The Emerald Embrace

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  “I’m neither.”

  “You’re both,” she said emphatically.

  “Having you here has made me feel a lot better.”

  The fragile English girl did comfort me. Curled next to her, I knew that now there was one person aboard the Hassam who meant me no harm. There were no ambiguities about Lady Arabella.

  When her quiet breathing finally lengthened into sleep the moon had risen. I went to the porthole.

  Silver phosphorescence touched the breaking tops of the long waves. Constellations circled overhead. The romantic night caught at my heart, and all at once I was in a bewildering morass of emotions—yearning and love and fear. Putting both hands on the clear glass, I prayed that Stephen had come safe through the morning’s battle.

  Four

  The following morning the eunuch took us above.

  As we paraded back and forth on the holystoned and sanded quarterdeck, what a peculiar threesome we must have looked. The stout black eunuch in his voluminous crimson pantaloons and purple vest topped with the gleaming white turban. Me with my bright blond hair whipping about my shabby cloak. The tiny English girl in her delicately chic outfit: the rose velvet jacket she wore clung to her frail shoulders and stopped just below her childish bosom, and was banded with the same pale pink of her dress. Its skirt, too, was short. “This season in London ’tis all the rage to show the ankles,” she told me.

  The Hassam, though a corsair ship, Islamic rather than Christian, had the same routine as any vessel. Overhead sailors trimmed the thousands of sails on the frigate’s three masts. Carpenters’ hammers rang. The crew glanced covertly at us, then looked away with a fear deep as death, for Rais Guzman stood at the helm.

  With a calculating expression, the lean, elegant captain watched Lady Arabella Vaughan and myself, two properties to be disposed of differently yet profitably.

  Stephen emerged from the hatchway.

  At the sight of him, safe and unharmed, the relief exploding through me was so intense that I stumbled. The eunuch’s grasp tightened on my arm. Stephen conversed briefly with Rais Guzman, then approached me.

  Determined not to show my joy at his presence, I nodded coldly at his greeting and, turning to Lady Arabella, said, “This is the renegade countryman I told you about. May I present Mr. Stephens. Mr. Stephens, this is Lady Arabella Vaughan. She sails aboard the Hassam because of your efforts yesterday.”

  He made a polite bow. Lady Arabella’s milky skin turned yet paler and her small jaw quivered. She managed a hint of a curtsy.

  Stephen walked next to me. The vitality of his slender yet muscular body compelled me. I kept recalling our sweetly melting embrace in Washington, and it was all I could do not to reach out and touch him.

  “I’ve been telling Lady Arabella that she’ll be permitted to write her parents,” I said, forcing a chill into my voice. “The Duke and Duchess of Eastmoreland will be anxious to ransom her at the earliest possible time.”

  “A letter’s not necessary,” he said, leaning forward to look at Lady Arabella. “The rulers of Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis and Morocco get their incomes from taxing corsair vessels. Therefore, Lady Arabella, piracy’s carefully governed by law. The strictest regulations of all concern the ransom of captives.”

  “Regulations?” Lady Arabella whispered.

  “If a country has a consul, that consul is obligated to pay for the release of all his countrymen.”

  “Is there a British consulate in Tripoli?” she asked shrilly.

  “There most certainly is,” Stephen reassured gently. “It overlooks the harbor, and at each sound of the signal guns, Consul Salt himself looks through his glass. If the flag of the incoming vessel is the red corsair crescent he puts on his full dress uniform and hurries to the great diwan at the dock. So, Lady Arabella, your own consul will be on hand to greet you. He’ll pay whatever ransom Rais Guzman demands and take you to stay in the British consulate until a British vessel returns you home.”

  I gazed at the gulls circling and swooping into the wake for garbage, thinking of my own fate when the Hassam reached Tripoli, despising my jealousy yet unable to control it.

  “Liberty,” he said, “though the United States doesn’t maintain a consulate, another country’s consul will redeem you.”

  Liar, I thought. Yet my treacherous heart skipped a beat, exulting at the sincerity of his pleasant voice.

  Lady Arabella gave an anxious little cough. “How long before we land?” she whispered.

