Wake of the Bloody Angel el-4

by Alex Bledsoe

  I imagined standing on the deck of one of these floating ware houses and seeing the black flag of piracy atop an approaching ship. Merchants seldom went unarmed, but they also rarely employed real fighters. A man who could lift cargo all day could still be useless in a fight against an experienced sword arm. I knew pirates often left the crews and vessels unharmed after pillaging them, unless the crew resisted. Then all bets were off, and everyone on board might die. It was good motivation for standing quietly in the corner while your riches were offloaded.

  I’d given Jane her lead time, so I went into Lurie’s Wharf and took a seat at the bar. Jane’s sword caused me to get more elbow room than I might have otherwise. I spotted her at a table with a half-dozen men around her, all with fresh mugs of ale or rum. I felt a twinge of professional annoyance- Hey, I can buy drinks for sailors, too — when I heard her loudly blow her nose. I listened without being obvious about it as she said tearfully, in a voice so demure, I had to check twice to confirm it was her, “Thank you, sir. Thanks to all you gentlemen. I just don’t know where else to turn. I’m at the end of my rope.”

  Most of the men were too young to have known Angelina back then, but a couple were wizened with age and experience, and they regarded Jane with clear compassion. I ordered a drink and settled in to eavesdrop.

  “It’s been a long time since this place was the Floating Coffin,” one of the younger men said. “My pappy mentioned it back before he died, but that would’ve been, oh, twenty years ago.”

  “That’s about right,” Jane said. “She was my much older sister. I was a sunset baby, you know.”

  “Was she as pretty as you?” another sailor asked, masking his lasciviousness with a gentle tone.

  “Oh, sir, you’re being kind,” Jane said. “Brandywine was very pretty. All the boys liked her.”

  “I knew her,” one old man said suddenly.

  “You did?” Jane said hopefully. “When?”

  “Like you said, twenty years ago. We just called her Brandy, but I remember her. Beautiful girl. Had a smile that could guide a ship through a storm. But…”

  He trailed off. Jane prompted, “Please, sir, continue. I must know, no matter how bad it is.”

  The old man looked down at his hand on the tabletop. He was missing his middle finger and pinkie. “I dunno, I’m speaking out of turn.”

  “Oh, come on, Racko,” one of the younger sailors said, “you can’t stop once you’ve started.”

  Racko sighed, pushed back his cap with his intact hand, and took another drink. “All right. Miss, I’m sorry for what I have to tell you, but it’s the honest truth. Your sister had every man in this port under her spell at one time or other.”

  “So she was a whore?” Jane asked, playing the hurt perfectly.

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I meant ‘spell’ literally.” He took another drink and this time looked up at the ceiling before he said, “She was a witch.”

  Silence fell over the table. In the back of the room something crashed, and I heard the grunts of a close-in fight. No one, including the men with Jane, paid any mind. They all stared at Racko, waiting for more.

  At last Jane asked meekly, “Are you sure?”

  Racko pulled out a pipe and packed it. Another man passed him a burning stick from the nearby hearth so he could light it. One thing about sailors: they respected a good storyteller. Everyone waited patiently, an island of calm and silence in the crowded tavern, while Racko got his thoughts in order.

  At last Racko looked directly at Jane. “Do ye know the tale of how your sister got her name?”

  I tensed. The old man was testing Jane’s story before beginning his own.

  “No. My parents barely spoke of her.”

  That wasn’t good enough for Racko. “Seems odd they wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Not if you knew them,” Jane said, her tone conveying secret knowledge of her mythical parents.

  “Either swim or drown, Racko,” another man said.

  “Yeah, you got us all wound up, now drop anchor and offload your tale,” another added.

  Racko sighed and took a long drag from the pipe. “All right, here’s the tale. Seems her parents- your parents-were coming to Watchorn Harbor on a merchant ship when they were captured by pirates. Old Captain Cloche, to be specific. Ever heard of him?”

  Jane shook her head.

