It goes without saying that Mike didn’t even notice my presence.
I was waiting for his reaction, I wanted to see to what extent he would go. In that moment, he had the decency to lower his head and admit: «I’m not sure I’m the right person for this task, let Jonas do it».
Jonas was the longest-serving valet, the one from whom Mike had stolen the position. On that occasion, he briefly lost his impassibility and he allowed himself a smile.
Then the bosun sentenced. «That would not be possible, Lady Stuart specifically asked for you».
Mike was finished. I realized it instantly and so did everyone else. I also realized the reason why Lady Stuart was on that ship.
Mike figured that out too. I saw him turn pale, I saw the dread in his eyes. In that moment, he looked at me. When everybody else lowered their heads to avoid his gaze, I was the only one left. He begged, he begged me to save him.
But there was no salvation for Mike, he had gone too far this time. He had no friends left on that ship, everyone despised him. I, too, hadn’t spoken to him in a long time.
There was a time when it wasn’t like that, when Mike was happy, full of life and loved by everybody. He was my idol, I wanted to be just like him. I admired him.
He was only a cabin boy, just like me, but for five years yet. He was very young when he boarded that ship, only eleven years old, and he immediately became everyone’s favourite. He wasn’t very clever, but he knew how to endear himself, and his honest smile and high spirits were contagious.
I was fourteen, two years younger than him, when I first stepped on a ship. It wasn’t my choice, but my father’s. He said I was a troublemaker, that I needed to fix my attitude, but it wasn’t the truth. I wasn’t that different from other boys my age, I didn’t make much trouble and I was there for him if needed. He did it only for the money, for the pay they promised him. In a sense, he sold me. Yes, that’s what he did.
Without Mike, I wouldn’t have made it. Too many rules, too many orders. I was at the bottom of the hierarchy and I was required to obey at all times. I had no time to breathe, the work was killing me, I would end up making mistakes and dealing with the consequences. I had been flogged more than once.
Mike changed everything, he saved me. He was good, he knew how to elude orders, how to appease anyone. With time, he was able to draw the attention away from me and I become the average cabin boy. Perhaps I didn’t realize it at that time, but Mike had saved my life. I wouldn’t have lasted much longer, if it wasn’t for him. Mike changed everything, he saved me.
We became friends and stayed friends for almost six months. We were more than friends, we were blood brothers. Despite the hardship and the backbreaking work, that was the best time of my life.
Until Lord Stuart arrived on board.
It was a long journey, almost six months long, we were supposed to take him to check on some holdings of his, which were scattered around the globe.
Before he could even set foot on board, I had already heard lots of rumours about him. I wasn’t stupid and I enjoyed being informed. The others would have called me a snooper. I heard that he had peculiar tastes, that he was a pervert and liked boys. I made sure to be assigned to tasks that, albeit unpleasant, would keep me far away from his eyes. I would have rather be buried in the hold, surrounded by smelly fish. I warned Mike to do so, too.
He didn’t listen to me. The day Lord Stuart arrived, he was on the deck. He was stretching the sails, bare-chested, showing his muscles. Even as I was hiding, I could swear I saw Lord Stuart’s eyes glisten as he looked at him.
Lord Stuart was in his fifty, a perfect uptight aristocrat, at least on the surface. With his powdered wigs and handkerchiefs, he was wearing more laces than a woman. Even the Captain was embarrassed in his presence.
That evening Mike was summoned to Lord Stuart’s cabin to help him and he spent the whole night there. The day after, it was announced that Mike had been promoted to steward, and assigned as a valet to the ship owner.
Mike came one last time to the cabin we shared, as he had to gather his things.
I had seen it happen already, between the older sailors, but the act disgusted me. The Captain despised such practices, he wouldn’t have it happen on his ship. Whoever was caught carrying out acts of sodomy was destined to be abandoned on a boat, in the open sea, with a wineskin of water and enough food to last a few days.
