Beyond the Savage Sea

by JoAnn Wendt

  Anyhow, who would heed him? Not the motley assortment of humanity watching above the beach: hard-faced planters, ragged bondslaves, naked black African slaves, a few painted whores. One of the whores ate her lunch as she watched, placidly gnawing on a greasy rib as if executions were daily fare in Speightstown.

  His heart thundered louder than the incoming surf. He swung his head in panic and scanned the horizon. Out beyond the reef the Caribbean was rising, mounding like glittering silver cloth. This was the equator. The tide would not come in fast, but it would come in! Watermarks above his head on the boulder testified to it.

  He wrenched wildly at his irons. The skin on the inside of his wrists tore away. Blood and flakes of iron rust trickled down his wet, outstretched arms into his armpits. This couldn’t be happening—not to him. He wasn’t a pirate. He was a London wine merchant.

  When a thundering roller had engulfed him and retreated, when he could breathe, he screamed again, his voice raw, hoarse.

  “I am not a pirate!”

  Tears filled his eyes. Jagged panic stabbed at him. Was this how it would end for him—with no more dignity than a cat stuffed in a sack and thrown to the sea?

  Each seventh wave was a higher one. A glittering mound of water came rumbling in over the reef now, its color a clear translucent blue-green, full of sunlight and death. All around him the din increased, the panic rose. Sensing the turn of the tide, men clamored and shrieked.

  I’m going to die, he thought with astonishment. He wrenched at his irons like a maniac, skin tearing, blood running, flesh fiery and burning. Anne, beloved, he thought as the rumbling wave crashed over him. William...Katherine. Dear God, what will become of my children?

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  The noon sun blazed overhead, a white hot ball of light burning with Caribbean brilliance by the time Edwinna rode into Speightstown. She was warm, sweaty, and tense. Although the distance was short—only three miles from Crawford Plantation—she hadn’t come alone. It wasn’t safe. Runaway slaves lurked on the outskirts of every plantation, hoping to steal food—frightened, starving creatures who so feared recapture that they would kill to prevent it.

  Dismounting at her sugar storehouse, she gave her reins to her bondservant and hurried through Speightstown, a hamlet so small it consisted of a single dirt street. A sutler’s shop stood at one end, dilapidated and listing slightly from the pounding it had taken in the last hurricane. A sailor’s drinking house and brothel stood at the street’s opposite end, silent now, since everyone had gone to the cove to watch the executions. She began to run.

  She found all of Speightstown gathered at the cove, some watching silently and some with hard-hearted amusement.

  She pushed her way through the crowd and went directly to Magistrate Tarcher, who stood at the edge of the cove above the rocks and boulders, his sparse white hair feathering in the trade winds, his elderly face grim. He didn’t relish executions, either, but it was his duty to oversee them.

  “You’re late,” he scolded, turning abruptly as she approached. His sharp eyes appraised her. More gently, he said, “So, you’ve decided. It’s a wise decision, Edwinna.”

  “Yes. My uncle visited this morning.” She had to raise her voice to make herself heard over the surf’s rumble. “You were right. He means to take Crawford Plantation out of my hands. He means to loot Thomas and Harry’s inheritance. He and Clive.”

  He scowled, bushy white brows meeting in a V above outraged eyes. He’d been godfather to Thomas and Harry at the twins’ christening eighteen years earlier. The surf rushed in with a watery rumble. Drawn by the sound, Edwinna glanced into the cove and blanched. A dozen men struggled in the water, shackled to a dozen boulders. She swiftly looked away, feeling pale, light-headed.

  Simon Tarcher pointed into the cove. “I recommend that one, Edwinna. He claims not to be a pirate.”

  “They all claim that.”

  “Ay. But his claim had the ring of truth. He says he is a London wine merchant—a Mr. Drake Steel. He claims he was a prisoner aboard that pirate ship, not a pirate. I believed him. I was sorry to condemn him, but the other blackguards swore he was one of them. My hands were tied in the matter. Look.”

