The Guardship

by James L. Nelson

  His eyes moved to the bureau on one wall and the small shelf of books on the other, and he decided on the books. He grabbed the first and flipped through it, but there was nothing concealed within. He grabbed the second and the third and the fourth, and still nothing, and in his anger he swept the remaining books off the shelf, hoping for something hidden behind, but there was only the wall.

  He turned to the bureau and stumbled on the pile of books as he tried to cross the room. He looked down at his feet. There was a black book lying there. A Bible. And three letters half fallen out.

  George leaned over and picked the Bible up, slowly, careful not to let the letters drop. He pulled them out from between the pages, slowly, like precious artifacts, and cast the Bible aside.

  “Oh, Matthew, what have we here?” he whispered. Each letter was addressed to his late brother. He unfolded the top one. His eyes moved to the bottom of the page to see from whom the letter had come. There in a neat, familiar hand was written “William Tinling, Esq.” Joseph Tinling’s eldest son. Elizabeth’s stepson. Matthew’s particular friend. The return address was London.

  George moved his eyes back to the top of the letter, but he could not read it because his hands were shaking. He stepped over to the bed and sat down. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and read.

  My Dear Matthew,

  It was with great Delight that I read yours of the 23rd and I am pleased that all goes on well in the Colony. We have been much grieved here with the news of my Father’s passing, as I have no doubt all have been there, who knew him. But with him now gone from this Life, I think I must set certain things straight, if only so there is no Misapprehension between you and me that would serve to harm our dear friendship. You may have guessed that I speak of Elizabeth, who fancies herself Elizabeth Tinling and my stepmother, though I suffer the greatest horror at the very thought of it….

  George read quickly through the letter, then closed his eyes and forced himself to take several deep breaths and read it again and again and again.

  “Oh, my Lord,” he whispered. “Oh, my Lord, my Lord.” It was no mere letter that he held in his hand. It was the first step toward the ruination of Elizabeth. And when she went down, Marlowe would not be far behind.

  He sat and stared at the pile of books on the floor and thought about his next move, planning out each step, examining each possible cause and effect like a chess player, intent on his game.

  The sun was gone and Matthew’s bedroom was cast in the gloom of the early evening when George finally stood up. He ignored the wreckage that he had created as he crossed the room and stepped out into the hall. He had no time for a dead man’s room. He had a great deal yet to do.

  Chapter 22

  THE NORTHUMBERLAND stood in past Cape Henry, beat southwest through Hampton Roads, and reached up the James River with the tide. It was six days after the Plymouth Prize’s fight with the pirate, and somewhere out on the big ocean Marlowe was about to bid the fleet goodbye.

  King James laughed out loud to see the forlorn Wilkenson Brothers still at anchor in the Roads, all but abandoned. With the fleet gone there were not enough sailors left in all Virginia or Maryland to get her under way.

  In the long shadows of the evening James luffed the sea sloop up to the dock at Jamestown. Two of the Northumberlands leapt onto the wooden platform and the two still aboard tossed them the dock lines. Twenty minutes later, the sloop looked as if it had never gone to sea.

  “All right, boys, I reckon you can have a run ashore,” James said, and in the gathering dark he could see four heads nodding. “I need you back here noon tomorrow, not one damned second later,” James continued. This was greeted with four of the most sincere promises, then the crew of the Northumberland scrambled over the side and was gone.

  There was no trip to the secret warehouse this time, no hold full of pirate loot to conceal. The quarry had gotten clean away, which was a disappointment to the men of the Plymouth Prize as well as those of the Northumberland. After the rich haul at Smith Island, none of Marlowe’s men were content anymore just to have lived through the fight.

  But as it happened, the captains of the merchantmen had given Marlowe a handsome reward as thanks for his good work, and that Marlowe had shared out among the hands. He had split it up on the barrelhead and called each man up in turn, giving each a share, including those aboard the Northumberland, and two shares for the ones who had been wounded. That had pleased the Prizes to no end. There was nothing they would not do for Marlowe.

