Chapter 54
The victorious crew camped on a remote shore, gathered around a fire dug into the smooth sand.
Mary listened to the damp wood hiss, sending plumes of smoke like an offering to the watchful, unblinking stars above.
Corner had hunted down a wild boar, and its skin crackled over the flame as he turned it over a spit alongside a row of fish he’d seasoned with lime juice. The aroma wafted in the breeze.
“When do we eat?” Howell groaned, giving voice to Mary’s own torment at being hit with the savory smell of fresh meat. Now that she could stomach food, it was all she ever wanted.
“Another hour or two, if you’re not passed out by then,” Corner said.
The Revenge had laid anchor alongside the Mary and Sarah, whose captain and sailors—unharmed, as promised—were held captive in the brig.
Unpleasant business, but at least this would keep them silent until Rackham decided what to do with this prize.
Did he mean to add this merchant ship to their own and form a flotilla?
Or keep the captain and crew prisoner until they could get far enough away to set them free without repercussions?
If Mary was honest with herself, she didn’t know what to make of Rackham’s sloppy strategy anymore.
He’d been sharing drinks with Captain Dillon last she spotted him.
She huffed. At least she and Anne had fought well today.
Mary rested against the trunk of a palm tree and watched her companions in the flickering light.
They’d been celebrating—drinking—since taking the Mary and Sarah that afternoon.
Earl played his fiddle, his nimble fingers flying and the bow ripping across the strings as others clapped and sang like howling dogs, their words slurring.
A few others gambled on an overturned cask.
To avoid fights and injury, the Articles didn’t allow for cards aboard the ship. But ashore? Anything could happen.
The shadows cast by the jungle behind Mary felt alive, oppressive.
But she refused to give into fear after their feat today.
Unlike their other small victories, the Mary and Sarah held three hundred British pounds.
If the crew continued at this rate under the new strategy, the pirates could retire quickly.
Mary could manage a few more raids, then she’d say her goodbyes and part with the crew—with more coin than she could carry in her pockets.
And she knew, even now, that she would leave alone.
Her fingers felt the round of her abdomen. She had everything she needed.
Mary looked for Thomas in the circle of faces around the bonfire. His silence spoke for itself. Mary didn’t need to discuss her plans with him, but she would all the same. Maybe tonight would be the night to do so.
Where was he?
Mary’s thoughts were interrupted by Anne taking a seat beside her. Anne’s presence warmed her, but a wave of guilt quelled it. She needed to tell Anne too, and soon.
“You look well in trousers,” Mary said.
“I’d forgotten what it was like—wearing breeches like I did as a child. I admit they are more comfortable than a dress,” Anne said, running her hands through the sand. “Though they have less airflow. A skirt has its merits.”
“That it does,” Mary said. Now that she wasn’t constrained by what she could and could not wear, it was easy to see the benefits of both. She hoped to never bind her breasts again.
Anne threw herself flat on her back, causing grains of sand to fly. “Do you ever miss home?”
“Home?” Mary had grown used to Anne’s spontaneous, intrusive questions—about her life in England, her parents, serving as a cabin boy under Southwick, learning to ride a horse, fighting in the war.
She’d even grown to welcome them. “I suppose I’ve never really had one.
” No, that wasn’t true. “I miss Bjorn. The Three Horse-Shoes. Those ten years. Can memories be a home?”
“I don’t see why not.” Anne teased out a knot in her hair. “How was it between you two?”
“I’ve told you many times.” Mary suspected this question was not about her, but about Anne.
“But did you ever shout and argue?”
Mary shifted her weight, her eyes following the flames of the fire.
“No. But disagree? Yes.” She snorted. “I remember once, Bjorn finally invited his father, Lord Van Acker, to visit us one Christmas. He was a nobleman who made disparaging comments about my lineage and the life Bjorn and I had chosen with the inn—a sentiment I ignored. But Bjorn grew defensive. Lord, the fight over the dinner table that followed. The baron stormed out to his carriage in the snow, leaving his coat behind. And as I stared at the table, at the uneaten feast and roasted pheasant”—her stomach growled as she recalled the image—“Bjorn had the nerve to look proud. Like he’d done that for me and not for himself.
We were furious at each other for a few days, but it worked itself out.
Bjorn respected me, and I respected him.
He saw me as his equal in heart and mind.
We could talk through anything. Somehow in tying ourselves together, we also set each other free. ”
Anne didn’t say anything for a minute, and Mary thought that might be the end of the line of questioning. It had been a long day for both of them. But then Anne said, “I’m sorry you never found your Ma.”
Thumbing the hem of her shirt, Mary closed her eyes and settled into that deep place within herself—a pool of grief, but also stillness.
Joy, too. “Thank you,” Mary said, letting a pinch of pain within her rise, then float away like smoke.
“With this child, I admit that Ma feels closer than ever. She gave me more than I lost. She gave me everything.” A chance.
A radiant example of love, however complicated.
Mary turned to look at Anne, her face barely visible in the red glow of the distant fire. What did that face say? “I’m sorry you lost your mother, too.”