However, Lord Stuart was Lord Stuart. He was the owner of the ship, of the entire fleet, so he could do whatever he pleased.
I didn’t care about that. To me, Mike was Mike, my idol. He couldn’t be selling himself like that. Doing such things, too! I still believed he had been forced, compelled, that it couldn’t have been his choice, that he would have never smeared himself only to wear a wig.
However, I quickly realized that it wasn’t like that, I could see it in his eyes. It hadn’t been a coincidence, nor a case. He was on that deck to show off, with the hope that what happened would happen. All I needed to realize it was to look at him, and that was the end of our friendship.
Perhaps that relationship would have still ended, perhaps he would’ve lost his interest in me once he got promoted and became my senior. Still, I was the first to reject him, by diverting my eyes. We didn’t speak that day, and we never spoke again.
I wasn’t the only one to act like that. Mike lost all his friends, for one reason or another. He had only Lord Stuart, and he spent all the time in his company.
Not at first, since I was too angry, but later on, I wondered about the reason behind Mike’s choice. There was no way out for us poor illiterates, we would always be cabin boys. That was probably the only chance he would ever have in his entire life. Still, understanding him was not the same as forgiving him. Mike did something horrible, he was still doing it, and it filled me with disgust. I would have never forgiven him. He was dead to me.
Six months passed and we went back to England. Mike hoped until the very end, but his hopes didn’t become a reality. Lord Stuart stepped off the ship alone. Mike had only been his plaything, and he was no longer needed. Now he was inconvenient, useless.
Mike kept his rank, he was still a steward, but his career was halted, his chance was gone and would never come back. He was left alone, with no friends, respected by no one. They were afraid of him, for now he could boss them around, but they had no regard for him.
Yes, at that time, he was doomed. There was only one possible reason why Lady Stuart had specifically asked for him: the noblewoman knew what happened between him and her husband on the ship. If Mike was the reason for her presence there, there was no doubt about what feeling dominated the lady: her thirst for revenge.
If she couldn’t carry it out on Lord Stuart, it was bound to fall upon poor Mike. Women knew how to be devious, I had been told. There were a hundred ways to destroy him with impunity. For instance, she could charge him of thievery and have him hanged. Or she could accuse him of having assaulted her virtue. Or even worse, harass him slowly to make his life miserable. Mike would have paid for his mistake with his own blood.
In that moment, I missed our former friendship, I missed not being able to help him no matter what trouble he got himself into. I felt bad for him, I was sorry, but what could I do? I was only a cabin boy.
When even I turned away, Mike felt lost.
His voice was trembling as he pronounced the words that he was sure would be his final’s. «I’ll do as Her Ladyship commands. I will immediately go on duty».
He strutted away, like a man condemned to death, without ever looking back. That day I bid him farewell, certain that I’d never see him again.
Lady Stuart didn’t kill him.
The days went by and Mike was still alive. Though he never let his guard down. A noise a bit louder than normal was enough to make him scream. Eventually he became the ghost of the boy I used to know.
I wasn’t surprised by that, after all.
Lady Stuart was the most perfect creatur
e in the universe, so I was certain that she was meant to also be just and merciful. Her beauty bewitched everyone on the ship and no one could understand how Mike got off that easy.
He was looking for any excuse to stay away from her, just like I was looking for any opportunity to be near her.
But she never, ever saw me.
I was only the cabin boy who washed the deck on which she walked, who polished her doorknobs, who brought the water she needed. Her gaze never rested on me, to her eyes I was invisible.
Lady Stuart looked at the sea. She spent hours peering at the horizon, as if she was waiting for something that was coming late.
During those times, I volunteered to be on the lookout, I climbed up to the top of the mainmast, and spent hours looking at her, totally oblivious to my duty. I watched over her, only her, as she stood still on the forecastle, watching the sea.
