Easton (13 page)

He gasps and jumps into a seated position.

The figure seems to make another noise, possibly a shushing sound, but this is drowned by the blood rushing through George’s ears. Without taking his gaze from the figure, he tries to gauge the distance he would have to leap to gain his sword, which hangs on the opposite wall.

But then a lightning flash illuminates the figure. It’s Jemma.

George is caught in mid-reach for the sword. “What are you doing?” he asks.

“You must light a candle,” she replies.

George tumbles from the bed on the opposite side. His heart is still beating hard, but no longer from fear. There is a sudden sweetness in the air, a buzz of anticipation. He fingers fumble with the tinderbox. He gets the candle on the side table alight with the third attempt.

The flame grows, scattering the cabin with an orange hue. Jemma’s dress is different from before, a plain flowing robe, pale violet in colour, perhaps a nightdress. Jemma remains by the bed, her arms by her sides. In her hand is a book. For a moment George wonders if it is the Bible again but decides it is too small.

“What’s that?” George asks.

Jemma comes around the bed and approaches. Her slow, graceful movements in the nightdress make George gasp a little. He takes a half step backward as she comes up to him. She places the book into his hands. She looks at him intensely, a vein in her temple protruding. Her eyelids look sore and swollen as though she has been crying. George thinks of the announcement at dinner, and how thrilled he was that she seemed distressed by his engagement. How far away it all seems now. Whatever the reason for her presence now he knows it can have nothing to do with Rosalind.

“Easton,” she says at last. “This is Easton’s book. Look at it.”

Her eyes remain fast and unblinking upon his. Her delicate, thin fingers flick through the pages as he cradles the spine. She stops at one page and smooths her palm over it. She pushes his wrists down so that the page floods with candlelight. He sees it is definitely not the Bible. The printed text, elaborately wrought, has characters which are far too large. Jemma presses her finger onto the page upon the beginning of a paragraph. George strains to read a section beneath it. At first it seems like a household recipe of the kind he has seen his sister use when taking lessons in housekeeping. His concentration is broken immediately, scattered by the scent of water, skin and the subtlest of natural oils coming from Jemma. But Jemma’s finger remains. He tries again at the beginning of the paragraph.

With Jemma’s stare still fixed on him, George flips back the cover. A faded gilt title nestles amidst rough leather:
The Black Arts
. Whitbourne’s warnings ring in George’s ears. Who brought him this book? Who are you going to believe, a former commander of the fleet with breeding and refinement or a savage from the depths of an unknown and heathen land? George wishes she had not brought him this; he wishes she would not give him reason to doubt her. But all this fades as he looks up. He can see the raw panic in Jemma’s eyes. And there is something he had not noticed with the constant movement of the ship and the flickering of the candle. She also appears to be shaking.

“Where did you find this?” George finds himself asking.

“In his cabin,” she replies, pointing vaguely below.

“In his
bookshelf
?” George responds, his voice raising. The idea is absurd. A book on the black arts behind flimsy glass waiting for any browsing person to see.

“Not his bookshelf,” she says. “Downstairs. In his other cabin.” She makes to hold the book herself, her warm hands sliding under his, which he draws away. She pulls the book to her breast and then raises it to him like an offering. “He has been reading it, at this page!”

Their eyes lock again. George reaches for the book again, helplessly, feebly, as though desperate for some other interpretation. Jemma’s face is now the picture of pleading, her brow knitted, the vein in her temple pulsing. “You must come and see.”

George draws away, imagining the horror of the two of them sneaking together past a drowsing Easton and into some secret preserve carefully hidden from his guests.

“No! He’ll see us!”

Jemma takes hold of his hand, an action which surprises him in its tenderness.

“Don’t worry, he won’t know.”

She picks up the candle holder. Walking silently, she takes him through the door and into the vestibule. She stops before she gets to the outer door, lets go of his hand and stoops down toward the floor. Black shadows lengthen and crawl up the walls as she places the candle holder in the corner. She curls up the edge of a rug in her fingers and rolls it backward. George has to shuffle to the side. Pulling a ring in the floor, Jemma raises a trap door. It makes a loud creak. George’s glance darts toward Whitbourne’s closed cabin door. The sound seemed loud enough to wake the dead.

