Cross of Fire (54 page)

Peter Sam pulled his pistol, pushed it past Coxon’s lips with a terrible scrape of iron against tooth, and fired with a hand over the barrel to cut the spray of blood. ‘We do that,’ he said and turned Devlin to Kennedy who was dipping his blade out to them both.

‘You see, lads!’ Kennedy laughed. ‘That’s a captain’s work! Let me spare Devlin and I’ll lead us to glory, boys! I be your captain now! I’ve come from Roberts and escaped London to find my way again!’

Devlin could see the fear in the slitted eyes and the bravado of the bully – but without the meat and muscle to back it up. He looked back to Coxon’s slumped and portly shape. He suddenly looked heavier than before. Heavier because his lungs had expanded, had shifted in his chest, and his neck had swollen as the air had ballooned there. His face was a bloody mask.

Peter Sam pushed him round to where the
Standard
’s men were all leaning along the gunwale and staring down. Manvell and Howard hung in the shrouds.

‘Do something. Before they do. We’re taking in water.’

Devlin saw only Kennedy.

‘Axes.’ Devlin was breathing hard. ‘Cut us loose. They can’t fire close or damage themselves. Make sail. Get ahead. She has no chasers. We do.’ He stroked the blood from his face. ‘And give me a minute.’ He took his dagger from Peter Sam’s belt and with his cutlass crossed the planks to Kennedy.

‘One minute.’

Peter Sam bellowed his orders and every hand that held one slammed a boarding axe through the ropes that bound the broadsides and the
Shadow
got more scars for her end of days.

A handful of the
Standard
’s crew had climbed the gunwale to leap. The sudden heave of the deck as the tension snapped from the ropes drew in their courage. And the storm had not done with them yet.

The ships pivoted and spun apart. Together they had been almost eight hundred tonnes of wood and cordage but torn loose they were paper boats in a drain hole and the tempest let them know it.

Kennedy’s heels tripped back from the bloodied form coming on.

‘Now, Patrick. I just did what you could not. Don’t be showing these lads that you’re sorry I took the life of a man against us. I’m choosing to fight. You be the one choosing to swallow. Let thems declare on who they want as captain. That’s the way.’

Devlin did not speak.

He had words. He had platitudes. He had Virgil and Shakespeare ready to sprout and vilify. But men that are only ‘things’ deserve only silence.

Manvell, from the shrouds, watched the pirate captain as he advanced. He had seen Devlin and Coxon fight, then had seen Kennedy run Coxon through. Now, now as the ship pulled away, only two men existed on the deck before him.

Howard was below him, shouted up.

‘We could fire the sixes, sir!’

Manvell looked down.

‘You are in command, Thomas.’

‘Your advisement, sir?’

Manvell raised his eyes to the guns set in the tops.

‘They have not fired. They could cut us down if they wished,’ he said. ‘And I want to see this.’

Kennedy swallowed, wished for a pistol and then Devlin was inside his sword’s length and had cut his edge across Kennedy’s wrist.

The hilt fell out of his hand as if he were already dead, the blood falling with the rain and he clasped the severed veins with his good hand.

He gasped at it. He had never even seen it happen and still Devlin came on, too close for the cutlass and then Kennedy’s eyes looked down to the dagger sticking out of his chest and he had not seen that either; as his father had not seen.

He fell to his knees and still Devlin did not speak. Kennedy felt his chest pulse against the blade. He gripped his wrist tighter, fought the need to let go the staunching of the blood to pull the dagger free.

Then the blade had been pulled – too precious to lose – and he was in the air, tumbling over the side as Devlin cradled him, lifted Kennedy’s knees and, pulling him up by his throat, sent him into the sea.

Devlin sank against the gunwale, his wounds draining him again now his lust was spent. He watched a shark leap on the body and hoped Kennedy was not yet dead enough.

There were birds on the fish’s back, and the thrashing of more sharks, the rolling white bellies that always followed the ships. He looked up to the sky clearing, the rain only coming down now and not from every angle, great wings and cries about the crosstrees.

Sharks. Birds. Life coming back to the sea. The edge of the storm.

He looked to Manvell watching from the shrouds. Devlin’s cutlass and dagger went back to his belt. Done now. Put away. He tipped his fingers to his hat and at the man in the shrouds.

For another day. I have avenged. Avenged him.

The figure nodded back.

