Little Jane Silver

by Adira Rotstein

  “But that’s rather unfair, isn’t it? What’s brave and noble about winning a duel by tricking someone?”

  “Nothing. But who said the art of the sword was about bravery and nobility? Certainly not I. It’s about not getting yourself killed. All the rest is just window dressing. As I understand it, all the fancy techniques in the world won’t help you if you’re sliced through the middle. But then again, I may just be old-fashioned.”

  “But what works with Ned, then?” asked Little Jane, suddenly desperate for a definitive answer. “How would you fight him?”

  Mendoza peered shrewdly at Little Jane, searching for the motive behind such a question, but the pirates’ daughter said nothing.

  “Ned is big,” Jezebel Mendoza said slowly. “Tall, broad in the shoulders — a man like that can intimidate a fellow just by standing still. Some people make the mistake of assuming all big men are slow, but it’s not true. Old Ned, for example, is quick as lightning and tough as they come.”

  “So he ain’t got a vulnerable spot? Nothing?” asked Little Jane in dismay.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. He’d work for anyone for a bit of coin — that’s one vulnerability. That, and he’s got no imagination.”

  “Imagination? That’s it? Isn’t there anything more to it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Jezebel dreamily. “A wise man once told me that imagination is the root of all kindness. Once we can truly imagine ourselves in the shoes of our brothers, only then can we do them no harm.”

  Little Jane gave Mendoza a sidelong glance. “But you’re a weaponsmaster. Doing people harm is your bleedin’ job!”

  “Well, so it is,” said Mendoza briskly, “which is why I carefully choose when and where to exercise my imagination.” With that she sprang to her feet, on alert once again. “Now let us finish our lesson.”

  They drilled with footwork first, no sword. Mendoza explained that some schools of fencing didn’t even let the student use a sword until six months into training as a way to focus solely on the importance of proper footwork. (Little Jane was very glad she didn’t belong to such a school.)

  After this they drilled with actual weapons, practising straight thrusts and basic lunges. Then they practised parries and cutovers. Back and forth and back and forth. Little Jane pushed on, though her strength was flagging. Eventually it was Mendoza who commanded her to stop with a brusque “Arrêt.”

  The weaponsmaster poured a dipper of water over her flushed face. “Let’s just rest for a bit,” Mendoza said, more breathlessly than she had anticipated. Little Jane had given her an unexpectedly thorough workout.

  Unaware she’d managed to impress the usually unflappable Mendoza, Little Jane sat down on a box of mouldy breadfruit and drank some of the water, wishing it was cool and refreshing instead of tasteless and warm.

  Idly, Little Jane noticed that the red rag wrapped around Melvin’s grip had come slightly undone during her practice. With a little picking she managed to detach the cloth from the wooden grip. The rag had been on the sword for so long that the grains of wood underneath had been stained a reddish colour. To Little Jane’s surprise, someone had carved something into the wood underneath. Letters … no, words, cut thick and deep into the surface read: MASTHEAD EAST LAMP VERGALOO IN NAKIKA.

  Jibberish? Or some odd foreign language? Vergaloo? Wasn’t that some spicy Indian dish? No, that couldn’t be right, could it? And what did the direction east have to do with anything?

  “Wake up, Little Jane!” snapped Mendoza.

  “Eh?”

  “What’re you looking at there?”

  Little Jane showed her the handle of the sword and the strange carved words.

  “Huh,” grunted the weaponsmaster, her brow furrowing.

  “What’s it mean?” asked Little Jane.

  “Most likely a name,” said Mendoza. “Maybe the workshop that first made the sword?”

  “Or the bloke it was stole from,” suggested Sharpeye Sharpova.

  It seemed a rather long and unlikely sort of name to Little Jane, but she had met some people with exceptionally odd names in her travels.

  “Maybe it’s a spell or a mantra,” Dvorjack, the powder monkey, said. “Secret words that give the user special power.”

  “Could be, could be,” said Mendoza.

