Chapter 38
Spanish Town, Jamaica
“You took Miss Bonny back with you, then? To share sleeping accommodations with you and your husband?”
Mary stared at the ceiling as she lay on her back, her blanket wadded up into a pillow.
How did Anne fare in these conditions? Better than herself, Mary hoped.
Today, Mary could clearly make out the texture of the stone ceiling.
She saw shapes in the contours the way she used to see wild horses in the clouds during long days at sea.
The fever had lifted for the moment. For once, her white shirt and trousers were not soaked through with sweat. A blessing.
Her hands rested on her stomach.
“Thomas was never my husband,” she said, ignoring whatever else this strange captain implied.
“The court said Thomas Brown was your common-law husband.”
Mary turned her head to consider Captain Johnson.
Such a curious gentleman. He looked rather ridiculous, particularly from this angle: a man of his breadth, teetering on the edge of a rough-hewn stool sized for a child with a writing desk on his lap.
But she never minded his questions. It passed the time.
And her baby needed time.
“The court said many things,” Mary said, returning her gaze to the ceiling.
“I only ever had one husband. And it was not Thomas.” For all Thomas had meant to her—and for all his good merits—her affection toward him had been like the comfort of candlelight in a pit of darkness.
Bjorn, in contrast, lit her world ablaze like a summer solstice sun.
For ten precious years, she crackled with aliveness that could challenge the pagan gods.
She didn’t fear death, for she’d lived each second of her days with Bjorn—whether they were traveling through the countryside outside of Breda, reading books aloud as they huddled under a blanket beside the hearth, or waiting on customers and old friends at the Three Horse-Shoes.
Even washing the tavern’s bedsheets together, Bjorn splashing her with a fresh bucket, held an unspeakable joy that bordered on sacred.
It never mattered what they did, so long as they were together.
Bjorn did not flinch as death stalked him in the shape of a wound that refused to heal.
It was not the first time Mary had seen, up close, a man truly measured when he stood face-to-face with his end. Most others were found wanting.
If it was her time, Mary would not cower either. But she would fight; for herself and for the life growing inside her.
“Where is your husband now?”
Mary closed her eyes. “Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“To wherever the best of souls go.”
“My condolences,” the captain said, mopping his brow with his kerchief. “Forgive my interruptions. You were saying …?”