Once, she had not known and loved Sam Bellamy.
Trembling, she reached into her pocket for the dagger that Paul had given her. Ingols turned, and Maria saw the lust in his eyes, in his smile, in his—
She bolted for the door.
He caught her as her hand hit the latch, bringing her down so savagely that her shoulder struck a small table and sent it skittering across the floor. Kicking and clawing, she fought him with everything she had, feeling his hands groping beneath her skirts, his knee driving between her thighs—
Screaming, she tried to shove him away. And then, her fingers found—and closed upon—the dagger.
She shut her eyes and brought it down with all her strength into the curve of his back. Blood sprayed up, raining upon the bodice, the skirts, the sleeves of the beautiful, hated gown as she lunged out from beneath him.
He lunged to his feet with a chilling scream. “Bitch!” Blood gurgled from his mouth and darkened his pristine white neckcloth. He stumbled over a chair. “Goddamned whore, devil’s daughter, witch! You’ll die for this, so help me!”
He lunged for her, the dagger still protruding from his back, his eyes wild. Stepping back, Maria came up against the table’s edge and grabbed the first thing her hand fell upon, the heavy silver candlestick that had graced their table the night before. She swung it with all of her strength. A tremor jolted her arms as the weighty instrument struck his skull, the dull, heavy thud of metal against bone reverberating up through her fingers. He groaned once, then slid quietly to the floor.
Dazed, Maria stood looking down at him for a moment. And then she pulled the dagger from his back and with a calmness that belied her wildly shaking hands, wiped the blade upon his fine blue coat.
“That,” she said tremulously, “was for Sam.”
She drove her hand into her pocket. Then she opened trembling fingers and gazed with teary eyes at the object that stood upon her palm. The little dolphin. Hurling the candlestick at Ingols’s feet, she turned and raced for the door.
There was no time to lose.
* * *
The town of New Castle, on Great Island at the mouth of the mighty Piscataqua River, was built on and bordered by rock, lots of rock that stretched down to the sea that thrashed and curled in futile abandon at its craggy shores. Barnacles and seaweed made the rocks slippery and treacherous during low tide, and gulls perched on the remote outcroppings where few felt inclined to go. If the rock alone wasn’t suitable protection from sea-borne threats, certainly Fort William and Mary on the island’s northern side was; today, however, the fort was unmanned, its great guns untended. An execution would take place here in several hours, and all of Portsmouth was turning out for the entertainment.
Boats, dinghies, sloops and canoes were moored in the current that flowed past the small cape that stretched south toward nearby Sandy Beach which, like the rest of this rough, ragged New Hampshire coastline, was largely rock. People scrambled for the best viewing spots on the granite, dogs ran barking and scrabbling over the rocks, tavern keepers sold spirits, vendors offered food and a local printer sold broadsides commemorating the event. It wasn’t often that a pirate, even a relatively unknown one like Sam Black, was caught and put to death in such a place as this—such spectacles were usually reserved for Boston—and the town was not wasting the opportunity to make the most of it.
Rain, however, was threatening to be an uninvited guest. It had grudgingly held off all morning, but now storm clouds were piling up to the west, their dark undersides seeming to scrape the spruces and pines of the mainland. The sunlight shivered, then faded out, defeated.
Wind began to gust. Those in the smaller craft headed for safer moorings, and spectators sitting on blankets spread over the rocks cast nervous glances at the sky. Last night had been a full moon, bringing an exceptionally high flood, and now the sea, restless and moody, was turning a cold gray-green as the sunlight began to fall off and the land seemed to darken. Some uttered silent prayers, others sidled closer to their spouses and pulled their children close. ’Twas an omen, they thought, as the wind picked up; a bad omen. The devil was not happy. One of his own was being put to death today.
Speculation abounded, from the number of women he must have raped to the number of sailors he no doubt had murdered. And then, suddenly, the hushed whispering, the sounds of crying children and barking dogs, ceased. From out of the trees, the procession was coming.