No one ever bothered her. She looked like a ghost, cloaked in her solitude. In those moments, I wondered about the real reason behind her presence on that ship, and why a noblewoman like her would be relegated to such a masculine task. I no longer believed that she was driven by revenge. She wasn’t there for Mike. Or was she?
A hundred times I found myself on the verge of speaking. Not to Lady Stuart, I would have never dared. To Mike. He was alone too. It seemed like he was spending his life in hiding, not only from her, from everyone. A hundred times I was on the verge of breaking the silence that divided us, but I could never summon enough courage to do it. He abandoned me, he abandoned every one of us, and there was no coming back from that.
Nonetheless, he knew her more than any of us, he could’ve uncovered the secret that surrounded her. Was he afraid of her? Was he terrified of that woman? What did she say to him, what did she do to him? Why was he still alive?
There was something else that divided me and Mike, something that I couldn’t forgive him. He was her valet, he helped her get dressed and undressed, he was near her, perhaps he touched her, too. I couldn’t care less that she hated him, I was jealous. I was extremely jealous of him.
I couldn’t forgive him for this.
We were a month into our journey when, halfway to the new continent, tragedy struck.
It was partially my fault, because my eyes were too busy watching Lady Stuart to notice what was coming toward us.
She was the one to raise the alarm, because she saw them before I could. Ever since then, I asked myself a million times: would things have been different, if only I had paid more attention? Perhaps we still wouldn’t have escaped them, their ship was too fast and manoeuvrable, but at least we would have had some hope.
When Lady Stuart started shouting and I heard her voice for the first time, I froze and raised my gaze. The ship was there, on the horizon. I had been so stupid not to notice it. It would have probably been noticeable for about an hour, from my lookout post.
Lady Stuart recognized them immediately, even though it was impossible to tell what flag the ship was flying.
«Pirates! Pirates!», she yelled.
Even then, there was no fear in her words, she was just notifying something very important.
As I was climbing down the mast as fast as possible, my heart up my throat, I was already fearing my punishment. I still didn’t realize that what was happening would’ve meant the death of all of us.
Our ship was a merchant vessel, it wasn’t equipped to fight. More importantly, none of us knew how to fight.
The crew didn’t even notice me and that made me understand how much they were terrified, all of them. Strong, sturdy man, who were always shouting their orders, now scurried around screaming in fear. Through all that chaos, I saw Lady Stuart going back to her cabin. She wasn’t crying, nor wailing, and she wasn’t even shaking. Her gaze was the same as always, as if not even such a severe matter could graze her existence.
I found myself with a gun in my hand and I was told. «Fire as soon as they get close enough!».
I can’t even recall who gave me that gun. Except I didn’t know how to use it, I had no idea how to load and fire a bullet. Everyone was preparing for the fight, even the cook came running out of the hold wielding a cleaver. At the risk of looking like a coward, which after all I was, I let the gun fall to the floor and backed off, trying to keep me as far as possible from the sides of the ship.
It didn’t happen fast. The pirate ship took more than four hours to come beside us. Cannonballs were shot, but most of them missed. We never hit them, while some of their shots penetrated the aftercastle, killing some men.
When the pirate ship got to us, I found shelter inside the forecastle, where Lady Stuart’s cabin was located. I can’t tell why I went there. Did I want to protect her? Was I ready to give my life for her? I knew that deck so well. I had washed it so many times in those months, it was shiny. But no, I was no hero, I was trembling. I would have never mustered up the courage to open her door. I stayed there, kneeling on the floor, hiding behind the railing, watching our downfall.
When the pirates came close enough, their firepower destroyed us. Our galleon, despite having the looks of a war ship, had always been used as a merchant ship, so there was nothing that could stop them from finishing us. A few cannonballs destroyed our battalion. The mainmast was severed and fell, killing some of the crew. By that time, we had already lost. When the pirates boarded our ship, the carnage began.
