Chronicles of the Dragon Pirate (38 page)

“I can be partnering her,” Redbeard said as he got to his feet. “I be dancing the Courante a time or two in me youth.”

“A dancing bear and a talking monkey,” Whistling John catcalled. Much of the crew gave him a dark look, and he blanched as Redbeard strode over with the darkest look of all. “Wait, I didn’t mean to insult Sally, I swear it!”

Redbeard grabbed Whistling John by the shoulder and hauled him to his feet. “I be thinking you should join us. Bess,” he called out, “bring your delicate self out here.” An enormous African woman twice Whistling John’s size, wearing a bright red native dress, stepped out of the crowd and smiled at him with a mouth full of rotted teeth. Whistling John looked up at Redbeard in horror, and the enormous Scotsman returned him an evil grin. “I be thinking you’ll make a handsome couple.”

Whistling John looked to the Mulatto for help, but his master’s attention was clearly focused on us as the Mulatto called out, “Captain Hawkins, you still know important people in London. Do they dance the Courante?”

“It was falling out of fashion the last time I was there,” the captain answered. “But if you can dance the Courante then you can dance whatever happens to be in style. It isn’t just a matter of having money in London: you’ve got to have the social graces too, if you want to be accepted, and that means knowing how to dance.”

Captain Hawkins and the Mulatto looked at each other in what I knew was perfect understanding as the Mulatto smiled. “Then I will learn to dance the Courante.” Getting to his feet, his eyes swept the women of Haven. “Who will dance with the Mulatto?”

“I will,” a woman’s voice answered. A moment later she was on her feet approaching the Mulatto, a tall African with a large frame but strong, not fat, with short hair and a mouth of teeth like sea-pearls, wearing a native dress of yellow. “My former master taught me the Courante, for he liked us to dance it before he danced with me a different way.” Her smile turned saucy. “I’ll dance with you all night, if you wish.”

The Mulatto’s smile turned hungry. “Does my face frighten you?”

“Does my boldness frighten you?” The Mulatto chuckled and held out his hand, the woman striding over to take it as he looked at Whistling John and head-motioned towards Bess. Whistling John grimaced and tentatively held out his hand. The woman swept over to him like a force of nature and seized his hand, pulling him along as they joined the other couples now standing near the musicians.

Then Thomas Tew stood up. “I’m always cheered to try something new,” his eyes sweeping the women before he ambled over to a black haired, fair skinned woman wearing an off-white native dress, who seemed the offspring of a European man and a native woman. She would’ve been comely save for a badly broken nose never properly set, but that didn’t seem to bother Thomas as he stopped in front of her and bowed. “Madonna of the island, would you give me the pleasure of dancing with me?”

“If you wish,” she said in a wary voice, the woman letting him take her by the hand and lead her back to us.

“You need one more couple, then,” Claude called out. He was sitting at another fire with several of the villagers, his arm around a lean woman with short black hair. Her skin was dark as the night sky without stars, and she wore a blood red native dress cut to let her freely move as Claude whispered in her ear. She grinned at him and the two of them rose together then walked over to us.

The African woman strode like I imagined Athena the Huntress of Greek legend would, and as they came close I blurted out, “You move like a panther.”

She gave me a quizzical look. “What is this panther?” I explained about the hunting cat Dancing Bear and others of the Timucua had told me of, but I’d never seen, and she grasped Claude by the arm. “Call me Panther now: I like that name.” She looked back at me. “I was a hunter in my village, better than the men, and when the slavers came the men remembered...so I was sold. But when we stopped near an island, I made one of the guards think I would spread my legs for him and he unshackled me. I took his knife, cut his throat, and escaped over the side.” She was a tall woman, of equal height with me and only slightly shorter than Claude, who she turned to with a fierce look. “I have claimed this man while your ship is docked here. Claude will teach me to shoot and give me a strong child, who I will teach to hunt and to shoot, thus keeping the circle complete.”

“I will certainly do my part,” Claude told her with a smile.

“Now that we are assembled,” Selene said, “I will teach you the steps of the dance.” She spent time teaching us the moves as Twelve-fingered Harry taught the other musicians the tune. It was a strange way to dance. I’d never been allowed to dance back in St. Augustine, but I’d watched others dance their Spanish country dances at festivals, the steps simple and the tempo fast. But the Courante involved bobbing steps done in an intricate fashion and moves everyone had to do together. We must’ve looked as foolish as I felt, judging from the catcalls we got when someone badly missed a move, but Selene gently encouraged us and we persevered on.

