Raven Quest

Raven Quest

A Novel

Jo Ann Ferguson

To the “ladies who lunch”—

Orysia Earhart, Kelly Young,

Marilyn Dommel, Joan Broge

One

Port Royal, Jamaica

1692

Nathan Lawler ducked under the blade aimed at his throat. His fist slammed into a belly, then whipped up to strike the man's chin. He watched the man collapse into the mud.

“Welcome to Port Royal,” Nathan muttered under his breath. Louder, he called, “Are you still among the living, Ernest?”

His first mate's smile glistened as brightly as his balding head. “Still with you, Cap'n.”

As the bandy-legged man shoved his knife back into his belt, Nathan smiled. Ernest had warned him no city was like this one. He was beginning to understand.

Even with Fort Charles and five other forts ringing the city, no hint of the king's law was visible. This pickpocket had been more persistent than the other ones who had tried to lighten Nathan's pockets.

Looking across the harbor, he easily picked out the
Vengeance
from among the other ships. She was a beauty with her high stern and fancy bowsprit, but she would not be his much longer. Not unless he got the answers he needed to find, answers that would lead him to Spanish gold.

Ernest followed as Nathan strode through the debris. Not only paper and wood and canvas, but men and women lolling against uneven pilings. The brick buildings sagged but were painted gaudily to attract sailors who were heavy with money and longing for the entertainment available on shore.

“We need to take this one carefully,” Ernest said. “'Tis said Yellow Hal Warwick is a bad one, Cap'n.”

“Worse than the others?”

Ernest fingered his graying beard. “The other pirates fear him.”

“Then we would be wise to gain his good favor.”

Nathan Lawler ignored his first mate's chuckle. He would not be sent fleeing by rumors. He had spent five years on this quest to find a ship of lost gold.

The afternoon sunshine burned down on him because Nathan refused to wear a foppish hat. He had no use for cocked brims and lace. He preferred wind sweeping his hair aside. His long coat flapped against his black breeches with each stride.

He scanned the street as he stepped over a senseless man and ignored the calls from the whores. From the fish markets to the taverns on this disgusting street, Port Royal smelled of sweat and chamber pots and filth.

He paused in front of an unremarkable taproom among the many edging the beach. Opening the door, he allowed his eyes to adjust to the shadows within. It resembled the other taverns he had visited throughout the Caribbean. A few tables and chairs were scattered about the stone floor. Across the back ran a bar. A staircase rose to the second floor, and a ripped curtain fluttered in a doorway on the opposite end of the bar.

When Nathan saw a slight figure at the bar, he rested his arm on the pitted wood surface. He grimaced and drew back as something soaked his wool sleeve. Not ale, but water. That was a surprise.

“Boy?” he called.

The lad did not stop polishing the brass spigot on a wooden keg. “What will be your pleasure today, sir?”

He frowned at the light voice. As the lad turned to him, he saw that the smooth face had never known the scraping of a blade. Under a ragged kerchief and a floppy hat, the lad's large blue eyes appraised him coolly.

“I am looking for someone,” Nathan said.

“You have, as you can see, found someone.” The boy's laugh filled the room. “But let me tell you, even if you are the ghost of Sir Henry Morgan himself, I do not know where the person you seek is now or has been or will be.”

Ernest chuckled, and Nathan scowled at him. There was no sense in encouraging the lad's sharp tongue.

“Listen, boy,” he said. “I need to speak with Yellow Hal Warwick.”

“This is his place, but he isn't in Port Royal.”

“Is he out on
The Scourge of Spain?
”

“I could not say for sure.”

“That is Warwick's ship, isn't it?”

“I could not say for sure.”

“What can you say for sure, lad?” Nathan grasped the boy's wrist and tugged it toward him.

Pain slashed across his hand. Jerking back, he stared at the line of blood and the knife in the boy's fist. Only the lad's eyes shifted, looking from him to Ernest, gauging which one of them might attack him next.

Snatching the cloth from the boy, Nathan wrapped it around his hand. “What's your name, boy?”

“Rory Mullins.” He made the knife vanish under the full shirt he wore over tattered brown breeches.

“I am Captain Nathan Lawler of the
Vengeance.
”

“How do you do, Cap'n?” His mocking tone added to Nathan's exasperation.

“Rory, I need to find Yellow Hal Warwick.”

With another ragged cloth, Rory wiped the battered counter, always watching him. “Last time he was here was nigh on three or four years ago.”

Ernest's laugh burst forward. “Three or four years ago, Rory? He left a lad like you in charge?”

Again the lad's gaze moved from Nathan to his first mate, but he showed no sign of fright. “He left me and my aunt Ruth Mullins.”

“Let me speak with Mistress Mullins,” Nathan said. For someone who did not want to waste anyone's time, this lad had a way of talking 'round and 'round.

“If you want to see her, go down to the corner by Madame Thérèse's gaming house, turn left onto King's Lane. Go up Queen's Street a bit, then onto High Street. You shall find her there next to the Plough and Mill butcher's shop.”

“Thanks, boy.” He tossed a coin on the counter. The lad grabbed it before it had stopped spinning. With a face like an angel and the disposition of a snake, he fit in well with the other drudges who made Port Royal their home.

Nathan signaled to Ernest to follow him. Because it was still light, there was not much traffic along the street. Decent folk did not come here, and most of the taverns and whorehouses would not open until nightfall.

“Think he told us the truth, Cap'n?” Ernest asked.

“Why should he? No one else has in the past five years.”

