Sea Witch (Sea Witch Voyages)

by Helen Hollick

  “Nothing I cannot handle. I would be obliged if you were to quietly fetch the men up to the jetty and make ready. We may need to leave here quick.” Jesamiah winked and took his hat from Rue, set it upon his head, sauntered lazily in Phillipe’s wake.

  “Thank God for that,” Rue muttered as he turned aside, and keeping to the shadows, darted away towards the river, the hidden longboat, and the six crewmen waiting with it.

  Phillipe was standing on the far lawn, his coat and waistcoat slung carelessly across a low wall, exposing his loose cotton shirt. His sword was drawn; a thin bladed rapier, more for show than fighting.

  “I will not have you make a fool of me, nor my wife.”

  Spreading his hands as if humbly agreeing, Jesamiah mocked, “You do adequately for yourself without my intrusion.” Did not bother removing his hat or coat, languidly slid his cutlass from its sheath, the grating sound of deadly steel slowly withdrawing, malevolent and ominous. Twice the weapon his brother held.

  Phillipe raised his rapier, assumed the formal stance for fencing. “En garde!” he snarled, oblivious to the superiority of a cutlass, his pride making him slow to comprehend that Jesamiah, now an adult, was the better man.

  As a boy Jesamiah had not known how to defend himself or how to fight. As a pirate he had no interest in play-acting. He had experienced blood and battle, had stared the grinning leer of death in the face. The real thing, real fear and danger, things that had eclipsed most of Phillipe’s petty jealousies into insignificance. Assessing the sharpness of the edge of his blade, Jesamiah contemptuously ran his thumb along it, scowled, sucked at the resulting ooze of blood. Raised his eyes, the memory of the terrors haunting him all these years had evaporated. The hurt would always remain as a scar that ached on an iced winter’s night, but the fear accompanying it had gone.

  And the ghosts? Standing here on the lawn with his cutlass drawn, Jesamiah realised suddenly there were no ghosts to lay, that beyond his own mortified guilt they had never been disturbed. Graves were nothing but earth-covered holes in the ground. Nothing that happened to the corpse, a mere mouldering pile of flesh and bone, mattered. The important bit, the soul, once released from the shell of the body was answerable only to God. And as for the living? What more could Phillipe do to him beyond the humiliations he had once administered?

  “Is this sensible?” Jesamiah drawled. “You can no longer make me do despicable things. I am not the child you used to taunt, a boy frightened of his older brother. I am no longer small and slow. I’ve grown bigger than you, Phillipe – all I see before me is a pitiful fop, about to piss his breeches.”

  “If you think to alarm me then think again. You are nothing. Nothing beyond a debased pirate.”

  A sneer lifted the side of Jesamiah’s mouth. “Nothing, eh? Yet my men call me Captain. I sail in my own vessel and go where I please, when I please. What have you done, eh? Pulled down a house and rebuilt it. Married a whore. Well how accomplished is that?”

  “I am a respected gentleman. You and your kind are naught but thieving scum. I say again, en garde!”

  Raising his cutlass, the blade glinting in the shifting light, Jesamiah’s leer was intimidating. “Oh, there’s more to being a pirate than thieving, Brother. You are forgetting, we murder as well. Since we last met I have learnt how to kill. You’ve not seen the bloody brutality of death, not seen a man after he’s been run through with a cutlass, trying to squeeze the gore of his guts back into his belly with his own hands, while his lifeblood seeps away between his fingers. I have Phillipe. I have.” He leant forward bending from the waist, brushed the heavy blade along the more delicate. The sound and the action, menacing. “I’ve been the one with the cutlass. I’ll show you how I do it if you like.”

  Whether he did not believe him or was too proud to take notice, Phillipe made no answer; he circled, light on his feet, then choosing his moment moved fast, his rapier snapping out, the tip aiming for the flesh of the face. Jesamiah was quicker. He tilted his head back and caught the whipping blade with his own, neatly turning it aside. This was foolishness; a cutlass was not designed for fancy footwork and delicate parrying, it was a fighting weapon capable of hewing through anything from an opponent’s blade to flesh, muscle and bone. A killing weapon used by killers.