The people strained their necks for their first glimpse of the devil’s progeny, for unlike the way they did things down in Boston, this pirate had not been paraded through the streets, had not been dragged to the meetinghouse to be made the subject of one of their rector’s sermons. He had not even been given a trial. The nervous young lieutenant leading the procession who kept glancing over his shoulder (where was Captain Ingols? some wondered) carried a simple dress sword instead of the silver oar that symbolized the Admiralty Court’s authority, and the gibbet, ominous against the darkening sky, had not been erected within “flux and reflux” of the sea, but upon the highest summit of the rock itself.
But one aspect of the whole affair remained true to custom, and it was the reason that the absent Ingols, knowing that other sea wolves such as Teach were wont to frequent these waters, had chosen this narrow peninsula to carry out the execution. The body would be left to hang in an iron cage as a gruesome reminder to Teach and others of his ilk that piracy did indeed have its just rewards. And from the lonely height of this southern point, such a ghastly deterrent would be easily visible from the sea that the pirates infested, including Teach’s beloved haunt of the Isles of Shoals.
But the crowd was not thinking of standards, nor other hangings they’d heard about but never seen. Their excited voices rose once more as their somber-faced pastor filed past. Necks craned, children were hoisted to shoulders, and the murmurs died to silence as they all stood on tiptoe to catch a first glimpse of the pirate captain himself.
He sat straight-backed and proud in a cart flanked by Majestic’s lieutenants, all in their best uniforms for the occasion. The cart was drawn by a lathering black horse that was—either from the tension of the approaching storm or the very presence of the devil behind him, or perhaps a disturbing combination of both—prancing skittishly and threatening to bolt. The pirate’s big, sun-darkened hands were tied securely behind his back, and angry red welts marked his wrists where the rope had burned and chafed his skin. At sight of it the whispers and murmurs started once more; ’twas said that the rope had been taken from the dreaded pirate sloop itself before the king’s good men had sunk it.
The procession moved closer, and the crowd along the route stepped back to let it pass, jostling and shoving each other for a better look at the prisoner. This was the criminal they’d come to see, yet children hid behind their mother’s skirts and the men’s hands went to swords and sea-knives. The fear they had expected to see in the pirate captain’s gaze was in their own, for the ominous clouds were thickening by the minute, a far-off echo of thunder rolled up from the west, and there was a bold challenge in those gleaming dark eyes that made their blood run cold. And even as they yanked him out of the cart and led him toward his death he was fearless, his head held high, his face proud, his eyes raking them with contempt. Everything about him—his bearing, his regal air, the absolute resolve he seemed to have for his fate—hinted at a nobleness his sort shouldn’t have, and he held himself with all the dignity of a prince.
From off in the eerie, gray-black distance over the sea, the thunder came again.
The women twittered amongst themselves. They stared at the pirate in awe, shaking their heads and lamenting that such bold good looks were wasted on a man who’d soon be dead. He was not the fearsome ogre they’d thought he’d be. Thick sable waves framed his arresting countenance in glory and streamed down his back. His eyes were dark and smoldering, his shoulders broad and well-made. He was no dirty scoundrel, but a strong and virile man.
Such a pity.
Such a was
te.
Like an animal being led to slaughter, Sam’s senses were acute. He could almost smell the apprehension of the crowd, could hear their whispers in his ears. And by the nervous glances they cast at the sky and darkening sea, he knew they feared something other than just rain.
He heard the thunder too. Felt the rising wind against his cheek. Ahead, the gibbet loomed against the leaden skies, the iron-banded cage in which his body would be left to rot in full view of the sea, but he felt no fear. Death was not a closed door; it was an open one, and on the other side of it, Maria waited.
Soon now, very soon, he’d be with her.
He smiled faintly as the wind began to gust, for with it came the heady scent of the open Atlantic, the sea that he loved second only to her. When he mounted the gallows he’d be able to look out over its wide, beloved expanse. He would die with it spread out before him, reflected forever in his eyes. It was all he might’ve hoped for. It was all he desired. It would be the last thing he would see.
“All right ye filthy rogue, time to meet your maker,” came the gruff voice of the first lieutenant. A sword pricked his back, but Sam needed no urging. He lifted his head and walked without fear toward the waiting gallows, where the hangman—and somehow, somewhere, Maria herself—waited. Sand and rock were warm beneath his bare feet. Overhead, a gull cried.