  “Three or four days. During the night we passed through the Strait of Gibraltar.” Stephen pointed a sun-browned finger to the narrow purple line on the southern horizon. “That’s the coast of Africa.”

  “Africa?” I cried, turning to him.

  He had been staring intently at me. As my gaze met his, a thrill shot through me.

  Abruptly I turned away. “Africa,” I repeated. “How Father longed to see Africa. Ex Africa semper aliquid novi.” Out of Africa always comes something new.

  “You know Pliny?” asked Stephen, surprised. “You speak Latin?”

  “Father taught me,” I said, staring to the east. “Egypt must lie that way.”

  “She does,” he replied, continuing to stare at me.

  I refused to let myself again be drawn into his gaze. “Have you been there?”

  “Unfortunately not. Westerners aren’t welcomed by the Pasha Mohammed Ali.”

  At mention of Pasha Mohammed Ali, a shiver went through me. The Pasha’s very name summoned up the barbaric horrors of the Eastern world that lay ahead of me. Islam has always been mysterious, a troubled shadow flitting across Western consciousness, so that one is never sure what is truth and what is fiction. One tale, however, I knew was absolute fact. It was about Egypt’s current ruler. Pasha Mohammed Ali.

  He had conquered many Islamic countries, but the story took place in Cairo. For centuries Mameluke warlords, on behalf of the Sultan in Constantinople, had governed Egypt. In 1811, however, the Pasha had wrested control of the country. After deposing the 470 Mameluke officers, he had invited them all to his citadel in Cairo. A banquet, he said. As soon as his guests were assembled in the sunlit courtyard, the Pasha ordered the gates locked. His guards, atop the walls, opened fire. The Mamelukes were slaughtered with savage precision. Not one survived.

  But what was the point of terrifying myself with a tale of a despot I’d never come near? “Someday,” I said firmly, “travel will be allowed, and I’ll sail up the Nile.”

  “Will you visit the Pyramids and the Sphinx?” Stephen inquired.

  “Thebes, Karnak, everything. Father was an Egyptologist.” I reddened and couldn’t resist adding, “Our house was burned, but a … passerby … managed to save his papers.”

  Stephen’s grateful smile was as intimate as a kiss.

  Lady Arabella interrupted in a small, high voice, “Is it certain that the British consul will pay my ransom then?”

  “It’s the law that he must,” Stephen reassured.

  Rais Guzman called out to Stephen. The wind had come up. As the first mate climbed with bold ease up the swaying mainmast, the eunuch pulled us toward the hatch.

  In our cabin, when Lady Arabella took several deep breaths to regain her precarious calm, I realized how afraid she had been on deck.

  “Mr. Stephens is very handsome. And most smitten with you.” She was unfastening her chic little jacket. “His eyes never left your face.”

  “He’s counting his ransom money,” I sighed. It goes without saying that I hadn’t burdened Lady Arabella with my own fate.

  “He looked more as though he wished to keep you and forget the ransom. I mean, out of devotion, no more. He seems used to polite company, and he’s very decent of bearing.”

  “He does seem sincere. But oh, Lady Arabella, how can he be?” Longing to express my doubts and questions, I did it obliquely. “He’s a magnificent seaman, yet he serves aboard the Hassam, a ship that preys on unarmed merchantmen—and from his own country. The captain
of our ship …” I blinked away a tear, unable to speak of my godfather’s death.

  “Maybe ’tis for adventure,” she said uncertainly.

  I bent to recover her jacket, which she’d dropped—she was used to servants attending her. “His being a corsair just doesn’t make sense,” I said.

  “Then you care for him?”

  I was about to lie and deny it. The ship rolled. I sat abruptly on my sea chest.

  “I scarcely slept last night, worrying whether he’d been hurt when they took your ship.” My bewilderment rushed out. “Lady Arabella, I’m in a sad confusion. How could I feel so much for a traitor, a liar—”

  “A liar?” she interrupted, an edge of fear in her voice. “Then I won’t be ransomed?”

  “Of course you will,” I said hastily. “What he said about the British consul was true. Surely you could tell by the details he gave.”

  She sank onto the edge of the bunk, her thin fingers tensed in her pink silk lap. “Liberty, I have a confession. When Mr. Stephens spoke to me directly, I barely heard. I was too anxious.”