  Backing away, Jesamiah lowered the tip of the blade to the ground. “It might surprise you, Phillipe, it certainly surprises me, I have no desire to fight you. I thought I had, I thought I wanted to kill you but I find I have nothing to prove to you, or myself. Nothing at all.” And he actually meant it.

  Phillipe spat into the grass. “You are a disgrace to the name Mereno!”

  Jesamiah shrugged. “That privilege is for you to boast alone, I’ve not traded on the name Mereno for many years. I go by the name Acorne now.” Added pedantically, “That’s Acorne with an ‘e’.” He took several steps backwards in the direction of the wall and the river, sheathed his cutlass. “I’ve grown up. How about you? Or are you still the same stinking lump of shit you ever were?”

  For answer Phillipe lunged a feint to the right, was appalled by the speed with which Jesamiah stepped aside and re-drew his cutlass, at the power in the blade as one handed, with no apparent effort, he shattered the flimsy rapier.

  “Get yourself a real weapon if you want to fight me. But nothing about you is real, is it? You are a fop and a fool. I thank you for reminding me what an arsehole you are and for the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with y’wife – Alicia you call her? I knew her in the whorehouses of Port Royal as Arabella.” He felt no pang of conscience, she had felt none when betraying him and he had warned her that confidences must be kept on both sides of the mast. It would not do for people to doubt the threat of a pirate.

  Jesamiah gave a mocking nod of his head and kicking over the nearest torch, was gone, running into the sudden-shadowed darkness, jumping over the wall and across the lawn, ducking through the trees. Rue was waiting, anxious and impatient on the quarterdeck, topsails already set, the fore topsail aback to hold the ship steady. The six-man crew awaiting their captain’s orders. Jesamiah leapt aboard, yelled for the warps to be cut and the Alicia Galley was drifting into the current, gaining speed as the river claimed her. Jesamiah took the helm, Rue added his weight to hauling the heavy spars to bring the backed sail around, the men falling to the tasks with a will.

  Phillipe was too far behind to do anything except stand on the jetty hurling abuse and bawling for men to come to his aid with muskets. Raising his hat in salute, Jesamiah called, “You’ve owed me a boat all these years now we’re square. An’ I’ll square this with you an’ all; I’ve not forgotten or forgiven what you did to me and what you made me do beside my mother’s grave. So you can think on this you bastard, I’ve just enjoyed the pleasure of emptying my seed into your wife’s belly. She’s the whore, Phillipe! Now, don’t that sound just grand?”

  Rue said nothing. But his thoughts were of deadly cobras.

  Nineteen

  The party was ruined. Embarrassment was Phillipe’s worst mortification and it was embarrassing, standing on the jetty listening to all the commiserations that were as false as the smile he wore.

  “Bloody pirates,” the Governor of Virginia was saying. “How’d they get up this far? That’s what I want to know.” Amiably he patted Phillipe’s arm. “Do not worry y’self lad, the guardship will catch the buggers down river. Ye’ll have your ship back by noon on the morrow, y’have m’word. Ye’ll see ‘em hang, ye’ll see ‘em hang. I’ll not have pirates making the fools of us, no sir, I will not have it.”

  The Governor’s intention may have been well meaning but Phillipe knew the words for what they were; flatulence trumpeted in a silent room, quickly apologised for and hastily waved away. The guardship hired and kept at great expense by the Colony was useless. She would be moored somewhere up river and her crew dead drunk. They always were. An entire fleet of pirates could invade before those useless ragamuffins were aware of it. And even if they were a
ware, they were inept and incapable of doing anything about it.

  “D’ye know who he was, this blackguard masquerading as a Spaniard? Fooled us all eh? Don’t blame y’self lad, fooled us all. Looked and spoke the part, some half-breed servant’s brat, I’ve no doubt.”

  Reluctant to admit the truth Phillipe hesitated. Yes, he knew the bastard, what had he to lose by being honest? “He was my half-brother, the swab my father sired on the Spanish whore he lived with. You must remember her? I did not recognise him until it was too late.”