Jemma picks up the light again and walks down the ladder without noise. “Quickly,” she whispers. “Follow. Don’t close it after you.”

George begins to descend after her. The light of Jemma’s candle goes before and George catches sight of a bare wooden floor below. Jemma moves away from the ladder and watches as George descends the final steps.

The cabin is huge and largely empty. A vast table without chairs stands in the middle. There are cuts and nips everywhere on it, like a butcher’s bench, and dark spots on its surface, legs and the floor beneath. This room is colder than anywhere else on the ship and the creaking has a different quality—more hollow and urgent, as if the beams could snap and water start gushing through the walls at any moment.

Jemma looks at him intently. Is it fear he sees in her face, or is it that she expects him to be afraid? His gaze skims from her to a ramshackle bookcase leaning on the far wall. Huge volumes with tattered pages balance improbably on the narrow, cracked shelves. Along the wall to the left is a row of barrels reaching half the length of the cabin. From the ceiling, in a long row, hang objects that look like cannon balls on the end of ropes. They are too obscured by shadows to make out clearly. Nearer to where they stand and hanging crosswise are a multitude of knives, scythes and sword-like implements. They sway and clink together with the motion of the ship. Jemma walks a few paces farther into the cabin and toward the bookcase. George follows. She turns and looks at him almost sadly, then raises the candle higher toward the ceiling. George looks at her, questioning.

Jemma sighs, then gestures toward the ceiling.

“Look.”

George glances up toward the swaying cannon balls. He gasps, then almost retches as he sees them clearly. They are not cannon balls at all. The one most directly above George is Lieutenant Baxter’s head. It is more bloated than before, the skin unnaturally blanched. He hardly needs to view the others now, but allows his gaze to skim along the line. Each is hanging by long strands of hair which are tied to iron nails in the ceiling beam. The ones nearer the bookcase are in a more advanced state of decomposition, some of the skin eaten away by time, exposing the grey bone of the skull.

George takes a step and, with his hand, steadies himself against the table.

“I’m sorry,” whispers Jemma.

“No. No,” he says, holding himself up. The surface of the table is cool, slimy and disgusting to the touch, but he needs to steady himself against something.

“You needed to know. The danger, it’s real. He’s going to kill my sister’s baby.”

A viciously cold sweat sweeps through George’s body. Everything converges upon him suddenly: responsibility for himself, for Jemma, the sister, the baby. And another realization is occurring to him too.

“The barrels,” he chokes out. “What’s in them?”

Jemma doesn’t answer at first. She sighs slightly as before and looks over at them. Then her gaze returns to George.

“I know, I know. Salt water?” He gives a bitter laugh, still slumped against the table. “He’s making ham out of fresh meat.”

Jemma nods. So, there is no more room for doubt now, he thinks.

George hears a creak from upstairs. They both look toward the ladder. Jemma shuffles on her feet, distressed.

“I have to get away with the baby. You have to help.” The fear and sadness in her face turns into desperation. Tears well and she puts her fist to her mouth.

George recovers himself and takes the candle holder. He takes half a step nearer, raises his arm and cradles her shoulder in his hand. At first he thinks she might collapse into him, that they will fall into a full embrace. But it doesn’t happen. She holds off, perhaps afraid of her tears, fearful of losing control. She even shrinks from him slightly. And this disappoints him, even though he knows far greater issues are at stake. He wonders at himself, at such incongruity of feelings; even in the midst of mortal danger, even with the realization that he has been tricked into cannibalism, Jemma remains the focus of his senses. Her touch is still his oasis within which no horror can intrude and he seeks it like a parched man seeks water.

Another creaking noise comes from somewhere above the stairs. It sounds like it might be from the vestibule or from his own cabin. George feels the hairs bristle on the back of his neck.

“What about your sister?” he asks urgently.

