Pirates! (27 page)

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Chapter 45

The Brazilian’s ship contained fabulous riches. Bales of gossamer silks and shining satins hid still greater wealth. Gems of all kinds: rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds as large as pigeons’ eggs. There were pearls of every hue, from black and grey, to pink and cream and purest white. Some were pierced, ready for stringing, others were whole. Some were so small they ran through the fingers like rice, others nestled in the palm snug as a musket ball. Some were perfectly round, others were as oval as gulls’ eggs; they warmed to the skin and took on lustre, subtly changing in colour. More and more were collected together. The gems and pearls were poured into sacks ready to be carried from one ship to the other. The men unloaded them like grain, like coal. Each load represented a thousand lifetimes’ worth of honest toil.

Then they went back for more: chests of silver bars, gem-encrusted cups and plates, and gold dust, ground so fine that it blew up into the faces of the men who opened the boxes, gilding their sweating skin.

At last the ship was emptied of all its wealth. Not everything was taken. Silks and brocades that would normally have been seized as prize booty lay discarded, blowing across the deck, turning the rigging to gaudy cobwebs. The Brazilian’s people watched us, dark eyes in dark faces, awaiting what we would do to them.

The Brazilian’s head was stuck on the bowsprit. Now he was his own figurehead. Minerva ordered the guns thrown off the decks, and sent men up the rigging, swarming up the shrouds, knives in mouths, to cut the rigging and slash the sails.

I was about to cast the ruby necklace over the side with the other unwanted cargo, when Minerva held my hand.

‘It is over,’ she said. ‘You are free.’ She took the rubies from me and held them up. ‘These are just stones now. The magic has gone from them.’ She wound the necklace round her wrist. In the sunlight, the rubies had less of the colour of blood. They seemed to take on a milky softness, deepening to a shade of pure rose madder as her skin warmed them. ‘They are lovely. Why destroy such beauty because of him? Besides,’ she smiled, ‘they are valuable. You must keep them.’ She took them off her wrist and gave them back to me. They felt warm from the sun, from her skin. She folded her hands over mine. ‘Who knows when you might have need of them?’

We stood, hands clasped. The ships were ungrappling. It was time to depart.

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This couple are married and do agree ...

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Chapter 46

On the way back to Madagascar, the gems were weighed and assayed on scales taken from the Brazilian’s ship. Each one assessed, described, recorded; every man’s share entered into a ledger against his name. One large diamond was equal to so many small. What the pirate did then was up to him. If he wished to take a hammer to it, and make forty sparklers, so be it. The booty was divided, fair and square. I went for large stones, selecting by cut and clarity, beauty of colour, the same with the pearls.

‘I think this calls for a celebration!’ Broom announced when the division was complete. ‘By God, it does! You two,’ he pointed at Minerva and me. ‘Find something fitting to wear. As women. None of your dandy threads. The rest of you scrub down and put on shore-rig. I’m parading the ship.’

We were called to the deck by the ship’s bell. The whole company mustered in the waist of the ship.

‘Mr Vincent Crosby. Miss Minerva Sharpe. I would have you join me on the quarterdeck.’

Vincent and Minerva looked at each other, unsure what to expect. Broom had something up his sleeve. I was sure of it, and so were they. His tone was sonorous and over-solemn. His whole face held rigid, as if it would crack with laughter any minute. He waited until they had mounted the steps and stood before him. Then he brought a Bible from inside his coat and opened it, placing upon it two rings.

‘I understand that you two intend to marry?’ He addressed both of them.

‘You know we do,’ Vincent spoke up.

‘Very well, then. I’ve been pondering the matter, and I’m not very certain as to a captain’s remit to marry on shore. But I certainly know what a captain can do on a ship. And since Mr Crosby has given into my keeping two rings of some magnificence, there seems no time like the present.’ He surveyed the couple. ‘Do you have any objections?’

They shook their heads.

‘Very well, then.’ He looked around at the company. ‘Anyone stand up for this woman?’ Pelling stepped forward with a grin. They had hatched this out between them. ‘You’ll do. Now, Vincent Crosby, do you take this woman, Minerva Sharpe, to be your lawful wedded wife?’

