Kage Baker: Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key

On a bright morning they dropped anchor just north of King’s Wharf. John lowered his sea-chest and Mrs. Waverly’s trunk into the pinnace, with a pair of oars.

“We’ll be here a day or two,” remarked Sejanus casually, leaning on the rail as John handed Mrs. Waverly down into the pinnace. “See can we get a good price for the china. We’ll be off to Tortuga after that, with what’s left of the brandy. Either sell it or trade it for a privateering commission. Sure you’re not interested?”

“Steady sure, mate,” said John.

Sejanus nodded to him. “Then good luck to you.”

It was a long hot tramp down Thames Street in the morning heat, especially with a pair of trunks to carry. Mrs. Waverly stalked ahead of him, grimly purposeful, watching the signs. John, looking around, thought they might well have been dropped back in time to the morning they had set out. Nothing seemed to have changed much: same sticky salt mist lying over the town, same brilliant reflections of light and water on walls. He could feel a headache beginning in the back of his skull, from the glare.

He spotted the alleyway before Mrs. Waverly did and rushed ahead, shouldering his way through under the brick arch. She scuttled after him. The liveryman, lounging back on a bale of cotton, looked up in surprise as the pair of them reached his counter at once.

“We’re redeeming something,” said John, sliding the brass token across the counter. The liveryman took his red clay pipe from his mouth and leaned down to peer at the token.

“Five,” he pronounced. “Indeed! I thought it was lost. Reverend Blackstone got his church built at last, hey?”

John blinked at him. “Aye. He did.”

“I’ll fetch it straight. Just bide, there; it’s at the back.” He walked away into the depths of the shed and they waited impatiently.

“ Reverend Blackstone?” said John, sotto voce.

“I have no idea,” said Mrs. Waverly, tapping her foot.

After a long while the liveryman came backing up to the counter, dragging a great chest after him.

“Here,” he grunted, straightening up. “Whew! I’ve kept it the best part of a year…I make that two pounds ten in fees, sir and ma’am.”

Mrs. Waverly gave him a brilliant smile. “You see we have just stepped ashore. Now, I will tell you what: I shall leave mine own trunk here as surety, while we just step next door and bespeak lodging. John, give the good man my trunk. And he shall give us the good Reverend’s box.”

The liveryman made a face, but John had already thumped Mrs. Waverly’s trunk down on the counter, which was a plank across two barrels. The liveryman shoved the other trunk through beneath the counter and John hoisted it up, staggering a little at the weight.

They stepped across the alley into a place called the Feathers, quiet and empty at that hour of the morning. “Here!” said Mrs. Waverly, leading John to a dark corner of the common room. He set the chest down with a crash. Mrs. Waverly bent to unfasten the straps that closed it. Her hands were trembling. She threw back the lid.

“Bugger,” said John in surprise. Within, neatly packed, were dozens of worn old copies of the Book of Common Prayer .

“No,” said Mrs. Waverly. “No, no, no. Oh, you worthless son of a mongrel bitch.” She raked the prayerbooks out. They spilled over on the floor until her nails grated across iron. She shoved more of the books out of the way to reveal the top of an ironbound box, and burst into tears. “Oh, Tom, forgive me!” she said.

Reaching into her bodice, she drew forth a key and cleared away enough prayerbooks to get at the lock. A moment and they had it open, to look upon a number of lumpy little waxed-canvas bags, each one sealed with the stamp of the House of Simmern.

John leaned down with his clasp-knife and slit one bag open. There, at last, he glimpsed bright gold. He tore with his fingers and they came sliding out, lovely five-guinea pieces. He grabbed a handful and stood, savoring the moment.

The landlord walked into the room then, wiping his hands on his apron and looking at them inquiringly.

“Your best room, my good sir,” said Mrs. Waverly, blotting away her tears. “And your very best breakfast served up, and four bottles of your best rum.”

They drank to Tom’s memory, and dined on salt cod and maize cakes, with a pot of sweet chocolate. Before the end of the meal, Mrs. Waverly was sitting on John’s lap, feeding him morsels from her fingertips. By the time they’d cleared the cloth, she had unlaced her bodice and was opening his breeches. John, nothing loth, carried her off to the bed, though he half expected she would go all faint on him again or exclaim that she had a headache.

To his amazement, she stripped off her clothes eagerly, and moreover helped him disrobe. She sprang onto the counterpane lithe as a tigress, and John followed rather more clumsily. What followed next was better than all his dreams.

They did not set foot to the floor all the rest of the day, save to go back to the dining table for the other bottles of rum. When they weren’t fornicating madly they lay there passing the bottle back and forth, and Mrs. Waverly told John all about the places they might go now, Paris or Rome or Amsterdam or Charleston.

Anywhere there was glittering Society, she explained, there were well-to-do folk who occasionally required certain services performed: indiscreet letters recovered, information gathered about the daily activities of junior princes or archdukes, the placing of well-born bastard children with suitably distant foster parents. These services paid quite well, apparently. Mrs. Waverly felt that a man of John’s strength and imposing appearance would do very well at her side.

She told him much more, but by that time John had taken a great deal of rum on board and wasn’t able to follow her words any too well. The last thing he remembered clearly was her telling him all about the fun to be had in Versailles at this time of year. Then she had rolled over, and invited him to do something he’d never done before. He wished afterward he could remember what it had been.

John woke alone, sick and groggy and near blind. The gray light of dawn was creeping in shamefaced, slow as though it was catching and tearing itself on all the masts and spars in the harbor.

He lay there a moment, trying to recollect where he was. When the memory came back, he rolled over and looked for Mrs. Waverly, but did not see her.

John fell out of bed and stared around the room. He saw his clothes, neatly folded on a chair, and his sea chest. The breakfast dishes were gone, and so were the empty rum bottles, but there was something white on the table. Moving unsteadily, he made his way to the table and peered down. He saw a piece of paper with writing on it.

Dearest John, I gave you my all, therefore I am taking your half.

He read it over three times, stupefied, before he caught the meaning. He looked around the room and saw that the big trunk was gone, along with its contents. She hadn’t even left him a copy of the Book of Common Prayer .

John hadn’t the strength to curse. Moving cautiously, lest his head fall off and shatter, he pulled on his clothes. He reflected that he was slightly better off than if he’d gone out drinking with Hairy Mary from the Turtle Crawl; she’d have taken his raiment and his sea chest too.

He went to the window and looked out. He could see five ships on the horizon, three of them already far out to sea, and Mrs. Waverly might be on any of them. As he stood there, running over the events of the past months in his mind, he remembered the four pearls he’d got when he’d looted the Santa Ysabel ’s great cabin. He’d kept them in their twist of paper, like peas in a pod, tucked in his spare shirt.