Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key

by Kage Baker

  THEY WERE NINE DAYS out from Leauchaud, as it happened, which was plenty of time to wash and shave and put on good clothes. Sejanus, who had no sea-chest, took possession of the dead captain’s, and found that most of the fine garments fit him. So they were quite a civilized-looking crew that sailed into Maingauche Harbor, except for Mr. Tudeley, whose appearance had been rendered permanently disreputable.

  “Much I care,” he said cheerily, over his breakfast brandy. “I’ve gone on the account! I should think a fearsome countenance suits a pirate.”

  “It don’t hurt,” John admitted.

  “You ought to join us,” said Sejanus, tilting his hat back. “We need a good crew, Wint and me. It’ll be profitable, I can promise you.” But John shook his head.

  “I’ve pushed my luck far enough. I’m done with the Brethren. Always fancied dying in my bed.”

  “You’ll certainly die in her bed,” said Mr. Tudeley with a snigger, glancing in the direction of the great cabin. Mrs. Waverly was in there, singing serenely as she combed out her hair.

  “Oh, har har har,” said John. “I should hope so. I reckon we’ll get married after all.”

  “Good luck,” said Sejanus. “But it’s been known to happen, now and again, that a woman changes her mind. We’ll lie up here a few days. Take on some supplies, see can we sign on a few crewmen. You need a berth after all, you just come by and see us.”

  * * *

  So John went ashore at Leauchaud, carrying both his sea chest and Mrs. Waverly’s trunk, just as he’d started out the journey. Mrs. Waverly walked beside him, closely eyeing the place.

  “Oh, it’s very like Bath,” she said.

  “Is it?” John, who had never been out of London in all his days before being transported, looked up curiously. The whole place was built of cream-colored stone, from the eating-houses and taverns along the seafront to a few grand-looking buildings farther back. The green jungle came down behind.

  “Very like,” Mrs. Waverly repeated. “Perhaps we ought to find lodging first. You have still a little money left, have you not?”

  Which John had, his three pounds from sacking the Santa Ysabel with the last pitiful scraps of his loot from the Panama expedition. Grumbling rather, he bespoke them a room at the Dancing Master, and was grateful to set down the trunks and take a glass of rum whist the room was got ready. Mrs. Waverly introduced herself to a quite respectable-looking sugar merchant and his wife and wife’s sister, who were there to take the waters. She chatted away with them gaily, quite charming the merchant, if the ladies not so much, and from them learned a great deal. At last the landlord came back down and told them their room was ready.

  “One bed, eh?” John observed, when they had got upstairs.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Waverly. “We can afford better once we’ve recovered some of the money.”

  “Fair enough,” said John, looking at her bubbies with regret. “Well, what do we do now? Borrow a shovel from the landlord, and go digging?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Waverly, looking a little pained at his simplicity. “You shall have a bath, Mr. James.”

  * * *

  She explained no more until they were walking in the portico under the great iron sign reading SHILLITOE’S BATHS, watching well-to-do folk wander in and out of the pump room clutching little cups of water.

  “Tom’s instructions were to go into the baths reserved for gentlemen,” said Mrs. Waverly. “Which you shall do, and seek out a third alcove on the left hand side. He said that if you go to the midmost ring set in the wall, and wait until you are alone, you may then dive down to the step below. He said there is a stone loose there; he said that if you pulled it out and reached into the hollow space behind, you should find the money.”

  “He said that, did he?” said John, irritated, for he now saw clearly enough why she had needed his help. She gave a little apologetic shrug.

  “Poor Tom. He was a close man, as no doubt you came to know. I do not think it was in his nature to trust anyone. Shall we go in? I quite envy you. After so long on that island and aboard ship, I positively long for a lovely bathe.”

  “How am I to carry the money out with me? Folk will notice.”

  “So they should, if you brought it all out with you at once! But of course we shan’t do that, dear Mr. James.” She squeezed his arm. “I have been revolving in my mind how Tom managed it. I think it likeliest he stayed a few days and smuggled in the sealed bags two and three at a time, perhaps. And so we must remove them in the same wise, you see?”