  Changez, the cooper, busy constructing storage barrels, nodded seriously.

  The Nakika part, though, seemed familiar, if vaguely Hawaiian to Little Jane’s ears. For some reason she thought of the little purple octopus that didn’t really look like an octopus that was inexpertly tattooed on her father’s back, between his shoulder blades.

  She resolved to ask him about it the next time they had a moment together. In the meantime, she copied the strange message in all its glorious incomprehensibility down in her book.

  As she spent more time learning from Mendoza, Little Jane gained a new respect for the intense woman’s skill. Mendoza’s own modus operandi, Little Jane came to realize, was an almost touchingly iron-clad confidence in her own superiority.

  The very idea that someone could ever get the better of her simply never crossed her mind. Thus, whether she took high tea at the spas in Bath with the sons of nobles or dined on hard tack in the mess with a band of pirates, mattered not a jot to her. In her mildly delusion opinion she was always the best person in the room no matter who she kept company with. The only authority she ever bowed before was another person’s skill with the blade.

  Slowly it began to dawn on Little Jane that if such an attitude could benefit Mendoza, it might go far to solving her own personal dilemma.

  Little Jane flipped open her book to a fresh page and wrote, “If you believe you are something, other people will come to believe it, too. Believe you are a grown sailor of good standing and the rest of the crew will follow suit.”

  An easy enough thing to write, she mused the next day, as they sailed toward Habana harbour, but not always the simplest advice to put into practice.

  “Steady on course,” bellowed Captain Bright as Habana came into view.

  “Tighten up that topsail!” yelled Ned Ronk.

  Mustering all her courage, Little Jane marched up to the resistant topsail line and gave it a tug.

  Seeing Little Jane on the line, Ned frowned.

  Steeling her trembling soul within her, Little Jane gazed coolly back at the boatswain.

  He wouldn’t dare harm a hair on her head with her mother so close at hand. She narrowed her eyes at him. I belong here, she thought. I’m the daughter of the greatest pirates to sail the seas, mate. Child of the ocean herself and you ain’t nothing next to me.

  As if sensing her unspoken words, Ned Ronk turned to the closest seaman, flustered. “You there, Changez, we need an extra. Get on that line with the child!”

  Changez pulled the line back with a quick jerk of his muscular arms and tied it off in no time at all, but Little Jane didn’t care. She had made the fearsome Ned Ronk flinch. Not only that, but they would be in La Habana soon, where she’d be up to her eyeballs in fresh fruit, spicy food, music, parties, and more trinkets to waste money on than you could shake a stick at.

  She made a promise to herself then that she would tell her parents about Ned’s threats once they reached Habana. And as soon as that nasty business was taken care of she would do something about Melvin. Regardless of the so-called magic codes, spells, or octopus-related names that might be written on him, she was going to ditch that stupid Melvin and make her parents buy her a real sword! Once she had a proper weapon by her side, old Ned Ronk wouldn’t dare threaten her!

  At least, she thought with a gulp, she hoped not.

  Chapter 6

  A Night in Habana

  This was not Little Jane’s first time in Habana, nor would it be her last, but in retrospect, it was the one she would in later years recall the most.

  On a ship, days take on a kind of characteristic sameness, one melding seamlessly into another, but in Habana it was a di
fferent story entirely.

  The first day in San Cristóbal Harbour, half the crew was sent off to sample the pleasures of the city while the other half prepared to throw a spectacular party onboard the Pieces of Eight. Sailors would come from every ship, tavern, and rooming house around, bringing food and drink in enormous quantities.

  Anticipation filled the air onboard. Little Jane drank it in, feeling even less inclined to sit still than normal. This was just fine with her parents, as there were plenty of errands that needed doing before the big fiesta.

