“I’ll want my ‘arf pence fer that,” he shouted, drawing the curtain closed behind them. “Been in ‘ere the whole blessit mornin’, they ‘ave, firkytoodlin’ like rabbits every time I turns me back,” he added in a grumble. “Now then, Cap’n,” he looked up sharply at Emory. “I suppose ye did that just to get me old heart pumpin’ double fast?”
“I’m, ah, not--”
“N’owt in yer right senses, aye. Ye got that right. We ‘eard tell the Frenchies ‘ad kill’t ye, but Seamus, now, he know’d better. Wagered me ye’d turn up sooner or later, like a bad rash on a one ‘oled flute.”
“And Seamus would be....?”
“Down at Peg Powter’s, o’ course. Only other place he figured ye’d be fool enough to show yer gob.” He tilted his head to see around Emory’s shoulder. “Who’s the lad?”
“A friend. Where’s my ship?”
“Eh?” The innkeeper snapped upright. “Ye don’t know?”
“I have been...out of touch for a few days.”
“Well, swive me with a spoon. I’m n’owt ‘appy bein’ the one to ‘ave to tell ye then.”
“Tell me what?”
“The Intrepid. She’s been conferscated.”
“Confiscated?”
“Aye. An’ her crew be locked in the ‘old, waitin’ on enough gibbets to be built so’s the lot o’ them can ‘ave their ‘eads made into gallows apples.”
A telltale muscle in Emory’s cheek flickered and his eyes grew dark as inkwells. “What are the charges?”
“Treason. Piracy. Smugglin’. Pick yer poison. Their necks get stretched, one way or t’other. Seamus an’ a few o’ the lads managed to bash a few brains togither an’ slip over the side but most the rest are boxed.”
“And the ship?”
“She be at Gravesend waitin’ on the Old Bailey's pleasure.”
Emory cursed and raked a hand through his hair.
“Ye’ll be wantin’ to see Seamus, I warrant?”
“What? Oh. Yes. Yes, I will.” His hand stayed at his temple, pressing against the side of his skull. “Can you take us to him?”
“Take ye to ‘im?” The innkeeper frowned. “I already told ye, he be at Peg’s.”
The heavy haversack dropped to the floor as Emory’s right hand joined his left in squeezing his temples. Anna touched his arm, then looked swiftly at the innkeeper.
“Can you bring us some water, please?”
“Water?”
“Ale. Rum. Anything.”
“Aye.” The word came out as slowly as he took in Anna’s unshaven cheeks, the too slender shoulders, the supple shape of her mouth. The tiny piglet eyes nearly popped out of their creases when he noticed the hand resting on Emory’s sleeve. She had tried like the devil to remove the ring her aunt had given her, but it was stuck fast. The gloves she had worn since leaving Torquay had come off without a thought and, though the room was small and poorly lit, the facets of the diamond sparked like fiery beacons. “Aye,” he muttered. “Ale. I’ll fetch it directly.”
He was not fully through the curtain when Emory started to fall forward, a groan escaping between clenched teeth.
“It is all right,” she said. “It is all right, let it happen.”
The ship was a Spaniard, though she had kept her flags down until she had been in position to present her broadside. Seamus stood beside him, the heat of his cheeks almost as red as the blaze of hair, as he shouted the order to fire. The full battery of heavy guns exploded simultaneously, the iron snouts bucking back in their carriages, the winching ropes screaming with the strain. A cloud of smoke and cinder creamed back over the deck rail, blasting the sweaty faces of the crew with heat while they worked to haul the guns back on board, ream, reload, and run them out again.
Seamus, the magnificent Irish bastard, leaped up on the rail and hung by one hand from the shrouds, using the other to direct the gunners aim. He shouted a warning, 'broadside coming in', and roared a stream of Celtic curses as shot exploded all around him, blowing through wooden rails, cutting through lines, shattering spars and sail into a burning hail of canvas and splinters. The gun beside Emory took a direct hit down the muzzle, causing it to buckle back against the wheels of the carriage. The tackling lines split like cotton threads and the huge iron barrel reared back, rolled to the side crushing one of the crew. Emory screamed and ran forward but it was too late. The boy was dead. He was nothing. He was there, shouting and cheering one minute, a slippery red stain on the planking the next...
