Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom

I was, naturally, and I told him so. He married us the next day.

My guess is that Novia thought I would get a boat and go after Capt. Burt's treasure right after the ceremony, and she liked it a lot when I did not. The truth is that I did not want to, because I was so worried about her. I could leave her quite a lot of money, and I would. Still, I knew that I would be worried sick as soon as I cast off. If waiting until our child was born was all it was, I would have done it, and been glad to. It would only have been a couple more months, so that would have been okay. The trouble was that I could not risk taking our child out on a boat for weeks and maybe a month or more until he or she was a lot older, eight at least, and ten would be better. So I would have to leave Novia alone with only Mahu to look after her, and it scared me half to death.

Then one day I was walking down the street and I saw a tall, thin man with a beat-up face. I stared and stared, and he just grinned at me.

"Brother Ignacio! Goombah!" I yelled it so loud everybody must have thought I had gone crazy.

"Hello, Chris." He stopped grinning, but he could not stop smiling. "How are things with you?"

I brought him back to meet Novia and heard his story while the four of us ate and drank a little wine.

"There really isn't much to tell, Senora. I was a lay brother at the monastery in which Chris was educated. The students had to work as well as study- working is one of the most important things a boy must learn-and Chris used to help me, hoeing the garden and pruning our vines and orange trees. Minding our pigs. I came to love him like a son, and I know he looked up to me."

I said, "He still does."

"Thank you, Chris." Grinning from ear to ear, he went back to Novia. "When he left our monastery, I realized I didn't want to stay without him. I followed him, hoping to help him."

He tried to stop grinning but could not. "You owed me this chicken, Chris. I'd paid for one, and you stole it."

"That was you!" I could not believe it.

"It certainly was. So you owe me one, but I'm being repaid tonight. Might I have another helping?"

Novia passed the chicken to him.

"I lost sight of you after that," he said, "and there is not much left to tell. I found honest work, confess often, attend mass when I can, and here I am. You've done well for yourself, Chris, as I always knew you would."

"In some ways I have," I told him, "and in some ways I haven't. Maybe someday we'll have to talk about that. Now I have to ask my wife something. Novia, do you remember what I said about Brother Ignacio when we were on Virgin Gorda?"

She nodded. "You said he was the second father to you, Crisoforo. I have remember what you say of him ever since, and you speak of him many times."

"Right. I also said I'd trust him further than I'd trust myself."

She nodded again. "This I remember also."

"Do you trust him, too, Novia? Now that you've seen him?"

"Oh, si!" She gave Ignacio a warm smile. "He is very like you, though more old. A good man."

She had lifted a load from my shoulders, and I could not have stopped myself from smiling if I had tried. I asked Ignacio what he was doing now.

"Little enough, Chris. I left my ship when it got here, wanting to stay awhile. Since then I've had a few odd jobs. If you're thinking of hiring me, I'll work cheap."

I named a salary, about twice what a sailor usually earns and the same as what we were paying Mahu.

"Fine, if I can do the work. What is it?"

"Looking after Novia while I'm gone. The midwife we've lined up says another six weeks, and I'm hoping to be back before then. But meanwhile I'd like to be certain there's somebody with her who has a good level head and a Spanish background-most of all, someone who'll have her best interest at heart."

"And the baby's," he said.

So that was how we worked it. Novia got most of the gold left in my money belt. She would pay Ignacio and Mahu, and could fire either or both of them if she thought that was the best thing to do. I bought a fine little sloop that I could manage alone, stocked it with supplies, and put out.

I hit the storm on the fifth day out, and lasted in it maybe five hours tops. Probably it was not even that long. My guess is that it was a hurricane, although it was early in the season for them.

I stayed afloat by holding on to a ringbolt I had mounted on my beautiful little sloop so I could rig a jib on her. It had stayed attached to the biggest piece of wreckage, and after a while I was able to climb up on it. I was about dead when some Mexican fishermen took me on board.

They had a little radio so they could listen to the weather forecasts, and that was when I knew when I was. I AM WRITING this on the plane to Miami. I will have a three-hour layover there, then catch a plane for Havana. I plan to mail this to you before I go. I know you will not believe it, but I cannot help that.

There will not be time enough for me to write about all the things that happened to me after that, and I would not want to anyway. I worked on Mexican boats awhile, then crossed into the U.S., which was pretty easy. This happened and that happened, and twice I was nearly sent to jail. I got into the seminary by explaining that I had grown up in Cuba. With the communists in power, they could not look for records there. They made sure I was not in the FBI's files and took me.

Now I am a priest. Let me repeat that: NOW I am a priest. But when the monastery is reopened, I will not tell them. I will come in as a lay brother, able to read and write because all Cubans can, and able to speak a little English because I worked in a hotel. Pious in the good sense, and willing to turn my hand to any kind of work.

Soon a young I, called Christopher, will come as a student. We will work together sometimes, tending the pigs and the other livestock, planting cucumbers and harvesting okra and peppers. I will stay close to him, and when he drifts back, I will drift back with him.

When he needs someone in Veracruz, I will be there. I will look after Sabina and our child as if they were my own-because they will be.

As the years pass, she will come to know the truth. You may say I will violate my vow of chastity then, but you will be wrong if you do. God will not hold me to a vow I have not yet taken. I know Him, and He is just. No just judge holds a man to a vow to be made in the future.

The maps I carried aboard the sloop have been lost forever, but I studied them a thousand times and recall every detail. When the time is ripe, Sabina and I will claim Capt. Burt's treasure.

Then she and I, and our child, will sail around the world. Today, as you sit reading this, we have been dead three hundred years.

We are the people of your past.

All persons of importance in the text are listed here, with many lesser persons. Persons and places are limited to those not apt to be familiar to the average reader. It is assumed that such a reader will have little difficulty with "Shakespeare" and "South America." A few technical terms, etc., are included as well.

ACADIA A French colony in eastern Canada.

AGATHA, SAINT An early Christian martyr.

ALVAREZ Captain Ojeda's lieutenant.

ANTILLES The island chain separating the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean.

ANTONIO A Portuguese sailing master turned pirate.

AQUINAS, SAINT THOMAS A great medieval theologian.

ARNOLD, MARY ANNE A woman who posed for years as a male seaman. This sort of thing happened much more often than is credible. Deborah Samson became a private in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Dressed as men, Rachel and Grace Martin were American partisans in the same war. Other examples might be given.

AZUKA The slave mistress of the captain of the Duquesa de Corruna.