  As word spread through the narrow streets of San Cristóbal, the dancers and music-makers began to trickle in. The women wore colourful head wraps, cowry shells in their braided hair, and skirts trimmed with coins that jingled merrily as they traipsed up the gangplank. The men came next, bearing African-style jugs covered in small bells. There were drums aplenty, too, in every size and shape, as well as an assortment of odd instruments Little Jane could not identify, most of which she suspected the islanders had invented themselves, cobbled together from various bits and pieces found lying around.

  In the midst of the preparations — tasting, embracing, dancing, drinking, and singing with their crew and guests — were Long John and Bonnie Mary, dressed to the nines in clothes bright enough to put a parrot’s feathers to shame, the most convivial hosts to ever grace the isle of Hispaniola before or since.

  The party went on as the sun dipped down, its golden reflection skipping in the purple wavelets of the water below. For a moment the entire party paused to heave a collective sigh of appreciation at the melding of the colours of water and sky. The timbers of the Pieces of Eight glowed warm and yellow, gilded by the sunset, looking to Little Jane’s eyes like the whole ship really was a giant pieces of eight coin of Spain.

  Then the sound of Bonnie Mary’s fiddle came climbing up through the dusk to fill the silence. She drew the bow lazily across the strings like a caress, letting a single note hover in the humid air.

  The drummers took up a slow beat, and then, without any warning, Bonnie Mary launched into a frenzy of playing. As the bow see-sawed with maddening speed across the strings, a woman in a bright patchwork skirt took Little Jane by the hand and twirled her out into the centre of the drum circle. She flew from hand to hand among the jingling women and their companions, stomping her feet and clapping her hands. Then she let Sharpeye Sharpova take her by the wrists and spin her around, lifting her feet clear off the ground, and when they knocked over a tall drum along with its drummer, the man only laughed as he righted his instrument because he hadn’t spilled a single drop of his rum.

  Hours later, tired out from the festivities, Little Jane lay her head on a grain sack by the railing, letting the smoky scent of the barbeque mingled with the steady rhythm of the surf against the ship’s hull carry her away on a slumberous wave.

  She was dozing lightly when an unusual sound dragged her from her sleep. Thwork-thwok, thwork-thwok. Like the sound of knotted rope striking wood.

  Scriiiiiiich-scraaaaaaape. Now it sounded like someone was scraping down the hull of the ship for barnacles somewhere close by … Right below her, in fact.

  “Ooof!” someone cried.

  She sat up. Now that sound was definitely suspicious. Little Jane craned her neck over the railing.

  Not ten feet away, a length of knotted rope hung from the ship’s railing. At the end of the rope she saw a shadowy figure rappelling down the ship’s hull, just as one would rappel down the sheer side of a cliff.

  As Little Jane watched in sleepy fascination, the figure reached the end of the rope and with a soft splash landed in the water. The mysterious figure dog-paddled, struggling through the murky water in the harbour to the pier.

  Little Jane, overcome with curiosity, knew she had to follow.

  With a quick tug of the rope to make certain it would stay, she grabbed hold and began to descend. By the time she splashed down, the stranger was already making his way up a ladder by the pier.

  Little Jane swam with ease. Thanks to her father’s insistence on teaching her how to swim, Little Jane had the advantage when it came to water reconnaissance. It was only the wooden ladder at the pier that gave her any trouble, as it had been smoothed to extreme slipperiness by seaweed and wet moss, the result of being underwater with the tides.

  By the time she made it up the ladder to the dock, the man had disappeared. She was about to turn back when, up ahead, barely visible in the lamplight, she saw the large silhouette again. Little Jane followed, with half an eye to the pavement lest she be betrayed by a stray cobblestone.

  She watched as the man ducked into a doorway and changed his soggy breeches. Dripping and shivering in the evening air, Little Jane followed at a safe distance. Though the streetlights were few, and the evening dark, the man was not hard to follow. She simply listened for the sound of his wet feet slapping the stone ground.

  Little Jane followed him to an ancient sailors’ pub not far from the pier. A wooden sign above the door in the crude shape of a shark, its features long worn away by the elements, creaked upon rusty metal hinges in the breeze.

