Edward came ashore at the customs house quay. It was crowded with goods, in particular the beef, butter, and other ship provisions with which Ireland competed with England. When he finally did have his privateering commission and ship, he would probably provision here, as it was much cheaper.
Half the barrels, crates, and sacks were stacked in orderly rows, and the rest lay on sledges, each drawn by a garron, the small native horse. Still, in spite of the impressive merchant chaos and cacophony on the quays, Kinsale, or Cionn tSáile in Irish, did not seem as prosperous as he thought it should be. Cork overshadowed it economically, and English laws prohibiting the export of beef to England and the colonies, other than as provisions, hurt it as well.
Long gone were the days when there were two Kinsales, one Irish, one English; it was solely an English town now. The native Irish lived in Scilly nearby, or in cabins on the edge of town just beyond the market. The Corporation prohibited Irish papists from doing business or living within the town walls, and required its approval of papist servants.
He tugged absentmindedly at his waist where his secret correspondence lay secured beneath sword-belt and waistcoat, leading thoughts of Jacobites to enter his head, for here in 1690 James II had fled Ireland after his defeat at the Boyne. The Duke of Marlborough captured both Kinsale and Cork soon after, and Kinsale, given its fortifications, became a navy yard. Open warfare in Ireland was now effectively at an end, and this thankfully had also ended the extensive pillaging and rapine that both sides had engaged in, leaving deep scars. Now only a petty guerrilla war remained, much subdued, and much of it indistinguishable from common highway robbery.
Edward hired a small boy to carry his boots and pistols, asked him for directions to a barber, then took a different direction, south first, then west. He admired the handsome houses on the hillside, and yielded to the temptation to climb to the summit of Compass Hill to view the harbor and river. With the boy following and cursing under his breath, Edward headed north through Fryar’s Gate, his stride rolling a bit larboard and starboard as he did, his body convinced that he was still at sea and not ashore. He strode to the summit of the Hill and back again, past almshouses to a walled-up gate he last remembered being open, then back toward the quays. He idly noted a ducking stool for petty malefactors, those who sold goods on the Sabbath, for example, or were otherwise caught in socially inappropriate behavior during the Sabbath rounds, or those who blasphemed. Even so, he heard many of Kinsale’s residents cursing with apparent impunity. Acting like damned pious hypocrite Puritans! he thought cynically.
He continued toward the market square, near Water Gate where tax collectors levied a portion of goods brought into town to sell, and paused before a blue and white striped wooden pole.
Ashore he usually saw a barber every second day, at least when he could afford it, but at sea he seldom shaved more often than twice weekly, and he had not shaved in five days. He rubbed his beard and stepped into the shop.
“Rapparees? Yes sir, they’re still around,” the barber said, as he scraped away whiskers, “but they’re not the problem they used to be. Bantry’s still a nest of Jacobites, though, plotting in high places and thieving on the roads; you should be careful if you head that way. You’ll be safe enough around here. What else can I tell you?”
“I saw a local boat stand toward the French privateer yesterday.”
“Aye, some of the buggering Irish still spy for French privateers but swear they don’t. And there’s bigger spies too, sir. Some say there’s one right here in Kinsale, someone high up, helping prepare for another French invasion. I’m not sure I believe it, though. They caught a spy here not too long ago, a papist priest, sent him to London they did; I hope they put him to the rack before they hang him.”
“In my experience, dead spies usually get replaced,” Edward said as the barber wiped his razor.
“You know something about spies, too, Captain? I thought you were only a buccaneer.”
Edward smiled. “Just making conversation.”
“Well, sir, some do say there’s a new spy, others say that one will soon arrive from Dublin, London, or St. Germain.”
“If everyone knows there’s a spy, he wouldn’t last long, don’t you think?”
The barber paused, deep in thought, then shrugged. “Maybe it’s just gossip then. Still, everyone around here knows everyone’s business, and the damned Irish still hope Prince James will save them. Speaking of privateers as we just did, what luck that those convoy frigates were here when you braved that privateer yesterday, Captain! And greater luck that you, a famous buccaneer, were aboard to command the guns of the Peregrinator!”
Edward scowled uncomfortably at the flattery but said nothing, figuring it was at least half sincere.
“But there’s not much else going on around here,” the barber continued. “Just the usual, you know, more new royal Acts for Ireland and that sort of thing. A damned increase in customs duties, an Act for better observing the Lord’s Day, an Act for better suppressing Tories and rapparees—but like I said, you’ll be safe on the roads around here.”
Edward nodded politely as the barber droned on with more of the useful and useless. His face shaved and his hair and periwig combed out, he next had the barber scrape his teeth, first asking if the barber knew how to do it well, and what he charged for it. When he finally stepped into the street again, he felt a new man, a clean face above clean linen, teeth well-cleaned, his hair and campaign wig well-combed.
A suitable counterpoint to martial poverty, at least when meeting a woman, he thought, then suddenly recalled Maria, the maid.