Anne pushed away a stray hair. “Mam wasn’t perfect, but she knew how things were—things I never got around to asking her. Now I’m supposed to be a mother, and I don’t know the first thing about what to do. Or who will help me figure it out.”
You’ll have me, Mary thought. But the words never left her lips. Would Anne come along? No. She’d never leave Rackham, and Mary wouldn’t ask that of her.
Anne laughed. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what kind of mam am I going to be? I’m a holy terror without sleep. I detest the sound of crying children. And I find dogs far more agreeable than babies.”
“Those things don’t disqualify you for the task. I think you know that.”
“Maybe. But they are, alas, ‘things.’ Oh—and I’m also a bloody pirate.”
“What of bravery? Kindness? Intelligence? An ability to listen?” Mary prodded. “I daresay you’ll make a fine mother because you’re a fine person.”
A commotion from the fire drew their attention back to their crewmates. Someone threw a punch, and Mary stood.
“Thomas?”
Rackham and Daniel York—one of the new men recruited from Spenlow’s captured schooner—threw Thomas onto the ground.
“Filthy, disgusting thief!” York shrieked.
No. Mary sprinted forward, leaving Anne.
Not again.
“You lie!” Thomas roared, standing and raising a fist. Rackham pulled him back, and someone else held York from behind.
“I saw ye. Pawing at my coin purse! Snooping in the hold!”
“Lies!” Thomas bellowed again, swinging his arms like a windmill. “Don’t listen to him, Captain. He’s mad in the head—has no idea what he saw.”
“Then what did he see, Brown?” Rackham said, arms folded.
Mary shook when she saw the terror in Thomas’s dark eyes.
Please tell the truth.
“I found this,” Thomas said, pulling a crumpled paper from his pocket. “I … wanted to be sure we did a thorough search of all the documents on the Mary and Sarah. Didn’t want to wait a week like last time to know we’re being hunted like turkeys.”
Rackham took the broadsheet and smoothed it out, holding it up to the fire to examine. His eyes grew. “You can’t read.”
“No, Captain. But I recognize the legal look of a proclamation when I see it. They were posted all over Nassau.”
All eyes stared at Rackham. After an agonizing minute, he threw the paper into the fire.
“Captain!”
“It’s nothing to worry ourselves over. I find Brown innocent. Everyone, go about your evening. Earl—what happened to the music? And Corner, let’s carve the boar.”
York scoffed. “And what of the violation of my possessions?”
“Check them,” Thomas said. “You’ll find nothing unaccounted for.”
At the captain’s demand, Earl resumed playing his fiddle.
Growing bored with the spiraling argument, the other men returned to their drinks and games.
Rackham joined them, raising a pewter mug as Corner took a knife to the sizzling meat.
But Mary’s appetite had vanished. She watched Thomas like a sparrow hawk, waiting for a moment to pull him aside.
“I know what I saw. I summon ye to a duel,” York hissed at Thomas. “Tomorrow. Noon. Before we set sail.” He flung a handful of sand into Thomas’s face, then stormed off.
Thomas shrank to the side, stumbling and clutching his eyes until he left the glow of the fire. Mary followed, the sound of the breakers against the shore as her mind whirred.
“Is it true?”
“That there’s a second proclamation? Aye.”
Mary handed him her water flask to flush out the sand in his eyes. He hissed in pain.
“Did you try to steal from York?”
Thomas fell to his knees, letting out a sob of anguish.
“I can’t do it anymore, Mary. I can’t continue another day on this miserable ship.
The raids. The waiting to be caught. The nightmares—Governor Rogers leering over me with a noose.
” He convulsed, and Mary bit her lip, unsure of what to do, until at last she sank into the sand and placed an arm around his shuddering frame.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said, steadying her voice. “Why have you avoided me at every turn?”
“I wasn’t sure what they’d think,” he said. “You aren’t like other women. I didn’t want to endanger us both. Damnation, Mary. I was scared. I was a fool.”
Mary’s chest fell. “You thought you might get ahead, nab some coin, and be on your way, then?”
Thomas nodded, then broke down again.
“Without me?” Without our child.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry, Mary. But I can’t duel with York! You know I can’t shoot straight. And my sight?” He spat with scorn. “From that far away?”
“I know,” Mary said, feeling her throat burn.
The closeness she and Thomas had once shared was gone.
But death had snatched her own father. Her child would not face the same despair, no matter the man’s character.
Not if she could help it. Death she could not bridge, but the possibility of change?
That her child, or Thomas, might seek each other out in the future?
With a flare of white-hot realization, she knew what she had to do: one last favor for this man she once held dear.
“I’ll speak to York. See if I might talk him down. ”
Thomas pulled his elbows in and rocked. The pressure built behind Mary’s eyes.
“But you have to be ready, Thomas. It’s time you learned courage.”
You are more than this, she thought.
Knew.
She placed a sturdy hand on his shoulder, then stood, brushing the grains of sand from her trousers. She gulped down her spring-tide of emotions and walked away, forcing herself not to look back.