  “I reckon so,” said John, wondering how big a hole Tom had been able to make in the stone wall of a bath, and how nasty might be the flooded place behind it. Mrs. Waverly must have seen his doubts in his face, for she kissed him and said gaily:

  “Think how much pleasanter this shall be than diving on the wrecks. It should be a most importunate shark that swum ashore and came creeping about bathhouses!”

  So they went into the pump room. Here Mrs. Waverly found an impressive-looking gentleman in a white plumed hat who was the Bath Constable. She gave him a song and dance about her dear husband requiring the waters for his health, and wanting to know to whom he might apply to bathe?

  Whereupon the Bath Constable smiled broadly, and paid Mrs. Waverly many compliments, and recommended to her many excellent establishments on the island for millinery, shoes and the like, as well as notable local wonders worth renting a coach to see. He discoursed a little on the state of modern medicine and quackery nostrums one ought to avoid, and listed the multitude of complaints and diseases completely cured by resort to Shillitoe’s Baths, which were after all compounded by no less an eminent apothecary than Almighty God Himself.

  But the end was, John had to pay out the very last of his Panama silver to be led into an antechamber where a couple of mournful-looking youths in white canvas clothes disrobed him, and handed his clothes out the door to Mrs. Waverly. They then dressed him in loose trousers and a sort of shift of canvas, so immense John might have made a pretty commodious tent out of it. They then led him through another door and, taking his arms, walked him down some steps into the Gentlemen’s Baths.

  “I can wash myself, mate,” said John, shaking them off.

  “You’re a h’invalid, ain’t you?” protested one of the youths.

  “Do I look like a fucking invalid to you?” said John, and they admitted he didn’t, and retired posthaste back up the stairs.

  He gazed around. The Gentlemen’s Baths looked like a church with all the pews taken out, and flooded, and having no glass in the high windows. He was in a big domed room, from which an aisle led with alcoves opening off it to right and left. All around the edges, set halfway up the walls, were bronze rings. Here and there was a miserable-looking old gent in a canvas shift, holding on to a ring for dear life, while attendants stood by watching lest he drown. The whole place stank like a fart.

  Third alcove, left hand side, John thought to himself, and waded down into the pool. At once the trapped air in his clothes ballooned up, buoying him, and before he had taken more than a few awkward steps across the room, the water down by his feet became scalding hot. He danced, back, swearing. An attempt to launch himself forward and swim across nearly got him drowned as well as boiled, for the clothes kept hindering his arms and legs. He fetched up against the wall, clutching for one of the bronze rings, and hauled himself up on a sort of shelf that projected below the waterline.

  “D’you need assistance, sir?” called one of the attendants, grinning.

  “No, damn you,” said John, wiping his face. He worked out that the shelf was continuous around the room and down the aisle, so he proceeded to follow it, wading and bobbling from ring to ring, out of the main chamber and so along the wall.

  He wondered how Tom had ever managed this while carrying gold, even small sealed bags of five-guinea pieces. He had a sudden powerful memory of Tom, with his little pointed beard and his knowing smirk. Tom indeed; tomcat cavalier fallen on hard times, l
iving by his wits. He’d been clever enough to hide a prince’s ransom in here, safe against Spanish intriguers or English cutthroats. Or his own dear lady love…

  It hadn’t escaped John that Mrs. Waverly had firm custody of his clothes. Not that he would be able to make off with the loot in any case; the windows were too high and well barred, the canvas garments impossible to run in. Smuggling the stuff out, at least, ought to be easy enough; John might have stowed a barrel under his shift, with room for a couple of kegs.

  He made his way past the first two alcoves on the left and into the third, which was deserted, perhaps because there was a nasty-looking slime the color of orange peel growing in a wide patch on the wall.

  …Go to the midmost ring…

  Balancing on the shelf there, he took a deep breath and ducked under the water, feeling with his fingers for a loose stone. Almost at once, before he could discern anything there, the air-bubble of his shift pulled him back up again. He tried a second and third time before standing up on the shelf and stripping off the shift, muttering to himself as he hung it through the ring. Then he took a deep breath and dove down.

