Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (15 page)

A slow smile spread across Sanchez's face, and he rattled off something in Spanish that elicited hoots and catcalls from his crew. “I told them, Señor
Capitan
, that they should hide their heads in shame because the noble officer of the distant English king thinks they are bad little boys, and does not trust them.”

“You can tell them that I know exactly with whom I'm dealing,” Bliss snapped angrily. He spaced his words evenly and spoke clearly so he would not be misunderstood. “They and their captain are scum and cutthroats. Their ship is filthy and reeks of the stench of dishonest men. They have the manners of dogs, and will die like dogs within a turn of the glass when I next set eyes on them. And now, damn your soul to hell, fetch me the boys.”

No man under the sun spoke to Onofre Sanchez that way and lived. Hatred twisted his face. His hand hovered near the hilt of his cutlass and his fingers trembled with the desire to gut the arrogant Englishman. But nine loaded guns waited astern, and a bag of gold lay on the deck not two paces from where he stood. There would come a day, though, when Onofre Sanchez would savor his revenge, and the captain would learn the real meaning of filth and stench—before he died. Abruptly, he relaxed and smiled again. “Very well, Captain Bliss,” he said, gesturing behind him to two men waiting next to a hatch. “You shall see first, and then pay.”

The twins had been kept immediately below deck, and no more than thirty seconds passed before they were handed onto the deck and led to Sanchez. The pirate knelt in front of them. “So, my hearties! Your voyage aboard a real pirate ship is over.” He glanced at Bliss. “Did you have fun with Onofre Sanchez? Enjoy your adventure?”

“Yes, sir,” Joseph piped.

“I want my daddy,” Jason said.

“You'll have your granddaddy instead, and this man will take you to him. What do you say to that, eh?”

They were presentable, Bliss agreed as he inspected them briefly. “What are your names, boys?” he asked gruffly.

“Joseph … Jason … Paxton,” the twins answered in unison.

“They appear not to be harmed, pirate,” Bliss said, turning to Sanchez. “But know this. If you cross me in any way, you will not leave this harbor alive.”

“Onofre Sanchez loves children, Captain, and would not hurt one on purpose, so no more threats are necessary.”

“You are a prince among men,” Bliss said sarcastically. He nudged the carpetbag full of gold with his foot. “And now, if you don't mind, we'll—”

“Not quite yet, Captain. There's a little matter of safe passage for six months. The governor—”

“I wouldn't think of disobeying a governor's orders,” Bliss snapped. “But I expect you out of this harbor on the next tide.”

“I need water and fresh—”

“You'll be allowed that. A boat will stand by at daybreak to lead no more than three of your men ashore. The tide goes out between nine and nine-thirty in the morning. See that you're on it.”

“I understand,” Sanchez said, nodding. He watched as Bliss led the boys to the rail, then lifted his hand in mock salute. “
Adios
, Señor
Capitan
, from one who will sail this sea long after the sharks have eaten your carcass.”

Bliss handed the twins into the waiting arms of Able Seaman Stone, climbed down the ladder, and dropped lightly into the gig. “To shore,” he ordered. “Quickly.”

“Jason! Joseph!” Sir Theodotus looked as if he'd shed twenty years as he held out his arms to the boys. “I'm your grandfather. Do you understand? I'm your mother's father.”

“Mama's dead,” Joseph said matter-of-factly. “We want to go home.”

“We already have a grandfather,” Jason added as the pirate ship dropped rapidly behind them.

“I know,” Sir Theodotus said, his voice choked with emotion. “I loved your mother, and now that she is gone I have you to love instead.” One boy on each side of him, he wrapped protective arms around them. “But we must get to know each other. You shall call me Grandfather, and I shall call you … but which of you is Joseph?”

“I am. Where's O'fre?”

“Never mind him now.” Sir Theodotus turned to Jason and gave him a little squeeze. “So you're Jason, then.”

Jason's face tightened in preparation for an unhappy wail. “I want to go home,” he cried.

“You are going home,” Sir Theodotus reassured him. He held Jason close, let go of Joseph long enough to point up at the hill that loomed over the town, and the brightly lighted grounds of the governor's mansion silhouetted against the dark slope of The Sleeping Giant. “There's your home,” he said, his finger quivering slightly. “There's your new home. You'll like living there, I promise.”

