Pirate Code

by Helen Hollick

  The man was breathing, but very shallowly, the air rasping in his lungs. Jesamiah had already tried to make him comfortable by rolling him on his side, covering him with his coat, but there were too many broken bones and torn sinews. Blood from ruptured organs frothed from his mouth. The rack was a horrible way to die. They had many horrible ways to make a man die in here.

  Jesamiah choked down vomit. They had made him watch as they had killed the Mermaid’s quartermaster. It was del Gardo’s way to make the next victim watch the previous one die. They had fed a long line of knotted linen down the poor bastard’s throat, making him swallow it as they poured water down his gullet. Had then poured more pints down to make it curl and snag and twine around within his intestines. Had left him lying there moaning as his belly began to ache. Chained to the wall there was nothing Jesamiah could do except listen. Not watch. When he could he had squeezed his eyes shut. But at the end they had made him look, telling him he was to be next as they pulled the linen out again, bringing everything with it. Disembowelling the quartermaster, pulling his intestines out of his open, screaming, mouth with the linen, inch by slow, agonising, inch. It had taken the poor bastard a while to die. Jesamiah rolled over, spewed his guts into the putrid straw.

  They had escaped. Somehow Taylor had bribed the guard and they had escaped. The air, the sea – life – that October dawn, had never seemed as sweet. Malachias had never smuggled cargo into Hispaniola again, and nor had Jesamiah. Until now he had avoided the place, both island and sea lanes. Why had he come back? He must be out of his mind!

  It was raining outside. Hard, heavy rain that beat against the brickwork, drummed on the lead roof and spouted from a hole in the gutter beside the window. Some of the rain was coming in and collecting on the floor making the stink of mouldy straw and human waste puddle into a black, sodden mess.

  The man groaned again, the sound an agonised wheeze. He stared, bewildered, up at Jesamiah, the faint light from beneath the door reflecting in the pain-wracked whites of his fearful eyes.

  “It’s all right my friend, I will not harm you. I will stay with you. You are not alone.” Were the words of comfort for this creature’s benefit or his own? “The pain will go soon. I promise you.”

  Jesamiah would have taken the man’s hand, but what was left of the poor bugger’s fingers was all torn and bloody.

  What was Rue doing? Had he clewed up? Would he think of running on topsails only if the wind increased? Was he taking care of Sea Witch? Wiping the taste of vomit from his mouth, telling himself he was being stupid, Jesamiah fought aside threatening tears. It had been hard, so hard, to stand at that window and watch Sea Witch sail away without him. She had looked beautiful, her sails spread, her bow lifting as she had met the first roller of the open sea. He was not with her, his hand was not on the helm, his voice was not giving the commands. His feet were not wide-planted on the lift and heave of the quarterdeck. He trusted Rue, would trust him with his life – his ship – but by God’s truth he wanted her back!

  Sitting there in the near dark, listening to the man’s whimpering, he told himself Rue would not permit de Castilla to interfere. It was likely someone had already shut him in the great cabin, bolted the door and left him there. Finch would probably have ensured he had a keg of brandy, effectively silencing any protest. Rubbing his face, neck and shoulders, massaging the stiffness, Jesamiah stood, eased the ache from his back. The skin was still sore. Nearly all of him was still sore.

  The man coughed, attempted to say something. Hurrying to lean close, Jesamiah tried to understand the whispered Spanish, but could make out nothing that made sense.

  “What is your name?” he asked, coaxing, gentle. “Who are you?”

  “I…”

  “I’m listening. Who are you? What is your name?”

  The man took a gurgling, shallow breath. “Ches..”

  With a gasp Jesamiah suddenly came alert. He bent closer, his ear almost to the man’s bruised and bleeding mouth, his hands light on the man’s shoulders, restraining himself from giving them a fierce shake. “Chesham? You are Francis Chesham?” Dear God, he thought, I’ve found their spy.

  “Ches…Must, tell. Ches…”

  “No need to tell me anything, my friend. I know of you.”

  “Must…tell.” With a sigh of exhaled breath the man died.