Aye. Another day. I have your face now. Your ship is holed. If you taunt I will destroy.

And Manvell climbed down the shrouds.

Devlin swung back to his crew, to the
Shadow
.

‘Any other want to call for captain? I’m yet only half-dead.’

He saw only the backs of heads and he clasped his ribs, leaned with his ship, with Peter Sam, the doubts no longer on his face.

‘Out of here,’ he said and the
Shadow
heeled to his word.

Chapter Forty-Two

The main course fell, the
Shadow
’s
quarterdeck already at the fo’c’sle of the
Standard
and Devlin yelled for Lawson to brace them back.

‘Hold!’

He knelt by Coxon’s body and brought him forward to his shoulder, dead arm along his back. He tried to stand. Peter Sam caught his stumble and Devlin pushed him by and rose with his old master over his shoulder.

‘To them. Not us.’

He staggered to the gunwale, his eye on Manvell and Howard, and waited for the ship to gain. His hand went to the rail to steady his legs then returned a breath later to holding the arm draped about him.

The derrick came and Coxon’s body was lashed beneath his arms and swung across. Devlin painted red by both their bloods.

He watched the body being lowered to the
Standard
, watched Manvell and Howard carefully unbind him, and then let Lawson give the cry to slip away. He took his hat and threw it across to their deck.

Howard saw it travel, watched it fall along the scuppers. He would pick it up soon enough to prevent some liar proudly claiming it as a token. He tapped Manvell’s shoulder.

‘I went for the papers, Christopher. As the captain said. I thought them orders.’ He put them out to Manvell, the seal broken: a purple seal.

‘Maybe you were right. This is madness.’

Manvell stood away from the body, opened the vellum cautiously against the rain and then understood why Howard had no fear to bring them out upon the sodden deck.

He passed them one under the other, again and again. Three times, like shuffling cards, hoping something might appear upon their blank sheets.

‘Did you break the seal, Thomas?’

‘He told me to. Should he not return. I do not understand. He charged them with such importance.’

Manvell looked at the halves of the seal. Symbols he did not recognise. He tore them loose, pocketed them and crushed the paper to the deck.

‘Never mind,’ he said.

The bosun, Abel Wales, had already draped Coxon’s cloak over the body, the blue and red face shrouded. Manvell nodded his thanks.

‘We’re going to take him home now,’ he said.

Devlin picked up Coxon’s hat. It fitted as poorly as all the others that he had never bought so that did not matter. Peter Sam stood beside him and Devlin held on to him.

‘I need Dandon,’ he said. ‘I need binding.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Peter pulled him up for the sight of the men. They would not see him weak. ‘We’re going back north. Back to the island. We need to repair. Right soon. Hartley has the stern guns should they want to warm. You sure they don’t have him?’

‘He’s slipped them. Like a dog in heat. Like
we
don’t have the gold.’

‘Not yet,’ Peter Sam hauled him towards the cabin, his strength keeping the limp body upright.

‘The storm and your past has wished us back.’

‘It’s the cross.’ Devlin spat his blood. ‘It don’t want to be left. I reckon that now.’

Peter Sam lessened his pressure as Devlin whimpered. He carried him softer.

‘Don’t be getting holy on me now, Patrick.’ He held the chin up as it fell, for no-one to see, and closed the doors behind.

Chapter Forty-Three

The Riberia Palace, Lisboa port. September 1721.

Two months later

The system of government by the Cortes was dissolved with the succession of King João V. He was absolute monarch, Prince of Brasil, and in less than two decades of his reign his country had dug and pillaged fortunes that Spain could not aspire to in four hundred years of exploration and exploitation. But no iron fist directed his rule.

Science and culture, religion and art were his principles; galleries, academies and libraries provided for his people. His empire was in its Golden Age, above even Spain, and now that the French, English and Dutch had squandered all their wealth into paper and companies Portugal’s affluence and influence became the mark of nations. Their trust still abided in the fruits of the earth: gold, diamonds, timber, and, with its wealth, architecture that would have made Rome envious.

Let the swine build exchanges and brothels. Lisboa climbed to the sky with cathedrals and opera houses.

But João’s last ambition remained unfulfilled. The wish, the need, to establish Portugal’s Catholic church with that of Rome and Spain; and for that he had bribed and courted cardinals and ambassadors with relics, diamonds and beautiful young nuns for years. But there had come no confirmation. Not yet.