Nightsong

by Valerie Sherwood

  He was not dead! He was here, come to her rescue. Relief flooded over Carolina, making her weak. She had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

  ‘Let her go!’ roared Kells.

  Trott thrust Carolina away from him as if she were hot, and she caught at the wooden table to keep from falling. ‘I was only tryin’ to save the Wench from them ruffians out there what had her backed up against the door!’ whined Trott, eyeing in terror not only the long sword that flicked at him but the four or five angry-looking buccaneers who had crowded in behind Kells, is that true?’ Kells demanded of Carolina.

  ‘No,’ she gasped, straightening up. ‘He lies!’

  ‘Let us have ’im, Cap’n,’ urged one of the buccaneers who had come in behind Kells. ‘You get your lady home.’

  Kells’s drawl had a rough edge to it. ‘I think not,’ he said with deliberation. ‘This fool has dared to lay hands on my lady, so he is mine. Indeed’ - his voice rose so ferociously that it reached outside clearly enough to strike fear into those who might plan to do likewise - ‘anyone who touches this lady - whether I am here to defend her or not - had best make his will before he does so, for I will assuredly seek him out!’

  Trott blanched and fell into a crouch, his sweating hand clutching his cutlass.

  ‘But you can take my lady outside, lads,’ Kells said in a lower but no less deadly tone. He brushed Carolina towards them with a long arm as he spoke. ‘I’ll deal with this fellow in a language he can understand.’

  With an honour guard formidable enough to have done justice to a queen, Carolina found herself escorted from the room. Outside, the street was lit now with many torches. The wavering light gleamed on curious faces but she could see no sign of Louis Deauville among them. She marvelled that his body did not lie sprawled upon the coral sand of the street.

  She might have asked but her attention was distracted by the sudden clash of steel from the room she had just quitted, punctuated by a woman’s high-pierced frightened shrieks.

  ‘Neat, the way the cap’n came up on one arm and got the Frenchie, warn’t it?’ Carolina heard one of her escorts say.

  ‘Aye, he’s a swordsman,’ agreed another admiringly. ‘The best. ’Tis proud I am to serve under ’im.’

  There was a general murmur of assent among the buccaneers surrounding Carolina, followed by another violent clash of swords inside and a burst of shrieks that curdled her blood - and then the captain himself came out, wiping his blade upon a kerchief.

  He looked thunderous.

  Curtly, he took Carolina’s arm, nodded his thanks to those who had escorted her outside, and turned his face towards home. Confused and upset by the evening’s swift-moving events, which had gone frighteningly far beyond anything she had envisioned, Carolina allowed herself to be swept along home. Beside her strode a silent Kells, who stared straight ahead and did not choose to look at her.

  She felt forlorn.

  ‘Your arm is bleeding,’ she said helplessly. ‘Are you badly hurt?’

  He snorted. ‘Hardly! Else I would not have been able to swing this blade - ’tis a scratch only.’

  Carolina swallowed. ‘And - and Monsieur Deauville? Did you - ?’ She could not bring herself to say ‘kill him?’

  He turned about to look at her then, and she thought his expression was murderous. ‘You need worry no further about Deauville,’ he told her in a bitter voice. ‘I only speared him in the leg. Had I thought there was anything between you I’d have aimed a little higher. As it is he’ll enjoy a long convalescence before he goes dancing again!’

  Carolina closed her eyes for a moment in silent thanks that she had not been the cause of Deauville’s death. It had been a close call.

  When she opened her eyes again Kells was still regarding her. It irritated him that she should look so riotously pretty, with her big penitent grey eyes luminous as she looked up at him. So innocent, as if she had not been the cause of so much trouble!

  ‘Kells, I - ’ she began.

  ‘Be silent,’ he snapped. ‘I will have something to say to you later!’

  She cast a look back at the little knot of buccaneers who followed them, guessing they had come along to make sure Kells got her home without further trouble.

  Once inside the house Kells propelled Carolina upstairs before him with a none too gentle hand placed at the small of her back. On the way they passed a startled Hawks, who stared first at the blood dripping from his captain’s wrist, then at the torn sleeve and torn lace at his captain’s throat, and finally at the dark anger mirrored on his captain’s dark countenance, and abruptly went outside to confer in the street with the buccaneers who had followed, and learn the circumstances of this odd return.

