A Breath of Snow and Ashes (156 page)

“Ye choose a talisman—or to be right about it, it chooses you.”

His hands were slightly bigger than Brianna’s, but he pushed the ring onto his finger, and closed his hand around it.

SHE WOKE FROM a damp and restless sleep, mother-sense at once aroused. She was halfway out of bed, moving by instinct toward Jemmy’s trundle, when a hand grabbed her wrist, a convulsive grip like the bite of a crocodile.

She jerked back, groggy and alarmed. The sound of footsteps came to her from the deck overhead and she realized belatedly that the sound of distress that had wakened her had not come from Jemmy, but from the darkness at her side.

“Don’t go,” he whispered, and the fingers dug deep into the soft flesh of her inner wrist.

Unable to wrench free, she reached out with the other hand, to push him away. She touched damp hair, hot skin—and a trickle of wetness, cool and surprising on her fingers.

“What is it?” she whispered back, and leaned toward him by instinct. She reached again, touched his head, smoothed his hair—all the things she had waked prepared to do. She felt her hand rest on him and thought to stop, but did not. It was as though the spurt of maternal comfort, once called forth, could not be pressed back into her, no more than the spurt of breast milk summoned by an infant’s cry could be recalled to its source.

“Are you all right?” She kept her voice low, and as impersonal as the words allowed. She lifted her hand, and he moved, rolling toward her, pressing his head hard against the curve of her thigh.

“Don’t go,” he said again, and caught his breath in what might have been a sob. His voice was low and rough, but not as she had ever heard it before.

“I’m here.” Her trapped wrist was growing numb. She laid her free hand on his shoulder, hoping he would let go if she seemed willing to stay.

He did relax his grip, but only to reach out and seize her by the waist, pulling her back into bed. She went, because there was no choice, and lay in silence, Bonnet’s breathing harsh and warm on the back of her neck.

At length, he let go and rolled onto his back with a sigh, allowing her to move. She rolled onto her own back, cautious, trying to keep a few inches between them. Moonlight came through the stern windows in a silver flood, and she could see the silhouette of his face, catch the glint of light from forehead and cheek as he turned his head.

“Bad dream?” she ventured. She’d meant to sound sarcastic, but her own heart was still tripping fast from the alarm of the awakening, and the words had a tentative sound.

“Aye, aye,” he said with a shuddering sigh. “The same. It comes to me over and over again, see? Ye’d think I’d know what it was about and wake, but I never do. Not ’til the waters close over my head.” He rubbed a hand under his nose, sniffing like a child.

“Oh.” She didn’t want to ask for details, didn’t want to encourage any further sense of intimacy. What she wanted, though, had nothing much to do with things anymore.

“Since I was a lad, I’ve dreamed of drowning,” he said, and his voice, normally so assured, was unsteady. “The sea comes in, and I cannot move—not at all. The tide’s risin’, and I know it will kill me, but there’s no way to move.” His hand clutched the sheet convulsively, pulling it away from her.

“It’s gray water, full of mud, and there are blind things swimmin’ in it. They’re waitin’ on the sea to finish its business wit’ me, see—and then they’ve business of their own.”

She could hear the horror of it in his voice, and was torn between wanting to edge farther away from him and the ingrained habit of offering comfort.

“It was only a dream,” she said at last, staring up at the boards of the deck, no more than three feet above her head. If only
this
were a dream!

“Ah, no,” he said, and his voice had dropped to little more than a whisper in the darkness beside her. “Ah, no. It’s the sea herself. Callin’ me, see?”

Quite suddenly, he rolled toward her, seizing her and pressing her hard against him. She gasped, stiffening, and he pressed harder, responding, sharklike, to her struggles.

To her own horror, she felt LeRoi rising, and forced herself to be still. Panic and the need to escape his dream might all too easily make him forget his aversion to having sex with pregnant women, and that was the very last thing, the
very
last thing . . .

“Sshh,” she said firmly, and clutched him round the head, forcing his face down into her shoulder, patting him, stroking his back. “Shh. It will be all right. It was only a dream. I won’t let it hurt you—I won’t let anything hurt you. Hush, hush now.”

She went on patting him, her eyes closed, trying to imagine herself holding Jemmy after such a nightmare, quiet in their cabin, the hearth fire low, Jem’s little body relaxing in trust, the sweet little-boy smell of his hair near her face. . . .

“I won’t let you drown,” she whispered. “I promise. I won’t let you drown.”

She said it over and over, and slowly, slowly, his breathing eased, and his grip on her slackened as sleep overcame him. Still she repeated it, a soft, hypnotic murmur, her words half-lost in the sound of water, hissing past the side of the ship, and she spoke no longer to the man beside her, but to the slumbering child within.

“I won’t let anything hurt you.
Nothing
will hurt you. I promise.”

106

RENDEZVOUS

R
OGER PAUSED TO WIPE the sweat out of his eyes. He’d tied a folded kerchief round his head, but the humidity in the thick growth of the tidal forest was so high that sweat formed in his eye sockets, stinging and blurring his vision.

