The Rebel Pirate (30 page)

Sarah was not allowed to leave the apartment, and the marine posted at the head of the stairs refused her request to take a daily turn in the yard. From the windows Sarah could watch the soldiery drilling, which she did not much enjoy, and betweentimes, children playing, which she did. These, she was told, belonged to a pair of refugee families who had lost their homes to mob violence. But not their fortunes, or so Mrs. Phillips said: the tea agent’s wife was always sending for fine things from the mainland, like lace and almonds and other luxuries.

“I invited them to dine when they first came to the island, but they did not reciprocate, and we could not bear the expense,” she told Sarah on their third afternoon spent stitching in front of the window. “I am sure it is of little moment to them, the cost of a meal, and they did not even think upon it,” she said. “But the governor might have considered these little social obligations, and made us some allowance for it. I fear it leaves my husband embarrassed that he cannot even ask the gentlemen into his study for a glass of brandy without making some sacrifice. And this leaves him in the unpleasant position of being forced to do errands and accept requests that plague his conscience terribly.”

He procured
company
for the tea agent, she confided, and allowed him the use of some rooms set aside for the storage of the fort major’s possessions, to enjoy such company, out of the sight of his wife. “I cannot look her in the face,” said Mrs. Phillips, “knowing what he does with his trollop atop those crates.”

A little past four, Sarah was summoned by the guard. She followed him across the yard and into a stairwell, then up to a set of second-floor rooms that looked out over the harbor toward the open sea.

The whitewashed chamber held only one chair, a table, and Francis Graves. His hair was shorter than she remembered, pulled into a stubby tail at the back of his neck, the ends singed. And his eyebrows were missing. Disfigurement was common among sailors, an accepted risk for those who followed the sea and enjoyed its freedoms. Sarah had never been frightened or repulsed by scars or missing limbs, but Francis Graves wore his injuries with neither dignity nor ease.

He followed the direction of her eyes, reached back to touch the frizzled ends of his hair, and gave her a grim smile. “Courtesy of Captain Sparhawk and his Rebel friends, when they took my brother’s ship, the
Diana
.”

He did not offer her a seat, because there was only the one, and he occupied it.

“I thought the Rebels offered the
Diana
’s crew quarter.”

“They did. And they looted her as well. But we would have gotten her afloat, when the tide came in, had they let her be. Not content, though, to humiliate my brother and my uncle and the king’s navy, the rabble had to put her to the torch as well. She was not a year old, purchased and outfitted at great expense.”

“With gold your uncle stole from the
Wasp
,” said Sarah, sick of this family and its lies.

“What gives you the right to question the decisions of an admiral?” demanded Graves. “You are a provincial sailor’s trull, for all that Trent dresses you in silk and lace. My brother will not get another ship on this station. Maybe not ever. He could not look on and watch her burn. It was the grossest criminal act, and we will see every man who was there that night hanged as pirates.”

“Then you will have to hang every adult male in Chelsea,” she said. And Salem, and Marblehead, when it happens there, she added in the privacy of her mind.

“The
Preston
’s yardarm will accommodate them. I have already sworn a statement that you did knowingly and willfully resist a lawful boarding and customs search by the king’s navy, ordered the assault of myself and the marines under my command, and took prisoner and held hostage an officer of the king. There is further testimony from your countryman Micah Wild, whose loyalty to the government and material aid to the navy have earned the gratitude of the Admiralty, that you did hold James Sparhawk in your home in Salem against his will, and made statements admitting to this in Mr. Wild’s hearing. There is also the matter of four bodies found in the wreckage of your house after the fire that consumed it.”

“Is the Admiralty in the habit of hearing testimony from a woman’s former lovers?” she asked. “Because Micah Wild is not a disinterested party in my affairs.”

“No indeed. Wild further asserts that you did deprive him of his rightful property, a schooner called the
Sally
, which had become his upon the failure of your father to fulfill his obligation on a debt.”

“I see,” said Sarah. “And the Admiralty will conveniently look the other way in the matter of Mr. Wild’s investment in the
Sally
, which was carrying the French gold.”