  “The fright affected your mother, and she had the baby even as the pirates were taking the ship. When Cloche saw the woman had just given birth to a daughter, he told her that he’d release the ship with no harm done if she’d name the girl after his own long-lost mother. So they did. And that’s how your sister got the name Brandywine.”

  Jane began to silently cry, and smiled through the tears. “Thank you, sir. I didn’t know that story.” She dabbed her eyes. “But please, what of Brandywine when she worked here?”

  I fought the eye roll that built in my head. What of Brandywine? Jane was laying it on thick.

  Again Racko took a puff before continuing. “Your sister never suffered for attention. I know, because I tried to catch her eye, too. I was old enough to be her father, but many seafaring men had young wives. She was kind to me, but she made it clear I wasn’t the one for her. She treated us all equally, and kept us at an equal distance. Look all you want, but don’t touch, she said with her eyes.”

  “So she wasn’t a whore,” one of the young sailors said, trying to follow the subtleties.

  “No, she wasn’t,” Racko agreed. “But she used herself to gain favor and fortune, just the same. A beautiful girl can get a drunken sailor to do pretty much anything, including part with his gold and make him glad he did it. Some say she used more than her beauty, as well.”

  “I can’t believe she was a witch,” Jane said.

  Racko blew a puff of smoke at the ceiling. “Perhaps not. Beauty is its own witchcraft. But in either case, one day it didn’t matter any longer. Because he walked in.”

  “Who?” another sailor asked.

  “He was young, handsome as the very devil who makes the tides, and she saw at once he was the one. Everyone else knew it, too. They fell for each other with a crash that could be heard for miles. At first we all thought he was just another sailor, but in time we learned the truth.” Again he paused for a puff. He sure knew how to hold an audience. “He was Black Edward Tew.”

  The sailors exchanged glances. Jane played dumb. “Who?”

  “Black Edward, the pirate?” one of the younger men asked.

  “Aye,” said Racko. “The very one.”

  “Did he… kill her?” Jane asked, her voice trembling.

  Racko smiled without humor. “Hardly. He wasn’t yet a pirate when he arrived, but he was hers from the moment their eyes met. They set up in a cottage out on the dunes. Everyone knew they weren’t married, but they carried on like they were, if you get my meaning. Then one day, he was gone.”

  “Where?” another sailor asked.

  “Back to the sea, to find his fortune,” Racko said. He patted his stomach. “But he left something behind here in Watchorn.”

  I was in mid-sip, and almost poured ale all over myself. Angelina kept a lot of her past hidden, but at no point had she ever mentioned children. She was the least maternal woman I knew.

  “She had a child?” Jane asked, and her surprise was also genuine.

  Racko nodded. “A son. The spitting image of his father, too, so there was no doubt who sired him. But I’m getting ahead of my story. Brandy continued to live at the cottage alone, but she had to come into town eventually, and by then there was no hiding her condition. Watchorn was a lot more strict back then, when the Captain’s Federation still had power. They liked all the improprieties out of sight, including barmaids knocked up by passing sailors. But she paraded about with no shame at all. So she was arrested and thrown in jail.”

  “Wait, they locked her up just for being pregnant?” one of the young men asked.

  Racko smiled. “It was a diffe
rent time, lad. A woman living out there alone was suspicious enough. The Captain’s Federation, especially the Wives’ Auxiliary, had a low opinion of women not legally bound to a man. But to be so brazen as to publicly carry a child without a husband, that just couldn’t be tolerated. Next thing you know, women would be owning businesses and commanding ships.”

  A couple of the younger men chuckled nervously, watching Jane’s reaction. She just listened.

  “As I said, I don’t know if she was a witch,” Racko said. “I suppose it’s possible Black Edward would’ve turned pirate anyway, whether he’d met her or not. But the fact remains he was an honest seaman before, and a notorious blackguard after. Make of that what you will.”

  “So did she die in jail?” Jane asked timorously.