Their goal wasn’t to sink the ship. Before that, they wanted to loot our goods. We were much more numerous than the pirates, we had at least two times the men, but we were still hopeless. None of us was trained in fighting and our ship’s power had already been decimated by the enemy’s artillery. It would be a massacre, I knew that, we would all be dead.
«Don’t stand there, come inside».
I froze. The voice was coming from behind me. A hand touched my arm. I raised my eyes to see who was above me.
Lady Stuart was more beautiful than ever in her white dress. She looked like an angel. And she was talking to me.
«Hurry, we don’t have much time».
I tried to reason with her, to be a true man, just this once. «You can’t stay here, milady, it’s too dangerous!».
She pulled me by my arm, I lost my balance and fell to the ground. «Just move! Stop wasting time!».
She began dragging me, without even giving me the time to get back up. I tried to pull myself together and get back on my feet, overrun by all kinds of conflicting feelings. Shame, pride, fear, self-consciousness, love.
«What… what…», I could only say, before she dragged me inside her cabin.
She wasn’t gentle at all. She shoved me so hard I found myself on the ground once again.
She hurriedly closed the door behind which the fight was raging on, then she bluntly ordered. «Undress!».
I was flabbergasted, lying on the ground.
She started screaming, and I recoiled. «Take off those clothes, now! Undress completely!».
I would have never dared to do that, there, in front of her. I would rather have died.
Lady Stuart grabbed some clothes from a wardrobe and tossed them to my feet. I recognized them with strange shock. They were the livery and the wig of the first steward. At that moment, I remembered Mike and looked around. He wasn’t there, though, and I had no idea where he could be.
«Where is Mike?», I asked her.
«Wear them. And hurry».
«Why?».
It was crazy to ignore her order, even more so in those circumstances, but I was too shocked to think straight.
«Do you wish to save your life? Wear those clothes immediately!».
I picked them up. I felt unsure, embarrassed, afraid, and I hadn’t it in me to undress. «Why me?».
Why would her save me of all people? And how could she do it? I wasn’t a fool, I knew quite well that her life wasn’t in danger. She was Lady Stuart, the ransom for her freedom would have been great. No pirate would have dared to touch a hair on her head. But me?
&nbs
p; There was no hope for me. Not as a cabin boy, not as a page, and even less so as a valet. I was the most futile and expandable being in the universe. That woman had no idea what she was doing.
«Will you hurry? We don’t have much time!».
I turned around so I couldn’t see her. As if that could stop her from looking at me. Then I started to undress, my face burning. «What should I do?».
«Everything I ask of you, without questioning me».
«Yes, Lady Stuart».
«Wash up, before you dress. There’s a bowl on that cabinet. Use the soap, they mustn’t understand who you are».
Bare chested, I did as I was told. «Where is Mike? What happened to him?».
This time she dignified me with an answer. «I have no idea».
«I don’t know how to do this», I whispered. «I don’t know what his duties are».
«Your only duty is to obey me, and you’ll see, we will both get by».
I shook my head. «They’ll kill me all the same».
«We’ll make them think you’re indispensable».
I turned around to look at her, forgetful about my nudity. Lady Stuart was smiling. It was absurd, amidst that battle.
«This is impossible», I whispered.
«Nothing is impossible for me».
Why me? I couldn’t understand, and I knew she wouldn’t have answered that question.
«Stop wasting time».
Mike’s clothes were too big for me, and on the contrary, his wig was too tight and it itched. I felt like a fool wearing those clothes. Yet Mike had given up everything to wear them.
Lady Stuart came up to me and personally fixed my clothes. She also cleaned my face with a handkerchief in some spots I had missed. «You’re short. How old are you?».
My voice was shaking. «Sixteen. Sixteen and a half».
«You’re still short. You look younger».
Was it good or bad? I couldn’t understand it.
«What will happen to Mike?», I muttered.
I felt guilty, like I had stolen his place. He should have been there, having a shot at surviving. Even if I was still convinced I was doomed.
Lizzi Bizzi and the Red Witch Page 56
