James Nelson - The Pirate Round

“Of course.” Marlowe smiled. Son of a bitch.

He thought of those batteries, considered whether or not he could make a run for it. The wind was light, and the tide was flooding. He would never make it to the open sea, never get beyond the reach of the seaward guns.

“I had, as it happens, wanted to sail on the tide this evening,” he extemporized, “but I would not wish to offend His Lordship with making an early departure from dinner…”

“I don’t reckon that’ll be a problem. He just wants to make his formal fare-thee-wells, and then you’ll be free to leave.”

Marlowe saw the big man over the side. “Free to leave.” There was no equivocation in that statement, as regarded who was in charge on St. Mary’s, who controlled the comings and goings.

We have only to make it through the next few hours, Marlowe thought, and then we sail.

It was nearly slack water when they walked along the now-familiar road, up the hill to Yancy’s commanding villa. They were ushered in the door by Nagel, led along to the great hall. Marlowe and Elizabeth and Bickerstaff now. Where Dinwiddie was, Marlowe could not guess, but he was relieved to see that Spelt was not there either.

We have only to make it through the next few hours, and then we sail.

Yancy sat at the head of the big table, as usual, slouched back, staring blankly at a stain on the wood. He could hear the animal sounds of his loyal band already eating. He had not made them wait for Marlowe’s party. They looked as if they had no thought for anything, save wolfing down their food, but he knew they understood their parts, would play them well.

He glanced up at the sound of the big door creaking on its hinges. Marlowe stepped in, then the lovely Elizabeth, then Bickerstaff. Nagel loomed behind them, like a tidal wave pushing them along.

“Ah, welcome, welcome,” Yancy said, but he could not muster his former enthusiasm. His business with them was almost at an end.

He could see his change in tone register on Marlowe’s wary face.

“I thank you, my lord,” Marlowe said, giving a shallow bow. Yancy gestured toward the seats that Marlowe’s party had occupied on the other nights they had been his guests, and they sat down directly. Yancy snapped his fingers, and his native servants set food and wine in front of them, fast and silent as assassins.

“Your ship looks to be well set up again. I fear you will be leaving us soon,” Yancy observed. He had tried to make himself sound disappointed, or at least interested, but he could not muster it. He could not manage the energy to placate people with whom he was done.

“I had hoped to, my lord, but my first officer seems to have gone missing.”

There was a veiled accusation in his tone that made Yancy sit more upright and look hard at Marlowe, who returned the stare, unflinching. The two men locked eyes for a moment, Yancy angry and a bit unsettled. This man was not sufficiently cowed.

“Mr. Dinwiddie is here, in my home,” Yancy said, relaxing a bit. “He is my guest. In fact, he has elected to remain here with me. I fear you will have to sail without his assistance.”

Marlowe’s eyes narrowed. “He has elected to remain here? Why should he do that?”

“This island has many charms to recommend it. Dinwiddie is hardly the first to wish to remain. I do not think he felt entirely appreciated aboard your ship.”

Yancy could see that those words rang true with Marlowe, could see him floundering about for a reply. At last Marlowe said, “I should like to hear that from Dinwiddie’s own lips, if you please.”

“I do not please, Marlowe, and I do not care for your words or your tone. Do you call me a liar?”

Again the standoff, the two men holding one another’s gaze. But now the others around the table, Yancy’s faithful from the Terror, were pushing aside their plates, leaning away from the table, taking an interest in the conflict. The men who stood at intervals around the room, armed guards, folded arms or set hands on sword pommels or fingered pistols. The threat was not lost on Marlowe. Yancy watched Marlowe’s eyes shift from his, watched them dart around the room, sum up the overwhelming odds.

“No, I do not call you a liar, sir. It is only my concern for my men that makes me speak so… hastily.”

“I understand, Captain. Such sentiment is admirable, necessary even, in a leader. I feel the same way. That is why my men are so unflinchingly loyal to me.” He let the implied warning hang in the air.

Dinwiddie was perfectly safe, Yancy knew, and entirely unaware that Marlowe was sitting in the great hall one floor below him.

The future lord of St. Mary’s was at that moment preparing for dinner, allowing a half dozen of the girls of Yancy’s harem to bathe him and rub him with oil. He might have lain with one of them, or two of them, before dinner, or he might have been too worn out from that morning and the night before to function carnally.

Yancy had had a sumptuous breakfast sent up to him a few hours after dawn, had given Dinwiddie time to enjoy it, and then had sent for him. A smiling, jovial Dinwiddie had found Yancy once more in the wing chair, a man dying of a cancer.

“Well, sir? Have you had a chance to think on it?” Yancy asked, between coughs.

“I have, my lord. You do me great honor. I feel I would be less than grateful if I were not to accept.”

“Good, good. You make me happy, sir. Soon I will go off and leave you as lord of the island. I wish to be shed of my responsibilities, so that I might devote myself to my prayers.”

“Of course, of course. I understand entirely,” Dinwiddie said, and Yancy was pleased to see that in fact the fat man understood nothing.

Yancy sent him back to the girls, and while Dinwiddie was wallowing like a pig in his debauchery, he and Nagel made their way to Spelt’s room, where the first handpicked successor to the throne was still sleeping off the night’s drunk. They bound him, quickly and efficiently, and when at last the crushing pain of the ropes cutting into his wrists woke him, Nagel pressed the pillow against his nose and mouth.

Spelt squirmed, kicked, but he could not get out from under the pillow, held by Nagel’s powerful arms. And all the time he was suffocating, Yancy stared into his eyes, their gazes locked. He could not let Spelt die without knowing that it was for his insults to Lord Yancy that he was being killed.

Five minutes later they left the limp, wide-eyed body on the bed. In Peleg Dinwiddie, Yancy had everything he wanted in a successor.

Marlowe, however, would not be fooled so easily as his first officer. That was why Yancy could not allow Dinwiddie to speak to him.

But Dinwiddie was the easy part. Yancy had to hope now that Marlowe, like most men, cared more for wealth and self-preservation than he did for any other consideration.

“In any event, Captain Marlowe, I do not wish to have harsh words with you. You are my guest, after all, and I believe I have shown you genuine hospitality during your stay on this island?”

“Yes, sir, you have done that. And I am grateful.”

Yancy gave a wave of his hand, like shooing a fly. “It is my privilege to do so, though I fear it is that very hospitality that has lured your good Dinwiddie away. But see here, I think perhaps there is one more service I might do for you.”

“Yes?”

“Well, Captain, what you propose, sailing off to the Red Sea, plundering the Great Mogul-I have a great deal of experience in such matters. It is a very dangerous business, I can assure you of that. No place for a woman. Might I suggest that your lovely wife remain here, as my guest, while you are off on your expedition? She will be quite safe, I can assure you. Safer than she would be on your ship, to be sure. You do not want to know what these barbarians will do to a Christian woman, do they get ahold of one. You might play the Red Sea Rover to your heart’s content and then call again on your way home to pick up the fair Elizabeth.”