At his question Jemma takes a step sideways and stumbles. George holds her firm.

Her hand splays over her mouth as though she is afraid of what she must say. Tears spill again, rolling down her cheek. “Bess is dead!” she moans.

“How?” he asks gently.

“Fear. Fear killed her. Fear of Easton and what he would do.”

She buckles as she speaks, as though grief is an ocean she is barely holding in. She moans a few more times—pain distilled into sounds. George nods, holds her arms tighter and leans toward her.

“Jemma,” he whispers. “How can we escape? Do you know a way?”

Jemma gasps once more, unable, for the moment, to talk. George listens for more noises upstairs, wondering whether they’ve been found out already, wondering whether escape is even an option any longer.

“We’re close to land now,” Jemma manages to say, “I know how to get a boat on the water if you help me.”

George lets his doubt show on his face.

“They’ll see us.”

“No one will see us. It’s on a deck by the water. Below here. And listen, we’re slowing down. They’re looking for a place to fish.”

George attends to the ship’s movements. It’s still rocking, but the movements are fairly shallow; they’re going at less than half their previous speed. A small boat might survive if they were close to land.

“I’ll go and get my weapons,” he says.

“I’ll get food for the baby.”

“Right,” George gasps, but keeps hold of Jemma’s arm.

The mention of food has focused his mind on the conditions that have sustained his life from infancy until this present moment: food, shelter, trade, the society of men and women around him. He feels the dizzy rush of blood around his head and realizes he is about to close the door to all of these things, perhaps forever.
Have I not just agreed to my almost certain death?
a frail voice asks from somewhere deep inside him.

“Right,” he repeats, still holding her arm.

Jemma sees his uncertainty.

“I’ll help you,” she says, leaning forward. Now she reaches toward him. Her warm hand touches his flank, just below his ribs. “I’ve been here before. I’ll help us survive.”

“Right,” George says, embarrassed that she has sensed his fear.

“Get your weapons, then come down here again in a few minutes. I need to go through there.” She points to a hatch in the side of the cabin. “You keep the light. I know the ship in the dark.”

They part and George’s pulse quickens. He goes to the ladder and begins climbing as quietly as he can. But every creak takes on gargantuan significance. He stops for a second, imagining Easton springing awake, deckhands flying into action. He listens to the silence, then recommences. And now it’s worse, even the rustle of his clothes sounds like a cataclysmic storm.

At last he emerges through the trap door into the vestibule, sweat dripping off his face. Whitbourne’s cabin door is still closed. He must have imagined the creaking sounds from above when he was talking to Jemma. He continues through. The orange light of his candle wavers as he crosses the threshold of his cabin.

Then George stops rigid.

On the edge of the bed sits Admiral Whitbourne. He is pointing a pistol at George.

Neither speaks.

The pistol barrel is steady, not the hint of a quiver.

George’s heart beats like a battle drum. Otherwise there is complete silence.

Easton’s book on the black arts lies beside Whitbourne. The admiral must have been reading it. George holds the candle surprisingly steady; he is too frightened even to tremble.

Eventually he finds words escaping against his will.

“It’s Easton’s,” he says, his gaze directing Whitbourne toward the book.

Whitbourne’s features have until this moment been as motionless as his gun. Now he clenches his teeth and breathes out slowly. The candlelight reflects in his pupils—twin flames in the darkness.

“Indeed? And did Easton bring it to you?”

“No, but...”

He doesn’t finish, so forbidding is the admiral’s stare.

There is a pause. Whitbourne still doesn’t lower the barrel.

“You are a sad disappointment to me, George,” he says at last. “I was told you were sharp at school. I was told you were loyal, that you had a brave heart and a cool head. Look what it has come to. You were the last person I expected I would have to hold at gunpoint to prevent mutiny.”

“You cannot mutiny from a pirate, Admiral!” George exclaims, his ears beginning to burn.

“No, sir. I’m talking about mutiny from my command. And mutiny from the King’s authority. When we are prisoners, you are under my command.”