  “But why? It’s true he’s a pirate, but he was behaving like a gentleman.”

  “’Tis nothing to do with that.” She drew a deep sigh. “He’s so very handsome. Men like him always terrify me.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’m not beautiful like you. I’m small and meager. But still they crowd into Vaughan Hall and our house on Curzon Street, the handsome young fortune hunters. And I’m a helpless rabbit pursued by wolves.”

  I sat next to her. “Lady Arabella, you’re so delicate and appealing. Some nice young man must see that.”

  “Thus far none has.”

  “Your parents love you and protect you. Surely they discourage the men interested only in your money.”

  “My parents,” she whispered, “can’t see the greedy wolves’ eyes.”

  Greedy wolves’ eyes. The expression sent a shiver down my spine and I thought of Rais Guzman.

  “Oh, Liberty, How can I expect you to understand a desperate, foolish rabbit? You’re so strong and independent.”

  I started to deny this, but she was weeping, and I put an arm around her. “Hush, hush. It’s all right.”

  She sobbed, “On deck, my heart fluttered with terror … if you hadn’t been there … surely I would have screamed or fainted … those, cruel, lusting pirates … Liberty … I’m trapped within my own fears … How I long to be unshackled like you.…”

  Lady Arabella’s confession touched me profoundly. Patting her narrow, quaking shoulders, I worried what would happen to this fragile girl should she be thrown yet further from her own civilized sphere into the dark perversities of the East.

  If Lady Arabella needed me, I also needed her.

  We sailed along the blue line that was the coast of Africa, each warm day punctuated by the wailing call that rang out five times, the call for the faithful to pray facing Mecca. My emotions swung in a wild pendulum. Either I was wracked with fear at my fate when we reached Tripoli, or I was awash with exultation about Stephen’s presence.

  Lady Arabella helped keep my external moods somewhat steady. When not immersed in her terrors, she was wonderful company. Our cabin would ring with laughter until the Hassam sounded more like a female academy than a pirate vessel. She was not used to waiting on herself, so I helped her. In turn, she advised me on the latest London fashions. I cut my hair in front, curling it on narrow papers to pretty tendrils. She showed me the length to shorten my hemlines. She was generous with her admiration and possessions. Because of my splinted wrist, I had to cut my two everyday frocks above the elbow. Lady Arabella gave me pale gray velvet ribbons to trim my sleeve edges. She also shared her pink lip salve. In the United States, paint is considered an indecency, yet after Lady Arabella showed me how to apply it with my finger, I began to use it before I went on deck.

  I adorned myself for Stephen and was furious at myself for doing so. I knew the sincerity in his brown eyes was a crueler pretense than Rais Guzman’s open avarice, for both men wanted me sold to the highest bidder. I constantly asked myself if I was shallow enough to fall for a handsome face. But no amount of logic could dam back my wild flood of emotions. I’d fallen in love with him when I believed him a patriotic American naval officer. I loved him still.

  Five days passed, including Friday, which is the Islamic sabbath. On Saturday, Lady Arabella and I dined as usual, sitting on the bunk using my sea chest as a table. We were giggling over some small joke, when all at once, a distant cannon rang out. From the Hassam’s deck came the jarring, answering roar.

  Lady Arabella dropped her spoon of couscous. “We’re being attacked,” she cried. “Liberty, we’re locked in! We’ll drown in this cabin.”

  “There’s no battle, Lady Arabella,” I said tonelessly.

  “Then what … why are they firing the guns?”

  “It’s a salute,” I said, my voice leaden. “We must be in sight of Tripoli Harbor.

  Five

  Lady Arabella slept curled into a little ball and I lay taut on my back gazing through the porthole at the three-quarter moon. The door opened silently. Yellow light flickered as the eunuch hung a ship’s lantern on the hook. He tapped my shoulder, gesturing to my clothes.

  Dread seized me and my throat grew dry as sand. I dressed hastily, trying not to awaken Lady Arabella to my terrors. Over and over I asked myself what’s going to happen to me?

  I had just finished taking out my narrow curl papers when an answer came. A slave dealer’s boarded, I thought. I’m to be paraded in front of him. My fingers shook and I dropped my comb.

