The Blackbirder botc-2

by James L. Nelson

  He stuck his candle in a candleholder on a side table, pulled open the first drawer in the chest. They were her things, underclothing, silky things, things that would cling against her naked skin. He ran his hands lightly over them, let his fingertips thrill to their silkiness, let the rustling of them release their perfume.

  He grabbed a handful of silk, picked it up, buried his face in it, ran his tongue over the smoothness, let the sensations wash over him. His erection was pressing hard against his breeches. He wondered if she rutted with one of those black bucks, maybe while Marlowe watched. He pushed the silk into his face.

  He thought about killing her, recalled what it was like to see the life go out of a person’s eyes as he squeezed, squeezed her throat. He thought about his strong hands on that long and perfect neck, what she would look like as she fought him for her life.

  And then the storm hit him from another quarter, the reality, the black despair at what he was and he moaned out loud, dropped the silk cloth to his feet, his cock wilting.

  He shook his head hard, recalled that he was there ostensibly to find information. He looked around the room, at the windows set in deep cases, the long curtains that pooled on the floor. He stared at the curtain, then at the candle flickering on the chest of drawers. He watched the flame, the cleansing flame, dancing, dancing, as it might dance over those curtains, consuming all of Marlowe House in fire, purifying the ground on which it stood.

  But he did not have the courage to do it, and he knew it, and he pushed the thought aside.

  Where could she have gone? She had just disappeared, never a word from anyone in Williamsburg or Jamestown or Norfolk or Newport News.

  Where would she run to escape from him? Or might she be plotting some counterstroke? Where would she go to do that? Where would he go, were he her?

  Boston.

  Dunmore felt a wave of panic break over him and he looked suddenly around, as if the threat were there in the room, and not just a fresh realization in his mind alone.

  She might go to Boston. He thought he had left all that behind, washed it off him with a voyage to London and then a new life in Virginia, the fox losing the pursuing hounds over a long and convoluted trail. No one in Williamsburg knew the rumors, he was certain of it.

  But Marlowe was a mariner, and he was friends with mariners, and those people did not stay put, they moved from place to place and they carried the ugly rumors and untruths with them. Could he know? Could she know? Might she be heading for Boston, looking for the truth of the matter?

  “Oh, God!” he moaned out loud. He had to stop her, but he could not go to Boston. Impossible now. But he did still have people there, people whose reliability would cost him, especially for the task he would have to assign them.

  Yes, but how would they find her, how would they know where to look for her? Boston was a big place, hundreds of people coming and going…

  She would go to the old man. Of course, that would be where she would start, the only place she could start. What would the old man say? It didn’t matter, she could not be allowed to see him.

  They had to watch the old man’s place, see who was seeking him out there. He would describe her-a hard woman to miss. Yes, yes, if they watched the old man’s place, then they would catch her up.

  And with that thought came the warmth of salvation, the pieces fitting together. If she went to Boston and found out the truth, then he did not want her arrested in Virginia, he wanted her taken up there, far from the burgesses and his neighbors, taken and drowned in that city’s already notable harbor.

  Chapter 18

  Madshaka stood on the quarterdeck, near King James, listened to the accusations shouted in the tongues of the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast, the Grain Coast, the Congo, the Slave Coast. The words of each language passed easily through his head, as if together they were but one great language, so adept was he at speaking them.

  He had joined in with the Kru funereal ceremony, singing with them their wailing song of death, because he was himself Kru, while James and Cato and Quash and Good Boy had watched, silent, ignorant.

  Madshaka knew who the Kru would obey. He was their master now, master of them all. It was not hubris. It just was.

  He turned to King James. “They very angry.” He nodded at the representatives. They were standing, sitting, squatting on the deck, called aft to discuss their situation, to vote, like the pirates do.

  Far forward, in the waist and the foredeck, the women and children looked on, apprehensive. They did not like how things were going, how their deliverance was changing before their eyes.

  They, however, do not decide their fate, Madshaka thought. I do.

  “What they angry about?” James was losing his temper, but it was too late for that to be a problem.

  “They angry about running off, leaving that big ship. They think there much riches in that ship.”

  “Did you tell them what I said? About Marlowe, how we be captured if we stay and fight? Did you tell them we trying to get home, not pirating all over the ocean?”

  Madshaka shrugged. “I told them.”

  Actually, he had told them nothing of the sort. He had told them that King James was afraid of the white man, that King James was friends with the white man that came after them, that they had to vote as he, Madshaka, told them to or King James would steal all of their riches.

  He had planted deep in their heads the idea of going back to Africa as wealthy men. The horrors of the Middle Passage were fading now, with the near certainty of returning to their homes. Now the thought of acquiring wealth before that return was finding fertile ground.

  “I think they want to take back from the white man, after all they suffer,” Madshaka said to James. “They think you too afraid, you don’t understand. These men are warriors, not good to them to run from a fight.”

  James scowled, looked away, and Madshaka waited, expressionless, for what he would say next.

  This was so easy, now with Kusi gone.

  “Tell them…,” James began, and stopped and reconsidered.