‘I do ... ’

‘Do you promise to have and to hold her,’ Broom carried on. ‘Love, honour, etcetera, till death do you part?’

Vincent looked from Broom to Minerva and murmured, ‘I do.’

‘Louder,’ Broom instructed. ‘I want them all to hear.’

‘I do!’ Vincent boomed.

‘That’s better. Now, Minerva Sharpe, do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, love, honour and obey, till death do you part?’

Minerva smiled. ‘I do.’

‘Well then, with the powers invested in me as captain of this ship, I do pronounce you man and wife.’ He looked at the company. ‘Might not be by the book,’ he snapped the Bible shut and held it up, ‘but what care we for the book?’ He grinned at Vincent. ‘You are married good and proper. ’Bout time you made an honest woman of her. Go on, then! Kiss her!’

A great cheer went up from the ship’s company as the couple embraced and the celebrations began. Broom put his arms around the couple, beaming as if they were his own children. He was a wise captain. Death and battle need to be purged by joy and celebration. What better way than a wedding to expunge the memory of the malevolent Brazilian and his bloody demise from all our minds.

The crew crowded round to congratulate the couple. Vincent stood grinning, having his hand rung, and his back slapped and pummelled until he could hardly grip and he was black and blue. The men were almost shy with Minerva. She had changed so suddenly in their eyes, from shipmate, to pirate queen, to bride. They hardly knew how to treat her. They shook her hand, and kissed her cheek and acted most respectfully. There were none of the ripe and ribald comments that might have been expected from such a crew. Or very few. But then it is rare to attend a wedding where the bride might run you through. They brought what they could find in chest or pack to give to the couple. Not gold or jewels, for they already had those in plenty. Simpler gifts that they had about them: a silver rum flask, a nicely worked tobacco pouch, a ship in a bottle, little carvings they had made at sea.

Minerva kissed them all and hugged them, said they were her brothers and that she really loved them. I thought I saw one or two wipe a tear away, but by then the rum had been running freely for quite some time.

I waited until the mêlée around her had finally subsided and I could have my own moment with her. In the waiting, I’d been going over in my mind what I would say and had a little speech prepared, about how much I loved her, how much I liked and respected Vincent, what a good husband he would be to her, how now I had a sister
and
a brother and wished both of them all the joy and happiness that it was possible for two people to have in this world. But when it came to it, all my words fled from me. All I could do was hold her in my arms, and kiss her, and weep upon her shoulder, as she wept on mine.

‘What on earth are you two blubbing about?’ Broom put his arm around both of us. ‘This is a wedding! Come, the fiddlers are striking up! We’re waiting for Minerva to lead the dance.’

Vincent and Minerva stepped up as the fiddlers started, and punch and rum were passed round until the decks ran with it. The party went on long after Vincent and Minerva had slipped away to a cabin especially prepared for them by Abe Reynolds.

‘Silk sheets and everything,’ he winked at me. ‘Courtesy of that Brazilian geezer.’

I was standing at the rail, gazing out at the black night sea, when I felt somebody at my shoulder.

‘There’s something I forgot to tell you.’ Broom leaned on the rail next to me.

‘Oh,’ I turned to look at him. ‘And what was that?’

‘Something Andrews told me just before he left.’ He stared straight ahead, into the darkness. ‘Said he’d met a young chap, a Navy man. New made captain, so I hear. In the Llandoger Trow it was, in your old port of Bristol. Talk came round to women and love, as it often does among sailing men, and someone asks the young captain if he has a sweetheart at all. At that, he declares that he’s in love with the finest girl in the world and don’t care who knows it. He names no names, but declares that he has her ring about his neck and that she has his, and if he don’t marry her, he’ll have no other. Andrews wasn’t sure of his name,’ Broom leaned on the rail and looked at me. ‘But he thought it might be William.’

‘William?’ I looked up at him. ‘Every other tar’s called William.’

Broom laughed, recognising his words from long ago.

‘I ain’t staying long when we take ’em back to Madagascar. I’m turning the ship and sailing homeward. Why don’t you come with me?’