  In the simmering gloom, peering through the vaguely rust-tinted water, John saw that he might have crouched there groping about forever without finding the loose stone; it wasn’t above the shelf but under it, only just visible for the dark rectangle where the mortar had been chipped away. How long had that taken Tom?

  John caught hold of the edges of the stone and rocked it to and fro and so out by degrees, though the edges bit into his fingertips and he had to come up for air again before he pulled it away. Panting, he laid it on the shelf and reached into the hole.

  Almost at once his fingers struck solid stone. He grunted in pain and withdrew his hand; he’d fair skinned his knuckles. More cautiously, he reached in and felt about. He encountered only the flat sides of the hole. It was big enough to accommodate the stone that had occupied it, and nothing else.

  No…his palm encountered something. Smallish. Flat.

  He drew it out and surfaced, gasping, to peer at it. A single coin? Not even that. It was a brass slug, engraved with the number 5.

  Something kept him from flinging it across the alcove into the boiling water, to be retrieved by anyone who cared to get scalded. John turned it over. Something else was engraved on the back.

  Ye Three Tunns

  He knew the Three Tunns. It was a tavern in Port Royal. It had a livery stable in back, on an alley off Thames Street, where things might be left until called for. He’d never owned anything to store there, but he’d diced once with a fellow who’d laid down a token like this as surety, claiming that John might have the chest of pewter plate it would redeem. John had lost the throw so it hadn’t mattered.

  Of course Tom hadn’t dragged a chest of gold all the way to Leauchaud. He’d cached it at the Three Tunns and come here to hide the token, well away from Mrs. Waverly’s quick fingers. Then he’d gone on, to Panama and his unexpected death.

  John laughed quietly. It might have been the echoes, but he almost fancied he heard Tom’s wry laughter too.

  * * *

  He put the token in his mouth, having no pockets, and put on the shift once more, and went splashing back out to the main chamber. When he emerged into the dressing-room, he found Mrs. Waverly sitting there chatting freely with the attendants. She stood quickly on seeing him.

  “Well, husband dear! Has the water done you good, as we’d hoped?”

  John spat the token into his hand. “Yes, thank’ee.”

  “Afford us some privacy, do,” said Mrs. Waverly to the attendants. They elbowed one another and sidled out, snickering.

  “Where is it? How much were you able to bring out?” she demanded, advancing on John.

  “All of it,” said John, and showed her the token. She stared at it a long moment, going quite pale under her fresh paint.

  “Why, that bastard,” she said.

  NINETEEN:

  The Inn in Thames Street

  THEY QUARRELED ALL THE way back to the Dancing Master, and Tom Blackstone was called a few more choice names. When they got to the tavern John went upstairs to get their trunks. Mrs. Waverly did her utmost to charm the landlord into refunding what they’d paid him for the privilege of giving their trunks a view of the harbor for three hours. He was disinclined to oblige on the matter, however. John got to watch Mrs. Waverly undergo a surprising transformation, with the veins in her neck standing out as she screamed a few epithets he hadn’t heard since the last time he’d walked through the fish stalls of Billingsgate.

  So they went penniless back to the waterfront, and were greatly relieved to see Le Rossignol drawn up to the quay. Sejanus was directing the loading-on of fresh water kegs and victuals, by Portuguese Fausto and two new crewmen, both blacks. He looked up at John and Mrs. Waverly, managing not to grin. “Afternoon,” was all he said.

  “Mr. Walker, we would be obliged to you for passage back to Port Royal,” said Mrs. Waverly, rather short.

  “Of course, ma’am,” he replied, tipping his hat. She came up the gangplank and made straight for the great cabin without another word. John followed her with the trunks. Sejanus raised his eyebrows at him.

  “Seems her late husband cut her out of the will,” said John.

  * * *

  They skirted the edges of a storm, but otherwise had plain sailing back to Jamaica. Mr. Tudeley hung off the stern of the sloop and painted over the name Le Rossignol, renaming her Revenge, though John told him just about every other pirate vessel seemed to be named that nowadays. Then Mr. Tudeley said perhaps she ought to be Tudeley’s Revenge, but Sejanus pointed out that simple Revenge was more nondescript and, given that they were about to engage in a life of crime, less easy to trace therefore. So Revenge she remained.

