Turning sharply, Cutler strode out of the office. He took the stairs two at a time up to his room, where he quickly packed his bags, and took the small store of money he’d been saving in his strongbox, counting it quickly. He frowned, biting his lip.
“Here, Cutler,” came a voice, and he looked up to see his sister, Jane, standing in the open doorway of his room, holding out a small purse. “I’ve been saving, too. You take it, so you can get away. And then when you’re settled, you can send for me, the way we’ve always planned.”
Cutler stared at her, wondering how she knew. Guessing his unasked question, Jane smiled faintly, a smile that wrenched at his heart. “I was outside in the hall while you were talking to Father,” she admitted. “I heard it all. I’m glad someone finally stood up to that tyrant! And…and…stood up for poor Mother!” she finished, her voice breaking.
Cutler crossed the room to take the little purse. Jane put her arms around him and laid her cheek against his. Her face, he realized, was wet. Awkwardly, he returned her embrace. His throat felt so tight, he thought he might choke. “Thank you, Jane. I will send for you. You have my word.”
“Good-bye, brother,” she whispered. “May Heaven keep you.”
Then she whirled around and ran out of the room.
Slowly, Cutler Beckett walked across the hall, and set his bags down. After tapping lightly on the door, he entered his mother’s sickroom.
He was not there long. When he finally stumbled from the room, leaving his mother weeping behind him, Cutler Beckett felt as though something inside him had died forever. Picking up his bags, he headed down the back stairs. He’d leave by the servant’s quarters. If he walked quickly, he should be able to catch the mail coach on its way into London. And once in London, he knew exactly where he would go.…
Cutler Beckett blinked, and that English spring receded into memory. He was here in Africa, and both his mother and Jane were dead. If only he’d sent for Jane when he’d been assigned to the office in Nippon…but to ask her to travel to the other side of the world, alone, was impossible. When he’d received his posting to Africa, he’d written to his sister, telling her it was time, that the voyage to Calabar would take only two months, and that he would send someone to accompany her.
He realized he’d crushed Cousin Susan’s letter in his fist. Slowly, painfully, he released his fingers, making an effort to smooth out the letter. Then he took out two blank sheets of paper, dipped his quill, and began writing, quickly.
He’d just finished the letter to the EITC office in London, and the quick note to Cousin Susan, and sealed both missives, when he heard a tap on his door. “Who is it?” he called.
“Mercer, Mr. Beckett.”
“Come in, Mercer.”
As Mercer entered, Beckett looked up inquiringly. “I’ve had no luck tracing the big male slave,” his operative reported. For once, the Scotsman sounded weary. He must have just come in; he wore dry clothes, but his hair was still wet. “I’m fairly sure he wasn’t shipped out on the Triangle, but no one seems to recall who bought him, and the sales records are lacking. I’ll have to do a visual inspection, farm by farm.” His narrow features grew thoughtful. “Perhaps I’ll hire that fellow Duke to go along. That way I’d be sure I’d found the right one.”
Beckett shook his head. “Unfortunate,” he said. “If we could find this other one, the big male slave Duke spoke of, he might just prove more forthcoming than our sewing woman.”
“And if he wasn’t inclined to talk, we might be able to use each of them as a way to persuade the other to talk,” Mercer said. “Don’t worry, Mr. Beckett. I’m not giving up the search. But this weather is so foul, it’s hard to get around.”
Beckett nodded. “Wait until the end of the rainy season,” he said. “There’s no point in you slogging around in all this mud, when the rain will be ending soon.”
“As you say, Mr. Beckett,” the operative agreed, relief in his voice. “It’s foul out there, and the roads are like hog wallows.” He smiled very faintly, “Speaking of pigs, what’s she been doing today?” he asked, glancing at the door leading into the sewing room.
“Working, as far as I can tell,” Beckett said. “At least, I’ve heard her weaving, on and off.”
Mercer nodded. “You know, Mr. Beckett, with women, they’re…timid. Easily frightened. Not like a man. I wouldn’t have to actually do any lasting damage, to her, sir. Just a few minutes of…persuasion…might bring us all we want to know.”