  The doorway beneath was ringed by a massive pair of shark’s jaws, glowing ghostly white in the moonlight. Little Jane hugged herself nervously as she watched the stranger step through the skeletal mouth and descend into the dim light of the subterranean pub.

  Beside the entrance was a small window, fashioned out of an old ship’s porthole. Peering in through the grimy glass above the patrons’ heads, Little Jane got a good view of the stranger for the first time.

  Except it wasn’t a stranger. It was Ned Ronk!

  Little Jane sprung up with a start, nearly striking her face against the glass, and fled. The stone street stung the soles of her feet, but she didn’t notice. All that mattered was to put as much distance between her and that horrid clasp-knife as quickly as possible.

  By the time she returned to the Pieces — this time by the regular method of walking up the gangplank — Little Jane was in no mood for dancing.

  Chapter 7

  Doc Lewiston

  Back in the dingy environs of Sharky’s Pub and Alehouse, a plump, bespectacled man in a dishevelled powdered wig fidgeted in his seat as he regarded the hulking figure of the boatswain.

  “You must be Ned Ronk,” he said nervously, in a thick Scottish burr. “My name is Lewiston, Doc Lewiston, ship’s surgeon onboard the Panacea.”

  Ned Ronk looked the surgeon over, disregarding his fidgetiness, assuming it had to do with the tightness of his breeches.

  Though his breeches were unusually tight, it is true, the real cause of the surgeon’s discomfort was the order from his captain to participate in an act of sabotage against a group of perfect strangers who’d never done him any harm. No matter that the victims would be pirates, the principle of the thing still sat uneasily with him.

  Doc Lewiston truly wished to like the man before him, but something about Ned Ronk just rubbed him the wrong way. His surgeon’s intuition, which had saved so many a man’s life at sea, was awake within him now. He knew this was not the right sort of person for the captain to be dealing with. Not the right sort at all. But the captain would stubbornly insist on this man, and Lewiston could scarce deny him now, now that the end was so near.

  Lewiston knew he cared for the captain more than he strictly ought to, yet it galled him sorely that all his efforts to cure the poor man had so far been stymied by the captain’s condition. If only he could affect some positive change in the captain’s health. Was that too much to expect?

  He had begun well enough, he supposed. A young surgeon, bursting onto the scene in the first heady days of the Napoleonic Wars, filled with the desire to distinguish himself in the grand theatre of war. Lewiston had proved himself a capable battle surgeon to sailors who alternately cursed and revered his name. In the thick of the fight he worked feverishly, moving from one bed to the next, barely sleeping, labouring in the dim light of holds while cannons boomed overhead, deaf to
the cries of the wounded. Such distractions did not slacken his pace, as he rose energetically to all challenges, untouched by the conflict around him. He returned from war to find himself the toast of the Admiralty, applauded by his peers, and decorated by a grateful British Empire.

  But now that the battle was over and he was left to think, the real war began within him. Now every broken veteran he saw ragged and begging on the street set him to wondering if he had worked on the man. Images of surgeries he’d performed would flash through his mind unbidden. He longed to talk to such men, if only for some reassurance that he had really helped them — instead of just buying them a few more years of suffering and sorrow. Only now that it was all over, did the terrible sacrifices demanded so casually of the men seem so unfair, the empire they served both greedy and ungrateful.

  Yet, parts of it had been exciting. Rail at it as he might, the danger had brought a keenness to his senses. There was a pleasure in the freedom of living moment to moment that made the ordinary life of a country surgeon seem dreadfully dull in comparison. He found he no longer cared for his wealthy patients and their repetitive complaints. That was part of the reason he went back to serving on ships. The other was that after so long, it was really the only thing he felt competent at. So he went on serving on different vessels, none for too long, until he met the captain.

  They had a perfectly symbiotic relationship, the captain and he. The captain was a man driven by the passion of a singular purpose, and as long as Doc Lewiston was with him, he had a passion and a purpose, too, even if it was a borrowed one.