  Edwinna didn’t want to look, but she forced herself. She followed Simon Tarcher’s outstretched arm into the cove. She saw a lean, darkly tanned man whose glistening black hair clung wetly to broad shoulders. It was pitiful to see such a strong-bodied man struggle for his life, but there was something gallant in the way he did it. While the others spent themselves screaming for mercy or shouting vile curses at God, he did not waste his strength on such useless pursuits. He saved his strength to gulp lungfuls of air between waves and to wrench ferociously at his wrist irons. For a moment she found herself praying desperately that he would break free, swim out to sea, and somehow save himself.

  Out on the reef, a wave hovered like a low, watery mountain, then broke and came rumbling in. It crashed over him. His head disappeared. She pressed a fist against her mouth and held her breath until the wave washed away and his head popped out of the water, and he, too, could breathe again. Then she found herself breathing as raggedly as he.

  “This is obscene.”

  “He is a widower. Two children, so he says...”

  Children. It struck a chord in her.

  “I liked him, Edwinna. I believe you could trust him to do no harm to Crawford Plantation.”

  “Trust a pirate? You jest.”

  “Edwinna, yes or no?”

  Her chest pounded with the magnitude of the decision she was making. But she must do it or lose the plantation. Thomas, Harry. Children. He was a man who had children. She tore her eyes away from the barbaric sight.

  “Him, then, yes. Him or anyone. I don’t care. I only want to save my plantation. Mr. Tarcher, I cannot watch this another instant. I’ll wait in your house.” Desperate to leave, she swung around to push her way through the crowd, then turned back,

  “Hurry,” she said urgently. “Before he drowns!”

  * * * *

  Exhausted, at the end of his strength, Drake had counted himself a dead man when suddenly he heard a faint shout amid the rumbling surf and the unholy screams. Blinking sea water out of his eyes, he twisted in his irons and craned his neck to scan the low cliff above the cove. It was the magistrate who had condemned him! He’d clambered halfway down the rocky escarpment, flanked by two barefoot bond slaves.

  His heart thundered. “I am not a pirate,” he shouted hoarsely with the last of his strength.

  Securing his balance on the wet rocks, a bondslave supporting each elbow, the magistrate flourished an arm and shouted. The shout rose and fell, waxing and waning in the din of screams and surf and screeching gulls. Drake frantically tossed his head to clear his ears of seawater and strained to hear.

  “Mr. Steel...a woman...intercede with the governor...pay your fine...if you will agree...wed her...marry her...”

  Deafened by the clamor, he missed most of the words but grasped the gist of it. He had a chance to live. To live! Grabbing a great huge lungful of watery air, he roared, “Yes—anything. Yes—”

  A wave crashed over him. Unprepared, he caught a faceful of water. Coughing, choking, he thrust his head out of the wave and twisted to see the magistrate. Panic surged. Was this some perverse form of Caribbean sport? Dangle a man’s life before his eyes like a carrot, then snatch the carrot away?

  To his terrified relief, the magistrate signaled, and the two barefoot bondslaves clambered down the wet, slippery rocks, plunged into the foamy swirling water, and dog-paddled out on the wave’s ebb. But fear still hammered.

  “Hurry,” he demanded hoarsely when they reached him. The youths found their footing in the deepening water and attacked his wrist irons. The rusty clamps wouldn’t give. “Hurry!” Men shackled nearby saw what was happening and sent up a torrent of begging screams. Drake ignored them.

  A wave came rumbling in. The youths ducked under. Drake took
it full in the face. The force slammed him into the rough boulder. “Hurry,” he urged when he could breathe again. He slung wet, blinding hair out of his eyes with a toss of his head. The two combined their efforts and attacked one clamp. At last it creaked open. Drake tore his wrist free and attacked the remaining clamp himself. Fear gave him strength. It sprang open.

  A long, low breaker came rumbling in. Drake and the two youths plunged into it, and the wave, full of pieces of coral and gritty sand, swept them onto the rocky escarpment. Strong and surefooted, the youths grabbed hold of boulders, found their balance, and scampered up the rocky slope. Weak from his ordeal, Drake was tumbled over the rough boulders like a stick of driftwood. It took all of his strength just to claw a firm hold on a boulder and hang on as the receding wave tried to tug him back into the sea.