  Upstairs Kells flung open the door of her bedchamber and thrust Carolina inside, then closed the door after him with his boot and stood glaring at her.

  Carolina swallowed. At the moment she felt to blame for all the ills of the world. ‘For a horrible moment I thought you were dead. I saw you slip and go down . . .’ Her voice trailed off with a shudder. ‘And then suddenly I was snatched from behind and dragged into that awful room by that man - what happened to him?’

  ‘What do you think happened to him?’ Kells asked imperturbably. ‘I killed him.’

  ‘And the woman?’

  ‘I left her in a fit of hysterics. By now she’ll be over that and be picking his pockets and checking his shoes to see if he carried coins in them.’

  Carolina shuddered again. ‘He had told the woman to hide me somewhere - I think he planned to hold me for ransom.’

  ‘Ransom . . .’ he murmured. It was on the tip of his tongue to say, ‘More like he would have sold you to the Barbary pirates,’ but he forbore. This was the dark side of life in Port Royal - the world from which he had tried so hard to shield her. Bawds disappeared - who knew where they went? Spirited aboard slave ships to Africa? White slaves in exchange for black? A blonde beauty such as Carolina would bring a fortune from some sheik or sultan. She would disappear behind harem walls and never be seen again . . . Best not to tell her of the Barbary pirates - such tales would only give her nightmares. ‘For ransom - very possibly,’ he agreed coolly.

  ‘And you would not have had the price to ransom me,’ she murmured wistfully. ‘For we are back to buccaneering again.’

  ‘I would have found the price,’ he growled, trying to sound indifferent. Not ransom her? To get her back he would have done anything: He would have sold this house for the first offer, forced his IOU’s at gunpoint upon the moneyed traders who frequented this buccaneer port! And if that were not enough, he would have seized the governor himself and held him for ransom! The very thought of the lengths to which he would have gone to bring this maddening wench back to his side made him dizzy. He passed a hand over his face as if to brush away his thoughts. ‘But you were not held for ransom,’ he said steadily.

  ‘No, thank heaven.’ She sighed. ‘Here, take off your coat. Let me wash your wound and bind it.’ And when his shirt sleeve was pulled back and the wound washed and bound, she gave him a slanted look through her lashes.

  ‘After tonight I - I am afraid to be left here,’ she said in what she hoped was a small voice.

  His rejoinder was not what she had expected. He snorted. ‘You are afraid of nothing, Christabel! Do not think you can cozen me by prattling of your fears!’

  That he could see through her so readily, angered her. ‘But you can see how dangerous it is for me here,’ she burst out. ‘You must take me with you, Kells. Tonight proves it!’

  He cast a glance at the ceiling as if looking for strength to stay his anger. ‘So that is why we went through this exercise tonight?’ he ground out. ‘I have killed one man for you and disabled another, and it was all so that I might become apprised of the dangers of Port Royal?’

  ‘To a woman alone, yes!’ Carolina said stubbornly.

  ‘By God, you are not alone!’ he shouted. ‘I leave you in a house that is the next thing to a
fort! You will be attended and protected every moment.’ His grey eyes narrowed. ‘You will not leave the house except in the company of Hawks and whomever else he selects to accompany you.’

  ‘So I am to be a prisoner?’ Carolina drew herself up indignantly, is that what you are telling me? It is to be Tortuga all over again?’

  The tall buccaneer gazed down on his maddening lady with a torment of emotions surging through him. She looked so enchanting - a beauty to melt a man’s will. An overwhelming desire to take the wench with him swept over him, leaving him sweating, the lace at his throat too tight. He tugged at it in indecision, although to Carolina his dark countenance seemed carved in granite. Take her with him? God, he could hardly resist! Ahead lay long empty nights without her, afloat upon an endless ocean. He wrenched his mind back to realities.

  ‘What you did tonight was inexcusable,’ he said sternly.

  ‘I know it was,’ she admitted wistfully, and swayed towards him. ‘But take me with you anyway. Sail me to Virginia, Kells. Sail in by night and row me by longboat to Level Green. Let me wait for you there!’ (For once in Virginia she would find some other way to keep him!)

