Cinnamon and Gunpowder (19 page)

At sunset, I was ambushed in the galley by no fewer than a dozen men who, despite my screams, stuffed my head into a sack and carried me to the mizzen, where I was trussed to a plank like a stuffed goose. My feet left the deck as I was hoisted into the air to dangle helplessly from a spar. The sack was tugged from my head, and in the glare of sunset I saw nearly the entire crew assembled. Their grins made it clear that my pending execution gave them no end of pleasure. Even Joshua was there laughing with the rest of them, and that betrayal stung deeply.

To my surprise, only crusty old Conrad came to my defense. He croaked, “Aw, how’d he earn this already? He’s only been aboard a few weeks! Cut ’im down!”

He was, of course, completely ignored. Mr. Apples stood imperiously on the poop deck so he would be eye level with me and asked, “Well, Spoons, what do you say for yourself?”

I had no heart to beg. “Is this a court?” I yelled. “Judge yourselves!” As I spoke, the impotent rage that has so darkened my breast burst forth. “Whatever offense you accuse me of, I redouble a hundredfold against you. I accuse and condemn you all, animals, brutes! Let my last words bring a blight upon your wicked hearts.” I spat on the deck (an act I knew Mr. Apples in particular did not appreciate), and yet the men only laughed harder.

The deck rang with jeers as I was swung out over the water and dropped suddenly into the sea. I took a desperate gasp, and, though in the churning I could call no prayers to my mind, I cleaved to the memory of a small wooden Saint Ignatius that stood above Father Sonora’s oven. It had been darkened by soot and its face polished to a shine by Sonora’s custom of touching it as he passed.

Swimming was impossible, and I rolled into the increasingly chilly murk. When my chest began to heave of its own accord and my nostrils filled with the fiery brine, my ropes went tight and I was hoisted up into the light and dropped back upon the deck, where the laughter of the men continued.

I was untied and someone shouted, “He has spunk, I give him that!”

“That he does.” Mr. Apples chuckled before announcing: “Owen Zachariah Wedgwood, having crossed the equator on the
Flying Rose
, you are hereby initiated into our distinguished ranks as captain’s cook, idler, and general jackass.” He placed a wreath of seaweed upon my head and whispered, “Do not spit ’pon my deck.”

“Piss!” I shouted.

“Spoken like a gentleman. Now, boys, the fun’s over, back to your posts.”

I have approached Kitzu for fish again, but as I have not paid him for his last contribution, he scowled at me and made as if to give me nothing until, finally, he tossed at my feet a speckled and frenzied eel, as one might throw crusts to a dog. The rest of the catch he gave to the crew—as I moaned. Among the knots of seaweed in which my eel churned, I found a small but lovely herring and took that too, and placed them both in a fresh bucket of seawater in my chamber.

After our tiff, Joshua continues to avoid me. I am already missing the lessons with him. I had come to rely on them as a precious, if temporary, diversion from the enervating madhouse of this ship. Now there is no break from my anxious pacing, my worries about how to make comestibles from sawdust. Nevertheless, if the boy wants to learn, he must come to me and make amends.

It doesn’t help that, instead of learning to read, Joshua is being taught to fire cannon. I tell myself I shouldn’t worry—that the boy got along well enough before my arrival—but I cannot keep myself from loitering nearby while they walk him through the tamping of the barrel and the pricking of the charge. I lurk despite knowing that the crew bristle to be watched by an “idler.”

Today, Mr. Apples laughed at me. “What’s the matter, mother hen? Your boy growing up too fast?”

To this, I answered, “Would that he grows well and tall and with all of his fingers intact! He is clever—much too clever to be manning brute weapons!” This last remark earned me such scowls from the gunmen that I rushed straight to my chamber.

Saturday, Later

This evening the men erected a small stage upon the deck, complete with a curtain, lanterns, and a motley orchestra, to put on a bit of theater that they had been preparing. On the whole, it was a rude and rudimentary farce, little more than a medium for artificial blasts of flatulence and an excuse to flounce about, smacking one another’s arses with oars. But those watching lapped it up. Indeed, they barked themselves hoarse with laughter. Mabbot sat at the front in her upholstered chair, smoking an ivory pipe carved from the tusk of a walrus. Having a view of only the back of her head where her red braids parted, I could not tell if she was still upset about the
Patience
incident.

The “salt opera,” as the men called it, was preceded by a few individual offerings. First Asher plucked a haunting tune from a bean-shaped guitar. This was followed by stoic Feng himself taking the stage and commanding rapt attention with his perfect posture. He took from his belt the mysterious little book, and I readied myself for a pagan sermon. Instead, Feng spoke, quietly and mostly from memory, a Shakespearian sonnet:

As an unperfect actor on the stage,

Who with his fear is put beside his part,

… O! let my looks be then the eloquence.