  James was becoming suspicious, but there was nothing that he could do. Madshaka understood as well as James what his choices were. James could hope that Madshaka translated his words correctly, or James could kill Madshaka, if he was able, and then have no means whatsoever to communicate.

  James would take his chances with Madshaka.

  “Tell them, we are far from land now, we are halfway to Kalabari, not likely to see another ship. Tell them this was what we wanted, from the beginning, to go home, and that is what we are doing. Two weeks and then we are there.”

  Madshaka nodded, turned to the gathered men, and called for silence. Then in one language after another he translated the words, translated them pretty much as James had said them.

  There was no reason now for him to tell them anything different. Madshaka guessed that it was the truth, that they were unlikely to come across any more ships, this far out to sea. It was time to get back to Africa. He had business there as well.

  As he spoke he saw expressions soften, heads nodding. For all he had inflamed these men with the lure of piracy, the great wealth to be had, for all he had told them about how rich-laden was the prize that they had abandoned, they were still men of the land, men of the African forest, and they would never be comfortable aboard a wind ship. The mention of home sat well with them. They, too, were ready for this voyage to end.

  “There, I tell them,” he said to James. James looked out over the men who looked aft at them. They did look mollified, comforted. James nodded. Madshaka knew that there was nothing like the mixture of truth and lies to keep an adversary off balance.

  “Good,” James said. “Good.”

  King James was a fearsome sight, with his pistols and his sword and his leather jerkin accentuating the powerful muscles of his chest and arms. Madshaka thought he would not like to fight the man, but of course he would not have to.

  James was an enigma to him, and a prob
lem. He was smart and bold. Killing the blackbirder’s crew, sailing off with the ship, training those ignorant savages to be sailors-incredible. He wished that they could work together, he and James. What a team they might make, what wealth they might garner for themselves! But James would not side with him, he knew that, and so it was and so it had to be.

  Destroying James was like destroying some valuable resource, like burning a ship full of rare cargo.

  “Very good, Madshaka,” James said next. “Tell them to have their dinner and then we stand our watches, like before.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Madshaka gave James his big, wide grin. Turned to the men and translated the words, added that Captain James was not to be disturbed from his sleep, and the men nodded and then dispersed, back to their families, back to their tribes.

  James had to be destroyed from the inside. A man like James could not be torn down, he had to be chipped away. And Madshaka needed him broken, because James, strong and confident, was not a man with whom Madshaka wished to tangle.

  King James was not Kusi. King James would not be led to the little platform on the side of the ship and effortlessly shoved into the ocean.

  No, James would take a lot of killing, when the time came, and he, Madshaka, had to start now.

  He made his way forward, beyond the light of the three big lanterns on the taffrail, moving silently with his long strides, down into the waist and up by the knights’ heads on either side of the bowsprit. In the dim starlight he could make out Anaka’s shape, leaning against the knights’ head, waiting. He and Anaka now met there every night. There was much to discuss.

  “Good evening, Anaka,” Madshaka said in his native Kwa.

  “Good evening. How does it go?”

  Madshaka shook his head. “I am worried. I am worried about King James. I think he is plotting something.”

  Anaka stiffened, and after a moment said, “What?”

  “I don’t know. But I keep an eye on him. There is nothing he can do to trick you or me, but I am afraid for the others. They might be taken in by whatever it is he is planning.”

  “Perhaps. But it is of no concern. The Kru are all with you. They understand you are their countryman. Not Malinke. Malinke that has been with white men for twenty years. We will stand with you and we have been talking to the others. It is your orders we will follow.”

  “Good. It is safer that way.” Madshaka was grim-faced, though he wanted to smile, to laugh out loud. He had been robbed of everything, sold into slavery, and now he was halfway back. Now he had a ship of his own, filled with valuables. Now he had an army.

  The two men were silent for a moment, taking in the ambience of the ship and the sea. Finally Madshaka spoke, and his words were soft, like a parent speaking to his child, with not a hint of persuasion in his voice.

  “In nature, Anaka, there are the strong and the weak. You know that. There is the lion and the antelope and the lion kills the antelope. It is the way of things.”

  “Yes…” Anaka’s tone indicated that he did not see where this was going.

  “It is the same with men, have you noticed that? Some are strong and some weak. And with nations of men. The Ashanti are strong, the Nupe weak. The Kru are strong, the Oyo weak. We are the lions, they are the antelope.”

  “That is true.”

  “The lion is not blamed for feeding on the antelope, even though he kills it in order that he might be strong and well fed. I wonder if you think the same is true with men? With nations of men?”

  “Well…” Anaka considered this. “The strong nations have always dominated the weak. Like with the lion, it is the way of things.”

  “Exactly. You are no fool, Anaka. The strong have always defeated the weak, taken them as their slaves, or sold them to others as slaves. It is the way of things.”

  “Yes. But why do you say this?”

  Madshaka was quiet for a moment, as if he was considering the question. “I just want you to think on this, Anaka. We might have a great opportunity. We are a strong band, we Kru aboard this ship. We have fought together, we trust each other. In battle. And in our business. That is a rare thing these days. It may not be wise for us to part when we get to Kalabari. Perhaps we should think of the future. Our future. Together.”