  Indeed, the Governor remembered the woman well, not least for the reason that she had refused his advances on several occasions. “Skinny, pale-faced boy?” he queried. “Always mumbled if I recollect, scared of his own shadow. Wouldn’t have had the courage to piss into a tin pot.”

  Phillipe nodded. That was him.

  Slapping Mereno’s shoulder the Governor declared with enthusiasm, his curled wig bouncing on his shoulders, “By Gad the fellow’s changed then, eh? Has found out how t’use the prick in his package. Impudent bugger.”

  Phillipe merely glowered.

  The servants managed to persuade everyone back into the house, the damp of a rising river mist helping them along. Phillipe, feigning laughter, made light of the affair, agreeing he could see the amusing side; damned fine entertainment, most unusual. Yes, the fellow had been his half-brother, the one he had thrown off the plantation some years ago now, and yes, he would see him hang.

  “Young Jesamiah? I always said he had a bad streak in him,” someone said, one of the older men who had been a close friend to Charles Mereno. “To turn on you the way he did that night? Ah, a sorry business. A sorry business indeed. You did right to throw him out, the dog that bites the hand that feeds him is a dog that should be shot, I always say. Pity you did not hang the fellow there and then. Always said he was a bad ‘un.”

  He had never said anything of the sort but Phillipe let it pass.

  The orchestra made a valiant attempt to raise enthusiasm for dancing, a wasted effort, the party had been effectively ruined. A good two hours before expected, several of the guests were making their excuses to leave. The plantation owners with estates fronting the river, anxious to get home and ensure their houses had not been plundered or burnt by pirates. Damn fools. Did they think themselves so important? Only one ship had been stolen, one poxed, leaking ship! But it had been Phillipe’s ship and the bastard who had stolen it was the brother who had ruined his life all those years ago. And now here he was doing so all over again!

  From across the room Phillipe’s cold stare met with Alicia as she happened to glance up while talking to some overdressed old biddy, and the rage already congealing in his stomach settled there like a solid lump of porridge. If he thought for one moment the words his brother had shouted were true…

  Alicia saw the look on her husband’s face, blanched. She had been a fool to marry him – had been swept up by his apparent charm and wealth, by his promises and declarations, only to discover soon after their wedding night it had all been lies. He had wanted her money, nothing more. Now he had it he did not care what happened to her or her three-year-old son. He treated them both with contempt and indifference.

  Jesamiah was a handsome bastard, his touch as it always had in the past, instantly firing her desire. He too had lied. In Port Royal where life as a prostitute had been a squalid hand-to-mouth existence he had taken her to the dizzy heights of hope for something better. Then casually dropped her back into the dung-heap. Yes! These two were certainly brothers! Her disappointment and the guilty realisation at what she and Jesamiah had so casually done upstairs now appalled her.

  She said something, hoped it sounded sensible, to the foul old woman who smelt of mould and urine. Dreaded the moment she would find herself alone with her husband. Her mind returned to the room upstairs where she had allowed Jesamiah to...Oh good God, what had she done?

  Distracted by someone seeking conversation Phillipe moved out of the line of her vision. She breathed a sigh of relief. What was undoubtedly to come would not be the first beating she had received at his hands, he was a vindictive, jealous man. Fleetingly she wondered, if she saddled a horse and galloped it hard would she catch Jesamiah downriver, could she plead to be taken aboard? A foolish idea. What would be her option then? To return to prostitution, give up both her sons? All this? The occasional beating she could endure, a lifetime of hopeless poverty she could not.

  Playing the charming hostess, another half hour passed the stolen ship and Jesamiah’s identity remaining the only topic of conversation, the same words going around and around like a spinning cartwheel. Alicia squeaked alarm as a hand clamped on her arm, hauled her into a shadowed recess. Phillipe was not to wait for the guests to go then, was to say something now. She flinched, expecting a blow.

  He did not hit her but came straight out with what he intended to say. “I have the impression you knew who he was all along.”

  Indignant, she countered, “Of course I did not! How could I? I assumed he was someone you knew, a friend of yours. I was shocked when he told me he was your brother! As shocked as you were.”

  “Oh, you knew who he was, my lady. I am not naive. And now I know who you were too. Who and what you were. I never thought I would be grateful to my brother for something.”