  “No, she didn’t stay in jail. The rumor was that her witchcraft was so powerful, no cell could hold her. But I think it was more likely that the warden’s deputies-young men, sailors who through accident or inclination no longer wished to serve the sea-simply felt sorry for her and kept letting her slip out. The Federation, of course, insisted she cast spells on the lads, and the boys probably went along with it to keep their jobs. She escaped three times, and each time she returned to her cottage. She was terrified of being taken away from the sea before Black Edward returned. And then she had the baby.”

  He stopped, swallowed the last of his ale, and raised the mug for a refill. A harried young woman saw him, nodded, and went to fetch a jug.

  “Oh, come on, there has to be more,” someone prompted.

  “Not really,” Racko said. “She gave the baby to a local couple who did all they could with him, but he was his father’s son in more than just looks. Black Edward never returned, although there’s not a sailor who doesn’t know how he met his end.”

  “I heard he’s not dead at all,” a young man said.

  “Aye, the mate on my last ship said he saw him once, years after he supposedly died.”

  “Probably another one of his bastard sons,” Racko said dismissively. “I bet they all carry his look, just like Brandy’s son does.”

  “And my sister?” Jane asked with just enough desperation to elicit pity.

  “As far as I know, she disappeared after that. I’m sorry I don’t have more news. But her son…”

  Then the noise from the fight in the back grew too loud for me to hear any more of the conversation. Eventually Jane stood, and astoundingly so did all the men around the table. One even pulled back her chair for her. She dabbed her eyes, hugged a couple of them, and went outside. I discreetly followed.

  I caught up with her a couple of blocks away. She said, “That was all pretty interesting. Who knew Angelina was so complicated?”

  “I overheard a lot of it, except there at the end.” I mimicked her high voice. “ ‘She was my much older sister. I was a sunset baby, you know.’ ”

  “The apple of my parents’ dotage.” Jane chuckled. “Besides, I’d heard just about enough about how sexy Angie was. Did you know that she also had a son?”

  “No, first I’ve heard of it. I wonder if Tew ever knew about his child? Or cared?”

  Jane stopped, looked around to make sure no one on the crowded street was eavesdropping, and leaned close to me. “I don’t know about that, but I do know something about the boy,” she said with a triumphant little grin. “He’s all grown up, he’s the spitting image of his father, and he still lives here.”

  “In Watchorn?”

  Still grinning, she nodded. “And I know where to find him.”

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, after a night in an inn better suited for livestock (yes, we shared a room, but I slept on the floor), we set out to find the bastard son of Black Edward Tew. Well, Jane had slept; I lay awake most of the night pondering the day’s events. Mostly I wondered why Angelina had not mentioned the fact that a child was involved in all this. I had no firsthand knowledge, of course, but it seemed to me that giving birth was the kind of event that would stick with you, whether or not you gave the kid away. So why didn’t she mention it? Did she think I wouldn’t find out about him?

  I didn’t put any stock in the witchcraft talk. Sailors in general saw magic and omens in everything, and this was no different. Besides, in all the time I’d known her, Angie had never expressed any sympathy for either the belief in or practice of magic. She was a thoroughly down-to-earth woman.

  But there was an inherent contradiction in the two stories, Angelina’s and Racko’s, that I couldn’t resolve. Angie claimed that her Edward became a pirate on his own; Racko said she pushed him into it. She also didn’t mention that he’d become famous-Black Edward was the kind of nickname you got only when a lot of people knew about you. The difference might not ultimately matter, but discrepancies always got my attention, and when added to Angelina’s serious omission of her son, it made me wonder what else she might have left out, or tweaked to her own benefit.

  And unrelated to all this was something that nagged me, another discrepancy that I couldn’t coax to the front of my brain. I let it go for the moment; I had enough to worry about.

  In the street outside, someone drunkenly began a song, and in moments an impromptu chorus had formed.

  Ashore in Boscobel, a lady I did meet,

  With her baby in her arms as she strolled down the street,

  And I thought how when I sailed, the cradle stood all ready,

  And how my lovely little son has never seen his daddy.

  I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes.

  “That’s him, huh?” I said.