  When the wave washed away, he lay panting, breathing in the musty smell of seaweed. Overhead the sun burned like a torch. Then, he slowly pulled himself up the rocky slope. The screams of doomed men followed him. When he reached the top of the cliff he wanted to collapse on the hot, sun-warmed earth and weep with relief, but somehow he managed to stay upright. He staggered drunkenly to the magistrate, who watched him come with eagle-bright eyes. He was a stern little man with bushy white eyebrows and sparse white hair that ruffled in the trade winds like spiky feathers.

  “I am not a pirate,” he said, shaking with a sudden chill as the hot sun began to toast his cold body. “I am a wine merchant—Drake Steel. If you will kindly write the Steel Wine Shop, Thames Street, London—” He breathed hoarsely, exhausted. “My brother-in-law will vouch for me—”

  The magistrate totally ignored him.

  “Do you see that cottage at the end of the street?”

  Even in his exhausted and shaken state, he felt a flash of anger. In London, the Steel name, his name, got at least a small measure of respect. Even the damnable Cromwell government, which had stripped his father of house, money, and business, and had hounded the gentle old man to death, had paid the name token respect.

  Light-headed, panting, he dragged his gaze in the direction indicated. Speightstown was a miserable hole—a jumble of sugar storehouses and drinking houses. His eyes hurt. Under the merciless assault of the Caribbean sun, everything shimmered in white-hot light. Through a haze he focused on the distant cottage and nodded.

  “Go there. I will deal with you there, Mr. Steel. You will be wed to Mistress Crawford within the hour.”

  “I am not a pirate.”

  “Go!”

  With what was left of his strength, Drake shot him a savage look. Then, too shaky and light-headed to protest, he obeyed. He had no choice. But before he went, he lunged into the midst of the gawking spectators, who backed off and made way for him. He grabbed his silver timepiece from the derelict who’d won it in the lottery. The timepiece had been Anne’s bridegroom gift to him. He would kill to keep it. He grabbed his boots from another. Seeing the fury in his eyes, no one demurred.

  Slinging his boots over one shoulder, he staggered across the rough beach grass and into the sun-baked lane. He stopped only once to look back, to listen to the surf and the faint screams of the doomed men, then strode on. Lying, thieving, murdering bastards. Let them die.

  The street, less a lane than a pig path, lay hot underfoot and sent aching trails of warmth up the strained, chilled muscles of his calves and into his thighs. He shivered in the hot sun. He couldn’t think. His mind felt dazed, pickled in sea-water. It occurred to him, vaguely, that he had gone to pieces. He couldn’t pull himself together. A big, strong man like himself, and he could only pant and shake.

  Baking in the sun, the lane smelled of pigs and discarded fish heads. Pale yellow land crabs skittered silently in the shadows of the windowless sugar storehouses that were built flush to the lane.

  Midway to the magistrate’s cottage, the day’s ordeal overwhelmed him. He stopped in the lane and shot out a hand to steady himself against a storehouse wall. William, Katherine. Dear God, he’d almost made them orphans. He staggered on, panting, the roar in his lungs louder than the surf. His mind flew dazedly to thoughts of escape. But escape to where? How?

  Shaded by tall, leafy mahogany trees in which squawking pelicans roosted thick as crows, the magistrate’s yard was blessedly cool. The shade eased his sunburned eyes. Aware suddenly of a raging thirst, he went first to the coral water drip, a tall stone contraption. The water that dripped through the coral, purifying, gathering in the catch basin below, looked to be as pure and clean and cold as anything he could want. Taking the dipper, he squatted and slaked his thirst, drinking until his belly ached. Then he hove to his feet and found the backyard privy. When he came out he felt better, but so weary he wanted to sleep for a week.

  The back door of the limestone coral cottage stood open to the trade winds. Drake stepped inside. After the excruciating brightness of sun and sea, the cottage was dim as a tomb, soothing to his eyes. Stumbling against a footstool, he made his way to a bench along the wall, sank down, dropped his boots, let his head loll back, and wearily closed his eyes.

  Dear God, death had come so near. Until he’d been dragged down into the sea and clamped into wrist irons, he hadn’t realized how fleeting life could be, how precious. Now he knew. Oh, God, he knew. Trembling, eyes closed, he sat there savoring life’s everyday wonders: air pumping in and out of his lungs, his heart alive and beating, the island breezes feathering his wet clothing, the scent of a jasmine bush in the yard. Even the persistent buzzing of a fly somewhere in the cottage seemed suddenly so sweet a sound it brought tears to his eyes. How precious life was!