Cutler Beckett shook his head decisively. “No, Mr. Mercer. I’m not risking that. She’s our only link, at the moment. Remember what happened with the old man.”
“I’d barely started on him,” Mercer said, and Beckett fancied he sounded a bit defensive. “The pain wasn’t even that much. No sign of an apoplexy, no clutching of his chest or anything of the sort.” He paced a bit before the desk. “I’ve handled dozens of interrogations Mr. Beckett, but I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The old savage just closed his eyes…and stopped. Like a clock.”
“I understand,” Beckett said. “And just on the chance that she can do likewise, I am not going to allow any of your persuasive methods. If we can locate the big man, my decision may change.” Beckett sighed. “If only Duke Wren-John could recall where that other one he captured was taken. But he has no idea, except the ship was heading west. Then we’d have three of them! Surely you could persuade one of them to talk.”
Mercer nodded, and Beckett could tell the operative was disappointed by the lack of subjects he might interrogate. He knew Mercer loved that part of his job the most. Beckett frowned thoughtfully. “We need someone who can gain her trust,” the EITC official said, meditatively. “Someone very likeable. Charming. Someone who can discover what she wants, and give it to her. Or promise to, at any rate. Someone—”
Beckett broke off as Mercer’s head turned toward the sewing room door. Gesturing for quiet, the operative walked across the office, shifting his weight carefully so as not to cause any betraying noise. When he reached the door, he carefully took hold of the knob with his black-gloved hand, then suddenly opened it and looked in.
After a moment, he closed it again, and came back to the desk. In answer to his employer’s inquiring glance, Ian Mercer shrugged slightly. “Thought I heard something. But she’s just sitting there, sewing.”
Beckett stood up and went over to the hiding place for his strongbox, and removed it. Taking the key, he opened it, and stood staring down at the tray containing the Zerzuran pieces. “You know, Mercer,” he murmured, “I’ve thought of something we haven’t tried. Perhaps we should show her these, and see if she betrays herself. It can’t possibly cause her harm, and observing her reaction might prove illuminating…”
Ayisha sat in her chair, her work before her, but her needle was still. She couldn’t see to sew, because she was blinded by tears.
Piye was dead. Her heart ached within her. She’d known the high priest all her life. It was Piye who had taught her the principles of magic, and how to use her power. And now, thanks to the black-gloved Mercer, the man with the death-eyes, Piye was dead.
Ayisha’s lips moved in silent prayer for the old man.
For months she’d listened at Cutler Beckett’s keyhole, and she’d heard some very interesting things—things that scared her. If Beckett ever realized she spoke English and knew what he and Mercer talked about, her life would be over. She knew that. Today, when she’d listened, she’d heard Beckett and Mercer discussing their hunt for Tarek, and her heart had pounded. Then, she’d heard them say that Piye was dead. Apparently that was the reason Beckett hadn’t allowed Mercer to torture her into talking to them—they were afraid that she could do what Piye had done, and die before revealing information.
She knew what the high priest must have done to bring about his own death. After a lifetime of dedication to Apedemak, honing his body, mind, and spirit to the worship of the god, he must have realized that he was in danger of betraying Zerzura,
and the Heart of Zerzura—Apedemak’s gift to his chosen people. So he had reached out to the god, begging him to help by stopping his heart.
And Apedemak had granted his prayer.
Realizing that she could not just sit in her chair, idle, Ayisha quickly wiped her face on the edge of her gray shawl, then reached for her shuttle and began to weave. She could weave without thinking, just by feel. The loom clacked rhythmically, and her fingers flew with the shuttle even faster.
It was a good thing she had seen Mercer approaching through the keyhole. If she hadn’t, Ayisha knew that she would have been unmasked. And if she were tortured to reveal the location of Kerma, she had no confidence that she could do as Piye had done. Piye had been so attuned to Apedemak…far more than she was.