The water was dark and forbidding. Somewhere, far away, the greater menace of Tom Gunn Paxton no doubt sought his sons, and would one day arrive to try to reclaim them. Sir Theodotus had taken that into consideration, though, and would be prepared when that day came. In the meantime, as he gazed down at the twins, his heart swelled with pride and love and his mind reeled before the onslaught of memories. Jennifer, his lovely Jenny, was gone, lost to him forever, but now she lived again in these two boys. And as Jason and Joseph grew, they would learn to hate the man they had known as their father, hate Tom Gunn Paxton every bit as deeply and passionately and eternally as their grandfather did.

“We are together now,” Sir Theodotus whispered. “There are happy days ahead of us. Happy, happy days.”

And as if sensing his love, the little ones leaned into his sheltering embrace and fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER VIII

The tiny candle flame grew steadily from a wavering pinprick of light to a stable source of illumination, revealing a narrow, low-ceilinged room all abuzz with a steady dull roar from the tavern below. The walls were of drab gray plaster; the floor consisted of dark rough planks covered by a thin rug. Simple furnishings were the rule: a bed frame with no headboard, its slats covered with a worn straw-filled ticking; a rude three-legged stool that wobbled when sat upon; and an uneven table, round and also three-legged. A bright-red cloth draped over the table provided one of the few spots of color in the room. A short row of blouses and skirts hung from pegs protruding from the wall.

The candle stood in a plain metal holder in the center of the table. Adriana moved the stool closer to the table with one slippered foot, and sat in a single fluid motion. She clasped her hands together on the table and, her back straight and her breathing slowed, leaned forward slightly to look into the flame. Slowly, the tensions of the day melted. The muscles in her neck and back and legs relaxed. The sound from below swelled, but she willed herself to ignore it, and it receded beyond the edge of consciousness. Her green eyes watched intently as the night breeze, wafting through the narrow open window, stirred the orange flame that danced on the candle stem. And slowly, slowly, the walls of the room melted … and faded.…

There were waves. Waves and an angry sky. There were blinding flashes of lightning and sheets of dark rain. A storm-tossed boat rode the wild mountains of water that heaved and crashed in avalanches of foam and fury. The boat fought valiantly against the wind and water, with no land in sight.

A man appeared. Adriana was aware first of bunched muscles and of great strength contending with fatigue. The man's clothes and dark hair were plastered to his body. She could not see his face or eyes, and was denied that single route that would have allowed her to delve into his soul. Still, she wanted to cry out to him, to reach out and touch him and give him her strength.…

Spindrift wrapped, the vessel stood poised on the crest of a wave. The man's arms bulged as he fought to keep the tiny boat's bow into the wind. In that instant, frozen indelibly on her mind, man, boat, and sea disappeared and were replaced by a soft golden glow at whose center was an oak tree intricately wound about with brambles.

The vision of the golden tree had become familiar since it had first appeared to her on the night before Giuseppe was murdered. She no longer experienced the bone-cracking fear that had preceded the image then, but its meaning still escaped her. That it was a symbol of promise and of a destiny that awaited her seemed obvious. But of what? And when? The vision had become a nagging puzzle by day, and a mystery that haunted her sleep.

“Adriana!”

The sound of her name and a sharp rap on the door roused her. Adriana tried to ignore the distraction, but the golden glow of the vision faded and was replaced by the more mundane flicker of the candle and the noise from below.

“Adriana!”

Slowly, shaking herself awake, she swept her thick auburn hair away from her face, stood, and crossed to the door. “Yes?” she asked, without lifting the latch.

“Zebediah wants you downstairs.” The voice was a woman's, but the tone and inflection were coarse and unfeminine. “Now.”

“
Oui
. I shall be down right away, Harriet. Tell him one minute to dress.”

She was already wearing a long brown skirt with tiny bells sewed to the hem and a lime-colored blouse that was cut low to reveal her shoulders. Rings sparkled on her fingers, large gilt bracelets at her wrists and ankles. Moving quickly, she selected an assortment of sheer veils from the pegs on the wall, tied some around her waist, and carefully draped others about her head and shoulders in a manner that hid, save for tantalizing glimpses, the honey color of her skin and her full, curvaceous figure.