Emory opened his eyes. He was lying on his back, his cravat loosened, the ends trailing over the side of the cot. Anna had discarded her hat and the thick coil of her hair had unwound and was hanging over one shoulder. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and almost too blue to bear as she blotted his forehead with a dampened cloth. Standing behind her, his back pressed to the wall, his face nearly as white, was the innkeeper.
“...remembered nothing,” she was explaining.
“He didn’t know ‘is own name?”
“We had to tell him what it was.”
“We?”
“My great aunt and I. Luckily she knew him as a boy and was able to tell him some things about himself, his family.”
“Are ye sayin’ he ‘as the artemesia?”
Anna moistened her lips and dipped the rag in the shallow bowl of water she held cradled on her lap. “I believe the word for it is am-nesia.”
“Aye, the one where he remembers n’owt?”
“He did not even know his own brother,” she said softly.
“The wee bird?”
“No, the...the other one. The vicar. But he did not remember Poor Arthur either.”
“He is remembering things slowly,” Emory said, his gaze leaving Anna’s face with some reluctance to focus on the innkeeper. “Thomas. Thomas Fysh.”
Fysh’s brows shot upward. “Aye, that be my name.”
“You sailed on the Intrepid.”
“Aye. Till a surgeon fed me leg to a shark an’ gave me a fonder likin’ fer drawin’ ale than cannonballs.”
“You lost it the same time a boy was..was crushed under a gun carriage. He was dark skinned and--” Emory frowned as he traced a finger along his cheek-- “had a scar down the side of his face.”
The innkeeper nodded. “Johnny Goodenough. Ye caught ‘im tryin’ to pick yer pocket in a bazaar in Tunisia. He were just ten years old, skinny as a stick o’ kindlin’, burned all over with sores an’ scarred across the back from whippin’s. Ye took ‘im on board the Intrepid an’ when ‘is master come lookin, ye beat the barstard to within an inch o’ ‘is life an’ left ‘im hangin’ on the dock by ‘is thumbs. Boy ‘ad some damned Ay-rabb name ye couldn’t say without jugglin’ a mouthful o’ weevils, so ye called ‘im Johnny Goodenough an’ promised ‘im ye would make ‘im a good enough sailor to captain ‘is own ship one day.”
“Apparently I failed to keep my promise,” Emory said with quiet grimness.
“He’d not have spit on ye for the lack. Ye kept ‘im by yer side for six years, put a few stone worth o’ muscle on ‘is chest an’ set a smile on ‘is face would’ve lit up the sun. Ye were like that, ye were. Always tryin’ to save every waif ye come across. Seamus said as ‘ow it would likely be the end o’ ye one day, bein’ so soft in the head.” He paused and glanced uncomfortably in Annaleah’s direction. “That was what Seamus said, any road.”
“I have to speak to him,” Emory said. “And we need a safe place to stay for a couple of days. Can you help us?”
Thomas Fysh flushed. “Since yer brain were near squirted out yer ears, I’ll not be holdin’ that against ye, but I’d not be here at all if ye hadn’t pulled my neck out o’ worse pinches than this. ‘Course I’ll help ye, Cap’n. Help ye an’ then some, if I can. Give me ‘ arf a mo’ to tell the wife what I’m about, an’ I’ll be back, quick as a blink.”
He ducked out the curtain, leaving Anna and Emory alone.
She waited a moment, then smiled and whisper
ed, “A philanthropic pirate? A dangerous spy, soft in the head?”
“Repeat that at your own peril, madam,” he murmured.
“I shall,” she assured him, leaning close enough to brush her lips over his. “You may count upon it.”
He caught her face between his hands before she could pull away and kissed her thoroughly enough to leave her breathless. When Fysh came back a minute later, he had to clear his throat to break them apart.