  Anaka’s face, his thoughtful, flattered, pleased, and curious face, was visible in the faint ambient light and Madshaka liked what he saw.

  “Just think on that. That is all I ask. And talk to the other Kru. Not the other people, only the Kru, about what I have said.”

  Anaka nodded. “I will.” With that he left and Madshaka was alone in the bow with the great wind ship above and behind him.

  He looked out past the bowsprit, out into the dark, toward Africa beyond the horizon.

  They would not be going to Kalabari, of course, but it was not time to tell Anaka that.

  One step at a time. That was how Madshaka would return.

  Chapter 19

  William Barrett, known also as Elizabeth Marlowe, sat propped up in the cot in the tiny sleeping cabin of the Bloody Revenge. She was still clad in breeches and waistcoat. On the small shelf over her shoulder a single candle gutted, and opened on her lap was Alexander Olivier Esquemeling’s The Buccaneers of America, the second English edition from the Dutch original of 1678.

  It was a hugely popular book and Elizabeth had read parts of it before, but it amused her to find it among Billy Bird’s library. She wondered at his motive for owning it. To learn something of his trade? Hoping to see his own name in print? But of course Billy was no more than thirty-five years old, or thereabouts, probably younger, and the events and people that populated Esquemeling’s book were from a former age.

  The Bloody Revenge was all but motionless, riding at a single anchor, after five days of working her way south around Cape Hatteras and into Charles Town Harbor.

  They were anchored in Charles Town Harbor, but not the raucous, lively, well-populated section, not anchored off the busy waterfront that bordered the Cooper River, with its several docks and crowds of shipping and boats pulling to and fro at all hours, its chandlers and slave markets and whorehouses, taverns and ordinaries.

  Rather, they were tucked into a dark corner behind low, marshy Hog Island, across the river from the town, tide rode at the mouth of Hog Island Creek. In a town such as Charles Town, which trafficked quite openly with pirates, Elizabeth had to wonder what Billy Bird and his “honest merchant sailors” were about, that such secrecy was required.

  She could hear shoes and the soft padding of bare feet on the deck above. She stared up at the beams over her head. The rough cut marks left by the adze that had formed them stood out bold in the deep shadows of the single flame.

  Billy Bird… She called him a pirate and he was not unequivocal in his denial. But still, his ship was not like what she had been led to believe pirate ships were. Billy gave orders and they were obeyed. Billy lived in the fine aft cabin, and no one entered that space without knocking first.

  But Billy was polite to the men, and careful not to violate those “rules” that governed their ship.

  Well, there were pirates and there were pirates, and she imagined that Billy and his men had come to some understanding that worked for them all.

  Billy Bird. He was handsome, wild, and reckless. Fun. If she were not married to Thomas, then this meeting might have been very different. But Thomas made her feel secure and safe, which Billy never could, and that was the thing she most craved now.

  She wished Thomas would come back. She had no idea of how long he might be gone, and she hated the uncertainty. She did not know if he was dead or alive.

  She let her head fall back on the pillow, closed her eyes, sighed audibly. She knew fine ladies in Williamsburg who chafed under the boredom of their lives in their far-flung plantations, who dreamed of running off to London or Paris or being taken and ravaged by pirates, or what they thought pirates to be-handsome noblemen in disguise, like the highwaymen in their silly novels.<
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  For Elizabeth, it was the boredom she craved, a simple life with her husband and her garden and not one damn thing happening out of the ordinary.

  She sighed again, opened her eyes, swung her legs over the edge of the cot, and reached with her toes for the deck to stop the bed from swinging. She could hear that something was going on on deck, someone had come aboard, conversations taking place in low tones. It was none of her business, she did not even want to know what was happening.

  She pulled out the chamber pot, set it on the trunk, reached down to grab the hems of her skirts, and only then recalled that she was not wearing skirts at all. She cursed under her breath and fumbled in the dimness with the buttons of the breeches, those damned irritating, awkward breeches.

  She got the breeches down at last and relieved herself and then with even more difficulty pulled the breeches back up, buttoned them, and tucked in the shirt. She cracked the door to the day cabin, not wanting to carry the chamber pot past Billy, but the cabin was empty and unlit.

  Through the aft windows, which were swung open in hope of finding some relief from the sultry night, she could hear frogs and crickets and mosquitoes and a host of other creatures that inhabited the swampy island under the brig’s stern. Higher up, over Hog Island, she could see a few lights from the town of Charles Town, about one hundred perches away.

  She picked up the chamber pot and stepped carefully across the cabin, letting her eyes adjust to the dark, not wanting to spill the contents on Billy Bird’s fine furniture or the elaborate rug that occupied most of the deck underfoot. At the after end of the cabin she knelt on the lockers that ran athwartships under the windows, leaned forward with the pot, and poured the contents out the window.

  She heard the liquid splash and then, to her complete surprise, a shout, a splutter, a curse, right under the window.