  He gazed down at her, troubled. That he might carry her to Virginia and leave her at Level Green with her mother while he sailed against Spain was a tempting thought. Tempting - but fleeting. Too well he remembered how Carolina had helped him escape from there - she had tossed him a sword. Before witnesses. Her beautiful arrogant mother had many enemies and some of them might realize how easily they could ensnare him - just by bringing charges against Carolina for helping a fugitive escape. He would come from hell to rescue her, and they would know it. A trap could be set for him there . . .

  He shook his head to clear it. His ardent desire for this silvery beauty was melting his brain. He must away before the wench teased him into making some mad mistake that could cost her her life. Best to leave now!

  There were tears in her hopeful pleading eyes as he pushed her gently away from him. All of his being wanted to take her in his arms, to succumb to her pleas, to kiss those tears away. The wrenching struggle to resist such an action harshened his voice.

  ‘I will spend the night aboard ship,’ he said curtly and turned swiftly on his heel before his resolve could weaken.

  Carolina felt as if she had been slapped. Would he rob her, then, even of this last night with him? Leave her without even a proper good-by? A wave of hot indignation washed over her - and with that wave, words to hurt him sprang to her lips.

  ‘I will not be faithful to you while you are gone!’ she flung at his departing back.

  He turned then. His iron jaw hardened still further. ‘You do not mean that.’

  ‘I do mean it!’ she flashed, lifting her chin. ‘I intend to be very merry if you leave me here!’

  He took an angry step towards her. She had never seen such a daunting countenance. At any other time she might have quailed before that look - but not tonight. Tonight she was too desperate. She stood her ground.

  He came to within a couple of feet of her, stood breathing heavily. For a wild moment she thought he was going to strike her, but he thought better of it.

  ‘You will have all the time in the world for it,’ he said thickly, ‘for this may be a long voyage. And who knows, there may be some Spanish wench aboard a galleon who, when she joins us, will be as merry as my unfaithful wife!’

  Carolina gasped. She lifted her arm to strike him only to find it caught in a vicelike grip.

  ‘I’d not try that,’ he said silkily, and flung her from him to catch for support at the bedpost.

  Her slipper struck the door as he was closing it. She could hear his boots clattering down the stairs before she could wrench it open.

  She started to follow him - no, he would only nod to Hawks, and Hawks would stop her at the door. It would be degrading to be seen struggling with Hawks in the doorway while her buccaneer strode away from her!

  Her gaze fell to the coat he had left behind him. She seized it and ran to the open window.

  ‘You have left your coat!’ she called to him as he emerged on to the street. ‘And I cannot get these big cuffs through the grillework - you will have to come back!’

  He did not even look up but swung away, a tall, determined figure, dim in the fast-gathering dusk. Carolina threw her other slipper at him and missed. She guessed he was on his way to a nearby tavern where he would pick up his men and be rowed out in a longboat to the waiting Sea Wolf.

  Carolina almost ran downstairs to plead with Hawks to let her pursue him.

  But - to what end? she asked herself hopelessly. Kells would not change; she had never been able to change him. He insisted on supporting her in this grand style - and she herself was an extravagant wench, as he was fond of saying - and she knew as well as he that they were seeing the end of the gold that had seemed so inexhaustible when first they had settled here.

  Kells was a buccaneer, and this was spring. He was off to snare the passing galleons that would come to the New World with the spring, bearing - not gold perhaps - but arms, rich fabrics, lace mantillas, Toledo blades, all the lavish items that Spain’s wealthy colonies desired and could easily pay for. Items that could be sold for a handsome sum in the market of this buccaneer town of Port Royal.

  Kells was a buccaneer and he had gone a’hunting. There was nothing she could do about it.

  Carolina flung herself upon the bed in a torrent of tears.

  A little later she heard a knock on the door and sprang up breathlessly, dashing the tears from her eyes. Had her threat about being unfaithful worked? Had he changed his mind and returned to fetch her?

  But it was only Hawks bidding her to lock her door - Cap’n’s orders.