  “Must be,” Jane said. “This is where they said we’d find him. Duncan Tew, part-time farmer and full-time ne’er-do-well. Nobody expects much from him, him being the bastard son of a witch and a pirate, and by all accounts, he lives up to those expectations.”

  We sat on our horses in the shade of a pine tree and watched a young man wrestle with an ox and plow. He was tall and narrow-shouldered, with black wavy hair tied at the nape of his neck. At this distance I couldn’t tell anything else about him, except that he wasn’t a very good farmer. The soil was little more than shallow half sand suited for growing only the tough grass that anchored the dunes near the water. You couldn’t see the ocean from here, but the farm was well within its reach for wind and storms. Trying to get crops to take hold here was a real exercise in futility, and from the looks of his pitiful results,

  Duncan Tew was well aware of that.

  “Not exactly the revelation I expected,” Jane said. “No, but we can at least talk to him. He might know something about his father. Orphans get curious. And persistent.

  Maybe he’s already done a lot of our legwork.”

  “You’re the boss, boss.” Then she added, “There he goes.” The boy walked away from ox and plow without bothering even to unhitch the animal. The ox bellowed its annoyance.

  Tew kicked at the ground as he strode across the field toward a small cottage, where smoke trailed from a chimney. His bellowed curses were loud enough to reach us.

  “That sounds like Angie, all right,” Jane said.

  I said, “Let’s go.”

  The cottage was as well put together as the field was plowed.

  Beside it, a ramshackle stone ring and a bucket on a frayed rope indicated a well. The lower walls of what had once been a barn loomed jaggedly from a patch of high weeds. Chickens pecked at the grass and a skinny dog saw us, growled once, and skulked away. The lone flower pot beside the cottage steps, its blue blossoms waving in the wind, seemed both pitiful and somehow noble.

  Then we heard the screaming inside.

  A man said, “You call that breakfast? Starving pigs would run away from this!”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t make a chef’s salad with nothing but the moss and rocks you manage to raise, you know!” replied a female voice.

  “You couldn’t make a chef’s salad with the chef standing over you!”

  Something breakable crashed inside. A baby began
to cry. Jane laughed. “They sound like me and Miles, only in reverse. And without the baby.”

  “Miles cooks?”

  “He does if he knows what’s good for him. I can burn boiled water.”

  “Is he any good?”

  “Not a damn bit, but he does it on purpose, because he thinks it’ll make me stop asking him to do it.” She dismounted, strode up to the door, and pounded on it. “Hey! Duncan Tew!” There was silence; then the door opened and the young man peered out. He had a strong jaw, cleft chin, and striking blue eyes. His patchy immature stubble was the same color as his black hair. He looked no older than twenty, which made him the right age.

  His glare was not encouraging. “Who the fuck are you? What do you want?”

  “Is that one of your other girlfriends?” the woman’s voice taunted from inside. “She here to tell you she’s carrying another of your bastards?”

  “Leave the kids out of it!” he yelled over his shoulder. Then to us he said, “And you two, whoever you are, get out of here.”

  “Sorry for interrupting,” I said. “We’d like to talk about your parents.”

  “I got no parents,” he snapped, and was about to close the door. Jane stepped forward and blocked it. “Get out of my face, bitch,” he warned.

  Jane laughed. Then with one hand she grabbed a handful of his tunic and yanked him bodily out the door. She tossed him head over heels onto his back in the bare-dirt yard. The chickens scattered in clucking outrage. He rolled onto his stomach and tried to push himself up, but she put a boot on the back of his neck. She said, “You’ve got a lot to learn about talking to a lady.”

  “Hey, you! Get off him!” A small, wiry girl stood in the doorway, a baby on one hip and a paring knife in her free hand. She was barely out of childhood herself, but life had already aged her.

  Jane drew her sword and leveled it at the girl. It was almost as long as she was tall, and the blade did not waver. Sunlight reflected a vertical bar across the girl’s face.

  “Best thing for you and your snot factory there is to go back inside and shut the door,” Jane said coolly. “The light of your life won’t get hurt if he starts behaving.” She twisted her foot for emphasis. “And you’re going to behave, right?”