He smiled and put himself mentally on guard. He must behave and remember his own philosophy: never engage too closely with Fortune’s minions. This O’Meary woman was a lady whose reputation reached wide, and deservedly, if the waterman were to be believed, making her far more dangerous than mere maid or man. The last thing he wanted at this time was to be taken as a fortune hunter, or worse, to be taken in as a potential husband, at least until his fortune was made. And he did not intend that a woman make it for him, fully believing that if she did, her mistress Fortune would take it back soon after.
He quickly discovered the stable between a small inn and a busy smithy, and found himself surrounded by the clear, painful peal of hammer on iron on anvil, by the sweet odors of fresh roast mutton, beef, and baking bread, and by the deliciously acrid odor of a charcoal-stoked forge. Betwixt all these odors and sounds were those unmistakably equine: horse sweat on worn leather, sweet earth and straw, dusty oats and sedge, pungent stalls and manure piles, and the nickering, stamping, kicking, blowing, whinnying, and squealing of bored, restless horses.
The hostler pointed Edward to a mare left there earlier by Sir William’s servants. The Scotsman pulled his boots on and saddled the horse quickly, in spite of her habit of taking halter rope and reins into her mouth, and nipping at him when she was not busy with rope and rein, and mounted.
“She’s still young; she doesn’t like too much leg or hand; she’s soft-sided, and she can be hot-blooded” the hostler warned with a direct look at Edward’s spurs.
“Not to worry,” Edward replied, “I won’t use them,” knowing that if he did, this high-tempered horse might very well buck him into the mud, serving his vanity a rude check. “My thanks to you, sir.” He turned the mare toward the road, pulling a coin out of his pocket as he did.
“I don’t want that, sir. Sir William pays me well to care for his horses when they come this way.”
Edward doubted the man was paid as well as he claimed, Sir William’s generosity notwithstanding. Wages here were half what they were in England, but Edward wouldn’t argue with honest pride.
“Good morning to you, then,” he said and squeezed the horse into a trot.
“Don’t ride her like an Englishman—use her with care!” the hostler yelled.
Edward waved his hand in acknowledgment and, as an afterthought, shouted, “I was born a Scot!”
But maybe people really are watching, he reasoned: the past day’s adventure was the talk of the town. Both the waterman and the barber had known immediately who he was.
Edward reined in his mount when he espied a woman sitting sidesaddle on a bay gelding near the Green Dragon coffeehouse. She wore a riding habit of fine green camlet that, except for the petticoats, might have been a man’s. Two enormous wolfhounds sat nearby, panting and awaiting command.
The woman moved her horse slowly forward, her dogs following. Their horses came head-to-head and greeted each other by rubbing noses and nipping muzzles.
“Captain MacNaughton, I know you by your mount. I am Molly O’Meary, Sir William’s papist Teague-lander niece, as the local English call me, here to lead you to my uncle’s, and you are to give me protection on the way. My uncle said I would find you well-prepared to do so, and I see that you are,” she said, glancing at the pistols at his pommel and the sword at his side.
Her easy smile and introduction did not quite eclipse a reserved manner. He doubted it derived from aloofness, for she seemed neither shy nor arrogant. He considered for a moment that he might simply intimidate her, given that he was a stranger with an arguably infamous past, but he cast this idea aside and settled for the moment on the possibility that she might regard him as a threat, although it was far too soon to come to any conclusion.
“Good morning, Mistress O’Meary,” he said, touching his hat and bowing slightly from the saddle, trying to make his manner as unintimidating as possible. She nodded in return but said nothing, as if taking the time to examine him more closely.
He likewise took the moment. She was above average height, but he realized it was the commanding carriage of her head that made her appear even taller in the saddle. He considered her face beautiful in no single feature, yet attractive in the sum of its parts. He suspected that a man lacking sophistication might call her plain. Her sunburn and freckles proved that she was often outdoors, and that she rode without a mask, unlike many gentlewomen. Certainly she had no mask in her hand, nor was there one at the pommel. Her hair was more brown than red, subtly streaked with bronze and blonde. Her eyes were grey-green, as if in imitation of coastal Irish hills on a misty morning, and her mouth was firm, with hints of small wrinkles on the upper lip, suggesting she scowled at least as often as she smiled.
Or maybe she just smokes a pipe when no one’s around, he thought humorously.
Something about the combination of eye and mouth made him suspect even more that she was hiding something: he tentatively concluded that her mouth hinted at aggression, her eye at fearful outrage.
She in turn saw a man lean and spare, yet sinewy and vigorous as a hungry wild cat, and more than two yards tall. He was well-dressed, with an obvious taste for fine clothes, reasonably elegant yet simple, not overdone, with a martial aspect: he was no fop or dandy. His hair she assumed was brown like his wig, and his eyes showed variously as brown to green, as if his character could not quite be pinned down. His mien was stern, and his sharp, hawk-like face, though not as bronzed as a seaman’s, was unfashionably dark, swarthy even, like olivewood or mahogany, with prominent Celtic cheekbones and a partly hidden scar on the forehead.
Doubtless he belonged to that odd, dangerous minority race of dark Scotsmen and Irishmen whom some said were anciently descended from selkies. In his face she saw all the savage arrogance of Highlanders who bowed to no man, except occasionally a Stuart king, and all the dour stubbornness of the old thieving Border Reivers who, until James I had them crushed, would have no way but their own, not to mention all of the horses and cattle of their English neighbors. Yet, when he smiled he appeared a different man: gentle, calm, and friendly.