“We can go now, Cap’n, if ye’re up to it.”
“Oh, I am up to it,” Emory said, not looking away from Anna’s eyes. “Very much so.".
CHAPTER 19
Fysh led them through alleyways and along a twisted labyrinth of lanes that snaked through the crowded, narrow buildings. He had taken the weight of the haversack on his own stooped shoulder, and glanced back constantly, his eyes darting along the streets, up to the overhanging windows of the houses and taverns, looking for any sign they had been followed or were being watched.
Anna stumbled behind with Emory following in the rear. She could not recall a time when she had ever been so exhausted or so miserable. Her poor, battered feet were blistering inside the ill fitted shoes and she was certain her skin was one large infestation of hives.
Moreover, she was certain Fysh was leading them in circles. She was no Viking explorer, but she knew in which direction the sun rose and fell and twice now, they had taken turns that doubled back on the route they had just covered. He was likely trying to impress Emory with his conscientiousness, but she just wanted to smack him. Very hard.
When they had about reached the point where she was ready to simply sit down and cry, Fysh signalled them to stop and wait in the mouth of an alleyway. He hurried on ahead, crabbing sideways in his uneven gait as he checked his surroundings one last time before darting across the street and into a small recessed doorway. A sign, bearing a carved depiction of a blue sailing ship identified the establishment as The Jolly Tar.
Anna leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She could feel Emory’s presence beside her, but for once she did not care if he saw how weak or weary, or how very close to tears she was.
The door across the street opened and Emory tapped her on the arm. They crossed quickly, keeping their heads down and their eyes lowered, and because of this Anna’s first glimpse of Seamus Turnbull was of his feet. They were huge, encased in worn brown leather and splayed wide apart as if he was balancing himself on a rolling deck. A wide folded cuff was buckled to his calves and held a sheathed knife strapped for easy access. His breeches were black, molded to the tree trunks he called legs, disappearing beneath a long leather jerkin cut with a flared back and buckled cross straps in front. A brace of pistols were belted to his waist along with two more knives, the handles polished smooth from use.
His chest was as wide as the doorway. His shoulders sat like two boulders atop a granite cliff. Looking up...up... she saw a thatch of the wildest, reddest hair she had ever seen in her life, surrounding a face that was one large freckle broken by a pair of sea green eyes.
While she gaped, the eyes narrowed and the mouth opened over such a roar of pleasure she could see the flap at the back of his throat vibrating.
The roar sent Anna cringing to one side as he stomped past and flung his arms around Emory’s shoulders, lifting him half off the ground.
“Damme if you’re not a sight for sore eyes, boy-o,” he shouted, laughing and clapping him on the shoulder. “Pruner and the rest o’ the lads were sure that sheep-fucking Corsican had done ye in, but I said no. I said ye had too much of the devil in ye to kill. Stayed in port two days, though, looking for ye. Stayed until the blockade was damn near too tight to squeeze a turd through, and as it happens, it was. Even so, we might have made it through if the wind hadn’t played us foul. Sailed into a dead calm and a fog so thick you couldn’t see your prick to piss. By the time we hauled ourselves out of it, His Royal Bloody Majesty’s navy was on us, ports opened, flags up tellin’ us to surrender or say our last prayers.” He sobered a moment and scowled. “Fysh told ye what happened?”
Emory nodded. “He said the Intrepid had been seized.”
“Aye. Happened so damned fast we had no time to run out but one or two of our own guns. A couple, three of us managed to slip over the side before the shackles went on, but the rest o’ the lads were tossed in the hold and chained down like black ivory. But Fysh tells me ye’ve had trouble of yer own. What’s this about being thrown down a well?”
“Artemesia,” the innkeeper chirped in. “Aye. Knocked senseless ‘ee were, an’ if ye don’t believe me, just arsk the little lady ‘ere.”
“Lady?” The Irish giant turned and glared down at Anna, who was already melted as far back against the wall as was possible. “Ye were down a well with a lady?”
