Kage Baker: Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key

“Do I look like a fucking invalid to you?” said John, and they admitted he didn’t, and retired posthaste back up the stairs.

He gazed around. The Gentlemen’s Baths looked like a church with all the pews taken out, and flooded, and having no glass in the high windows. He was in a big domed room, from which an aisle led with alcoves opening off it to right and left. All around the edges, set halfway up the walls, were bronze rings. Here and there was a miserable-looking old gent in a canvas shift, holding on to a ring for dear life, while attendants stood by watching lest he drown. The whole place stank like a fart.

Third alcove, left hand side, John thought to himself, and waded down into the pool. At once the trapped air in his clothes ballooned up, buoying him, and before he had taken more than a few awkward steps across the room, the water down by his feet became scalding hot. He danced, back, swearing. An attempt to launch himself forward and swim across nearly got him drowned as well as boiled, for the clothes kept hindering his arms and legs. He fetched up against the wall, clutching for one of the bronze rings, and hauled himself up on a sort of shelf that projected below the waterline.

“D’you need assistance, sir?” called one of the attendants, grinning.

“No, damn you,” said John, wiping his face. He worked out that the shelf was continuous around the room and down the aisle, so he proceeded to follow it, wading and bobbling from ring to ring, out of the main chamber and so along the wall.

He wondered how Tom had ever managed this while carrying gold, even small sealed bags of five-guinea pieces. He had a sudden powerful memory of Tom, with his little pointed beard and his knowing smirk. Tom indeed; tomcat cavalier fallen on hard times, living by his wits. He’d been clever enough to hide a prince’s ransom in here, safe against Spanish intriguers or English cutthroats. Or his own dear lady love…

It hadn’t escaped John that Mrs. Waverly had firm custody of his clothes. Not that he would be able to make off with the loot in any case; the windows were too high and well barred, the canvas garments impossible to run in. Smuggling the stuff out, at least, ought to be easy enough; John might have stowed a barrel under his shift, with room for a couple of kegs.

He made his way past the first two alcoves on the left and into the third, which was deserted, perhaps because there was a nasty-looking slime the color of orange peel growing in a wide patch on the wall.

…Go to the midmost ring…

Balancing on the shelf there, he took a deep breath and ducked under the water, feeling with his fingers for a loose stone. Almost at once, before he could discern anything there, the air-bubble of his shift pulled him back up again. He tried a second and third time before standing up on the shelf and stripping off the shift, muttering to himself as he hung it through the ring. Then he took a deep breath and dove down.

In the simmering gloom, peering through the vaguely rust-tinted water, John saw that he might have crouched there groping about forever without finding the loose stone; it wasn’t above the shelf but under it, only just visible for the dark rectangle where the mortar had been chipped away. How long had that taken Tom?

John caught hold of the edges of the stone and rocked it to and fro and so out by degrees, though the edges bit into his fingertips and he had to come up for air again before he pulled it away. Panting, he laid it on the shelf and reached into the hole.

Almost at once his fingers struck solid stone. He grunted in pain and withdrew his hand; he’d fair skinned his knuckles. More cautiously, he reached in and felt about. He encountered only the flat sides of the hole. It was big enough to accommodate the stone that had occupied it, and nothing else.

No…his palm encountered something. Smallish. Flat.

He drew it out and surfaced, gasping, to peer at it. A single coin? Not even that. It was a brass slug, engraved with the number 5.

Something kept him from flinging it across the alcove into the boiling water, to be retrieved by anyone who cared to get scalded. John turned it over. Something else was engraved on the back.

Ye Three Tunns

He knew the Three Tunns. It was a tavern in Port Royal. It had a livery stable in back, on an alley off Thames Street, where things might be left until called for. He’d never owned anything to store there, but he’d diced once with a fellow who’d laid down a token like this as surety, claiming that John might have the chest of pewter plate it would redeem. John had lost the throw so it hadn’t mattered.

Of course Tom hadn’t dragged a chest of gold all the way to Leauchaud. He’d cached it at the Three Tunns and come here to hide the token, well away from Mrs. Waverly’s quick fingers. Then he’d gone on, to Panama and his unexpected death.

John laughed quietly. It might have been the echoes, but he almost fancied he heard Tom’s wry laughter too.

He put the token in his mouth, having no pockets, and put on the shift once more, and went splashing back out to the main chamber. When he emerged into the dressing-room, he found Mrs. Waverly sitting there chatting freely with the attendants. She stood quickly on seeing him.

“Well, husband dear! Has the water done you good, as we’d hoped?”

John spat the token into his hand. “Yes, thank’ee.”

“Afford us some privacy, do,” said Mrs. Waverly to the attendants. They elbowed one another and sidled out, snickering.

“Where is it? How much were you able to bring out?” she demanded, advancing on John.

“All of it,” said John, and showed her the token. She stared at it a long moment, going quite pale under her fresh paint.

“Why, that bastard,” she said.

THEY QUARRELED ALL THE way back to the Dancing Master, and Tom Blackstone was called a few more choice names. When they got to the tavern John went upstairs to get their trunks. Mrs. Waverly did her utmost to charm the landlord into refunding what they’d paid him for the privilege of giving their trunks a view of the harbor for three hours. He was disinclined to oblige on the matter, however. John got to watch Mrs. Waverly undergo a surprising transformation, with the veins in her neck standing out as she screamed a few epithets he hadn’t heard since the last time he’d walked through the fish stalls of Billingsgate.

So they went penniless back to the waterfront, and were greatly relieved to see Le Rossignol drawn up to the quay. Sejanus was directing the loading-on of fresh water kegs and victuals, by Portuguese Fausto and two new crewmen, both blacks. He looked up at John and Mrs. Waverly, managing not to grin. “Afternoon,” was all he said.

“Mr. Walker, we would be obliged to you for passage back to Port Royal,” said Mrs. Waverly, rather short.

“Of course, ma’am,” he replied, tipping his hat. She came up the gangplank and made straight for the great cabin without another word. John followed her with the trunks. Sejanus raised his eyebrows at him.

“Seems her late husband cut her out of the will,” said John.

They skirted the edges of a storm, but otherwise had plain sailing back to Jamaica. Mr. Tudeley hung off the stern of the sloop and painted over the name Le Rossignol , renaming her Revenge , though John told him just about every other pirate vessel seemed to be named that nowadays. Then Mr. Tudeley said perhaps she ought to be Tudeley’s Revenge , but Sejanus pointed out that simple Revenge was more nondescript and, given that they were about to engage in a life of crime, less easy to trace therefore. So Revenge she remained.