James Nelson - The Pirate Round

Marlowe and Honeyman and Bickerstaff pushed down the hall, still unnoticed in the pandemonium. And now the hallway was filling with smoke, which served to further hide them.

Down the hall, and Hesiod was standing guard beside the door. “Locked” was all he said.

Marlowe looked back but still no one was paying him any attention in the commotion and the dark and the smoke. He kicked at the door, felt it yield under his boot. Kicked again, then Honeyman stepped up and kicked it, and it swung open, and they plunged through.

It was like stepping through the gate to hell. The fire had spread across the thatch above that room, had dropped to the plaster ceiling overhead and burned clean through. The entire ceiling was ablaze, and in the middle of it a great charred hole looked right up to the burning roof overhead.

Marlowe stumbled into the room, hand over his face. It was brightly lit by the flames, but he had trouble seeing through the thick smoke, which gagged him and made his eyes water.

“Elizabeth!” he shouted, thinking he would not be heard over the roar of the fire. “Elizabeth!”

The others followed him in, and Honeyman slammed the door again, leaving them in their brilliant, hot, smoking inferno.

“Elizabeth!”

And then from across the room, a voice high-pitched with controlled terror: “Thomas? Thomas?”

Marlowe stumbled across the room, stepping around the burning bits of thatch and fallen lath and plaster that were setting the floor and the carpets ablaze. Out onto the small balcony, and there he found Elizabeth, pushed back against the railing, where there was some relief from the smoke that rolled out the door. Her face was black with soot, white lines cut down her cheeks by tears.

He grabbed her, hugged her. “Are you all right? Did Yancy…”

“I have not seen him since you left! Oh, Thomas!” She threw her arms around him, hugged him tight. “I was so afraid you were-”

“What? You never thought I would really leave you?”

“No, never, I never thought that.” The building shuddered. Something overhead gave way, and the room flared as more flames sprang up. “I fear I have killed us all, with my stupid act!”

“No, no. We would never have gotten to you if you had not set the fire!”

And then over the din of the fire and the shouts of those fighting it, Marlowe heard a shrill shout of surprise and outrage and fury.

Through the smoke Marlowe could see the door pulled open. The draft swirled the smoke away, sucking it out of the room, and Yancy stood in the frame, a big ax in his hand.

Honeyman, who was by the door, jerked a pistol from his belt, raised it, cocked the lock, pointed it at Yancy as Yancy swung the ax. It caught Honeyman’s hand, knocked the pistol away, and opened up a wide red gash. Honeyman shouted, grabbed his hand as Yancy pulled back to cleave his head in two.

As the ax arced toward Honeyman’s skull, Hesiod bounded across the room, grabbed his shoulder, pulled him back, and the blade came down into thin air. Marlowe was surprised. He did not think the weak little man had it in him.

Now Bickerstaff was there, his sword striking like a snake, and it caught Yancy’s arm before Yancy could move away. Yancy screamed, as much in outrage as in pain, raised the ax again.

Yancy and Bickerstaff faced off, sword against ax. Marlowe saw the telltale waver as Bickerstaff prepared for a feint, then a lunge, which would have killed Yancy.

But before he could strike, the building shook again, the sound of the fire like thunder, and overhead a section of the ceiling sagged down, splitting and spitting fire out from the cracks as it fell. Yancy leaped for the door, and Bickerstaff leaped back into the room, and a ton or more of beams and plaster and thatch fell in, making a flaming wall between them.

Yancy shouted, flailing at the fire with his ax, trying to cut his way through. Marlowe charged into the room, grabbed Bickerstaff’s arm, pulled him back toward the balcony and what fresh air it might afford their aching lungs and burning throats and streaming eyes.

Now what the hell will we do? Marlowe wondered.

He stumbled out onto the small balcony, crowded now with Elizabeth and Hesiod.

“Where’s Honeyman?” he shouted, glancing fearfully back into the burning room, but Hesiod nodded to the ground.

Marlowe looked down. The rope that Hesiod had brought in his haversack was looped through the legs of a table wedged against the balcony wall and the two ends flung over the edge. On the ground, Honeyman held both ends of the rope in one hand, a pistol in the other, watching for anyone who might approach.

Hesiod turned to Elizabeth. “You next, ma’am,” he said.

Elizabeth looked down at the ground and shook her head. “I can’t do that,” she said.

“Mind if I help, Captain?” Hesiod asked, and Marlowe had no more than nodded when Hesiod bent over and grabbed Elizabeth around the waist, then straightened with her over his shoulder.

“Son of a bitch! Put me down, goddamn your eyes!” Elizabeth shouted, her long hair trailing on the balcony, her rear end up in the air. She was furious, but she retained enough sense to refrain from struggling as Hesiod stepped over the balcony rail, wrapped his free arm and his legs around the rope, and fell to the ground in a controlled plummet.

“Strong son of a bitch” was all Marlowe said as he waited for Hesiod to reach the ground and set the fuming Elizabeth down before he gestured for Bickerstaff to follow.

Bickerstaff hit the ground, and Marlowe looked back toward the door. The room was engulfed. He could not see past the wall of flame, which meant that Yancy, if he was still there, would not see their egress. He would think they had burned to death if he did not guess they had a rope.

Marlowe put his leg over the rail, grabbed the rope. It had been years since he had done anything like this, and it was with some difficulty and burned palms that he finally reached the ground. Hesiod grabbed one end of the rope and hauled away, unreeving it from the table jammed in the balcony. It fell free and came down in a pile at his feet, and he coiled it quick.

“Let’s go,” Marlowe said.

The yard was well lit by the great bonfire that was the roof, but the few people standing there and gawking up at the flames did not notice them or did not care who they were. It was one of the great advantages of the pirate community. Curiosity was not encouraged.

They made their way out the gate and down the road, the flickering light of Elizabeth’s fire nipping at them as they hurried along. Down through the center of town and down the road running along the harbor and at last to the beach with never a challenge. No one even spoke to them.

Marlowe helped Elizabeth into the boat, and then the four weary men pushed it out into the water and clambered in over the gunnels. They took up oars and with never a word spoken they fell into their easy rhythm, pulling away from St. Mary’s, pulling for the open sea. The flames of Yancy’s mansion were like a distant lighthouse, but it looked to Marlowe as if those fighting the fire were at last getting it under control.

He turned on the thwart, smiled at Elizabeth, then looked past her, out to the open sea. The Elizabeth Galley should have stood on for an hour, then come about and beat back to the island, to the extent that she was able. Marlowe did not hope to see her in the dark. They would have to wait until first light to find her and close with her.

That was if she was there. He wondered if perhaps Flanders would cross him, betray him, sail off with the ship. That thought had never occurred to him till now.

IT DID not start well, the short and unhappy reign of Lord Dinwiddie I of St. Mary’s.