City of Glory

by Beverly Swerling

  Joyful stopped his cousin’s slide with his foot and grabbed the lookout by the collar of his Devrey livery. “Andrew! Are you hurt?”

  “No, not a bit.” Andrew seized the gunwale and hauled himself to his feet. “Look! We’re blocking them!”

  Lisbetta, her nose pointing toward the exit from the bay to the river beyond, lay across the mouth of the inlet, taking the wind of Le Carcajou. The sails of the pirate schooner went limp, but the open-mouthed beast that was her figurehead was not eight feet from the sloop, and the end of her bowsprit overhung Lisbetta’s deck. Joyful’s chest felt banded by iron and rivulets of sweat dripped down his back.

  “Maintenant, mes amis!” At Tintin’s shout the Jolly Roger was run up the mast, and a pair of men rose on the bowsprit and dropped onto the deck of the sloop. Two muskets fired. One pirate fell, his skull shattering in a spray of blood and bone.

  Joyful launched himself at the second pirate. The man carried a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other. The cutlass dropped to the deck as Joyful’s body made contact and the pistol went off over his shoulder. He felt his scalpel bite deep into the pirate’s belly and heard the man’s scream as it ripped upward. Joyful fell back and his foot struck something lying on the deck. He looked down and saw Jesse Edwards with a bullet through the middle of his forehead. The boy had come up behind him, obviously intending to help take down the boarders. Damn you to everlasting hell, Gornt Blakeman.

  Three more pirates shimmied swiftly along Le Carcajou’s bowsprit and dropped to the deck. Danny Parker picked up the dropped cutlass and one of the tars fired the third musket, but the ball went astray and did no good. The other two had managed to reload with the remaining two musket balls, and one ended the life of a pirate by plowing into his chest at point-blank range. The other smashed uselessly into the side of the ship.

  There was no sign of Blakeman, or Manon. Two more pirates dropped to the deck of the Lisbetta and raced forward. Joyful heard the sounds of fighting behind him. He climbed onto the sloop’s gunwale, found his balance, then put the scalpel between his teeth. He stretched his right hand toward the bowsprit of Le Carcajou, and launched himself into the air, hanging on to the sturdy spar with his single hand. Praying he wouldn’t lose his grip, Joyful swung his body forward and back on his right arm, willing the momentum to increase the range of movement, forcing his strained muscles to give him enough speed to reach the bowsprit with his legs. Two attempts failed, but the third time he got one leg around the wood and was able to hoist the other to meet it. At last he could get his left arm into position to do some good. The added leverage allowed him to twist onto the topside of the spar and begin inching forward on his belly.

  A pirate came toward him, so intent on maintaining his balance that he didn’t see Joyful at his feet. Joyful swung his heavy sand-stuffed glove at the pirate’s ankles, and the man fell screaming into the water.

  A catwalk at the end of the bowsprit led to the forecastle. Joyful got to his feet and took another scalpel from his pocket. The first remained gripped in his teeth. He ran onto the deck and two bodies hurtled toward him. Joyful lashed out with the scalpel and felt it slice through cloth and into flesh.

  “Merde!” Tintin jumped back as hot blood began pumping from his shoulder wound, then sprang forward again, his cutlass slashing but cutting through nothing but air. The force of his lunge carried him across the deck, and by the time he turned around, he saw Joyful Turner and Gornt Blakeman locked in combat, outlined by the light of the moon.

  Blakeman had already discharged his pistol. The shot had gone astray and he’d dropped the useless weapon. He was heavier than Joyful, and he had two hands. But he was considerably older, and the younger man had both speed and stamina on his side. Blakeman came in close, wrapping one arm around Joyful’s neck, and tried to bury his dagger in the other man’s gut. Joyful swung the black glove at the side of Blakeman’s head, putting the full range of his height behind the move. The blow connected, and Blakeman broke his hold and staggered back, then lunged once more.

