“So why are you going aboard?”
“Because I gots to see that you boys will be safe. So I’m going to go aboard first, and I’m going to have a talk with Captain Marlowe.”
Captain Marlowe was not asleep, had not been asleep, and did not envision being asleep anytime soon. He lay still in his cot, stared up at the blackness. He had tried to use his arm as little as possible, but he still was forced to use it a lot, and now it hurt like hell. On the deck above he heard the clanging of the bells, seven bells, half past eleven
P.M. The sound was an underscore to his restlessness.
Boarding the French merchant ship had unsettled him. All those women and children. Not renegades, savage killers as he had pictured, but families, going calmly about their business.
Marlowe had picked up some of the coastal pidgin during his various adventures along that coast and with that he was able to talk to some of the women, after a fashion. They told him something about pirating and about Kalabari and Madshaka, though if that last was a person or a place he could not tell. They told him something about someone who sailed the ship being dead, but when he said “King James?” they pointed to the shore.
In the end he was more confused than he had been before going aboard.
He thought about the ship. She had been full-laden when James took her. Rich fabrics, spices, tea, not an insignificant amount of specie. If the Elizabeth Galleys had begun to doubt his tales, they doubted no more. She was a rich prize, and the vessel itself was worth enough to make the cruise profitable.
He might not have a letter of marque and reprisal, but he carried with him a commission from Governor Nicholson to run these black pirates to ground, and Marlowe felt it was not an unreasonable assumption that he also had the right to keep for him and his men whatever stolen goods they might recapture.
And since it was too great a hardship to try to carry it all back to Virginia-dispatching a prize crew, keeping company, worrying about recapture-he reckoned they would just dispose of ship and cargo in Lisbon. There he could transform their great encumbrance into a more manageable chest of Spanish doubloons and pieces of eight, which would render the men much more cooperative and avoid irritating complications at home.
A chest full of specie and King James in chains down below. He tried to feel happy about it but he could not, at least not about the part that involved King James.
Well, perhaps James has run off into the forest and I will never find him, he thought, and rolled over and closed his eyes and wondered if he might sleep now.
He heard a creak from beyond the door, from the great cabin, and though the Elizabeth Galley, rolling in the ocean swells and pulling on her anchor hawse, was a cacophony of creaks, his mind separated that one from the others, singled it out as not being a part of the natural workings of the vessel, and before he had even had a conscious thought about it he was sitting bolt upright in his cot, his ear cocked to the door.
There was another sound, though hardly a sound at all, more like a warm breath on the neck. If he had been even half asleep, if he had not been tensed as he was, he would never have heard it. A foot coming down on the plush pillow on the after locker? The great cabin windows were open. It was not an impossible climb up the rudder and over the counter, not for a strong and nimble person.
Marlowe was up, out of bed, wearing only the old slop trousers he wore to sleep, and in the blackness his left hand fell on the hilt of his sword, his right hand on the loaded pistol he always kept in the same place for just that reason. A stab of pain shot up his arm. He clenched his teeth, grabbed the gun with his left hand. A silent step toward the door and with the barrel of the pistol he moved the little curtain a hair, peered out into the great cabin.
The lantern that always burned in the great cabin was out, but the light from the stern lanterns on the taffrail above the windows threw a diffused glow out into the night, enough to silhouette the figure stepping in through the window, moving carefully, stepping down onto the locker. Marlowe had no notion of who it might be and he did not care. Anyone making such an entrance was someone he was quite happy to shoot.
Marlowe took a step back, held the gun up, sword down, drew breath, and then lashed out with his foot, smashed the door open with a splintering sound, stepped forward, the gun coming down level as he did.
He could see the figure react, see him move, and he pointed the barrel of the gun at the center of his body and pulled the trigger. In the flash of priming and muzzle he had just a glimpse of white slop trousers, leather jerkin, loose shirt, leaping sideways, diving for the deck. He heard the sound of shattering glass as the bullet passed its target and smashed through the quarter gallery windows on its way to plunging into the Bight of Benin.
“All right, Captain Marlowe, it’s just me. James.”
Marlowe stood and stared into the dark. The smell of burnt powder was strong in his nose, his night vision quite ruined by the gunshot. He could hardly believe what he was hearing.
Then the door to the adjoining cabin burst open and there was Francis Bickerstaff, sword in one hand, lantern in the other, and though the one candle gave out just the merest flicker it seemed to illuminate the space like noontime sun.
“What the devil…,” Bickerstaff said, his eyes flicking down to Marlowe’s spent pistol. He followed Marlowe’s gaze. Crouched on the aft locker, right by the open window, King James. Slop trousers, linen shirt with sleeves rolled up to reveal powerful forearms. Heavily armed, but his weapons hanging at his side, none drawn. Eyes alert.
Then there were hurried footsteps beyond the great cabin, pounding on the door. “Captain? Captain? Are you all right?” It was Fleming, and there were others with him.
Marlowe paused, held James’s eyes. If I had any brains at all, he thought, I would have Fleming in here and have him take this son of a bitch away in chains.
“Fine, Mr. Fleming. Sorry for that gunshot. I thought I heard some damned thief coming up the rudder and took a shot, but it was nothing.” His eyes remained locked with James’s.
A pause, and then, “Very well, sir. You are sure you are all right?”
“Yes, fine, thank you. But pray tell the anchor watch to keep a bright lookout. You know these Africans will steal the shoes from your feet, give them half a chance.”
“Aye, sir. It’s a fact, sir.” Then with some muttered order to the others, Fleming shuffled away.
Marlowe turned to his visitor. “So, James. Sneaking in here like the damned criminal you are?”
“I didn’t know how me old shipmates felt. Thought it safer not coming up the side in the daylight, you know?”
“Safer? I damned near shot you, you stupid bastard!”
“No, not close. I know you sleep with the one gun only. I was ready for it. What happened to your arm?”
“Round shot. Attacking some bastard I took to be you.”
“If I known about the arm I not have been so careful.”
James was his same old arrogant, cocksure self. Marlowe felt the anger mounting, and not for the first time, but it was worse now. He tossed the spent gun aside, snatched a cutlass from the rack on the bulkhead. “Not so careful, eh? Well you black whore’s son, are you ready to take a sword through the throat, for all the damned trouble you’ve caused me? For sneaking in here like this? I can run you through with my left arm as well as my right.”
James remained motionless, his face set, frowning. “You think you can get across this cabin before I go out the window? You that fast? You make that move and you never see me again, and then you can go back and tell the governor how you let me go.”
“Enough! Enough.” Bickerstaff stepped forward, set the lantern on the table. “Thomas, if James has gone to the risk of coming aboard thus, I think we can listen to him. James, you have put us all through a world of trouble and Thomas is quite justified in wanting to cut your throat. So since you are, both of you, the two great villains of the Western world, let us all at least don the mantle of civilized men.”