And the first drop of rain fell upon his brow.
Sam looked out over the Atlantic—glorious, untamed, majestic, and free.
As he would soon be.
Peace and resolve spread through him as he mounted the hastily-built wooden steps. The sun was gone now, hiding behind dark clouds, and the wind blew chilly and damp. Another drop of rain fell, this time upon his cheek. He continued his short climb, the sword-point still at his back. On the scaffold the executioner, black hood in place, waited silently. When Sam reached the top step, the man’s hand grasped Sam’s torn sleeve, still dark with old, dried blood, and yanked him to the center of the platform.
For the first time since that terrible sea battle, life gleamed in Sam’s dark eyes. The old defiant spark, the astute, intelligent gleam. Fools, he thought to himself. Don’t they know they were doing him a favor? He let his gaze sweep the faces arrayed below him. The lieutenant, nervously looking over his shoulder. Phoebe Beckfield, a handkerchief pressed to her nose and her eyes red and swollen. A good woman, Phoebe. The rector, the pages of his old leather-bound Bible jumping nervously in the wind. The clergyman found his place, held the pages down with a long finger, and, clearing his throat with importance, recited a prayer for Sam’s black and unholy soul.
He did not hear the words. His gaze, his very thoughts, were directed far above and beyond their waiting faces and out over the darkening sea. Lightning flickered to the south. The thunder rumbled again, louder this time. The rector began to hurry his words, said a quick amen, and closed the Holy Book with a snap.
“Does the prisoner have anything to say to the people before he enters the Hell from whence he came?”
The crowd went deathly silent, waiting.
Hoping.
Sam’s level, knowing eyes met the rector’s. He knew they all expected him to say something rousing, something by which they’d remember him. He could have made a stirring speech as he’d done so often upon the decks of his pirate ships to prisoners, to his own crews. He could have defended his expression of personal freedom, that which the world labeled piracy. He could have left his words, his thoughts, his justification for what he’d done ringing in their ears. He could have—but he didn’t. They were just frightened, ordinary people.
And they would never understand.
He fixed his gaze on a point somewhere over and beyond their heads, past the lofty spruces that framed his view of the graying sea to the south. “Nay,” he said clearly, heedless of the disappointment that flitted over the pastor’s face. “None at all.” Head high, he turned and faced the hooded executioner. “Be done with it, if ye please.”
Ah, Maria, my love. Soon now….
“Do you fancy a blindfold, sir?” The executioner’s voice was muffled through the black hood.
A blindfold? No, he wanted to depart this world with a clear view of what lay before him. He wanted to look upon the sea’s wild freedom as he took his final, choking breath, wanted to die with the sight of it stamped forever in his eyes. He shook his head. “Nay,” he said once again, his gaze returning to the southern horizon.
Wordlessly, the executioner placed the heavy loop of hemp—once part of Nefarious’s running rigging—over Sam’s head. He settled it around his neck, adjusting the knot to rest beneath his left ear. The rope was stiff with sea salt and its fibers prickled against his skin.
A fat drop of rain splashed down upon his nose.
Another.
His unwavering gaze never left the sea, nor the tall spruces that beckoned his eye out and over that swiftly darkening water to the south.
And suddenly Sam Bellamy, pirate captain, smiled.
Three of those treetops were moving.
Except they weren’t trees at all, but the proud, sweeping masts of a great ship.
“Get on with it,” the lieutenant said.
The masts were gliding around the headland now but only Sam, facing the southern ocean, saw it.
Damn you, Teach! Can’t I even die in peace?
He saw the black flag rising to her masthead as she turned her bows on them, saw her gun ports sliding open….
“Well then, if no one has any objections,” the lieutenant was saying, “please carry on—”
“I do!”
A single pistol shot rang out. Someone screamed. The black horse bolted, the cart clattering off over the rock with it. The executioner paused, his hand on the rope, and as one the crowd whirled in the direction from whence the shot had come.