  The eunuch returned, snuffing out the oil flame. His pudgy hand grasping my arm, we moved through the dark, deserted companionway.

  Moonlight gleamed on the sails, turning the Hassam into a haunted ship. I’d never been taught to swim, and I told myself: Jump. Get it over with. Jump. I moved a step nearer to the rail.

  The eunuch gripped my arm more tightly. His flaccid face was kind. And I realized that he, too, before his mutilation must have known these suicidal moments. As he guided me around a coil of rope, a tall figure stepped from the shadows of the mainmast.

  It was Stephen.

  My heart did a crazed dance of joy, and my dread faded. He held a finger to his lips, enjoining my silence. He pressed a gold coin into the eunuch’s hand. As we watched his stout form waddle back to the hatch, a zephyr wafted the spiced aroma of Africa about us.

  A voice called from the rigging high overhead. I jumped. Stephen, though, answered easily in the corsair tongue.

  “Over here,” he whispered, leading me into the dark shadows below a life gig.

  He took off his jacket, folding it to a pillow. I sat on it and he sank to the bare planks beside me. Alive with curiosity, I stared at him. I could see only his outline.

  “Tomorrow,” he said in a low whisper, “before dawn, I’m leaving the Hassam.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He hesitated. “Liberty, appreciate the fact that you’ve kept our earlier meeting from Lady Arabella. I know it’s asking a lot, but can’t you take me on faith a little longer?”

  But the flapping of the sails overhead, the gentle rocking of the Hassam, carried me inexorably closer to Tripoli, and I said miserably, “There’s no time left. When I’m a slave I won’t really exist.”

  “But I told you,” he said. “Tomorrow you’re to be ransomed by a consul.”

  “Is this why you bribed the eunuch to bring me on deck? To continue your game?”

  “What?”

  “I speak Spanish,” I murmured unhappily. “Stephen, I understand what Rais Guzman’s been saying about me to you.”

  He drew a jagged breath. The bell sounded. Aboard a ship the bell rings at each half hour of the four-hour watch. The three chimes tolled like doom, and I peered through the darkness, straining to see Stephen’s expression. His profile was set like marble.

  “So it’s true,” I whis
pered despairingly.

  At this he turned. “My God, you really believe it of me, don’t you?” His whisper was hoarse.

  “You’ve never disagreed with anything he says about my price and value.”

  “It was impossible for me to argue with him, but I never dreamed you could understand. Sometimes you were cold, distant, and I thought it because I was with the corsairs.” He added broodingly, “All these days you’ve believed I’d let you be sold.”

  His misery was palpable, so I said truthfully, “I hated to.”

  “Liberty, by all I hold holy, I swear to you that by tomorrow afternoon you’ll be free.” He leaned toward me, and I could feel his breath, warm and moist. “I’m a friend of Mijnheer Van Leyden, the Dutch consul in Tripoli. When you go ashore at noon, Mijnheer Van Leyden will meet you at the diwan. As I explained to Lady Arabella about the British consul, so is Mijnheer Van Leyden obligated to ransom you.”

  “But why? I’m not from Holland.”

  “The Dutch consulate in Tripoli owes me a favor.”

  “Rais Guzman wants a high price for me. All I own in the world is the bit of land my home stood on, and the chest you saved. And they’re both in Washington. I can’t repay the Dutch.”

  “They’re repaying me.”

  “Then it’s you I can’t pay back.”

  “Liberty, if I take the rest of my life, I’ll never make up for what happened aboard the Ithaca.” His voice choked. “Your godfather … you, with those thugs.…”

  I went crimson at the memory of myself, naked and shuddering.

  “If you don’t want money, what are you doing here?”

  “Too many lives and too much are at stake for me to tell anyone, even you,” he said. “But you do trust what I’ve told you about Mijnheer Van Leyden, don’t you?”

  “Yes.…” The admission was dredged from a place beyond reason and logic, and the syllable trembled in the warm, aromatic night.

  “Thank you,” he said with sincere relief. “You asked why I bribed Selime to bring you on deck. I couldn’t leave without talking to you. And I have so many questions.”