibly more? So capture him, and maintain a strong guard, nonetheless. Look for anyone skulking about, and question them, I say.”
“Aye, master.” Fawkes pointed toward the jar. “Did you get it?” Oakes peered through the glass. “I do not know. You,” he said, pointing to one of the helpers, “hand me that knife.”
The man complied, and Oakes deftly cut the hose just above the clamp. He peered into the jar again, then lifted the mask off the dead man. He carried both to the table between the shelves, under the watchful eye of Ben.
Oakes stripped off his bloody apron and added it to the pile of red cloths in the bucket. “Take this corpse and bury it. Have Michael help you,” he commanded. “Free Spider John, but see he moves carefully. And tell Peter about this mess, have him clean it up.” He left, and the henchmen carried the body—and the leg—out.
Fawkes remained. “I notice you did not watch, Spider John.”
“I’ve seen it before.”
“Aye.”
“But I’ve not seen that bit with the jar and the mask. What the devil is that?”