But then, like a group of singers out of tune with each other who suddenly blend their voices, we began to dance in harmony. The men on one side and the women on the other, up then back again, each group of two couples holding their right hands up to the other three as they moved left, and then left hands up as they moved right again, a last up and back again, and finally all in a line once more.

At the end of the first set came the mirror. Master Le’Vass had been playful with Pepper, making grotesque faces or humorous moves which Pepper had to mirror, then I had to make and Selene in turn, until Panther as the last made the final move and Claude faced the other dancers across the lines to clap twice, which signaled the next set. But now, Master Le’Vass made an elegant bow to Pepper who returned it, everyone bowing down the line until we began the next set, all of us in time with each other as we continued.

And a strange thing began to happen. Around us the laughter and the catcalls died down as the crew and the villagers began to truly watch us, each man and woman dressed in stolen finery or simple clothes, barefoot or in boots, dancing the Courante on the hard packed sand as the warm light of the bonfires made our shadows dance along with us, the ragged nobility of the New World with no titles to our names except for one: free men and free women, all.

Finally, Master Le’Vass signaled Twelve-fingered Harry, who nodded as he continued playing, and when Master Le’Vass bowed he remained that way, Pepper doing the same and on down the line until all of the dancers were locked in a mirror bow with each other. The music swelled to a crescendo... and then ended.

Applause and good-natured catcalls erupted from the crowd around us as we straightened, smiling at each other as Master Le’Vass gallantly kissed Pepper’s hand. So of course I had to do the same for Selene, who dropped me a deep curtsey as Pepper frowned, her hands on her hips as she gave me a dark look. But she smiled again as I came to her in the bobbing steps of the Courante, Jeremiah and Maria joining us as Selene moved to speak with Master Le’Vass. Jeremiah stood beside me as if we were doing the mirror part again, flapping his arms like a chicken would, and Pepper and I began laughing as Maria flapped her arms back at him while the applause died amid laughter and talking.

But one pair of hands continued clapping. I realized it was coming from the darkness beyond the fires and grabbed Jeremiah’s arm, the laughter from the other three dying as they heard it too. Jeremiah and Maria pointed it out to Master Le’Vass as Pepper did the same to Redbeard, who stood with Sally and several others, while I sought out the captain. He was watching Selene with a dark expression, which he turned on me as I drew close. “Sir,” I quickly said, “listen. There’s someone out there.”

He cocked an ear and his expression changed. “Stay beside me,” he said curtly. I nodded as Master Le’Vass turned towards the darkness and Sally put her hands to her lips, giving out a piercing whistle. All laughter and conversation stopped.

In the silence a single pair of hands continued clapping. An uneasy mutter swept through crew and villagers alike as Master Le’Vass strode to the edge of the firelight. “Who is out there? Show yourself.”

The clapping stopped. A moment later a young woman’s voice answered him. “If it is all the same to you, I shall remain where I am.” The voice sounded no older than I was but both cultured and elegant, as if she was someone far older and much more sophisticated than I was. “I complement you upon your dancing, sir. I was in Venice when the Mirror dance was coming into fashion, and you have brought back to me many happy memories. Now, as to my name, I am Arabella...and I am a Hunter of Shadowmen.”

“You hunt Shadowmen?” Master Le’Vass’s voice turned mocking. “No doubt you take on entire crews yourself with only a cutlass.”

“Hardly,” Arabella’s voice answered, sounding amused. “There are times when a Shadowman turns into a renegade and goes off alone, usually after his captain dies and no other has taken control of him, and when that happens I learn of it and hunt him down for the bounty the Spanish crown offers.”

“Captain Hawkins,” Brother Tristan called out from where he was standing next to Isaac, “I know this woman’s voice. When I was part of the Franciscan monastery in Merida, on the Yucatan peninsula, a young woman who called herself a Shadowhunter brought one of the Shadowmen to the royal governor and he paid her in gold Reales. The governor then turned the Shadowman over to us for trial.”

Captain Hawkins and I strode up to stand beside Master Le’Vass as he asked, “What did she look like?”