“If he's right about Warwick—”

“Let's worry about one thing at a time.” Nathan jammed his hands into his pockets. He wished he was aboard his ship with a sea breeze cooling the sun's fire. Then he would not have to wear a neckband and these shoes that pinched his toes. Yet it would be worth any discomfort if he could find Yellow Hal Warwick. If word of the gold had ever been whispered here, Yellow Hal would know of it. He ruled as the undisputed lord of Port Royal.

Following the boy's instructions, Nathan walked to the better part of Port Royal. Wild flowers grew around neat houses. Tall palms offered a little respite from the sun. He ignored the perspiration rolling along his back and swore. Next to the Plough and Mill was St. Paul's churchyard cemetery. The lad must be laughing at them.

He folded his arms on the high stone wall that surrounded the bleak, weed-choked plot of land. There had to be an answer to the riddle that ran through his head during every waking hour and haunted him whenever he found sleep. If he could get the answer to one of the four lines, he was certain that would point the way to enough gold to save his ship and his pride. He would not return to Maryland and suffer the laughter of those who had derided him as a fool for taking off on this quest with only a dying man's mumblings to guide him.

Ernest called from where he stood by a listing cross, “Ruth Mullins. Just like the boy said. Died last summer if I can read the date right. Whoever carved the marker did a poor job.”

“Probably our friend Rory.”

Ernest smiled, twisting the wrinkles left by sun and his years into a new pattern. “Cannot accuse Rory of lying. He never said she was alive.”

Nathan slammed his fist against the wall. “If you think this is funny …”

Ernest's smile vanished as he came back out onto the street. “I want to find that gold as much as you do. The lad cannot know anything about it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He would not be working for Yellow Hal if he knew how to find the
Raven's
gold, would he?”

Nathan motioned Ernest to silence. “Do not speak her name here.”

“Aye, Cap'n.” The old man ran his hand through what hair he had left.

“I think I shall pay another call on our new friend Rory this evening. If the lad's heard something, he may share it.”

Ernest snorted in disagreement.

“I did not say he would share it willingly. But, if he knows something, share it he will.” Nathan slapped his first mate on the shoulder. “For now, let's get back to the
Vengeance.
I want to be certain all the repairs are complete, so we can sail as soon as we have what we need.” He glanced back at the cemetery. “Blasted urchin! He's going to be sorry.”

Rory sent the coin spiraling in the air before hiding it. No one was going to learn about this unexpected bit of wealth.

“Who was that?” came a fatigued voice.

Rory turned. The ragged cloth hanging in the door by the bar was pushed aside by a woman dressed in a short chemise and drawers. Olive's full body was beginning to show wear from serving drinks as well as working in the brothel out back.

Rory tossed the cleaning rag into a bucket. “Just two sailors asking for Yellow Hal.”

“You got rid of them?”

“They wanted to talk to Aunt Ruth, so I gave them directions to find her.” Rory smiled. The tall man, the one who called himself Captain Lawler, had paid well for nothing. Rory hoped he would be too humiliated to return to Yellow Hal's place to bother them. Captain Lawler's eyes had burned with determination, but he would burn in hell if Yellow Hal discovered a stranger was asking for him. Aunt Ruth had said more than once that Yellow Hal trusted no one, not even her.

Olive pulled out a rickety chair and sat. She swept her black curls up on top of her head as she grinned. “You amaze me!”

“I learned from Aunt Ruth and you girls.”

“We never taught you to dress like a lad.” Olive frowned. “Rory, when are you going to stop pretending to be a boy?”

“When it is safe.” Rory glanced toward the door, hoping no one else had heard Olive's question.

Without husband or father to protect her, she would have two choices. She could have become a pirate's mistress, as her mother and Aunt Ruth had, or she could have become a whore. Her mother had died giving birth to Rory, and Aunt Ruth had faded away from some evil humor within her. Neither had the man they slept with by their side when they died, for a pirate's ship was always his first love.

Rory intended to escape Port Royal. To do that, she had to work hard and save every coin she could to buy her way off this accursed island. Then, once again, she could become Aurora Mullins and let Rory vanish.

“Do you think they'll come back?” Olive shivered, although the room was stifling.

“I hope not.” So many men had come here. Tall men, short men, a few rich, but most barely able to pay for their rum. Not a single face could she recall … until today.

Nathan Lawler's dark eyes burned in her mind. The easy arrogance of his stride, his expression that went from smile to scowl between a pair of heartbeats, the motions of his hands that had been hardened by rough work—she remembered all of that too easily. She wanted him gone from Port Royal and from her head.

“I do not like anyone asking about Yellow Hal,” continued Olive. “Do you think this means he is coming back?”

Rory tossed the bloody cloth Captain Lawler had used into a bucket. “If I knew, I would not have told them unless they paid me well.”

“The longer Yellow Hal is gone, the better. He is a despicable beast.”

“All pirates are beasts.” Rory poured rum into a clean glass and set it next to Olive.

“Thanks, Rory. 'Tis better working for you than for Yellow Hal.”

Rory chuckled. “You are only saying that because I do not want to bed you.”

Olive choked back a laugh, then grew serious. “Even Ruth forced Caroline and me to take customers we did not want. You never do that. Have you ever thought of closing the taproom? Get a few more women? You could do a good business here.”

“I told Aunt Ruth that I would keep the place going as she had until Yellow Hal returned. Then I have a hankering to see the world.”

She gazed down into her rum. “If I could find a man who accepted what I am, I would go with him anywhere.”

Rory grinned. “You could marry Fisher Tom.”

“I do not want to spend the rest of my life cleaning fish.” Draining the glass, she placed it on the bar. “If you get a chance, Rory, will you speak to Caroline? She is in a temper again.”

“Why are you two always fighting?”

Olive smiled and tapped the brim of Rory's hat. “Someday, you shall understand that there are some men you do not want to share.”