  Jesamiah stood, went to the window, clasped his hands around the bars, grateful for the rain that was washing his face.

  Francis Chesham. The man Jennings had asked him to find. He had not said why exactly, but whatever the reason, it was no use now. Poor bastard.

  Resting his head on the bars, Jesamiah groaned. No man should die like that. No man should be so torn to pieces and made to say words he did not want to say.

  The rain had the smell of the sea in it, or was it the wind that was blowing the aroma in? He could certainly hear it, crashing angrily against the rocks below. A wild sea, frothing and foaming, the spray hurtling and booming into the hollows and cracks as if it was jealous of the rain that was patting his cheeks like a lover’s tender caress. A fanciful thought, which brought Tiola’s face to his mind, her touch, her love.

  Jesamiah turned away, a cry choking his throat, tears trickling. He wanted, missed, his ship but oh, oh how much more he wanted and missed Tiola! Just to hear her voice with its slight lilt of a Cornish accent, to smell her natural perfume that reminded him of summer flowers and sun-drenched hay meadows. And the sea. Tiola also had a smell of the sea about her now. Not seaweed or tar or wet sand, but a subtle, invigorating sea tang. But she had gone, had left him. He had never really noticed her presence within him – does a man notice an arm or a leg or his sight? Nothing is noticed until it is gone. And she had gone. The part of her soul that had united with his, that had taken root within him, had been plucked out, leaving an aching, yawning void of emptiness.

  This whole thing had been a stupid, stupid, idea. He had lost his ship and his woman. Without the Sea Witch he would never get Tiola back. He would not be able to find that indigo, would not be able to take it to van Overstratten as a trade, and then God alone knew what the Dutchman would do to Tiola. Was he treating her badly? Was he…? It was night. Van Overstratten was her husband and Tiola had turned away from Jesamiah, had shut him out. He moaned as an unbidden image of Tiola and Stefan hit him. He fell to his knees. Tiola. Oh my love, Tiola!

  Alone, cold and weary Jesamiah wrapped his arms about himself, rocking too and fro in abject misery. Kneeling there in the soiled, musty straw, he sobbed.

  Four

  Aboard Stefan van Overstratten’s sloop, a maid, one of his chosen servants answerable only to him, irritably pressed the rim of a goblet against Tiola’s lips and encouraged her inert form to swallow.

  Bitterness mixed with sweet. Honey and lemon, comfrey and other herbs – the dark brew that brought a deep, deep, sleep. By instinct, the human form of Tiola drank. It was easier for the maid to ensure her mistress slept for on the few occasions when she partially awoke she would thrash around and cry out, and the maid was a lazy slattern who preferred to spend her time enjoying herself with the crew below deck. If Tiola awoke there would be more work to do, so she laced the medicine with laudanum, lied to van Overstratten whenever he asked and said the Mistress slept on.

  None except Jesamiah was aware of Tiola’s secret. No one else knew that she was of the Craft; that until her human form roused from the artificial state of a drugged sleep her soul could not return to it. For Tiola, the door to existence was firmly shut. And the key turned in the lock.

  She knew she ought to open her eyes; was aware she had been drifting for too long, but it was peaceful here, floating, untroubled, in this calm silence. Tiola half roused herself, struggling against the tiredness that was weighing her down. She ought to be refreshed by now. Ought to be strong again, and back where she belonged…She frowned in her sleep. Where did she belong? Her soul was a part of the Universe, she was as one with the dance of the stars and the drift
of time. She was immortal. Had been there, on this tiny, insignificant planet, when the first spark had struck the first stone, that had evolved and grown into the life of bone.

  She should wake, should join with her body. Why was she still here? For a moment she panicked, the spirit that was her being fluttered with alarm and she tumbled and whirled over and over, around and around, confused, disorientated and suddenly very frightened. If she did not return soon her host body, without its protective spirit, would wither and die, and then she would be here forever and fail in her task of protecting those in her care from the Dark of Evil.