Annaleah whimpered softly. Seamus Turnbull looked and sounded exactly how she would have expected a bloodthirsty pirate to look and sound. Up to now, she had felt quite safe in Emory’s company, had even regarded their flight thus far as a kind of noble adventure. But now, pinned against the wall by glittering green eyes and a face so ominous it stopped her breath, she could only wish for the strength to dash back out the door and run to safety.
There was no cache of energy left to call upon, though, and just managing to hold her bladder drained the last of her reserves. Her knees wobbled and she could feel herself starting to slide down the wall, sinking into a cool, dark fog of her own. Dimly she heard a voice beside her and there was a sudden flurry of movement as a strong pair of arms caught her before she actually crashed to the floor. Her lashes stayed open long enough to see Emory’s face swim into view above her, then they fluttered closed...then there was nothing...
She awoke one sense at a time. The smells came to her first, a frowsy blend of roasted meat, soap, mustiness and lamp oil. Somewhere in the distance she could hear voices raised in song; a ribald sea ditty complete with the banging accompaniment of many tankards. These were mingled with street sounds: carriage wheels, shouting pedestrians, the clopping of horse’s hooves. There was a faintly unpleasant taste at the back of her throat, salty and harsh, like stale broth, and a swollen feeling to her tongue, as if it grown too large for her mouth.
Conversely, she felt shamefully snug and warm. A tentative wriggling of her toes suggested she was inches deep in a thick feather mattress with an equally thick covering of goosedown overtop. Other sensations gradually prickled to awareness along her body. She was no longer itchy, no longer belted and buttoned into the strangeness of men’s clothing. She was naked, in fact, and it was this last discovery combined with a memory of the Irishman’s scowling face that prompted her to push herself upright with a small surge of panic.
She did not recognize the room or the bed she was in. But the man sleeping in the chair beside her was breathtakingly familiar. His head was on a precarious tilt, his cheek mashed inward by a supporting fist, the elbow balanced on the arm of the chair. His long legs were stretched full out and crossed at the ankles, and if she filtered out the background noises, she could hear the soft rattle of a snore at the back of his throat.
It wasn’t a dream then. It wasn’t a nightmare. She had travelled across half of England on a mail coach, had been taken to some squalid tavern on the riverfront where one of Emory’s shipmates--a red haired, green eyed Irishman had frightened her into a dead faint.
Looking cautiously around the shadowy room, she identified a table, two chairs, a brick hearth with a fire smoldering in the grate. The small night table next to Emory held the two steel-barrelled flintlocks, a bottle of wine and two partly filled glasses.
There was a window in the far wall, but the shutters were closed and the curtains drawn, giving her no hint if it was even day or night.
Gingerly she reached out and took one of the glasses, sniffing the inch or so of red liquid in the bottom before taking a small sip. The wine was sweet, a little rusty in flavor, but it cleared the sourness out of her throat. The movemen
t displaced the covers, bringing forth what she thought was a faint hint of rosewater scent. Her skin felt clean, her hair was brushed free of its rats nest of tangles.
She glanced at Emory, but he was sleeping soundly. He was freshly shaved and bathed, his hair gleamed like fine black silk in the lamplight. The shirt he wore was open at the throat, the laces hanging haphazardly over his chest.
“My brother, Arthur, used to do that.”
Startled, she saw his one eye was opened in a lazy slit.
“Used to do what?” she asked.
“He would sneak into my room at night and watch me while I was sleeping. He would perch on the footboard like an owl, and say he was guarding me. Keeping the demons away.”
“Did it work?”
He sat straighter on the chair, stretching out the kinks in his spine as he did so. “I had a lot of demons. But it helped me sleep easier, knowing he was there.”
Anna drew her knees up beneath the tent of blankets and circled them with her arms. “How long have you been watching over me?”
He turned to glance at the window, cursed at the cramp in his neck, then settled back, a hand to his nape, massaging. “You have slept through most of the day and a good part of the evening.”
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