  “Thank you, James, for your good work,” Marlowe had said as he handed the former slave his gold, two shares, as was befitting an officer.

  “Thank you, Captain Marlowe. I reckon a man could get used to this pirating.”

  King James went below to set the great cabin to rights. Two hours later, with the Northumberland in perfect trim fore and aft, keel to truck, he slung his haversack over his shoulder, took one last look around his command, and then hopped on to the dock and headed up the dark road.

  The dusty surface of the rolling road was the color of dried bone in the moonlight, and from the woods and swamps on either hand came the sounds of frogs and crickets and a host of other night creatures. James breathed the heavy scented air, smiled to himself, quickened his pace.

  Marlowe had sent the Northumberland in well ahead of the Plymouth Prize. He was worried, or so he had said, about the sloop venturing too far off shore. That was a valid concern, but James knew that it was only part of it. Marlowe also wanted to make certain that the tale of his recent victory was well known in the colony before his return. And with the men of the Northumberland turned loose on Williamsburg, money in their pockets, he was assured of the story being told, as much as if he had printed broadsides and pasted them on every building in the tidewater.

  It was almost six miles from Jamestown to Williamsburg, but King James was well motivated and he walked quickly. It took him less than two hours to arrive at the outskirts of the capital city, a cluster of civilization amid the wilderness. One moment he was in the dark countryside, all but devoid of houses or people, and the next he was looking down Duke of Gloucester Street, lined with clapboard homes and shops, and at the far end the foundations of the new capitol building, all but lost among the stacks of material and the detritus of construction.

  James moved into the shadows of the buildings, stepping slowly, noiselessly, listening to the sounds of the night, just as he had been trained to do as a boy until it had become second nature. Most people in Williamsburg did not believe in the concept of a free black man, Marlowe’s words notwithstanding. No one in that city believed a black man had the right to be wandering around the streets late at night, certainly not with a pistol thrust in his belt, a cutlass at his side, such as those James was sporting. Being caught thus would be enough to see him hanged.

  He moved cautiously down the street, pausing to listen and then moving again. Once he thought he heard the sound of a heel on gravel. He froze and crouched low by a tree, lost in its shadow, peering around, senses alert, but there was nothing more and he moved on.

  He came at last to Elizabeth Tinling’s house, the small, cozy, wood-framed home not far from the sight of the Capitol. He glanced up and down the road, and then, satisfied that there was no one there, slipped into the yard past the stable and around to the back of the house.

  Lucy’s room was on the first floor, in the back, just off the kitchen. It was a tiny room, no bigger than most of the closets in Marlowe’s house, but it was a private room and that was a greater kindness than most slaves would ever know.

  James snuck up to the window, glanced around again, and then tapped softly on the glass. He shook his head and grinned at the strangeness of the situation. A month before he would never have done this, sneaking around like some criminal just to visit a silly girl. He would have considered it far beneath his dignity.

  But now, he reckoned, with all that had happened to him—command of the Northumberland, the fight
on Smith Island, Lucy’s confession of love—he had enough real dignity that he could sacrifice this little bit. And, he imagined, it would be worth the sacrifice.

  He knocked again, a little harder, and Lucy appeared in the window, an amorphous form through the darkness and the wavy glass. She pushed the window open. She looked confused, sleepy, a bit annoyed, but when she saw James she smiled wide. The sleep vanished from her eyes.

  She was wearing only a cotton shift, and the thin material draped off her body in such a way that it accentuated her breasts and the curve of her waist. She could not have been more enticing if she were wearing nothing at all. Her soft brown hair fell forward over her shoulders and hung in big ringlets around her neck.

  “What are you doing, sneaking around, looking like some kind of pirate?” she asked.

  “Whatever it is that pirates want, ma’am, that’s what I come for.” James smiled back at her.