“The
Sally
’s
log will hardly vindicate you, Miss Ward. It lists many investors, but only one owner—your father. You are no more than a pirate, from a family of pirates. Your father should have swung thirty years ago.”

“Then why are we not already hanging from the
Preston
’s yardarm?” she asked, with more bravado than she felt.

“Because my uncle is a sentimental man. Your lover and your betrothed have deserted you. Sparhawk has been pardoned. He is the heir, I am given to understand, to a barony and a substantial fortune, and he and his long-lost father prepare even now to return home. It is a story worthy of Mr. Smollett, if only he were alive to tell it. Sparhawk is young, rich, handsome. He will be the talk of London. You, on the other hand, will hang, along with Red Abed, and when we find him, that little deserter, your brother Ned.”

“I do not believe that James would abandon me,” she said.

“Let us face facts. You are a buccaneer’s daughter, Miss Ward. No man with such glittering prospects would ally himself with such as you.”

“Trent planned to,” she said.

“If you believe that, you are naive indeed. Every officer above the rank of lieutenant in this godforsaken town has a mistress he calls a fiancée because there is no other worthwhile entertainment to be had. And half these imbecilic women think they are truly betrothed. There was no formal engagement. No bans were read.
Lord
Polkerris has no obligation to you. Certainly, none he acknowledges now. He has not even troubled to visit.”

Lieutenant Graves tried on a sympathetic look. It did not suit his face. “We are offering you the opportunity to save your father and your younger brother from the noose. Confess that you and James Sparhawk conspired to send a chest full of flint to Boston aboard the
Wasp
, and that you stole the French gold off the
Sally
for your own purposes and buried it on Cape Ann. Write it,” he said, pushing a pen and ink across the table, “and sign it, and your father and Ned will go free.”

•   •   •

Sparhawk was shackled and taken to the admiral’s cabin under guard. He supposed after the mayhem at the Three Cranes it was to be expected, but with the beating the marines had given him, it was unlikely he could have attempted to escape again.

He had been belowdecks with only occasional lantern light for so many days that his eyes did not adjust at once to the brightness of the admiral’s cabin. The admiral himself was not present in the stark white room with its long row of windows. At the table where the admiral had eaten his joint of beef and left untouched his bowl of fresh green peas sat his nephew Thomas Graves, lately the commander of the
Diana
, whom Sparhawk had watched madly attempt to climb back aboard the burning schooner after the Rebels had set it alight; and his younger brother, Francis, Sparhawk’s onetime lieutenant, who had dragged Thomas from the flames.

Francis had escaped with singed hair and burnt hands. Thomas had not been so lucky. His right ear and cheek were bandaged, the flesh showing livid and oozing at the edges of the muslin. One arm was in a sling, the hand completely swaddled.

They did not offer him a chair.

“Your slut has double-crossed you,” said Francis Graves. “In exchange for a pardon, she has written a confession naming you as the instigator of the plot.” He pushed paper and ink across the table. “I won’t pretend to like you, Captain, but this is too much. I can’t believe it of a brother officer, not even you. Describe how she tricked you into sending the flint to Boston aboard the
Wasp
, and bragged of it while her family held you prisoner in Salem, and she will hang, and we will see you free.”

He had met Sarah under the most extreme duress, seen her face down the British Navy with nothing but a pistol in her hand, defy Micah Wild and the Rebel mob because her sense of honor demanded it, and risk hanging to reunite him with his father. And even if his father was not the saint Sarah had believed, Trent’s failings, tragic as their results had been, were human and forgivable.

She put her faith in people, loving loyally and steadfastly.

He had not. Lashed to the gratings of the
Scylla
, with the blood running down his back, James had lost faith in his father, and never dared believe in anyone else like that again. If he had held on to hope a little longer, if his faith had survived until his meeting with Mungo McKenzie, if he had implored that good man to take him home, he might have known his father’s love these past fifteen years.

“No.”

Thomas Graves struck the table with his good hand. “Do you
want
to hang, man?”

“Not particularly,” said James Sparhawk. “But I know Sarah Ward, and you manifestly do not. You’re bluffing.”