From a taproom in Edenton, the knowledge that Bonnet was—or would be—on Ocracoke had seemed all heady conviction; the search narrowed suddenly to one tiny sandbar, versus the millions of other places the pirate could have been; how difficult could it be? Once
on
the bloody sandbar, the perspective had altered. The frigging island was narrow, but several miles long, with large patches of scrub forest, and most of its coastline fraught with hidden bars and dangerous eddies.

The skipper of the fishing boat they’d hired had got them there in good time; then they’d spent two days sailing up and down the length of the damn thing, looking for possible landing spots, likely pirate hideouts, and herds of wild horses. So far, none of these had appeared.

Having spent long enough retching over the side—Claire hadn’t brought her acupuncture needles, having not foreseen the need of them—Jamie had insisted upon being put ashore. He would walk the length of the island, he said, keeping an eye out for anything untoward. They could pick him up at sundown.

“And what if you run smack into Stephen Bonnet, all on your own?” Claire had demanded, when he refused to allow her to accompany him.

“I’d rather be run through than puke to death,” was Jamie’s elegant reply, “and besides, Sassenach, I need ye to stay here and make sure yon misbegotten son of a—of a captain doesna sail away without us, aye?”

So they had rowed him ashore and left him, watching as he strode away, staggering only slightly, into the thicket of scrub pines and palmetto.

Another day of frustration, spent sailing slowly up and down the coast, seeing nothing but the occasional ramshackle fishing shack, and Roger and Ian had begun to see the wisdom of Jamie’s approach, as well.

“See yon houses?” Ian pointed at a tiny cluster of shacks on the shore.

“If ye want to call them that, yes.” Roger shaded his hand over his eyes to look, but the shacks looked deserted.

“If they can get boats off there, we can get one on. Let’s go ashore and see will the folk there tell us anything.”

Leaving Claire glowering behind them, they had rowed ashore to make inquiries—to no avail. The only inhabitants of the tiny settlement were a few women and children, all of whom heard the name “Bonnet” and scuttled into their homes like clams digging into the sand.

Still, having felt solid ground under their feet, they were less than eager to admit defeat and go back to the fishing shack. “Let’s have a look, then,” Ian had said, gazing thoughtfully into the sun-striped forest. “We’ll crisscross, aye?” He drew a quick series of X’s in the sand in illustration. “We’ll cover more ground, and meet up every so often. Whoever reaches the shore first each time will wait on the other.”

Roger had nodded agreement, and with a cheery wave at the fishing boat and the small, indignant figure on its bow, had turned inland.

It was hot and still under the pines, and his progress was impaired by all sorts of low bushes, creepers, patches of sandburs and other stickery things. The going was a little easier near the shore, as the forest thinned and gave way to stretches of coarse sea oats, with dozens of tiny crabs that scuttled out of his way—or occasionally crunched under his feet.

Still, it was a relief to move, to feel that somehow he was doing something, was making progress toward finding Bree—though he admitted to himself that he wasn’t sure exactly what they were looking for. Was she here? Had Bonnet arrived on the island already? Or would he be coming in a day or two, at the dark of the moon, as Hepzibah had said?

Despite the worry, the heat, and the millions of gnats and mosquitoes—they didn’t bite, for the most part, but insisted upon crawling into his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth—he smiled at the thought of Manfred. He’d been praying for the boy ever since his disappearance from the Ridge, that he might be restored to his family. Granted, to find him firmly attached to an ex-prostitute was likely not quite the answer to prayer that Ute McGillivray had been hoping for, but he’d learned before that God had His own methods.

Lord, let her be safe.
He didn’t care how that prayer was answered, provided only that it was.
Let me have her back, please.

It was well past mid-afternoon, and his clothes stuck to him with sweat, when he came to one of the dozens of small tidal inlets that cut into the island like the holes in Swiss cheese. It was too wide to leap across, so he made his way down the sandy bank and into the water. It was deeper than he’d thought—he was up to his neck by mid-channel, and had to swim a few strokes before he found solid footing on the other side.

The water pulled at him, rushing toward the sea; the tide had begun to turn. Likely the inlet would be much shallower when the tide was out—but he thought a boat could make it up the inlet easily, with the tide coming in.

That was promising. Encouraged, he crawled out on the far side and began to follow the channel inland. Within minutes, he heard a sound in the distance and stopped dead, listening.

Horses. He would swear it was the sound of neighing, though so far away he couldn’t be sure of it. He turned in a circle, trying to locate it, but the sound had vanished. Still, it seemed a sign, and he pushed on with renewed vigor, frightening a family of raccoons washing their meal in the water of the channel.

But then the inlet began to narrow, the water level dropping to no more than a foot—and then less, only a few inches of water running clear over dusky sand. He was loath to give up, though, and shoved his way under a low canopy of pine and twisted scrub oak. Then he stopped dead, skin tingling from scalp to sole.

Four of them. Crude stone pillars, pale in the shadow of the trees. One stood actually in the channel itself, tilted drunkenly by the action of the water. Another, on the bank, had carvings on its face, abstract symbols that he didn’t recognize. He stood frozen, as though they were live things that might see him if he moved.

