These men at the door right now might be ready to rush him when he opened it, knock him down, beat him to death, or perhaps hack him with their cutlasses.
Adam got out his sheath knife. Each man from the Goodwill had been permitted to retain this weapon, or tool, presumably because the pirates took its existence for granted and would no more have thought of taking it from a prisoner than they would have thought of pulling his teeth or tearing out his fingernails.
Adam held this behind him. At the door he looked back. Maisie was watching him wide-eyed, but when he frowned at her and made a motion commanding her to cover her shoulders, she couldn't restrain a giggle. Maisie always found his prudery amusing. But she did cover her shoulders.
Adam opened the door, stepping back and a little to one side. He did not display the knife.
There was only one man before the door, though others, idly curious, hovered in the background, for a courier from van Bramm's headquarters always drew a crowd.
"A message from Captain van Bramm to Captain Long."
Adam held out his hand.
"I'l take it."
The man was not to be cut short like that. He was tall and gaunt, and the skin of his face, heavily lined, had the cretaceous quality of chalk: you thought, looking at it, that you could have chipped some of it away with your thumbnail. He was very earnest, conscious of the audience.
"Captain van Bramm's compliments to Captain Long, and he says to come to his house."
"Now?"
"Why, of course," cried the courier, off guard for the moment. Adam shook his head. He smiled.
"I'm sorry. I have an appointment to have breakfast with Mistress Long this morning, and after that I am expected for a rapier lesson by Master Carse. But after that—say, in about two hours from now?—I would be glad to call upon Captain van Bramm. Will you give him my compliments, please, and take this message to him? Thank you."
And he closed and locked the door.
Maisie was looking at him. She nodded.
"Good," she said. "But I still don't like it."
"I don't either."
"I'd feel better if I was with you when you go for that fencing lesson."
"Why don't you come along then?"
She got up, and started to turn over dresses and skirts.
"Perhaps I will, but I have nothing to wear."
It was a triumphant procession, which again Adam hadn't wanted. He would have been followed, and cheered, whenever he went out, after the events of yesterday; but this march might have been interpreted to look as if he intended to create excitement, as though he asked for applause. To be sure, it would have been impossible to go out anywhere at any time in the company of Lady Maisie and not attract attention. This morning she looked superb. She was all done up in yellow and silver, and, under a sunshade yellow as buttercups, her fine brown eyes gleamed, her red-brown hair danced and glittered, as she smiled and nodded right and left, gracious, a queen. Maisie did not personally, physically, fear the pirates; she only feared what they might do to her lover. Maisie did not fear any men. She had learned from experience that all she ever had to do was smile. She smiled today.
Though Carse of the beautiful hands apparently was unaware of the crowd that trailed Adam and Maisie out to the fencing strips, and showed no self-consciousness during the lesson, as an Adam Long not yet sure of himself did, the master was uncommonly if unobtrusively kind. He gave few instructions, and those in a tone that implied that he was only reminding Adam of them, rather than giving them for the first time. He did not permit Adam to win any of the bouts—that would have been too obvious—but there was none of the harshness that sometimes featured their meetings alone, nor was there any disarming, or seating Adam with a thump on the ground. Afterward the two men shook hands, thanking each other.
Taking off his plastron, Adam strolled over to the bag of blades. Nervously he whipped a few. All were buttoned.
"You, uh, you didn't happen to bring a workable sword with you today, did you?" he asked quietly.
"I didn't happen to, no. I did it purposely. Here. It is conceivable that you might need it. You deserve it anyway."
There it was, scabbard and all, a somewhat Italian-looking weapon, slightly archaic, but a beauty—silver-hiked, with bell guard, with long fancy quillons. He drew it slowly, thrilling to hear the whisper of the steel. The blade itself was true Toledo, damaskeened with gold in a folageous design near the hilt. A handsome thing, surely; but no toy! He whipped it, smiling. It had perfect balance. The point was stilletto-sharp, and each edge might have been a razor.
"But, man, this is valuable!"
"Keep it," Carse said carelessly. "It can serve as a souvenir of our lessons."
"You talk as if I was leaving."
"It could be that you are. It could be. In any event, Captain, it might give you confidence to know that you've got steel at your side when you answer van Bramm's summons in a little while."
Adam, buckling on the sword, looked at him.
"You know about that?"
"Everybody on the island knows about it. Excuse me, Captain—"
Maisie had come over, and she thanked him graciously for helping her husband keep up his rapier work, and gave him a hand to kiss. A moment later she looked curiously at him.
"Haven't we met before, sir? La, your face is familiar! In London?"
"Impossible, ma'am. I have never been in London."
Adam rested his left hand on the hilt of the sword, and felt the point go up behind. That was a good feeling. He had never before worn a sword. He thought that he would always wear one now.
Resolved Forbes was by his side, speaking low out of a corner of his mouth.
"It'll be tonight."
"Good! Does Jeth know?"
"I'll tell him. But still no boom."
"We'll use the jury."
Forbes started to drift away, but hovered.
"Don't get killed now, Captain, when you call on van Bramm."
"I won't get killed."
"It would spoil everything," Resolved Forbes pointed out.
From his name you would take it that the tyrant of Providence was Dutch, but in appearance he might have been of any nationality; and he spoke, it was reported, every known language, each with an accent. Some there were, even in that ungodly company, who branded the question pointless anyway, saying that Everard van Bramm was not a man at all but a devil.
To these freebooters the bizarre was a delight, the barbaric a condition to be cultivated. As vain as women, if scarcely as neat, all of them were besmudged, most were lousy as well; and they had a childlike fondness for color. As though to make up for their lack of inward strength, the way their emotions wobbled, the instability of their existence, they favored not only gay apparel but also anything metallic they could lay hands on. That they were overarmed—ludicrously so, it seemed at first-became understandable when their method of taking prizes was learned. A great sudden show" of weapons was a part of this technique. Yet they loaded themselves with cutlery and firearms in camp, too, when there was nobody to intimidate. Each fairly clanked as he moved. Adam Long had seen pirates here with as many as five pistols stuck in their sashes— though it might be that few or none of these would work. They went in, too, and very heavily, for large belt and shoe buckles, flashy cutlass hilts, and all manner of bijouterie—not just ear ornaments but finger rings, gold and silver chains, even in some cases bangles.
Into this pattern Everard van Bramm fitted perfectly. His was an ugliness that fascinated.
Though the figure of a spider persists, it is not altogether accurate. A spider has no force, being dependent rather upon guile or venom, or on both. Van Bramm had the guile, the poison as well, and, a chunky silent man, he did give the impression of one who squats in the middle of a web. But he was a person of great bodily strength. He bulged with muscle. He was more than surface; for he had in him, even beyond his horrible appearance, immense reserves of brutality.