as if there were a hundred unwashed bodies there, like the hold of a slave ship. Well, perhaps not that bad, but bad enough. He could smell sweat and rotting food and a vague trace of feces and urine. He was accustomed to the unpleasant smell that ships developed, but he had never experienced anything like that outside a blackbirder.
He had no idea how long he had been staring into that dim cabin, but it seemed a long time, and in that time there had been no more noise than he had heard while paddling out to the ships. Even the snoring had stopped. The night was devoid of human sounds. And in the quiet, clinging to the side of the brigands’ ship, Wilkenson’s thoughts turned to Marlowe.
Marlowe had been one of these men. That was what Ripley had said. He had lived this life, a life that he, George Wilkenson, could only peer at from a canoe. Marauding, looting, raping, Marlowe had done it all. Was it any wonder that Elizabeth was so eager to fuck him? And now he was sailing downriver to fight it out with these pirates, to plunge right into battle with men the very thought of whom made Wilkenson sick with fear.
He had seen the pirates coming up the hill. There were hundreds of them, many more than the Plymouth Prizes, vicious killers all. Two ships against the one. And Marlowe was coming to do combat with them, while all he could do was float alongside in a canoe, peering in the gunport like some kind of peeper. That was all he had ever been, a peeper.
Then the next thing he knew he was standing in the canoe and half thrust through the gunport, squeezing with some difficulty around the barrel of the gun that was run out. He paused as his pistol caught on the sill, twisted around until it was free, and then slid in the rest of the way. He picked up his musket, which he had thrust in before him, and, half crouching, looked around.
He was aboard the pirate ship. That very realization surprised him, as he had never intended to do anything of that kind. He was thrilled at the thought. He was aboard a pirate ship, the only conscious man, as far as he could tell. He held
their lives in his hand. He could kill them all, just as he had killed Ripley.
But that was not entirely true, he reminded himself. He could kill three of them, for he had two pistols and a musket, and then they would kill him.
But he had not come aboard just to look around, he had come to do something, to make himself a part of Marlowe’s world, if even for a moment, even if he was the only one who would ever know it. These were the men who had burned his home, and he wanted vengeance on them, real vengeance, vengeance the way Marlowe would have it. These men had to be eradicated, any suggestion of a link between them and the Wilkenson family had to be wiped out. But he did not know how.
And suddenly the answer was obvious, as obvious as the glowing lantern and the pile of flammable debris and the wooden beams that smelled of linseed oil and tar.
He picked up his musket and stepped softly to the forward end of the cabin. There was a rack for cutlasses against the bulkhead, with two of the weapons still in place. There was also a portrait of a woman, probably the former master’s wife. Her image had suffered great insult in the hands of the pirates. There was a slash across her face and various stains on the canvas where something-food, it looked like-had been hurled at the painting.
George took those things in as he stepped cautiously toward the door that communicated with the waist. He paused just inside the frame. The door opened outward, onto the deck, and it was half open. He leaned forward and slowly, very slowly, peered out.
There was still no movement, though he could tell that the heaps he had seen from the canoe were indeed men, deep in drunken sleep, judging from the many bottles scattered around. He could hear snoring once more. There were not many men aboard, as far as he could tell, though there may have been more below. Still, it occurred to him that most of
the pirates were more likely to be aboard the relatively new and luxurious Wilkenson Brothers than that fetid tub.
He waited for a minute, and then another, and still there was no sound. He felt himself being taken by a recklessness that he had never known. He took another step. He was standing in the doorway, in full sight of anyone who might look up. He reached over and pulled the door shut.
The door swung in, smooth and silent on iron hinges, and then George felt some resistance and the lower hinge gave off a loud squeak that seemed to run through his body like a metal shaft. He froze where he stood, and it was only with some effort that he did not wet himself. His courage was not as great as he had thought.
He remained perfectly still, listening, but there was no sound, no alarm. The door was all but closed, save for two inches. It would have to remain as it was. He stepped back across the cabin and surveyed the detritus on the surface of the table. Clothing, bottles, food scraps. They would burn, as would the table itself and the few bits of upholstery remaining, and the thinner bits of wood making up the window frames.
All of it would burn, and it would set the larger beams ablaze and in no time at all the entire ship would be involved, and then Marlowe would have one, not two, ships to fight. And he, George Wilkenson, would have helped to rid the Chesapeake of the plague that his own father had brought. And then, perhaps, he could endure being himself. George Wilkenson.
He grabbed an armful of the stuff on the table and deposited it on the settee, frowning and turning his head away from the foul odor it gave off once disturbed. He opened his powder horn and spilled its contents onto the cloth. He pulled the lantern down and opened it up and reached gingerly inside for the candle. The flame fluttered, and he paused, waiting for it to regain its strength, and then carried it over to the settee and set the whole thing on fire.
The flame raced through the sprinkling of gunpowder and grabbed on to the cloth, flaring and growing with each second.
It greedily devoured the shirts and breeches and the old coat and then went for the settee cushions. The pirates had already managed to slash the upholstery and pull out a portion of the stuffing, and that just made it easier for the hungry fire. In less than a minute the flames were climbing up the side of the cabin, pulling at the paint and lapping over the heavy beams overhead.
George stepped back from the heat and the light. He was surprised at how quickly the fire was spreading. He stepped back again.
The fire was swirling around the after windows. It snatched up the old torn curtains, and in a flash they were gone and the flames moved on. They crawled across the starboard ceiling and threatened to engulf the aftermost cannon on that side.
Wilkenson began to feel uneasy. He could hear no sounds from the deck, but this fire could not go undetected for long, no matter how drunk the pirates were. He stepped back again and looked toward the gunport through which he had come. His route of escape. He had to go. But he could not tear himself away.
He looked back at the fire, which now consumed a good portion of the after end of the cabin. This was destruction, this was vengeance, from his own hand. He smiled with delight. A few more seconds and he would go, because now he had redeemed himself and now he wanted to live.
He took another step toward his gunport. The heat was almost more than he could bear. The aftermost cannon on the starboard side was now all but engulfed in flame.
Then Wilkenson was struck with the sickening thought that perhaps the gun was loaded.
And no sooner did that thought occur to him than the gun went off with a sound like the ship’s entire magazine exploding. The wheels leapt off the deck as the big cannon flew inboard, blowing more fire from its muzzle. The breech ropes were burned through and there was nothing to stop the gun in its recoil. It crashed through the table and upended as it slammed against its opposite number on the larboard side, turning them both over with the thunder of two tons of iron hitting the deck.