  It had happened to so many of her kind already; the Immortals of Light, their spirits driven away and their earth-bound forms burnt, buried, starved or dismembered. Her sisters, so many, many of them, condemned and destroyed.

  There was a name, a name she should remember… What name? She could see his face, his black hair, his dark eyes. His smile. Could feel his hands on her as he made love…Could not remember his name!

  Desperate, she tried to wake but she could not crawl through the tunnel of blackness that separated her from awareness and life, and she was too tired to try again. Too tired to struggle any more. She closed her eyes and drifted on through the quiet of the white, eternal emptiness. And forgot everything.

  Five

  Grunting his last effort, Don Damian del Gardo thrust again, shuddered and rolled, breathing hard, sweating, from Francesca’s inert body. She too shuddered but from disgust, relieved it was over.

  For too long she had been forced to endure the degradation of del Gardo’s inept attentions in bed. Before that she had sat cloistered at home with her frail father-in-law, grieving over the murder of Ramon, her husband. Oh, it had looked like an accident, but three people knew it was not. Herself, Ramon’s father, and del Gardo. She blinked aside tears. Del Gardo had a way of ensuring that no word of his calumny would ever be uttered. Normally he went straight to sleep after fumbling and poking at her, lying there on his fat rump, mouth open, paunch belly heaving upward as if he were nine months with child. She would lie the other way, her back to him, knees drawn up, silently weeping, her mind questioning her faith in her God. It was wrong to kill. Even more wrong to kill herself, but she so wanted to do both, were it not for her child.

  About to turn over, to shuffle as far away from him as she could, she went rigid as he spoke. As if he had read her thoughts he said into the darkness, “Your son. He is how old now?”

  Francesca’s mouth ran dry, her heart began to beat faster with the pound of fear. “He will be nine come Advent.”

  “And he is content living here as a brother to my own sons? I believe my wife dotes on the boy.”

  Don Damian’s mouse of a wife detested the boy, but then she detested all her children and refused to see any of them. Señora del Gardo also loathed her husband, which is why she kept herself in her private world of seclusion in her chamber and ignored the endless succession of his mistresses. While they were performing for the evil bastard, she was not having to do so.

  Del Gardo grasped Francesca’s breast and pinched the nipple between his fingers. “There is something I want you to do for me, Madam.”

  What? Oh God, not again! What vileness did he want her to repeat now?

  “That English dog. I want to know what he is up to.”

  She stifled the sigh of relief. “Is that not why you have taken him to the Tower? To torture him?”

  Del Gardo snorted. “He’ll not talk; he’ll clack like a market wife as soon as he feels the first brand of pain, but I cannot rely on what he spews up as being the truth. I need to know about the plans for this pathetic rebellion. Do the English think I am such an imbecile that I do not realise he is here to liaise with the rebel leaders? Pah!” Del Gardo heaved his body to the edge of the bed and then to his feet, stumbled over to the piss pot.

  “I am going to release Acorne on parole.” He farted, finished streaming urine and returned to the bed. “That crew of his will not return, pirates are never loyal to a weak captain. What? Come back for a man who gets himself arrested and tortured? Never!”

  Francesca was not so sure; she had looked into Jesamiah’s eyes and seen strength and courage there. He was not a weak man like del Gardo, relying on brutality and fear to maintain authority. This Jesamiah Acorne was someone worth knowing. A man who might, just might, help her salvage the collapsed ruins of her life.

  Hiding her eagerness, she said compliantly, “What do you want me to do?”

  “I will release him into your father-in-law’s custody. Nursemaiding a pirate is the only thing the old man is useful for now. You will befriend Acorne and discover everything.” He moved quickly, reached out and grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck. “Everything Francesca. Do not fail me. I expect you to uncover information about this rebellion. Understand? You have, so far, done well with the information you have brought me; do not go changing sides because you want to spread your legs for a pirate to sniff at your cunny.” He twisted her red hair tighter, yanked her head back. “It would be a pity if, like his father, your son was to meet with an unfortunate accident, would it not?”

  She mewed with fear. He let her go, turned away.

