Kate said, “We can’t use full sail anyway.”
It was partly because of the damage, but also because of the crew—or lack of a crew.
Kate decided that the ladies could release neither the largest sails, nor the highest sails anyway. Even if they got them out, they could never get them back up again. Those sails required the coordinated effort of many men on this ship, and she didn’t trust that the ladies could work well at those heights, especially in lady slippers, full petticoats, and long skirts.
Other sails, smaller sails, were used for steering and maneuvering in battle. Mr. Whayles had told her such things, and Kate wished she had the chance to ask him more about it now. And that she had paid more attention at the time.
Fiya was much more optimistic. It took them hours to get something working and a bit of larger sail showing evenly across. In the end, they both fell down in exhaustion. But the effort paid off. By dawn, there was nothing but birds and the breeze around them. And they could not longer see land at all.
Fiya said, “For a coward and a useless girl, you are proficient at this endeavor.”
Kate only growled in reply, and then Fiya returned to her prayers.
Kate started scrubbing the blood from the deck.
I killed a man, she thought.
Two men.
She scrubbed harder.
Kate headed back to the cabin, and then remembered the other women. She thought to ask Fiya her opinion, but Kate didn’t have the strength to deal with the others quite yet. She wandered out to the forecastle and watched the open sea for a time. Then the sun got the better of her. She sat, then slumped down, finally curling up with her head on her arm to sleep.
* * * * *
Someone shook her shoulder. Kate pushed it away.
They did it again. Ambrose? Was this all a dream?
“Wake up, you are dreaming,” someone said. “You must be quiet, the others grow restless.”
“I would rather have cocoa. I don’t like it, Mama, that tea tastes like weeds.”
The shaking became painful. “You must wake!” someone whispered fiercely.
Kate bolted up, gasping.
Fiya sat back on her heels, but only looked at her.
Then Kate told Fiya about her dreams . . . and about her life, all of it.
Fiya stayed quiet a long time after that. Kate was too drained to ask her why.
“Your father blamed himself, not you,” Fiya finally said.
Kate had heard this before from Mrs. O’Malley. Still, she said, “I should have done something.”
“A child in a tree?” Fiya shook her head. “Life will unfold as it should, and it seeks no consent from us as to which way it will go.”
Fiya’s hand flipped in the air as if the whole affair was of no consequence. “To you it seems callous, but I find I have a cruel streak. I could blame lost love, or perhaps it has always been there. Still, I make no apologies. I find I like being strong. I like making decisions. I have decided you are not to blame, and so you are not.”
“Perhaps you should be the master then,” Kate said. “We have to let the others out soon. Better to have a strong person to make decisions, I think.”
Fiya scoffed. “That decision I have already made, but it is not I who will be master here, it is you. I am no shepherd to see to the lost sheep. I am no sailor either. You know more about the ship. Better you, or else I might kill them.”
Kate was skeptical. Perhaps that decision can wait until later, she thought. But a ship’s needs could not wait for decisions or votes or whims of a woman’s fancy. When danger was near, someone had to take the lead.
She said, “I think I know how we can keep to ourselves.”
Fiya said, “By avoiding the trade lanes?”
Kate shook her head. “That is asking for too much luck. The wind and water currents define trade routes. We can’t act fast enough on the sails to steer in the wind and currents if we are spotted. From a distance, we look like a commerce vessel and a tempting prize out here all alone. I will not tempt fate any further.”
“Then what shall we do?” Fiya said.
“ I think we should put up the plague flag.”
Ships avoided the plague, sometimes not even coming within range to catch the wind that might blow off. Fiya saluted, and then went to accomplish the deed. It would keep them safe for a while.
Then what?
Kate sighed. She really ought to see to the other women. She wasn’t looking forward to the task. How could she explain that while they were not at the mercy of pirates any longer, they were at the mercy of the sea and the wind and the waves? That is, unless they got caught—then it would start all over again. They could be worse off than before.
She doubted the words of Mr. Franklin would help the women feel better about their situation now, but she said it anyway: “I didn't fail the test, I just found many ways to do it wrong.“
No, that wouldn’t help at all, she thought. Kate opened her mother’s journal to find something else.
How about, “In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it.”
Have faith, like Fiya says, and we’ll be all right? Not quite. Don’t need a ship full of women praying instead of pulling a sail.
Besides, Franklin also said, “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”
And then there was, “To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.”
Make that praying women who complain and argue and cry all the time, she amended.
What about, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
Death, she mused, bad idea to mention death.
“Necessity never made a good bargain.”
Closer to helpful, but there was also: “Our necessities never equal our wants.”
I want some lemon meringue pie, and a good bit of chocolate is never amiss. Maybe when I see Uncle Lewis again, she thought longingly.
“One today is worth two tomorrows.”
Perfect, now I’m arguing with old Ben. How long before everyone else notices that maybe I’m going a little bit crazy already?