“Shall we go?” she asked. “Sir William is expecting a parson as well, and I’ve no mind to travel with him.”
“Parson Waters? I had no idea Ballydereen is his intended post. He and I had little intercourse, but I think it’s fair to say he won’t like you, being both papist and woman as you are.”
She turned her horse toward the nearby gate, but made no reply. Edward followed at her side, observing both her and the locals, some afoot, some mounted, others on sledges loaded with goods or in two-wheeled carts, all observing the pair of them. As they rode through the town, Molly noted that he put off his hat to lady and serving girl, English and Irish alike, suggesting a gentleman either of commanding regard for all women or one lusting after all of them—or even both. Beyond Fryar’s Gate they headed northwest on the muddy road.
“You’re not much for talking,” Molly said after a minute of silence.
“Nor are you, I think. In my defense I’m slightly adrift today, but it’ll pass.”
“Too much punch last night?”
“In my case, sack, both sweet and dry, although there was plenty of punch to go around. I have a weakness for Spanish wines and brandy.” She made no comment, so he felt compelled to keep talking. “The captain of the Shoreham invited a few of us to celebrate our escape. So we celebrated.”
Molly replied only with an inscrutable look, leaving him to wonder whether he stood condemned or was simply under evaluation. His present state was hardly unusual in most men, at least at times, and in many women as well.
“So the sun has finally appeared,” he said awkwardly after another minute of disconcerting silence. “It’s a blessing after the stormy weather at sea.”
“Such an astute observation of the weather could come only from a mariner,” Molly replied in a tone of such dry declaration that Edward thought she must either be entirely honest, or an excellent actress.
“You’re mocking my discomfort,” he said with a smile, gambling on the latter.
“Discomfort?” she asked, and this time there was an obvious hint of raillery.
“The effects of sack and your company.”
“Are you afraid of me, Captain? I’m sure I’m the one who should be afraid. I’ve heard of your piratical ways.”
“Privateering,” he replied sharply, without thinking. “I was never a pirate. Accusations are only allegations until proved, and even then not always true.” His hangover had left him more irritable than he wished, although otherwise he was in a pleasant humor.
“A privateer, is that your claim? I’ve heard you were not only once a buccaneer, and they’re one and the same, buccaneer and pirate, but also twice a pirate. And since the spots are never known to change in leopards, how can I know a leopard is not a leopard anymore, much less that a rover has abandoned his trade?”
“Ah,” he said, then shook his head and immediately regretted it.
“That’s quite a riposte, Captain. I hope you’re quicker with your sword than your tongue, otherwise why carry one?”
He laughed lightly, causing his head to pound again.
“I see that you need more time to gather your wits, sir,” she continued. “I suppose I should apologize. I’m in a mood and you’re within reach.”
“No need to apologize. Too well do I know the dangers of ‘mere’ woman, Mistress O’Meary. Indeed, I consider your sex not only the more dangerous of the two, but by far the more intelligent. It’s in my best interest to cross swords with you another day,” he said, smiling and touching his hat once more.
She laughed this time, without any of the usual pretense of gentlewomen. “Come, Captain, I’ll help you along; it would be a waste to ride in silence. Tell me what led you to a life of crime upon the sea,” she suggested a bit impishly. “It’s not often one has the chance to talk to a famous sea rover.”
“First, I deny that I was ever, but once, a true pirate, and was never brought to trial for that honest occasion. So why to sea to plunder lawfully? I wanted money, perhaps to buy land, to raise a family, or perhaps just to have it, and it seemed to me more interesting to
steal with the sword than with the pen. Too many do so with the latter, and I’ve never followed the herd. The sea is the only place left to plunder sword-in-hand, not to mention that it has always called to me.”
“And you found your wealth and family?”
“No, or at least never for long. Today I own only my clothing and arms. I’ve no family of my own, although my parents are alive and settled in Virginia.”
“So now, Sir William tells me, you intend to return to sea again to cruise for wealth, to take again from others by the sword.”
“It’s what I know, and it can be quite profitable. And anyway, I’m unsuited to employments where other men take all the risk and I all the reward.”
“How noble, sir, to preserve others from both risk and reward.”
“Sharp words, Mistress O’Meary.”
“A pirate accuses me of being harsh? You have no other way to seek your fortune?”
“It’s in my blood. My father, a Highlander whose seafaring uncle persuaded him to go to sea, was with Penn and Venables at the capture of Jamaica. He later sailed with Myngs and Morgan against the Spanish. His father had waged war with Montrose in the Highlands during Oliver’s Usurpation, and his mother’s family were of the Scottish West March, known in the years before the first King James for raiding the English across the border. My mother’s family are of Aberdeenshire, and some of them took up arms with Montrose as well. And then there are the old rumors, too, that there is some renegade blood in my veins, French or Spanish, Dutch or English, maybe all of them.”
Fortune's Whelp (Fortune's Whelp Series Book 1) Page 9