They returned him to his cabin. The next day he received a visit from Charles Ansbach, who brought with him a bottle of brandy and sent the middy for two glasses.

“They will not admit Trent,” he said, pulling up a stool and sitting opposite Sparhawk, “but they dare not bar me, so I am here as his emissary. Though I am not sure what to call you,” said the king’s bastard nephew. “Is it Trent or is it Sparhawk?”

“I am not quite sure myself,” said James honestly.

“Well, Sparhawk or Trent, you will be free by the end of the day.”

“How?”

“Your father’s efforts. Bribes and blackmail, I daresay.”

“And Sarah?”

“She as well.”

He had been right. “Where is she now?” asked Sparhawk.

“Miss Ward is at the castle, with the fort major, in his apartments.
Safe
. The admiral and the governor have been at odds over who has authority over her, but their disagreement has spared her imprisonment in the cells beneath the walls, and your father’s money has ensured her every comfort.”

Ansbach handed him a beaker of brandy. Sparhawk took it, his hands shaking with relief. He knew she would not have confessed of her own free will, but he had worried, in the dark watches of the night, that they might have coerced her—tortured her—and he had vowed that he would kill Thomas and Francis Graves if they had. He confessed to Ansbach the fear that had been eating him.

“They dared not touch her,” said Ansbach, reaching into the dispatch case he had brought and pulling forth a printed broadside. “General Gage has arrested the printer’s son, Peter Edes, and thrown him in Boston Jail, but not before the boy managed to print and distribute several thousand of these.”

The image had been struck off an engraving, a political cartoon like those so beloved of the London broadsheets, and if the work showed a certain haste, this only added to its vigor. The central figure was a female form in heroic pose, young, pretty, slender but shapely, her hair streaming down her back. She stood on the deck of a trim schooner, holding off a party of lecherous marines with nothing but a pistol. One arm was thrown back to protect maybe her son—or conceivably, her younger brother—who peeked, eyes wide with fright, around her skirts; the other aimed the gun steadily at a drooling sergeant whose eyes were fixed on her ample bosom.

“The artist has taken some license,” said Sparhawk.

“It is Tommy Gage’s worst nightmare,” replied Ansbach. “A British abuse tailor-made for the talents of Samuel Adams’ pen and Paul Revere’s burin. Another Boston Massacre, another Concord, another rallying cry for the Rebels if they hang her here. For all his other faults, Gage is too smart to allow it. The admiral must swallow his pride and free her, though he blusters even now that she committed piracy on the high seas.”

“It was Marblehead,” said Sparhawk. “The seas were not so high as all that. And resisting the press is a time-honored tradition. If we began prosecuting women for it, we’d have to hang every fishwife in Bristol.”

“No doubt that will be Parliament’s next act,” said Ansbach. “Or some similar folly. I have written to my uncle, the king, about the state of affairs in Boston Harbor. I tried to persuade your father to share some of the evidence against Admiral Graves in the matter of the gold with me, but he fears that any reprisals from that revenge-minded family would be directed against you. In any case, I have done my best to see the admiral recalled. The pamphlet is proof enough that his temperament is ill-suited to such a delicate post. Uncle George does not make war on women defending their children.”

“And what of your own interest in this affair?” asked Sparhawk. They both knew he meant Benjamin Ward.

“Ah,” replied Ansbach with a sigh. “You will not have heard. There is a Rebel privateer patrolling Boston Harbor this past week, and she has taken her first prize. Galling for the admiral, and a windfall for the American forces. The
Nancy
out of Portsmouth was carrying a hold full of the finest Swiss powder. She was three weeks overdue, her topsails gone in an Atlantic storm, two hands at the pumps at all hours. She had a sensible skipper, and that was her undoing. He followed the navy’s published remarks on navigation in Boston Harbor, and anchored at Boston Light to wait for a local pilot to guide her in.”

Sparhawk thought he could guess what had happened next.

“Their pilot, alas, was waylaid, and the man who came aboard was an imposter. A notorious buccaneer named Cheap. He was Abednego Ward’s sailing master at one time. Now he sails with his son.”