  ‘Oh, bother the captain!’ she cried. But she struggled up from the bed and turned the key in the big lock, and then went to stare hopelessly through the new iron grillework of her island prison at the darkly glittering ocean reaching forever away across the moonpath. Somewhere among that forest of sails in the harbour was the Sea Wolf - and morning would find him winging away from her.

  Her head dropped into her hands and she sat there, miserable.

  A little later she heard Moonbeam softly scratching at the door and making little indignant sounds at finding it shut against her. Carolina got up and unlocked the door to let the cat in. She picked Moonbeam up and held that purring bundle of fluffy white fur close to her for comfort.

  ‘Oh, Moonbeam,’ she mourned. ‘I’ve said things I never meant. I’ve driven him away and now I may never see him again . . .’

  And that, she knew, would break her heart.

  PART TWO

  Catastrophe

  At night I hear the rustle of your touch upon my gown

  And thrill to feel the rasp of silk as it goes sliding down

  And wake to find the moonlight streaming in as bright as

  day

  And find that I was dreaming - for you are far away . . .

  PORT ROYAL,

  JAMAICA

  June 7, 1692

  10

  It was past eleven o’clock, the sun was reaching its zenith, and Port Royal shimmered in the oppressive tropical heat. Carolina, as had become her habit of late, had gathered up her calico skirts and climbed to the captain’s walk atop the house. She was carrying Moonbeam in her arms, for the cat had been acting strangely since yesterday - mewing and trying to get under furniture as if hiding from a foe. Carolina had cast a suspicious look at Gilly, who had given her back such an indignant glance that Carolina decided Gilly had not attacked the cat. She had taken Moonbeam to bed with her last night and the cat had promptly scuttled under the bed and refused to come out. She had been lured out this morning by the scent of a succulent piece of fish and when she had finished her halfhearted eating, Carolina had promptly swept her up and carried her up to the captain’s walk where Moonbeam seemed even more perturbed. Far from trying to jump out of Carolina’s arms so that she could walk daintily along th
e railing - which was her usual behaviour - she seemed to want to burrow under Carolina’s arm.

  ‘What’s the matter, Moonbeam?’ Carolina asked solicitously, stroking the long soft fur of Moonbeam’s back. ‘Are you getting sick? Is that it?’

  Moonbeam answered with a sound that might have been a moan.

  ‘I’ll get you some fresh milk when we go downstairs,’ Carolina promised.

  She tucked the quivering cat under one arm and shaded her eyes with her other hand. She was staring out to sea, automatically checking the name of every ship in the harbour, even though she knew it was futile - in this dead calm, nothing had moved in or out of the harbour for days except rowboats, a fact greatly bewailed in this busiest port of the West Indies.

  Her shining hair was gilded by the brilliant sun, and shafts of sunlight leapt gaily along her full yellow calico skirts that drooped in this windless weather against her slim legs. Slowly she counted the ships in the harbour - a score or more, sails furled, lay at anchor in the glassy waters of the harbour. They were all familiar to her gaze, except for several rowboats and a large strange-looking craft which seemed to have no masts and whose name she could not see, which was being rowed into the harbour by long oars, manned no doubt by long muscular arms. But even though she knew the deadly calm this terrible heat wave had brought, she felt a sharp stab of disappointment. For Carolina’s brooding gaze was seeking just one ship, the Sea Wolf - and it was not there.

  She sighed, took mewing, excited Moonbeam in both arms, petted the small animal in an attempt to quiet her, and rested her arms on the railing of the captain’s walk that ran atop the house, letting her chin brush Moonbeam’s soft fur. This whole week had been breathless and it was worse than usual inside the house today, but being up here on the roof gave some relief and made her tight bodice and sheer chemise seem to stick to her a little less. Her gaze raked the length of waterfront Thames Street, from Littleton’s Tavern where - even as in her own kitchen down below - a beef and turtle stew for the noonday meal was being prepared in a heavy copper pot, past the fish market and Sir Thomas Lynch’s wharf down to the careening area where the frigate, HMS Swan, lay on its side, helpless as a beached whale. The island’s other warship, the HMS Guernsey, she knew was out on patrol, for Port Royal was expecting the French from St Ann’s Bay to mount an attack at any time. And past the Swan, she could see sturdy Fort Carlisle guarding the harbour.