  Tintin, the front of his shirt soaked in blood, ran toward the two men, swinging his cutlass. Joyful moved aside and the pirate hurtled past them, then turned and came again. The pirate opened his mouth to shout, but what came out was not a war cry but the gurgling sound of death; he dropped to the deck, the severed artery in his shoulder having starved his heart of blood. Joyful kicked the pirate’s body away and lunged for Blakeman. He still had the scalpel in his teeth, and he dropped his head. He felt the blade cut into the other man’s cheek, and at the same time took a glancing blow to the forearm from Blakeman’s dagger. Both men ignored their wounds and grappled again, fighting to maintain footing on a deck now slick with blood.

  The silence on Le Carcajou was broken only by the grunts of Joyful and Blakeman, but the sound of clashing blades and shouts came from the Lisbetta. A door opened from amidships of the schooner, and a shaft of yellow lantern light fell across the wolverine’s deck. Joyful was half aware of another figure come to join the battle, and knew that whoever it was would fight on Blakeman’s side, not his. He heard the crack of the whip and managed to swing his body to one side, forcing Blakeman to move in a half circle, and scream out in pain as the lash caught him full on the back.

  The stinging hurt and the force of the blow caused Blakeman’s head to jerk upwards, hitting Joyful full in the chin. The scalpel he’d kept clenched between his teeth dropped and skittered across the deck. He ignored the pain, knowing he had a second, maybe two, of the barest advantage, and that if he didn’t use it he was a dead man. He lunged once more. This time the scalpel he held bit deep and he ripped upwards through resisting muscle and flesh, but was forced to let go of the weapon and fling himself backward to avoid the whipper’s lash.

  Blakeman reeled and fell against the ship’s side, instinctively struggling to tear the scalpel from his side, widening the wound as he did so. Vinegar Clifford flicked his arm and the whip snaked toward Joyful. He knew he did not have the strength to keep fleeing Clifford’s lash. If the whipper chased him across the deck of the schooner, the whip would eventually win. Joyful hurled himself toward the long leather thong and fell on it, rolling toward the whipper as he did so.

  Clifford howled in rage as his weapon was immobilized, then used every bit of his strength to pull free. Joyful kept rolling toward him, until the full force of his body weight yanked the handle of the whip from Clifford’s hand and the whipper suddenly careened backwards. Joyful was on his knees now, and he flung himself at Clifford, head-butting him directly in the belly at the same moment that the whipper’s out-of-control body made contact with the ship’s rail. Dried out from years of pirate neglect, it splintered and gave way, and Clifford fell overboard.

  Joyful stopped his own forward motion by grabbing hold of a line stretched from a deck-mounted block and tackle to one of the sails, hanging on and gasping for air. He heard Clifford shout, his voice rising from the surface of the water fourteen feet below. Something about not being able to swim. Joyful turned his head, checking to see if either the pirate or Blakeman had gotten up and was coming for him, but both lay motionless on the deck. Bile rose in him and he could do nothing but retch for what seemed like an age. Finally, he got to his feet and staggered toward the opening that led below. “Manon! Manon! Where are you?”

  He hadn’t thought to detach the lantern at the top of the ladderway, and the dark of the lower deck was relieved only by thin shafts of starlight coming through the occasional porthole. “Manon!”

  There was a muffled thump from somewhere straight ahead. He called again and was answered by a series of thumps. Joyful ran toward them as fast as he dared, aware that on this ship nothing could be counted on to be in good repair, including the deck below his feet. The padlock on the low door at the end of the narrow passage was an exception. He yanked at it, but it held. He pounded on the door. “Manon! Manon, are you in there?” More thumps. “Thank God! Be brave, my love. I’ll be straight back. I’v
e got to find something to smash this lock.”

  He had to climb back up the ladderway to the upper deck. As soon as he surfaced, he saw a man coming toward him, swinging a cutlass over his head. Joyful reached into his pocket and found only one tiny scalpel left, the one he used for the most delicate of surgical operations, with a blade no more than an inch long. He brought it out, then heard his name called. “Dr. Turner? Is that you?”

  “It’s me, Danny. What are you doing here?”

  “Dr. Andrew sent me to look for you. Young Will said he saw you climb out on the bowsprit. Dr. Turner’s tending the wounded and—”

  No time to ask now who lived and who had died. “Miss Vionne’s below. I need something to smash a padlock.”