“She looked no older than eighteen and was quite comely, but also was pale as a Shadowman herself and wore dark clothes despite the heat. However, she drank a cup of wine at the royal governor’s request, which all know a Shadowman will not do as it poisons them, and at the tavern that night ate bread and drank beer with the men around her.”

“You saw this?” Captain Hawkins asked.

“I did, to be sure,” the monk answered. “I was keeping a watch on her at my abbot’s request.”

Mr. Smith came over to join us as did Pepper, Sally and Redbeard beside her. The large Scotsman called out, “Be you certain she brought a Shadowman and not some poor deluded fool?”

“The abbot placed him in a cell with several others who were to be put to the question. The Shadowman waited until the gaoler walked away then attacked one of the prisoners, tearing out the man’s throat with his teeth. He then drank the man’s blood as it spurted out. When we found him, the other prisoners were huddled in a corner of the cell together but the Shadowman was quite merry, drunk as a Dutch sailor, to be sure. He was still that way when we questioned him, confessing his crimes with no need of persuasion. The acts he admitted to...” Brother Tristan shuddered. “Suffice to say the abbot had him burned without delay, and the Shadowman...he sang bawdy songs as the flames consumed him and never screamed, not even once.”

“Shadowmen do not feel pain,” Arabella’s voice said from the darkness. “Pain is useless to them, since they do not heal, so it was, in a sense, bred out of them.”

Several of the crew catcalled about Shadowmen not healing, saying that was impossible, but they quieted as Pepper spoke up. “She speaks the truth about their lack of pain and inability to heal. They don’t bleed, so if you cut their throat they’ll just have it sewn back up again. The only things that kill them are blows to the heart or the head.”

“Shadowmen actually do bleed,” Arabella’s voice said. “There is a great vessel running up the spine connecting their hearts to their brains, and if you sever it then they will die. But it takes a mighty blow to do this, so striking for the heart or the head is the better choice. I believe the Frenchman called you Petite Pepper: I find it interesting to hear such knowledge from someone so young.”

Pepper got a fearful look as the Shadowhunter spoke her name and I put an arm around her, Pepper clinging to me as I called out, “How do you know so much? You can’t be a lot older than I am.”

“Do not let my appearance of youth deceive you,” Arabella said from the darkness, “for I am far older than I look or sound.”

“So why are you here?” Captain Hawkins called out. “You’ll find no Shadowmen on Big Bluff.”

“On the hill, no,” she answered. “But there is a nest of renegade Shadowmen in the village of Freehold, more than I can take out alone.”

“A nest of them,” Master Le’Vass called out in a skeptical voice, “and the people of Freehold are just allowing it?”

“Jean,” Isaac said as he hurried over, his large stomach bouncing as he moved, “she may be telling the truth. Freehold has become a very strange place in the last year, and pale men wearing dark clothing have been seen lurking on the streets at night.”

“Captain Hawkins,” Thomas Tew said from a short distance away, his normally smiling face very serious, “my Madonna here says we must stay away from Freehold.” The fair skinned woman with the badly broken nose looked terrified, as if she was ready to bolt and only Thomas’s grip on her arm was stopping her. “She says she escaped from the inn called the ‘End of the World’ where she saw many terrible things.” He looked down at her face. “Will you tell us about them?”

The woman shook her head no and suddenly broke down, clinging to Thomas as she sobbed. He looked rather uncomfortable, patting her shoulder in an absent way as Pepper let me go and went to the woman, the fearful look gone from Pepper’s face as she spoke quietly in the woman’s ear. Thomas looked relieved as the fair skinned woman let him go and clung to Pepper instead, who led the woman past us as she spoke. “Captain, I’ll get what I can out of her,” Pepper looking at me as she added, “we’ll be down by the overturned canoe by the water.”

I put my hand on Pepper’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You’re a good person.”

“I’ve been where she was,” Pepper answered.

As she led the woman away, Captain Hawkins called out to the darkness, “Alright, I believe you. But what has a nest of Shadowmen to do with us?”

“A favor for a favor,” Arabella’s voice answered. “There is a ship of the Draco Dominus docked at the village called ‘Freedom Bay’, on the opposite side of the island, captained by an unusual woman you may have heard of... Cholula.”