Cross of Fire (31 page)

In the same light, inches away from each other, Coxon could see the waxy hands, greased from an emollient to help soothe something but making the red and blistered skin of the knuckles shine like crackled pork fat. Kennedy stood behind his work, beaming with pride. Coxon could not bear to look at him. He pushed a full goblet to Dandon. That would pass as a degree of sympathy.

‘Where?’ he repeated.

The chains made their loathsome noise as Dandon’s hands trembled for the wine. There was no blood about them and there was a biting need in Coxon to know what had occurred when Kennedy and Dandon were alone. Judged from the hands there had been burning. Prolonged burning. He had heard that pirates in their inquisitions of prisoners sometimes entwined the obstinate’s fingers with match fuse, lit and let it smoulder through the knuckles. He determined then that he would not question Kennedy. The man would surely derive some joy from the telling.

Dandon drained the glass, turned it over, let it drop and smash to the floor. He lolled his head to Coxon.

‘So I have agreed to speak. And so shall I speak. A man of my word.’ He raised himself in his chair and cleared his throat. Coxon’s patience at an end.

‘What island? Where the treasure?’ Coxon said.

Dandon lifted his chains. ‘
Je vais vous raconter tout ce que vous voulez savoir
.’ He fell back in his chair with a snarl. ‘
Malheureusement le choc de mes blessures a forcé mon cerveau pour retourner au Français de mes premières années. Parlez-vous Français du tout, Capitaine?
’

Still Dandon. Still the pirate.

‘As long as the wine comes, Captain, I’ll gladly be here.’ Dandon pushed the map away. ‘Your fiend tortures, and you ladle me with drink, and in truth it tastes better for it:
la foie coloniale.
’

He lifted the chains to his forelock and saluted. ‘What a set we have in the world, Captain.’

‘You think you’re not to talk?’ Coxon said. ‘You think I’m gaming you?’ He nodded to Kennedy. ‘Take him below. Tie him back to the overhead. See how arrogant he is after a night hanging in chains.’

Dandon laughed.

‘Oh, John! Captain John,’ he shook his head in pity. ‘By my not talking can you not see how I am sparing your ship? I work for you not against, in pity for your fates.’

Coxon pushed away from the table, took the map.

‘Tomorrow then. And no more wine. Nor water.’ He rolled the chart to carry it with him for study.

‘You forget, pirate. I have known Devlin longer than you. Longer than all of you. I have sent to that Porto priest the word that I have you.’ He ushered Kennedy to pull Dandon to his feet. Side by side. ‘You and I both know that he will come.’

Dandon pushed out his manacled hands, elbowed the body beside him.

‘So why this? Devlin never spoke of your manner thus! He had little word against you.’

‘If you tell what you know I may save some time in hunting him. It will inspire the men to fill their lockers with gold. And if you are any man at all you will know . . .’ He undid the pearl button at his right sleeve, rolled the shirt back to show the star-shaped scar where the skin had been sewn back and showed it to them both. He did not finish his line but tacked on another.

‘The winters make it ache. He took my ship, and did this. A small thing but it suffices. Hate enough.’

‘He met you under truce before,’ Dandon said. ‘Do your men know that? You let him go with the porcelain then. Why this fury now?’

‘That was before. He has since almost brought down the king and nearly ruined the world. I have been ordered to him.’ He opened the door and stood aside for Kennedy to drag his prisoner. Dandon struggled, threw a sneer at Coxon.

‘Then I hope you get the moment to fulfil your order, Captain John. I very much hope that day comes to pass. You will hear nothing from me!’

Coxon shoved him on.

‘I’ll see on that tomorrow. The night may make you perceive differently.’ He shut the door. He studied the scar, rubbed its ache before folding down the sleeve to cover it. He had not meant to do that, to show it. Such emotion was not like him. But perhaps if Manvell should see, that might help. Not for pity or to stoke loyalty but just for understanding. Sometimes, for the ignorant, pictures could help tell a story more than words.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Peter Sam grabbed Devlin’s arm. It was dawn and he immediately felt the green and the damp of his clothes from sleeping among the fronds and rocks. Peter Sam had shaken him awake and said something and Devlin’s coiled body had jerked and sprung for his gun. Now he rolled up, fully alert, the pistol ready.

‘What say you?’ Devlin breathed and then saw Hugh Harris standing behind Peter, checking his guns, a musket leaning in his armpit. Peter Sam had woken him with words but Devlin had missed them.

‘He’s gone,’ Peter Sam said, and added as if Devlin would not know, ‘O’Neill has gone.’

Devlin looked about and still needed the word said again.

‘Gone?’

Peter Sam wiped his bald head front to back and followed Devlin’s eye scouting the trees.

‘A water bag gone. I’ve looked about. I make we go to the boat.’

Hugh Harris belted his guns. ‘I make we go for the bastard’s head!’