  Parker turned to the locker beside the mizzenmast and pried it open with the cutlass he’d doubtless taken from a fallen pirate. The tools were mostly useless, rusted and rotten, except for one stone-headed hammer. Joyful seized it and raced back the way they’d come. The shipwright followed him. “Grab that lantern,” Joyful shouted, and Parker did, and this time the two men made their way along the lower passage in decent light. “Manon!” Joyful called. “Manon, I’m coming.”

  Parker set down the lantern. He took the hammer from Joyful, gripped it with two hands, swung, and the padlock gave way. Joyful shouldered open the door and bent and went into the tiny cabin. “Manon, oh my God…”

  She lay on the floor, bound and gagged. He dropped to his knees beside her and used the small scalpel to cut away the gag and the ropes. She was not alone. A few feet away lay Delight, and next to her a young black boy.

  “I’m all right,” Manon said as soon as she could speak. “I’m fine, Joyful. I knew you’d come. Help her.”

  Joyful knelt beside Delight and cut her free, then took off his coat and helped her into it. Neither of them said a word.

  “She saved me,” Manon said. “If it wasn’t for her…”

  “Thank you,” he said, “for more than I can say.”

  Delight got shakily to her feet, and didn’t answer. Joyful tossed the little scalpel to Parker, who grabbed it in midair. “Free the boy.” Manon had gotten to her knees, and Joyful helped her up the rest of the way. The front of her gown was torn away, but other than that she looked unharmed. He put his good hand on one side of her face and his wretched glove—which had this night proved to be such a useful weapon—on the other, and leaned forward and kissed her.

  “I knew you’d come,” she said again. “Right from the first, I knew you’d come.”

  The boy was in much the worst shape. He’d been severely beaten with the cat; none of his wounds had been treated and some had already started to fester. “In God’s name…” Joyful murmured. Then, “What’s your name, lad?”

  “They be whipping me so I say my name be Pompey and I be a runaway slave. But I not be Pompey, and all the beatings on the earth don’t make me be a slave. I be Joshua, Dr. Turner, as came to get you and bring you to Mother Zion.”

  “This time it was my turn to come and get you,” Joyful said.

  Joshua smiled, a wide grin despite cut lips and two missing teeth. “Yes sir, Dr. Turner. Yes sir.”

  They went slowly back the way they’d come. Joyful had his arm around Manon’s waist. Delight walked ahead of them, her back straight, her head high. Above decks he saw both women take note of the bodies of Tintin and Gornt Blakeman.

  Danny Parker led the way to the catwalk and the bowsprit that would get them back aboard Lisbetta, but Manon hung back. “Wait,” she murmured.

  “Go ahead with Joshua and Miss Higgins, Danny,” Joyful called. “Miss Vionne and I will follow.” He saw the others safely crossed over to the sloop, then turned to Manon. “What is it?”

  She nodded toward the body of Gornt Blakeman. “The stone. It is on his person.”

  Sweet Christ! He should have thought of that. No way on earth Blakeman would have left the city without the Great Mogul.

  “Look in his breeches,” Manon called softly as she watched him cross the deck, “between his legs.”

  Joyful knelt beside Blakeman. The diamond was in a small black-leather box, tied tight around his thigh and nestled in his crotch. Joyful cut it free, wondering how Manon knew it was there, then decided he’d rather not have an answer to the question. “Here,” he said when he returned to her. “You’re the one who best understands what this is. Keep it safe.”

  Aboard the Lisbetta, Andrew tended the wounded, only one long slash down the front of his cutaway to indicate he’d had a share in the fighting of this night. That, and his thumping heart. Nearly forty years past he and Sam Devrey had drawn straws to see who would go to war and who would stay in New York and spy. Andrew had drawn the short straw. He’d always had some regret about missing the action, if not the danger.

  He’d been considerably luckier than his patients: two of the tars and Finbar O’Toole. One of the sailors had a wicked bone-deep cut along one thigh that might cause him to lose the leg, but the bleeding could be stopped now and a decision to amputate made later. The other had lost an ear and required that the wound be stanched and sewn. As for the Irishman, Joyful’s old friend, his belly had been slit open. Andrew had done what he could, but it was just a matter of time.

  Joyful came up behind his cousin. Andrew didn’t look up from the wound he was closing. “You found her?”

  “Yes. Unharmed, thank God. I’d not have been able to do it without you. Without all of you.”