  Alicia was an excellent actress. A good prostitute always was, for she had to pretend she was enjoying her client’s attention, that he was special and well endowed in size and performance. Praise brought better payment. The truth of boredom and a man’s inept clumsiness would have left a working woman penniless.

  She tried to wrest her arm away from the grip hurting her. Her anger was real, fuelled by guilt. “I know not what you mean. I was the fool to be taken in by his charm, but he charmed you too, did he not? The foul man attempted to seduce me. I put him firmly in his place and returned to our guests. Had I accommodated him mayhap he would have been satisfied and not stirred muddied waters by revealing who he was. Had I lifted my skirts for him, perhaps he would have left your stupid ship alone!”

  It was a good performance and Phillipe believed it because he had to – and the lie sounded plausible. He desperately wanted to believe Alicia, for the alternative was sickening. From the day his father had returned home with the slut who claimed she was his wife and the son she had dropped, his life had been ruined. Father had been besotted with the woman, only had interest for her and that puking brat she cooed over. And when Papa came home from his sea voyages – he was often gone for months at a time – who was it he greeted first? Oh no, not his eldest, not his firstborn! It was always Jesamiah he swung into the air and played with!

  Every time Phillipe had tried to attract Charles Mereno’s attention to tell him things he thought his Papa ought to know, what the man made him do in the stables for instance, he had been ignored or shunted aside; passed over for that pretty boy with black curls and dark eyes.

  How he hated Jesamiah!

  “If ever I discover what my brother told me is true, Ma’am, before I have you thrown out I will see you publicly flogged and humiliated for the whore you may be. Do I make myself clear?”

  Alicia just hoped, prayed, Jesamiah had not left her with a child. Decided she had best take steps to assure her continuing status and safety. She walked a few yards, turned and said, “I must inform you of something I had been intending to tell you in the privacy of our bed, perhaps it might help you conclude whether you value me as your wife or not.” She put her hand on her stomach, not as flat as it had been before she had birthed her sons. “I believe I am with child again. My flux has not come.”

  As a second lie it was perfect. If there was no child it would be easy to “lose” it within the next month or so. And if there was one, well, men were hopeless at counting and calculating women’s dates.

  Phillipe let her return to their guests. What choice had he? Make a scene here, add to the talk that would be buzzing and frothing through Virginia for months to come?
He had wanted to be on the lips of every man and women, but as a superb host, as a respected man, not as the idiot made a fool of by his own half-brother.

  Well intentioned, the Governor had said he would get his ship back, Phillipe doubted it, did not particularly want it back. All he wanted was Jesamiah Mereno or Acorne – with an ‘e’ – as he now called himself, to pay for this night’s bad work. Oh he would be paying dearly! It might take a while to track him down, to capture him, but at some time in the future, whether it was months or years ahead, Jesamiah Acorne would make a mistake, and when he did, he, Phillipe Mereno, intended to be there to force him to his knees, make him beg for his life. Oh yes, the bastard would regret this day. Would regret he had ever been born.

  What was it Jesamiah had said? That he was no longer frightened of his elder brother? Phillipe’s lip curled in a small, humourless smile. Even if it took him years to do so, he would prove him wrong. Very, very, wrong.

  Twenty

  “Not fast enough!” Jesamiah roared. “Do it again!”

  Gun practice. No use having a ship with ten six-pound guns if the crew were so damned useless only one or two of them could be fired efficiently.

  “Mr Rue, Mr Roberts,” Jesamiah continued, ignoring the swathe of muttered grumbles and derogatory oaths, “I want you to time each side, starb’d against larb’d. Those gunners who finish first will get extra rum. Do it nearer one minute than two and I’ll double the ration for a week. Losers swab the decks. We need these guns firing with speed and precision, lads – unless you want our new partner over there to get the pick of the plunder?”

  Catcalls, a few blasphemous remarks and gestures were directed at Captain Henry Jennings. It had not been in the original plan to team up with another vessel, but practicality had won the argument. As Jennings himself had said to Jesamiah in a Jamaican tavern to the western end of Kingston’s main street, “If you want to sweep up, lad, you are going to need a hefty broom.”