  Her husband, Ramon, had fallen, so they said. Had tumbled, down and down the stone steps that led to the dungeons in the Tower. When he came to rest at the bottom his neck was broken. No one ever mentioned the marks of obvious torture.

  She lay still, unmoving, hoped del Gardo had fallen asleep.

  “Pleasure me again. You were useless last time, I felt nothing. If you do not make an effort to please me I will dismiss you and then there will be no need for me to hold your son hostage, will there? I may as well dispose of him now. Mouth woman! Take me in your mouth.”

  Six

  Sunday Morning

  He had been dreaming. A vivid, explicit, dream.

  Jesamiah groaned, rolled over. Every bone, muscle, sinew, everything ached abominably. He was also damp; the rain must have come in during the night; his fault for sleeping below the window. It had seemed the cleanest place at the time, perhaps it had not been a good idea after all. Pushing himself to his knees he caught his breath, then slowly and carefully stood up, tugging his coat closer around his body. It was cold in here, this dank, dark place where little sun came in to bring any cheer. Some time during the long night he had retrieved the coat from Chesham – ah he remembered now, it was when the rain had started again. The wind had blown it in, and the wetness on his face had roused him from a dozing sleep. He’d fetched the coat and huddled beneath the window where the layer of ordure was less noisome than everywhere else. Looking at Chesham’s stiff corpse, he felt a momentary spasm of guilty disrespect, but shrugged it aside. A dead man had no use for warmth, a living one did.

  There was only a dribble of water left in the small pitcher they had left him; he drained it into his mouth, washed it around his teeth, swallowed. No piss pot; nowhere to ease himself. He chose a corner, dug a hollow in the foetid straw with his heel, loosened his breeches and squatted. It was either that or soil himself, and he was not the first to use this corner or any of this stinking cell. Not by any means.

  Done, he wandered to the window, forlornly peered out. The rain had stopped, the sky was a washed, pale blue with a few ragged wisps of mares’ tail cloud. He wondered how far the Sea Witch had gone. Where she had gone. If only he had been allowed to speak with Rue first! He would have advised him to head up the Florida coast, aim for Charleston. There were plenty of rich pickings along there, fat merchants with bulging bellies and holds to match. Surely Rue would know that? He had been a pirate as long as – longer – than Jesamiah. Isiah, too, knew his trade and Mr Janson and old Toby. On the other hand, that was Teach’s hunting ground and no one deliberately antagonised Blackbeard’s regular bouts of insanity.

  Jesamiah slammed his fist against one of the window bars, he must stop this self-indulgent wallowing in self pity! Rue would return with the Sea Witch and have
a handsome prize in tow. He would! He would!

  Closing his eyes he tried to imagine her sailing proud and beautiful into harbour, sails billowing and straining, her wake foaming behind. But all he saw was Tiola and the dream that had visited him.

  He snapped his eyes open, stared out at the blue sky and the white clouds.

  “Tiola?” he murmured, “Tiola sweetheart why can I not hear you? Where are you? Talk to me. Forgive me. Please?”

  He could not bear this bereft emptiness that echoed, hollow, inside him! Could not bear being without her.

  ~ I thought I would be able to tell you everything once I’d set sail. ~ He spoke the words in his mind, as he always had to Tiola. ~ I thought I would be able to explain. Please Tiola, listen to me, let me tell you that I have been an almighty idiot and how I have buggered everything up. ~

  Only the wind and the splash of the sea answered him. Gulls were crying and a man’s distant voice shouted an impatient command. Nothing else. He could not even feel her presence, that comforting nearness that he had grown so used to. She had been with him from a few months before his fifteenth birthday. He had not know it was her then, had not known it until he had taken her intimately as his own; claimed her as his woman. He had been a boy when first she had come to him; a boy bereft, in pain and drenched in humiliation. Her spirit, her soul, had come to him, laid a hand on his back. ~ Get up, fight back, ~ she had said.

  Resting his forehead on the mildewed and snail-slimed wall he closed his eyes again. He had no more energy to fight back. Not now, not without her. He saw again the lingering images of that dream. It had been so vivid. So real.