Kate looked around just to be sure no one had been listening. Who? Fiya was used to it by now, and the other women were still in their cabins.
Getting jumpy, Kate thought.
She closed her mother’s journal and thought of Mrs. O’Malley instead: “Out of the fry pan, into the fire.”
Even worse. Maybe it was better not to say much at all.
She went back to Ben: “Well done is better than well said.”
THE END
Volume II: Trouble the Waters
* * * * * * * * * * *
THE WILDE FLOWER SAGA
Volume III: In the Sea Unshaken
The sea has neither meaning nor pity. - Anton Chekhov
You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. - Rabindranath Tagore
He like a rock in the sea unshaken stands his ground. - Virgil
~~~
CHAPTER 34 - Captain Kate
Adrift at sea somewhere off the coast of Africa, 1795
Kate and Fiya stood on the deck of the Red Wind, reveling in their freedom. The ship had slipped out of the harbor with the tide and a small bit of sail with no trouble at all. The dawn saw them free and clear, with not another sail in sight.
That was days ago, and so far, no one had followed them at all, which had Kate wondering why. Maybe it was luck, or maybe it was Insha’Allah—as God wills—as Fiya kept telling her.
But now there was a nagging feeling in the whirling around in her mind just like a red wind. Kate kept pushing back, but it always came round again: Lost at sea.
In any case, they had to decide what to do next. Of course, they weren’t the only ones to consider. Kate had never been around so many women at once. Parties and teas were one thing and thankfully of very limited duration—hours at most. It had been mostly men and boys in her family,
as she had lived much of her life at sea.
Fiya was no help at all. She had a low opinion of these particular women, it seems, and western culture in general She would just as soon leave the women to their cabins as if they were still penned by the pirates who first took them.
That had worked so far, but Kate felt guilty about leaving them ignorant to their fate, as well as still caged.
Fiya said, “Why let them loose at all? Why not keep things as they seem. If they know nothing, they are less of a burden.”
Kate had to admit: It was tempting. But the days were getting hotter now, and they didn’t let the women out at night like before. Some would soon start asking questions, and besides, they needed help on deck.
She said, “We’d have to keep cooking and serving them, and emptying out their chamber pots—“
That was enough.
Kate released the Indian women first. They had been abused most, and she expected them to be the most relieved to be free. From down below, Kate and Fiya helped them onto the deck.
To her great horror, one promptly jumped overboard. The woman did not scream as she went over or thrash as she went down. Her companion only watched, and then turned her back on the waves where her friend had last been seen. Then she slumped to the deck on her knees.
Kate spoke gently, with a hand on the woman’s shoulder and in the only Indian dialect she knew, “Are you all right? I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name.”
It was true, and Kate felt ashamed that she had never asked before. She tended the women sometimes, but friendly conversation seemed like an insult to their injuries, given what they had been through. There was no part of rape and torture that could be spoken of casually. Especially as she had not been touched at all.
The woman looked up, and then whispered something.
Kate understood some of the dialect by now, Fiya even more, but Fiya demanded, “What did she say? I could not hear with her groveling there.”
Kate said, “She said her name is shame.”
Fiya huffed with a great deal of disgust and turned away, but only for a moment—then she turned and leaned over, shouting, “Get up!”
Kate felt her mouth grow tight with anger. She didn’t know if the Indian woman would understand her or not, but she had to try, “I wish I could say it would get better in time. I don’t know how you feel now, but I do know the consequences of what you have been through.”
Sympathy was the only thing she had to offer. The woman’s life was ruined, along with her body. It was no fault of her own, but still, her society would damn her forever. If they knew . . .
“You must be strong as well as clever,” Fiya said.
The Indian woman said, “I cannot lie.” But now her eyes held a spark of interest.
Fiya added, “You are not married.”
It was not a question, still the woman shook her head: no.
“You may want to marry someday,” Fiya added. “In the care of the father, the husband, then a son. That is the choice of a woman. So it has always been.”
The woman vehemently shook her head—again no.
Kate said, “That sounds so gloomy when you put it that way. Women without a man are not helpless, you know. I have no father now, no husband or son either. You make it sound like I should also be jumping over the side.”
Fiya shot her a look, and Kate shut up.
Fiya continued, “When you are among your own people, they will ask.” She pointed to the woman’s wounds: There would be scars. Then she nodded to the woman’s abdomen: There might also be a baby.
“You will kill it?” Fiya said.
Clearly the Indian woman hadn’t thought that far.
“Fiya,” Kate began, but she stopped. She had no answers, no advice, not a clue.
“You must not speak of either,” Fiya said. “Only say that Shiva punished already anyone who harmed you—don’t say husband or other—and that you are protected and now devoted to Shiva. People will always wonder and whisper, but your silence will also make them respect you. Out of fear, perhaps, or ignorance. Either will do. In any case, they will think what they will, some better, some worse, but they must also accept you or explain why they do not.”