  “You best get in here before someone hangs you for a thief.” Lucy stepped aside, and James silently hoisted himself through the window. She shut it and turned to him, and he put his hands around her small waist, drew her close, and kissed her.

  Lucy put her hands against his chest, so tiny against his bulk, and kissed back, demurely at first and then with a growing passion. She ran her hands over his neck and his hair, and he relished the feel of her thin, strong body, her smooth and perfect skin under the cotton shift.

  “Oh, James,” she said softly, then put her hands against his chest and pushed away, just slightly, so that James was still able to hold her in his arms. “Tell me that you love me, James. You ain’t too proud to say that, are you?”

  James looked into her dark eyes, childlike and sincere. Not so long ago he would have been too proud. Not so long ago he would not have been able to love her, or anyone. But a great deal had changed.

  “I do love you.”

  “Will you marry me, if my mistress gives permission?”

  James felt a shot of anger go through him at the thought that Lucy would need permission of her mistress, her owner, before she could marry, as if she were some kind of livestock for breeding. And what would marriage mean to them? Would they be able to live together, to sleep together as man and wife?

  “James, I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “Don’t be angry with me. I just…I want to be your wife.”

  James pulled her tight and held her against his chest. “That ain’t it. Of course I’ll marry you. I’d be proud to marry you,” he said. And he meant it, absolutely.

  “You think I’m just a silly girl, I know it. But you’d be surprised if you knew all there was to know about me, the things I thought up and done.”

  Lucy turned her face up to him and kissed him again, even more passionately this time, and he kissed her back with a desperate longing, kissed her mouth and her cheeks and neck.

  He scooped her up in his arms—she seemed to weigh nothing at all—and carried her over to the small bed in the corner. He laid her down on the hard mattress and then lay down with her, his feet jutting out over the end. She fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, and he ran his hand along her thigh, underneath the insubstantial cloth for her shift.

  They made love quietly, passionately, trying to contain themselves enough that they did not disturb the entire household. It felt to James like the final letting go of all of his hatred, the expulsion of all of his rage, and the embracing of a new life, a life in which he could be his own master. A life where he could again know dignity, love.

  Their whispered talk had died away, and they had lain in each other’s arms for the better part of an hour when Lucy rolled over and poked James in the chest with her finger. “You best get out of here, mister. My mistress finds you here and there’ll be the devil of a time.”

  “If you insist,” James said, reluctantly letting go of her and standing up. He glanced out of the window as he fumbled for his clothes. It was somewhere around three in the morning, black and silent in the city.

  He dressed slowly, quietly, then picked up his haversack. Lucy was sitting up in bed, holding the sheet in front of her, smiling in a shy, modest way. James stepped over to her and gave her one last kiss. “I do love you, Lucy. Soon as Marlowe gets back I’ll come back here, see you again.”

  “Next time you best have some ideas of marriage, mister,” she said. “Like a date, I mean.”

  “Next time.” James smiled, and then he swung the window open and dropped to the ground outside. He crouched as he hit the lawn and remained in that position, tensed, listening to the night. There was a rustling somewhere, a movement, but it could have been anything, the wind or an animal. He stayed put for a minute more, but there was no other sound, at least none that seemed out of place.

  He straightened and moved across the grass. He was careful with each footfall. His steps made no sound. He crossed the lawn, invisible in the shadows, moved down the narrow space between the fence and the small stable. A familiar mix of smells mingled in the air: horses and hay and manure and the slightest hint of leather tack.

  James moved down the side of the building and paused before stepping from the shadows onto the road. There was no sound, so he took a cautious step out.

  And then there was another scent, not animal but human, unmistakable to one who had spent so much time in close-packed confinement. James whirled around, and his hand moved for his pistol, and as he did he heard the sound of a flintlock snapping into place.

  He stopped, like an ebony statue. Not ten feet away, hidden from the lawn by the stable, stood two men. Both had muskets, and both muskets were pointed at James’s chest. They were both sworn deputies of Sheriff Witsen.

