Kage Baker - Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key

Sejanus and Mr. Tudeley sat in the boat and lowered a makeshift anchor. John, stripped down to a breech-clout tied on with rope, took up one of the rocks they’d brought out with them, and jumped over the side with it.

Almost at once he found himself standing on the aft deck of the Harmony ; blinking around in the clear water. The strong light of the sun came amber through the swaying weeds, softened to a sort of cathedral twilight. John lugged the stone to the companionway, remembering how he’d clung there in the last few moments before going overboard.

He jumped down through it now. There before him was the narrow little passage to the cabins. Most of the cargo deck, what was left of it, was empty; but he saw a few barrels floating up against the underside of the deck, trapped there by their buoyancy. He let go the rock and pushed them, one by one, to the companionway, so they were free to bob to the surface, and followed them up.

“How fare you, sir?” called Mr. Tudeley.

“Well enough,” said John, when he had gulped in some air. “Nothing much but barrels down there. Might be more over t’the other half.”

“I wonder, sir, whether you might fetch up my trunk?”

“What?”

“I had a change of clothes in it, you see, and some small necessary things I wished to keep.”

Muttering to himself, John swam to the boat to fetch another rock; but it occurred to him that Mrs. Waverly’s trunk was down there as well, to say nothing of his own. He took another deep breath and dove again, letting the rock sink him down the companionway. There he released it and pulled himself along the passage to the cabins. And there he almost yelled aloud; for he looked up into the white face of the French sharpshooter who’d helped him fire the swivel gun. The man floated face down, trapped against the underside of the aft deck. His last breath was a silver bubble in his open mouth.

Grimacing, John grabbed a fistful of the man’s shirt and pulled him down, backing away with him and letting him go at the companionway. The dead man drifted through, turning slowly as he went. The bubble escaped from his mouth and fled upward like a fish. John followed, looking around on the deck to see what else he might grab on this trip, and spotted the swivel gun on the broken rail. He swam over and wrenched at it until it came loose, rail and all. Cradling it in his arms, he pushed off against the deck and broke the surface.

“Got this,” he gasped, manhandling it over the side into the boat.

“What use is that, may I ask?” said Mr. Tudeley, scowling at it through sweat-fogged spectacles.

“You never know. She’s a sweet little gun, and company may come to call,” said John, wiping his face with one hand.

He dove four more times before he had to stop; it took a dive each to fetch up their trunks, and on the last he spotted two cutlasses and a pistol lying up against the bulkhead. Too weary to climb into the boat (which was now full of salvage in any case) John simply clung to the stern and rode it back as Sejanus rowed them ashore.

The first thing he did, after he staggered dripping ashore, was haul out Mrs. Waverly’s trunk and open it. Tilting it, he spilled out gowns and shoes and toilet things, all soaked. He sorted through them hastily to see if he could find Tom Blackstone’s letter. Letter there was none, even in the little inlaid box that had been tucked under the bottom layer of her garments. John opened it and found only the earrings Captain Reynald had given her, with some hairpins and a few trinkets he suspected she’d stolen.

He closed the box and became aware that Sejanus and Mr. Tudeley were watching him. “Just wanted to be certain sure she wasn’t robbed,” he said.

“If you say so,” said Sejanus, raising one eyebrow.

They buried more bodies before they started back—with somewhat less ceremony, funerals being impractical when corpses were becoming so commonplace. Mrs. Waverly rose from where she had been tending the fire, and smiled to see what John carried.

“My trunk!” she exclaimed. “Why, Mr. James, how dear, how thoughtful of you!” She ran to him and stood on tiptoe, pulling him down for a kiss.

“It was a pleasure, ma’am,” said John. In his best bluff and honest manner, he added: “Mind, we had to open it to drain the water out, and your things fell out too, so they’re a bit disordered. But I put everything back in.”

“You have my eternal gratitude,” said Mrs. Waverly. “What luck that we have fresh water! I can launder everything tomorrow. Do let me launder your shirts and stockings as well, Mr. James.”

“I have shirts and stockings too,” volunteered Mr. Tudeley, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

She made on a great deal over John that evening, serving him his coconut and whelks first, mixing him a treat of rum and coconut-water, and nestling up beside him when they sat by the fire afterward.

The conversation ran on what they ought to look for next in the diving, whether the carpenter’s chest or the navigation gear, and from thence it proceeded to where they would go once they’d built their pinnace.

“Mind you, we need to know whereabouts we are, first,” said John. “If we can find the charts and they ain’t too spoilt, we can chart a course. Can’t just sail off into the blue.”

“How very wise, Mr. James,” said Mrs. Waverly, sliding her arm through his. He looked at her sidelong. “You and I, of course, ought to proceed to Leauchaud. Once we have resolved those matters concerning my poor husband’s estate, we might consider anything! Should you care to travel? Have you ever been to Paris?”

“I was thinking of settling down in Port Royal,” said John, but the high-colored image of going to Paris with Mrs. Waverly dazzled him, as it had been meant to do. To clear his head of images of Mrs. Waverly in a lace peignoir, he said: “What’ll you do, Mr. Tudeley? Go on to Barbados?”

“That’s a question, indeed, sir,” said Mr. Tudeley, staring into the fire. “You know…I don’t believe I shall. I ought to send to Arabella to let her know I’m well, of course. But, in a way, this whole mischance has been a blessing in disguise. A veil has dropped from my eyes, sir. I have perceived now that, life being so miserably brief and tenuous, one ought to spend it in what enjoyment one can, don’t you think? And the essentials of life are so much more easily come by in a place less constrained by Society.

“I rather liked Tortuga. It was a jolly place, quite free and easy! I think perhaps I may settle at Tortuga. Yes.” Mr. Tudeley helped himself to a little more rum. He looked across the fire at Sejanus. “What of you, sir? Shall you go back to Africa?”

Sejanus shook his head. “How can I go back to a place where I’ve never been?” he said, adding another bit of driftwood to the fire. “No. What would I do there? No one would speak English, and I know only a few words of the talk. Mud houses and cattle pens and strangers…what’s that to me? Get myself taken up again as a slave, most likely.

“Then again…no sense going back to Boston. Or Virginia. Laws change too fast. I went to sea because I heard there are no nations among sailors. I heard that on a ship, a man’s as good as the work he can do. I was sadly misinformed…Wasn’t true under Captain Sharp, no, sir. I was only one inch higher than a slave, to him. But it was true under Reynald. First time I was ever around white men who treated me like one of them. Pity, Reynald dying…maybe I’ll go back to Tortuga, myself. Sign on with the Brethren.”

“Piracy don’t pay all that well,” said John. “You know, there’s places inland where slaves go when they escape. Lots of ’em live back in the caves and such. Supposed to be whole villages, hiding up in the mountains on Hispaniola. D’you ever think of going to live with them?”