  “No,” Andrew said, no emotion in his voice, “you would not. Meanwhile, four pirates and three of the sailors are dead.”

  “Tintin and Blakeman as well,” Joyful said. “I killed them both. With scalpels.”

  “Think of it as cutting away a cancer,” Andrew said brusquely. “Young Jesse Edwards is dead as well.”

  Joyful looked over to where Will Farrell sat beside the body of his friend. “I know.”

  “And Captain O’Toole…” Andrew let the sentence trail away. No point in mouthing a lot of platitudes about the nature of war and the price of freedom. “Back there,” he said.

  Joyful went and knelt beside the Irishman, taking his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I knew you’d have to come if I said it was because you owed my father. I had no right.”

  “Every right,” O’Toole said. “That was part o’ your legacy as well.” O’Toole’s voice rasped and his breathing was shallow, but the words were clear. “Grand it was. A grand way to go. Better’n an argument over a mahjong tile or a roll o’ the dice. Captain o’ a fine ship and done a fine thing for the nation. A proud thing.” His eyes fluttered closed, and Joyful stayed beside the Irishman, as he drew one breath, then another, and then no breath at all. Across from them, still wearing only Joyful’s ripped and filthy cutaway, Delight Higgins was walking up and down the length of the sloop’s deck, inspecting the faces of the dead.

  She was looking for the whistler, the one who had come with the mantua maker to the Dancing Knave and forced her to climb down the ladder to where Tintin waited to take her captive. He was the only one of the pirates who had not raped her. Maybe he was dead and his body had fallen into the sea, or maybe he’d been killed aboard Le Carcajou. She’d probably never know. When she reached the end of the row of bodies, she turned and walked back, pausing beside each dead pirate long enough to spit into his face.

  They set sail with Danny Parker at the helm and the two tars manning abbreviated sails.

  When they came out of Wallabout Bay into the river, Danny headed Lisbetta into the wind long enough to put the bodies of the dead over the side. All except Jesse. “Hannah will want to bury him,” Joyful said after he and Will conferred. “We’ve decided to take him home.”

  Finbar O’Toole was a different matter. Finbar would have wanted his last resting place to be the sea. They let him go after Andrew said the prayers for his soul, because Joyful was too choked to do so.

  Delight waited until the end of the spare, brief service, then went to where Joyful sto
od beside the ship’s railing, looking into the water that had claimed the body of his friend. “I know you didn’t come for me, but thank you.”

  “I would have come for you. Even if Manon were not—I’ll never forget you, Delight.”

  “Not likely,” she said, keeping her voice light, pretending the ache of her heart wasn’t a thousand times worse than that caused by her bruised body. “Your four percent of the Knave will serve to keep me in mind.”

  “It’s not just that.”

  “I know. Joyful…”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m the one who told Gornt Blakeman about you and Manon. I’d seen you with her in the Fly Market. The vegetable seller told me Manon’s name and I told Blakeman. Because I was so angry.”

  “I’m sorry, Delight. I…It’s just not possible to control whom you love.”

  “It wasn’t simply because you love her and you don’t love me.”

  “I love her differently from how I love you,” he amended.

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. All this time, you never recognized me. ‘Dearie my soul, Miss Clare…’” She waited, but there was still no light of recognition in his face. “Laniah, Joyful. The little slave girl who worked for your sister and worshiped you from afar. That first night, when you appeared in Barnaby Carter’s shay, it was as if you’d materialized from my dreams. But despite everything that happened between us, no matter how often you looked at me, you never saw Laniah.”

  He stared at her, trying to see the skinny little girl instead of the beautiful woman in front of him. “You and Molly weren’t killed? You ran away?”

  Manon stood across from them, watching. Delight lowered her voice so only Joyful could hear. “Dearie my soul, Mr. Joyful, that surely do be what Laniah be telling. That be exactly how it was and how it do be. Miss Molly, she be in Nova Scotia. And Laniah, she be right here.”

  “My God, Delight, why did you never tell me?”

  She looked out at the water rippling along the sloop’s hull, fading into stillness after they passed. “I wanted you to see for yourself. I wanted not to be so different from what I had been. Laniah was a person too, Joyful.”