  Finally one of the deputies broke the silence. “What the hell you doing, boy,” he asked, “sneaking around here in the dark?”

  “Damn my eyes, that ain’t a gun in your belt, is it?” the second one added.

  For three days the Vengeance had drifted, sails clewed up, wheel lashed, while the crew repaired the damage, tended to the wounded as best they could, and tossed the dead overboard.

  There was little medicine aboard, save for rum, but at least there was plenty of that, and it was doled out unsparingly to wounded and healthy alike. Those with wounds of their arms and legs that were beyond bandaging were made insensible with drink and then held in place while the carpenter removed the damaged limb with the same tools he used to fix the smashed bulwark. The severed limb was tossed overboard, and in a majority of cases, the rest of the man followed a few days later.

  By the fourth day all of those who were sure to die had done so and those likely to live were on their way to recovery. Nearly thirty men were dead or wounded, a quarter of the Vengeance’s crew, and with not one bit to show for it. But even with those men gone, there were still ninety of the crew fit for action, and that ninety were hot for blood.

  LeRois stood on the quarterdeck watching William Darnall moving around the deck, rounding up the men and sending them aft. It was time to decide what they would do, and that included deciding if LeRois would remain in command. All of the popularity he had gained from all of the wealth his arrangement with Ripley had brought aboard had been nearly negated by the disastrous attack on the tobacco fleet.

  The Frenchman ran a sweating palm over the walnut butt of his pistol, thrust in his red sash. He took a long drink from his rum bottle. If anyone presented a serious challenge to his command he would shoot them down, and if the others fell on him and killed him for doing so, then such was his fate. He would rather die on the Vengeance’s quarterdeck than lose command of her.

  “All right, all right, listen here,” Darnall called, and the many conversations fell off and everyone looked aft at the quartermaster and at LeRois. LeRois had decided to remain on the quarterdeck as if he were still in command, rather than join the others on the waist, and he could see the disapproving looks shot aft at him.

  “I reckon there’s been some high talk about this fight, and what we’re about,” Darnall continued, “and I reckon we
’re set to rights enough to get under way, so we had best decide where we’re heading.”

  “We are heading back to the Capes,” LeRois announced with what he hoped was finality.

  “We ain’t taking orders from you, you crazy old man,” the boatswain shouted. His face was twisted in anger. He had lost three fingers off his left hand in the fight.

  “That is not for you to say.”

  “Bloody son of a whore, you took us right into a trap!”

  LeRois half turned and spit on the deck. “Bah, trap! You did not know it was a trap, cochon, none of you did!”

  “He ain’t fit to be captain, fucking lunatic! He ain’t fit, I say!”

  LeRois pulled his sword from the scabbard, slowly, eyes locked on the boatswain, and when he spoke his voice was even and terribly sane. “You do not say that to me, eh? You vote on captain, but you do not call me those things. Do you want to fight me now?”

  That stopped the boatswain with his mouth hanging open, as LeRois figured it would. LeRois might have been old, and he might have been insane, but he was still the most dangerous man aboard, a skilled fighter, absolutely without mercy and absolutely without fear. That was a fact that no one questioned. He had been bested only once in his life, and that was by Malachias Barrett, and if he ever crossed paths with him he would kill him too.

  “I ain’t gonna fight you, and my hand half cut off!” the boatswain answered, holding up his bandaged left hand. Unfortunately for that argument the man was right-handed, and everyone aboard the ship knew it, and there was not a thing wrong with his right hand, so with muttered curses he leaned back against the bulwark and dropped his protest.

  “This is what we do, eh, what I say we do, and you vote on it now,” LeRois said, keeping up the momentum. “We go back to the Chesapeake Bay. That ship we fought, she is gone now, with the convoy, and if she come back she will not fool us again. There is no man-of-war on the bay now and there are many fat prizes anchored there, and many fine maisons ashore, no? We teach the fucking cochon there a lesson about firing on the Vengeance?”