Sam stared, blinked, and then closed his eyes against the sting of sudden tears.
For there, surrounded by Paul Williams’s men and sitting brazenly astride a magnificent chestnut horse was a woman; a woman with long, golden tresses whipping in the wind, a woman brilliantly silhouetted by the first flickers of lightning. She was clad in a billowing lawn shirt, her long, lovely legs in breeches cut shockingly off at mid-thigh. Her eyes blazed with triumph, and in her hand was a pistol.
The Sea Witch of Eastham.
“Damn my eyes,” Sam swore softly, and then all hell broke loose.
For at precisely that moment, the skies opened up in a deluge and Revenge, trailed by the smaller Mary Anne, swept into view from around the easternmost point of Sandy Beach.
And as she came storming down upon them, every sail hard and a bone in her teeth, Sam saw the fiendish figure of Ned Teach—Blackbeard—standing upon the deck.
The devil himself, some would say later, come to claim his own.
Thunder exploded from the great ship’s guns and was echoed by Mary Anne’s and then by the storm clouds themselves. The very ground beneath their feet trembled as a screaming hail of iron slammed into the rock. Chunks of granite exploded heavenward, falling away into the sea.
“Pirates!” someone screamed. “Both flying the black flag!”
“It’s Blackbeard!”
The naval men fled, hoping to gain their ships in time to capture this most famous pirate of all, leaving the crowd to panic. They stampeded like cattle, scrambling over wet rocks and away from the barrage of iron. Horses whinnied in terror. The wind strengthened, howling in fury now, driving Revenge straight toward the rocks upon which the gibbet stood.
And still Teach sent her forward, all guns ablaze, the very air reverberating with terrible, endless thunder and acrid smoke.
“Bloody madman!” cried the executioner. He grabbed for the lever that would end Sam’s life.
But Maria was already charging forward, her wet golden hair streaming out behind her, the horse scrabbling for purchase on the rock. Shrieking in fury, she yanked a pistol from the sash around her waist, training it on the hangman’s chest
as the horse thundered toward the gallows with all of the recklessness with which Revenge was storming toward the rock face. The executioner dropped the rope, fleeing for his life. And then she was there, leaping from the horse and charging up the steps to the platform, a dagger already in her hand. Her breath fluttered against his cheek. Her hair stung his eyes as she sawed madly at the ropes that bound his hands. The hemp fell away. He was free, free! Tearing the noose up and over his head, she grasped his hand and as one, they hit the ground running.
They raced through the frightened crowd. Through the acrid smoke from the pirate ships’ guns. Through the slashing rain and right up to the rocks’ edge, where they never paused in their flight. Their hands clasped together, they leaped as far out as their legs could take them, sailed through empty space, and plunged into the comforting arms of the sea below.
Epilogue
It was a typical day in the Caribbean: sparkling seas of brilliant turquoise, verdant islands wearing necklaces of pearly foam to mark coral reefs, a cloudless sky, and sea turtles basking in the sun just off the larboard beam. Dolphins crested the bow wake, and gentle trade winds filled the sails above.
On the deck of Mary Anne, Paul Williams stood listening to the rhythmic hiss of spray as he waited patiently. His satisfied gaze took in his assembled crew, who stood before him arrayed in their finest, gaudiest clothes, with all the pride a father might bestow on his beloved children.
“Shall I go get ’em, Cap’n?” came the voice of that troublesome busybody, Stripes, from the shrouds above his head.
“Nay, let them be,” Paul said. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth leather cover of the Bible in his hand. “They’ll be up shortly.”
The crew waited. Unlike himself, they weren’t quite so patient. Some, like Stripes, clung to the shrouds for a better view. Others sat on the sunny deck, where they could stay close to the hogsheads of rum that had been hauled topside for the occasion. To a man, they were all there: the good crew of Mary Anne, the survivors from Nefarious who had made their way to safety in the Isles of Shoals before Teach had rescued them, even that dastardly dog who, for some strange reason, had developed a dislike for Paul that went beyond vicious. ’Twas a good thing someone had tethered it to the mast.
Pirate In My Arms Page 38