  * * *

  On a bright morning they dropped anchor just north of King’s Wharf. John lowered his sea-chest and Mrs. Waverly’s trunk into the pinnace, with a pair of oars.

  “We’ll be here a day or two,” remarked Sejanus casually, leaning on the rail as John handed Mrs. Waverly down into the pinnace. “See can we get a good price for the china. We’ll be off to Tortuga after that, with what’s left of the brandy. Either sell it or trade it for a privateering commission. Sure you’re not interested?”

  “Steady sure, mate,” said John.

  Sejanus nodded to him. “Then good luck to you.”

  * * *

  It was a long hot tramp down Thames Street in the morning heat, especially with a pair of trunks to carry. Mrs. Waverly stalked ahead of him, grimly purposeful, watching the signs. John, looking around, thought they might well have been dropped back in time to the morning they had set out. Nothing seemed to have changed much: same sticky salt mist lying over the town, same brilliant reflections of light and water on walls. He could feel a headache beginning in the back of his skull, from the glare.

  He spotted the alleyway before Mrs. Waverly did and rushed ahead, shouldering his way through under the brick arch. She scuttled after him. The liveryman, lounging back on a bale of cotton, looked up in surprise as the pair of them reached his counter at once.

  “We’re redeeming something,” said John, sliding the brass token across the counter. The liveryman took his red clay pipe from his mouth and leaned down to peer at the token.

  “Five,” he pronounced. “Indeed! I thought it was lost. Reverend Blackstone got his church built at last, hey?”

  John blinked at him. “Aye. He did.”

  “I’ll fetch it straight. Just bide, there; it’s at the back.” He walked away into the depths of the shed and they waited impatiently.

  “Reverend Blackstone?” said John, sotto voce.

  “I have no idea,” said Mrs. Waverly, tapping her foot.

  After a long while the liveryman came backing up to the counter, dragging a great chest after him.

  “Here,” he grunted, straightening up. “Whew! I’ve kept it the best part of a year…I make that two
pounds ten in fees, sir and ma’am.”

  Mrs. Waverly gave him a brilliant smile. “You see we have just stepped ashore. Now, I will tell you what: I shall leave mine own trunk here as surety, while we just step next door and bespeak lodging. John, give the good man my trunk. And he shall give us the good Reverend’s box.”

  The liveryman made a face, but John had already thumped Mrs. Waverly’s trunk down on the counter, which was a plank across two barrels. The liveryman shoved the other trunk through beneath the counter and John hoisted it up, staggering a little at the weight.

  They stepped across the alley into a place called the Feathers, quiet and empty at that hour of the morning. “Here!” said Mrs. Waverly, leading John to a dark corner of the common room. He set the chest down with a crash. Mrs. Waverly bent to unfasten the straps that closed it. Her hands were trembling. She threw back the lid.

  “Bugger,” said John in surprise. Within, neatly packed, were dozens of worn old copies of the Book of Common Prayer.

  “No,” said Mrs. Waverly. “No, no, no. Oh, you worthless son of a mongrel bitch.” She raked the prayerbooks out. They spilled over on the floor until her nails grated across iron. She shoved more of the books out of the way to reveal the top of an ironbound box, and burst into tears. “Oh, Tom, forgive me!” she said.

  Reaching into her bodice, she drew forth a key and cleared away enough prayerbooks to get at the lock. A moment and they had it open, to look upon a number of lumpy little waxed-canvas bags, each one sealed with the stamp of the House of Simmern.

  John leaned down with his clasp-knife and slit one bag open. There, at last, he glimpsed bright gold. He tore with his fingers and they came sliding out, lovely five-guinea pieces. He grabbed a handful and stood, savoring the moment.

  The landlord walked into the room then, wiping his hands on his apron and looking at them inquiringly.

  “Your best room, my good sir,” said Mrs. Waverly, blotting away her tears. “And your very best breakfast served up, and four bottles of your best rum.”