Kate knew this was true. Disrespecting a woman was one thing, disrespecting a god was quite another.
Shiva is the Hindu god of destruction and reproduction. Shiva destroyed, only to rebuild. The woman looked silently out to sea, but clearly, she was thinking.
Fiya touched Kate’s arm and motioned for her to follow.
“We should not leave her here alone,” Kate said, looking back.
“She must choose for herself.”
Kate knew Fiya was right. “I suppose we should see to the others.”
For the first time that Kate could remember, Fiya sighed. At that, Kate laughed.
She went down to unlatch the other cabin doors. The ladies did not come up on the deck right away. It was only in the late evening that a few of them finally showed. They did not ask questions at first, only gathered in their groups as always. Some prayed, some whispered together, some looked to sea with forlorn eyes.
It took another day before anyone spoke to Kate.
One of the blonde women approached. She was twisting a handkerchief in her hands and her jaw tensed and released with each step as she came closer. It seems she was not the upper crust of the little aristocracy that these women had formed, for she was sent on this errand.
“We are really quite hungry,” she said looking back at the others.
Kate and Fiya were studying charts, laid out on the deck in the sun. Kate was trying to get an idea of their location. Fiya was tracing the borders of her homeland with the tip of her knife. Neither of them replied.
“Excuse me, but where are the others? The men, I mean?” the woman said.
Fiya straightened up and gave her such a look that the blonde woman took a step back. Then she rallied and held her ground.
“I do beg your pardon,” she said. “We have not been introduced. I am Miss Evelyn Maddox, lately of New York by way of Lisbon and heading on to Africa to my brother’s ministry there.”
“It would seem that now you will not complete your journey,” Fiya said.
“The ladies are hungry,” Evelyn said. “And where are the men?”
“Do you miss them?” Fiya said.
Evelyn just looked at her, and to Kate’s surprise, Fiya went back to her map without another word.
“I suppose it’s time to get on with it then,” Kate said. She asked Fiya to help and the Indian woman too, who now called herself Dhriti, which Fiya said meant courage. They brought rations and set them around the master’s table in the cabin. Then Kate called the other women down to eat.
Their hesitation and questions did not last long. They ate like hungry children, not like ladies at all. Soon enough they would realize their predicament, and Kate still wasn’t sure quite what she would say.
Eventually, they started speaking of the familiar: home and family, parties and gowns, gardens and potential husbands, even horses and dogs.
The red-haired woman laughed at them all. “Surely you are fools if you think that any of that matters at all. This is the end of life, as you knew it, maybe the end of your life as well. Dead we may be soon, all of us. Better to have gone down with our ships than a slow painful death.”
“I agree that these are strained circumstances,” Evelyn said, “but surely you must see that if we all work together, we might yet come out of this nightmare. With the help of the Lord we might—”
Another woman stood up then, and everyone else fell silent. She had been overly plump, not as much now, and her dress fit a bit loosely. Still she was much rounder than the others. Her dress had the detail of a professional seamstress and was made from expensive material. She must be the head of the social order, Kate thought.
The woman looked down her long nose at them all as she spoke. “Work together? I am Miss Morgana Sydney-Stokes. My moth
er is the daughter of a bishop; my father was the younger soon of a baronet. My family has never worked.”
“I wonder then, how would you eat?” Kate said. “If you were a colonist somewhere, I mean. How would you survive?”
The woman had a fan, and she knew how to use it. She pulled it out, snapped it open, and spoke through the spokes. “I would not be a colonist somewhere, I assure you. But if I were, I would pay someone, of course. I assume by colonist, you mean landowner. You could not mean merchant or worse, the indentured servants or peasant convicts being sent to Australia now in lieu of the traitorous America.”
“Pay someone?” Kate said.
Then she realized that the woman must have paid someone to do her hair, because it still looked rather elaborate for being onboard for some time. Her own hair was simply tied back, and rarely stayed that way for long. She noticed then that most of the women still made some attempt at neatness and style, even Fiya.
”That works if you have money to begin with,” Kate said, “but where would they spend the money, I wonder? On the frontier, there are no stores, no merchants. You must travel to get goods or trade with those passing through or those already there. And what happens when you run out of money or goods and have no way of making your own? Owning land is one thing, making it useful is quite another.”
“How do you know any of that?” the woman demanded. “Have you ever been there? It sounds a savage place, and I wonder if you are the same way.”
Kate sighed. She had been there, but not recently. Still, how different could it be on any frontier? People weren’t so different, and wilderness was sparse anywhere. Women were always considered a civilizing presence, but it hadn’t helped her mother or any of the others survive out there. Nor did money matter much either.
The women only stared at her, but Miss Sydney-Stokes sat down and started fanning herself with a good deal of irritation. But her point was well taken.
“Surely you could trade with the natives for something to eat,” Evelyn offered. “My brother wrote that in Africa—“
The Wilde Flower Saga: A Contrary Wind (Historical Adventure Series) Page 35