Her room was one of several that opened onto a narrow interior balcony that overlooked a vast smoke-filled chamber. The room was lighted by a quartet of wheel lamp chandeliers hanging from the beamed ceiling, and a double row of lanterns behind the bar. There were few windows, and the sluggish air with its suffocating haze was thick with the smell of cooked meat and spilled rum and seldom-washed bodies. Sawdust scattered on the floor covered planks permeated with a mixture of alcohol, grease, and blood. A hardwood bar, once polished and proud but now pocked and scarred after years of hard usage, ran the length of the wall opposite a fireplace. In one corner, a steep staircase led to the balcony where Adriana stood and watched the commotion below.

The tavern was crammed with grimy, sweaty, unshaved men who drank and ate and sang and danced and fought and pawed the serving girls who darted among them with tankards of beer and racks of beef and platters of bread to soak up the grease. In one corner, two brutes were bashing each other into bloody pulps. In the center of the floor, four sailors were trying to dance with a single girl who tried her best to please them all. A dozen feet away, a sailor had collapsed across a table; despite the fact that he was unconscious, his besotted companions were attempting to pour his share of rum down his throat. All in all, it was just another night at the Cottonmouth Tavern, a stone's throw from the Mississippi River, in the heart of New Orleans.

The riverboat men—Kaintocks, as they were called—were a burly lot dressed in rough homespun cotton shirts and leather breeches that were tucked into high boots. On their heads they wore knotted scarves or broad floppy-brimmed hats. The sprinkling of trappers wore leather from foot to head and their eyes burned with fever as they frantically packed in enough companionship and debauchery to last the next long, lonely, dreary months of solitude. Sailors from a hundred ports wore cotton, spoke a babel of languages, and tried to blot out the endless empty vistas of the world's oceans with as much alcohol as they could empty down their throats. The sailors, trappers, and Kaintocks toiled endless grueling hours in the open, risking their lives for a handful of coins and a few days and nights of nonstop celebration, and though their crude and boisterous behavior was looked down upon by the locals, no one could deny that they were vital to the survival and growth of the city. The goods they barged and rafted down the mighty Mississippi, the furs they collected from the vast hinterlands, and the cargoes they unloaded from the multitude of ships tied up at the city's docks had transformed New Orleans into one of the premier cities of the young United States.

A large man perched on a high stool behind the bar overlooked the proceedings in general and the work of his bartenders and serving girls in particular. Zebediah Gibbs, the proprietor, was as bald as a lantern globe. His heavy black eyebrows shaded eyes sharp enough to note immediately when his men failed to water down the whiskey to the extent that he required, or to spot the telltale glint of a blade drawn by one of his patrons. His skin was pasty-white from a decade spent inside. His cheeks were puffy, his face doughy-looking from too much smoke and an excess of beef and bread, but his arms were long and hard as cordwood and his shoulders were broad and knotted with muscles. He never drank, and those who did in the Cottonmouth rarely needed more than one lesson in his proficiency with hands, feet, or, his weapon of choice, the bungstarter.

Attuned to the slightest change in his tavern, Gibbs became aware of Adriana's presence the second she appeared on the balcony. Towering over lesser men, he stood on the raised step of the stool and slammed his fist down on a specially constructed heavy shelf at his side. “Play, boys, play!” he yelled to a small group of men clustered on a small dais near the bottom of the stairs. “Play, damn your souls!”

The musicians, five men clad in sailor's garb and threadbare military tunics, raised accordion, pipes, and fiddles, and launched into a strident melody that was lost in the uproar until Gibbs picked up his bungstarter and brought it crashing down on the shelf. “Gentlemen!” he roared, demonstrating that he was capable of sarcasm. “Adriana is going to dance!”

Men who had visited the Cottonmouth before and who knew what was coming growled for the others to be quiet. Someone moaned and was immediately hushed. A chair fell, and others scraped across the floor as everyone sought seats. Two bartenders carrying an oversized table hurried into the center of the room. Another pair pushed back the crowd to clear a wide circle, in which was placed the table and one chair. Within a minute, a vast and respectful silence fell over the crowd and the musicians began to play louder, if not better.