She wove automatically, while her mind scurried in circles, like a small animal trapped by a circle of hunters. Mercer was going to find Tarek. Sooner or later, he’d find him. He would take Duke with him. Her stomach clenched as she remembered the time they’d brought the slaver in to look at her. Ayisha closed her eyes and wove, fighting panic.
The door between her room and Beckett’s office opened. She heard it, but did not turn her head. Instead, Ayisha worked to compose her features to their usual blank passivity.
Footsteps approached.
“Ayisha?” That was Beckett’s voice.
She gave a realistic start, and stopped weaving, turning to look at him. Beckett was holding something in his hands…some kind of tray. Ayisha controlled her features, making sure she did not quite make eye contact, and that her face remained expressionless.
“Ayisha,” said Mercer, and continued in pidgin, “Mr. Beckett would like to know whether you recognize any of these things.” As the operative spoke, Beckett lowered the tray and held it out to her, so it was on her eye level.
Jewelry. It was jewelry, from her home, and some of it was her own. She remembered the feel of the gazelle earrings dangling from her pierced earlobes. Her eyes moved from piece to piece, and she had no trouble keeping her expression blank, since all the pieces had been hers, or belonged to her lost companions on her pilgrimage to Kerma—
NO. Not all.
Her eyes fastened on the pectoral, and her heart leaped, then seemed to stop. It was all she could do not to gasp. Her fingers wanted to reach out and grab that piece of jewelry, hold it against her cheek. She knew that royal pectoral.
It had belonged to her brother, Prince Shabako.
Mercer spoke again. “Ayisha, the slave trader Duke sold Mr. Beckett this jewelry. He told us that it had all been taken from captives he’d brought to Calabar and then sold. Do you recognize it?”
There was a dull pain in her right hand. Ayisha didn’t know why her hand was hurting, but the pain helped her to focus, to keep her head. Slowly she looked up, keeping her usual calm, blank expression, not allowing her eyes to meet the white man’s. She shook her head from side to side.
“Are you sure, Ayisha? Duke says most of this jewelry was worn by slaves captured at the same time you were captured. Surely you must have seen it before.”
Her eyes flicked to Mercer, to show that she had heard the man, but she did not allow her gaze to focus on him. Again she shook her head, this time a bit more emphatically.
For long seconds they all remained like that, no one moving, no one speaking. Ayisha concentrated on the pain in her hand, keeping her eyes unfocused, her features vapid.
Finally Beckett straightened up. “I thought for a moment that she recognized something,” he said, in English. “But she doesn’t seem to. We’ll have to think of something else.”
The two men left the room, shutting the door behind them.
Ayisha sat unmoving for many minutes, in case their leaving was a trap, and they were watching her through the keyhole, as she had watched and listened to them. But then she heard the door to the corridor in Mr. Beckett’s office open, then shut, and, then their footsteps going down the hallway, accompanied by the low murmur of their voices.
Moments later, more faintly, she heard them on the stairs.
They were gone.
She sagged in her chair, finally allowing herself to react to what she had seen. Clutching her hands to her breast, she rocked back and forth, not knowing what to do, how to feel. Her brother…her brother had been captured, just as she had been. He, too, was a slave. But at least now she had some idea of where to search for him. Almost all slaves were taken across the ocean, to those land masses she had seen on the other side of the globe. They were taken west.
Her right hand still hurt, Ayisha realized. She lowered it, staring down at it, realizing it was badly cramped. Her fingers were stiff; her palm burned with pain. It was an effort to make her fingers move, but she did, and then saw what she held in her hand, the thing that had saved her. The pain had distracted her, helped her remember not to show her feelings.
It was the shuttle she used in her weaving. She had clutched it so hard that its outline was impressed into the flesh of her palm, almost as though it had been branded there.
Ayisha sat there, staring at it, thinking of her brother, and of Piye. A tear splashed into the center of the shuttle imprint. With an effort that was painful, she closed her fingers on it, reflecting that human tears were as salty as the sea.