It seemed abnormally silent; even the insects seemed temporarily to have deserted him. He had no doubt that this was the circle the man Donner had described to Brianna. Here, the five men had chanted, walked their pattern, and turned, passing to the left of the inscribed stone. And here at least one of them had died. A profound shiver ran through him, despite the oppressive heat.

He moved at last, very carefully, backing away, as though the stones might wake, but did not turn his back on them until he was a good distance away—so far away that the stones were lost to sight, buried in the heavy growth. Then he turned and walked back toward the sea, fast, and then faster, ’til the breath burned in his throat, feeling as though invisible eyes bored into his back.

I SAT IN THE SHADE of the forecastle, sipping cool beer and watching the shore. Just like bloody men, I thought, frowning at the tranquil stretch of sand. Charge in pigheaded, leaving the women to mind the store. Still . . . I wasn’t so sure that I would have wanted to slog the length of the beastly island on foot myself. By repute, Blackbeard and a number of his confederates had used the place as a lair, and the reason why was obvious. A less hospitable shore I’d seldom seen.

The chance of finding anything in that secretive, wooded place by randomly poking into holes was low. Still, sitting on my bum in a boat while Brianna was dealing with Stephen Bonnet was making me twitch with anxiety and the urgent desire to
do
something.

But there was nothing
to
do, and the afternoon wore slowly away. I watched the shore steadily; now and then, I would see Roger or Ian pop out of the undergrowth, then the two of them would confer briefly before popping back in. Now and then, I looked to the north—but there was no sign of Jamie.

Captain Roarke, who
was
in fact a misbegotten son of a poxed whore, as he cheerfully admitted himself, sat down with me for a time and accepted a bottle of beer. I congratulated myself on my forethought in having brought a few dozen, a few of which I’d put over the side in a net to keep cool; the beer was doing a lot to soothe my impatience, though my stomach was still knotted with worry.

“None o’ your men are what ye might call sailing men, are they?” Captain Roarke observed, after a thoughtful silence.

“Well, Mr. MacKenzie’s spent a bit of time on fishing boats in Scotland,” I said, dropping an empty bottle into the net. “But I wouldn’t say he’s an able seaman, no.”

“Ah.” He drank a bit more.

“All right,” I said finally. “Why?”

He lowered his bottle and belched loudly, then blinked.

“Oh. Well, ma’am—I believe I did hear one o’ the young men say as how there was a rondayvooz to occur, at dark o’ moon?”

“Yes,” I said a little guardedly. We had told the captain as little as possible, not knowing whether he might have some association with Bonnet. “The dark of the moon is tomorrow night, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he agreed. “But what I mean to say is—when one says ‘dark o’ moon,’ most likely one
does
mean nighttime, aye?” He peered into the empty neck of his bottle, then lifted it and blew thoughtfully across it, making a deep
woooog
sound.

I took the hint and handed him another.

“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” he said, looking happy. “See, the tide turns about half-eleven, this time o’ month—and it’s going
out,
” he added with emphasis.

I gave him a blank look.

“Well, if you look careful, ma’am, you’ll see the tide is half out now”—he pointed toward the south—“yet there’s middling deep water close to shore all along o’ here. Come the nighttime, though, it won’t be.”

“Yes?” I was still missing his point, but he was patient.

“Well, with the tide out, it’s easier to see the bars and inlets, sure—and were you coming in with a boat with a shallow draft, that would be the time to choose. But was the rondayvooz to be with something bigger, maybe anything that draws more than four feet . . . well, then.” He took a gulp, and pointed the bottom of his bottle toward a spot far down the shore. “The water there is deep, ma’am—see the color of it? Was I a ship of any size, that would be the safest place to anchor, when the tide is on the ebb.”

I regarded the spot he’d indicated. The water
was
distinctly darker there, a deeper blue-gray than the waves surrounding it.

“You could have told us that earlier,” I said with a certain note of reproach.

“So I could, ma’am,” he agreed cordially, “save for not knowin’ as you’d like to hear it.” He got up then and wandered toward the stern, an empty bottle in hand, absently going
woog-woog-woog,
like a distant foghorn.

As the sun sank into the sea, Roger and Ian appeared on the shore, and Captain Roarke’s hand, Moses, rowed ashore to fetch them off. Then we hoisted sail and made our way slowly up the coast of Ocracoke, until we found Jamie, waving from a tiny spit of sand.

Anchored offshore for the night, we exchanged notes of our findings—or lack of them. All the men were drained, exhausted from heat and searching and with little appetite for supper, despite their exertions. Roger, in particular, looked drawn and pale, and said almost nothing.

The last sliver of the waning moon rose in the sky. With a minimum of conversation, the men took their blankets and lay down on deck, asleep within minutes.

Quantities of beer notwithstanding, I was wide awake. I sat beside Jamie, my own blanket wrapped about my shoulders against the coolness of the night wind, watching the low black mystery of the island. The anchorage Captain Roarke had pointed out to me was invisible in the darkness. Would we know, I wondered, if a ship were to come tomorrow night?