I was silent, not knowing how to answer him. Part of me wanted to return and find William, but how could I leave Minerva? She was as precious to me as my own heart’s blood and I feared that if I left, I might never see her again. I felt a pang at the thought of all the wedding celebrations that would go on and in which I would have no part.

Broom seemed to understand.

‘She has Vincent now,’ he said. ‘And she will have her baby. Her life is here, as it should be. Yours is not. It lies elsewhere. She knows that, even if you don’t. Life is short. You’ve learned that. And not to be wasted. Not a drop of it. Have you still got his ring about you?’

I nodded.

‘Well, a tar called William shouldn’t be too hard to find. Not with the money we have at our disposal. You will have him, my dear, even if we have to buy the entire fleet!’

I did not know what I would say to Minerva. When dawn came, I was still up on deck, having kept my private watch there all night. Decisions must be made. We will be back by morning. It is now, or never. But how to tell her? What should I do? The voice in my head sang like a siren while behind me the rising sun had begun to turn sky and water to pale pink and violet. I was looking away from it, staring towards the dark headland that loomed off our starboard bow like some great crouching beast.

Suddenly, she was there beside me, as if mere thought could conjure her. She looked as though she had risen in haste, her face still half dazed with sleep, wearing a loose linen shirt and breeches too big for her, cinched into her narrow waist with a broad leather belt.

‘You must leave,’ she said. ‘I know.’

I turned to speak, but she put her hand up to quiet me.

‘Do not grieve and do not sorrow. We have seen enough of both and we don’t have time for all that now. You must go back. I agree with Broom and Surgeon Graham. I know your reasons for staying, but I hate to see you sad and you cannot be happy with your heart divided so. You still love William, don’t you?’

I nodded. ‘Broom says he’s had word that he’s waiting for me. But for all I know, Broom’s lying to me.’

‘Why should he be?’

I shrugged. ‘You know what he’s like. He tells people the things they most want to hear.’

‘And what if he’s not? You must stop being afraid, Nancy. That is the trouble, isn’t it? You are afraid of leaving me. You are afraid of what will happen if you go back.’

I nodded, staring out at the fast-approaching land. I could not look at her. She knew me better than I knew myself.

‘When we first went on the account, you were afraid then.’

I laughed at the memory of it. ‘All the time.’

‘But you overcame it. You can do the same now.’

‘It’s fear of a different kind.’

‘No, it is not. All fear is the same. You must go back with Broom. Take your chances, just as we do going on the attack.’ She paused, staring at the land before us: the red-streaked cliffs, the trees like knots on a tapestry, clearly visible now. ‘We will be together, just like then. We are sisters, I will always be with you, wherever you go. And, who knows? Someday, maybe, the sea roads will bring you back to find me with my children playing about me.’

She laughed a little, and I smiled at the picture her words painted. I felt my spirits lifting. She had brought hope to me, as a wind springs from nowhere to take a ship out of a flat calm, to fill her sails and send her singing through the water, speeding on her one true course.

So much had passed between us, we did not need to speak of it. We stood for some time in silence, our fingers interlocked on the rail. Orders rang out around us. Men hauled on ropes to take in sail and the helmsman turned the wheel to bring us safe into harbour. Where I would leave her.

‘I will find William,’ I said. ‘And Phillis, too. And I will come back to you.’

She smiled wide, and her look said that she did not doubt it.

‘I meant to give you these last night,’ I said, taking the ruby earrings from my purse. ‘As a wedding gift.’

She held them up. In the early morning sun, they both flashed like fire, sparking light off each other. She handed one of them back to me.

‘You will wear one. I will wear the other. That way, one day, we will come back together. We must have a toast.’

She found rum and two cups.

‘To youth,’ she proclaimed. ‘And freedom.’

We repeated the pirate toast, like a solemn oath.

‘And booty,’ she added, laughing.

‘Aye, and that.’

We drank and threw our cups into the water. She leaned on the rail, her face half in light, half in shadow, as perfect as a statue. The ruby earring flared as the sun struck through it, and her white shirt billowed out in the freshening breeze, her bright black hair streaming like a pirate pennant. That is how I will remember her.

As we stood at the rail, laughing together, I truly believed that there was nothing I could not do.