The sea that she must cross, if she wanted to find her brother.
Silently, Ayisha—No! For these few moments, she was once again Amenirdis, Royal Princess of Zerzura. And as Amenirdis, her true self, she renewed her vow to escape. She and Tarek would escape, and they would find a ship, somehow, and get aboard it. Together, they would sail westward, in search of Prince Shabako.
Closing her eyes, Amenirdis prayed swiftly to Apedemak. Great Lion of Lions…help me in my quest. Send me a ship. Send me a ship, and someone to sail it for me. Send me a guide to help me find my brother. I ask this of you, Great Lion of Lions. Hear my prayer.
Send me a ship.…
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Devil in the Deep Blue Sea
JACK SPARROW LAY SPRAWLED ON HIS BUNK in the darkness of his captain’s cabin, sweating, wondering whether a few swigs of rum would help him go back to sleep. It was mid-July, and the Wicked Wench had been sailing south past the bulge of Africa for almost two weeks. From their current position, the equator was less than a week’s sail away.
It was hot and muggy in the cabin, even with the windows open all the way. Usually, Jack was tired enough at the end of a day to sleep straight through till dawn, but for some reason he’d awakened, and was unable to fall back asleep. Not long ago he’d heard the ship’s bell ring eight times. Eight bells of the middle watch; just a couple of hours to go until dawn.
He lay there, trying to relax, eyes closed, for several minutes more, before he sat up with a muttered curse. Heading over to his captain’s pantry, he pulled the door open and located the bottle of EITC-issued rum by feel. Why waste the good stuff when all he wanted was a couple of jolts to make him sleepy again?
As he stood there, the bottle in his hand, the other hand on the cork, he felt a wayward breeze brush his body from the stern window, and it felt very good. He realized where he wanted to be wasn’t back in his bunk, but up on deck, feeling the wind, beneath the stars.
Jack put the unopened bottle of rum back into the pantry and closed the door. There was no moon, and the inside of his cabin was very dark, but he knew every inch, so he didn’t light a lantern. Heading over to the chair where he’d hung his clothes, he pulled on his britches, then his loose-sleeved shirt. He didn’t button the shirt or tuck it in; it would be cooler hanging loose around him. He didn’t bother to put on shoes, or tie up his hair, only raked it back from his face with his fingers.
The door to his cabin swung open with barely a sound, and then he was walking forward, out from under the overhang. He made his way along the weather deck until he was standing forward of the mainmast, and then looked up, checking the Wench’s mains’ls. They were set as he’d ordered, to run before the win
d, and were properly taut, he noted with satisfaction. He glanced forward to the bow, then back all the way to the taffrail, seeing that the ship’s running lanterns were lit, casting small pools of light on the decks, like spatters of molten gold.
Turning, he headed aft, and when he reached the ladder leading up to the quarterdeck, mounted the steps quickly, his bare feet knowing every dip and groove. As he set foot on the deck, he spoke softly, so as not to startle Roger Prescott, the helmsman on watch. “Ahoy, mate,” he said. “I see we’re making good speed.”
The helmsman swung his head quickly toward him, then nodded. “Aye, we’re running nicely before the wind, Cap’n. Is everything all right?”
“Let’s just check,” Jack said, walking over to peer at the binnacle, with its lantern illuminating the face of the big compass, to check their heading, then glancing at the traverse board with its movable pegs showing the progress of their course during the watch.
“Everything’s fine,” Jack reassured Prescott.
“Surprise inspection, Cap’n?” Prescott asked, with a touch of humor.
Jack chuckled softly. “Do I look like I’m here for an inspection?” he asked, dryly.
“Frankly, no, Cap’n.”
“Just couldn’t sleep, so I decided to nip up here and enjoy a bit of fresh air.” He walked over to stand beside Roger for a moment, feeling the light wind of the Wench’s passage on his face and half-bared torso like a benediction. “Ahhhhhhh…” he sighed. “That feels very good indeed. It’s like a midday swamp in my cabin.”
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom Page 26