  When his chest stopped heaving, when the powerful emotions abated, he suddenly became aware that he was not alone in the room. He opened his eyes. A woman stood on the opposite side of the room beside a tall livery cabinet, her arms crossed and tightly clenched at her waist.

  He stood with a jolt and paid for it with a spasm of light-headedness. He shot a hand to the wall and steadied himself. His skinned wrists chose that exact moment to begin burning like the fires of hell. He couldn’t help himself—he winced. Her wary eyes watched, flashing for an instant with sympathy, then retaining their original wariness.

  “I am Drake Steel of the Steel Wine Shop, Thames Street, London. You would be my...benefactress?”

  Edwinna felt near to panic. I chose the wrong one! She thought. This one is too handsome. He hadn’t seemed so big and handsome when she’d stood at the cove and watched him struggling in the sea. He’d seemed pathetic and yet, somehow, valiant. A man with children, fighting to live. Her heart had gone out to him. But now?

  Now he frightened her. His shoulders were immense. He had midnight-black hair and olive skin that was tanned by sun and sea to the deep rich color of mahogany. His eyes were a fiery blue and so expressive she could almost see his thoughts reflected in them: his outrage, his indignation at the ordeal he’d been put through. He was a proud, handsome man. She tore her eyes away. Oh, she knew all about handsome men! Her father had been the handsomest man in Barbados—and a brutal drunkard.

  She gripped her elbows so hard her bones ached. What should she do? She couldn’t throw him back into the sea. It would be inhumane. She nodded brusquely.

  “I am Mistress Crawford, of Crawford Plantation.”

  Drake suffered a moment of acute anxiety. Had she changed her mind? He did not want to marry this woman or any woman. He was still in mourning for Anne. But God! He didn’t want to die.

  “I am not a pirate,” he said quickly. “I was a prisoner aboard that pirate ship, not a pirate.”

  “They all say that.”

  He stiffened. He felt his hackles rise, but he was in no position to indulge in the luxury of temper. He wanted to live, damn it. He had children to live for! If that meant he had to grovel, he would grovel.

  “Nevertheless, I am not a pirate. I will explain if I may.”

  “Do.”

  He flushed. She had a bold, strong-willed manner—he disliked that i
n a female. His eyes flickered over her. She was tall and slender with fine, wide shoulders and even features, but he would scarcely call her pretty. He blinked as his eyes came to her breeches. He’d never seen a woman wear breeches before. The curve of her hip and thigh were plainly outlined.

  “As I said, I am a London wine merchant. Seven months ago I set sail for Portugal. It was to be a wine-buying trip. A storm blew the ship off course. North African pirate ships swarmed out and captured us. They murdered the crew and divided the passengers among them to take as slaves to sell in the slave markets in Tangier. Three of us were impressed into seamen’s service on the Black Queen, the pirate ship that was captured last week.”

  He waited, anxious, his life in her hands.

  “What happened to the other two?” she asked bluntly.

  “Dead. One of fever off the coast of the Floridas, one of despair. He...hanged himself.” He did not add what was unfit for a woman’s ears to hear: that the despairing young man had been too slight of build, too timid to defend himself from homosexual advances. The bastards had taken him to their bunks and used him as a woman.

  “So you see, I am not a pirate.”

  She shrugged. She did not believe him. Though her mistrust angered him, he realized she had every right to believe him a pirate. He looked like one, he’d been condemned as one; when captured, he’d been found crewing a pirate ship. He tried diplomacy.

  “Nevertheless, I intend to prove I am who I say I am. In the meantime, I am deeply grateful to you for saving my life, but if there is any other way than marriage to save my skin...”

  “There isn’t. They will drown you or hang you.”

  “A petition to the governor...”

  “He will give you your choice—hanging or drowning.”

  “A petition to London.”

  “London cares little for what goes on in the Caribbean. It pays scant attention to planters’ petitions, so why would it pay any attention to a pirate’s petition?”