Devlin said nothing. He looked up at the green, listened to the water, stood as still as the trees. He put his pistol to his belt and picked up his hanger and sheathed it to the same.

‘To the boat,’ he said, and Peter Sam and Hugh knew when it was wisest to be quiet around him.

They followed him down, the tropical air already boiling around them, aiding the rising of their blood. They hoped to meet a man of God struggling to launch a boat from the shore or better still his pirate allies conversing on the beach with him. They would have livers and hearts instead of bread and fruit for breakfast.

The beach gave them nothing. There was the
Shadow
sitting high on the crystal waters with her angular masts and rigging, her prow and clinker-built strakes all too foreign against the natural world surrounding them; but the beach was empty. The jolly-boat was gone.

The pirates spread out along the shore, each with his hand on the wrist of a pistol, and glared at a different patch of water seeking a priest rowing somewhere.

Devlin called Peter Sam to fire a musket to let the
Shadow
know they were still there, that all was still well and that he was still in command and shaping the world.

The crack shivered the trees and snapped them all into rolling thoughts.

O’Neill had taken the boat. He had withheld cards from their game and played them all for fools. Played their captain for the Irishman that he surely was. He plainly had no fear of them, and that was the worst part.

Devlin turned back to Peter Sam. ‘I’ll burn him down,’ he said.

Peter Sam nodded as he reloaded from his belly-box. ‘Where is he?’

Devlin cocked his head to the green island over his shoulder off the beach. You could build a bridge to it. ‘He’d be confident to row there. I know two things.’

‘You’d better,’ Peter Sam’s eyes were to his weapons.

‘There’s the gold there. He led us to the wrong island deliberate so he could keep us from it.’

‘And?’

‘He has a friend to go to.’

‘La Buse?’

Devlin looked to the
Shadow
already lowering a boat.

‘It had better be God himself to save that priest. There’s no Latin or Spanish to damn that dog enough.’

They waited for the boat, spoke little, and played their guns and swords like the itches of wounds.

Dandon had hardly slept so he could not say that he had woken. He had heard the watches and the bells above him all night as his head lolled and his arms hung. It was more stupor than slumber. His pained hands rubbed against his head and he swayed with the ship. But comfort is not a thing to be measured on a ship. Nothing about it is so. It is simply learning to lessen
discomfort
.

His pose was not too afflictive at first, but after hours of it had ached like crucifixion. His back felt whipped raw, his arms swollen and, when he could no longer grasp the chain he hung from, his wrists had chafed against the irons about them. He looked to the goats and pigs and envied them; and then they snorted and he heard footsteps from the stair and straightened himself with a grinding in his spine.

Through the wood and lanterns he could not see who came but he would not give them a cracked voice. He rolled his tongue about his mouth and lips and tried to swallow.

A head peered at him from around the wood. It was a young face with a wiry red mop of hair, his collar marking him out as too smart to be the fellow sent to clean out the manger. Dandon then saw that he carried a flask and a cobble of bread and he was suddenly no longer interested in the man himself. The figure came forward stealthily, as if Dandon might suddenly explode, and held out the flask of water.

Dandon showed his wrists.

‘I do not have the freedom to take it, sir.’ He wondered what trick this was. Would he be a lip away from the flask and then Coxon and Kennedy would appear and snatch it away? He behaved with that in mind.

‘Who are you?’

Thomas Howard crept closer and popped the cork, a civil sound discordant with the stench and gloom and the blood.

‘Does that matter?’ He put the flask to Dandon’s lips and tipped it, careful not to flood his mouth, and Dandon no longer cared about the honour of the prisoner and sucked greedily. The bread next. Howard tore it and fed him through the chains, past the smell of blistered flesh.

‘My thanks, sir,’ Dandon said, wary still. ‘But you should go. Your punishment will be great.’

‘I have been ordered to attend,’ Howard said.

‘That is not true.’

Howard felt himself blush at the words.

‘Then perhaps I do not like to see men starve.’

‘Even pirates? That’s very enlightened for an officer. You will not go far.’

A regret for his compassion flared up Howard’s neck and he tossed the rest of the bread to the goats.

Dandon lowered his head. He had only meant his words to turn the young man away from a situation that would not go well for either if chanced upon.

‘That is more like it,’ he said. ‘Don’t let your captain down.’

‘I have been a fool,’ Howard said. He took a pebble from a pocket. ‘All the same, keep this under your tongue and roll it in your mouth.’ Dandon did not protest and took it like a pill. ‘You are not as thirsty as you think and that will stave off your thirst.’ He turned and ducked away.

Dandon aimed his words to the back weaving away through the supports.

‘Thank you, Thomas,’ he said.

Howard’s head appeared from the last wooden pillar.

‘You do know me?’

‘I do now. Such a flurry of red hair I could hardly forget. And I remember, Thomas Howard.’ He leant towards him as best he could.