If I hadn’t been so well acquainted with his merciless fists, I would have thought, from this quiet delivery, that he was a tenderhearted schoolboy, trying to woo a maid.

O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:

To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

After the stomping and simian hooting that serves as applause here, the stage was ceded to the evening’s main entertainment.

The show, taking its inspiration from legends of Mabbot’s exploits, was the sort of infantile horseplay that I would have walked away from if I had not been arrested by the costume of one character. By his blue coat and the outlandish mustache made of twisted coconut fiber, it was clear that the man was impersonating my late employer, Lord Ramsey. When he strode across the stage, he was met with boos and hisses. With horror, I perceived the actor wore not just any blue coat; it was, in fact, his lordship’s actual coat with the grisly stain upon the lapel. Honor and duty obliged me to march up and rip the thing from the desecrator’s frame, but I was easily shoved to the deck by those watching before I could touch the man. Fantasies of bloody vengeance rose in me, but I was painfully aware that I was in the wolves’ den, and that there was nothing to do but witness and pray for rescue.

Between the rude crotch-thrusting, which evoked levity every time, and the toots of an old tin horn that stood in for broken wind, a rough plot emerged. The protagonist, ersatz Mabbot (played by Mr. Apples in a horsehair wig, his bosom stuffed with pillows), pranced about the stage with a small papier-mâché ship ingeniously girdling his tremendous waist. Shortly “she” was seized by navy ships and, despite delivering frightful blows upon their heads with her scabbard, was imprisoned in a cell made from a dangling net. Here, she croaked out a falsetto tune:

Life is a drop of water on a stove,

A mouse on a miller’s stone,

Without hope of rescue,

I shall die here all alone …

Mr. Apples’s talents are admittedly impressive. He can negotiate the arc of a cannonball as well as the waltz of knitting needles. He cannot, however, sing. Alas, the audience disagreed with me, clapping as if it were Handel.

The genuine Mabbot, in full view of this farce, didn’t stir. The evening’s entertainment was apparently an attempt to improve her mood. I couldn’t imagine seeing herself played so artlessly would please her, though.

If the drama thus far had been based upon fact, it now swung shamelessly into falsehood as a strange thing happened upon the stage. Ramsey arrived to free Mabbot from her confines and made this apocryphal speech: “Hannah Mabbot, Tiger of the Seas, harken! I offer freedom for your skills! Use them for England! Spain nibbles at our bread! France sends our merchants to dine with Davy Jones. The foreign devils trade in slaves and opium. Protect us, Privateer Mabbot, sail forth and protect us!”

To this, ersatz Mabbot agreed, and immediately there appeared upon the stage men waving French, Spanish, and Portuguese flags, sailing along in their own paper boats. Forthwith and with balletic flourishes, the stage-Mabbot engaged in swashbuckling, dispatching them one by one. Down they went, thrashing and moaning. Here was used, to clever effect, a red kerchief. Whenever a character expired, this rag was fluttered about the wound to indicate spurts of blood. It was then seized and reused by the next victim. This single cloth embellished and stitched these murders into a grim yet somehow lovely choreography.

But while Mabbot was busy perforating foreigners, Ramsey wrung his hands devilishly and tweaked his mustache. Making a show of his secrecy, he produced a box marked
OPIUM
and delivered it to a man in a coolie hat, much to the outrage of our audience. Further, he brought forth a man in chains and sold him for a fistful of coins. This treachery elicited hoots and screams of derision from the crowd, who implored Mabbot to turn and see what they saw, but she was busy clearing the seas for the trading company. When her work was done, she sat, mopped her brow, and smoked a pipe. Here Mr. Apples mirrored exactly the real Mabbot watching, much to the delight of the crowd, going so far as to whip a braid over his shoulder just as Mabbot did.

At this point Ramsey and, by his tricolor cockade, a Frenchman came forward to conspire in stage whispers. This Frenchman wore black from his spats to his bicorne hat. To him Ramsey gave a few of the coins and sang:

Laroche, with your ingenuity,

You are the man for me,

Pendleton grows stronger.

Hannah Mabbot, full of wrath,

Of competition hath cleared our path.

We need her no longer!

They shook hands and Laroche, his paper hat askew, drew his sword and sprang upon Mabbot. They fought.

Eventually, Laroche shot Mabbot who clutched her breast and fell into a sea of blue cloth waved by stagehands. As Laroche stepped forward to sing his victory song, though, Mabbot emerged behind him with a demonic twinkle in her eye. As the audience murmured, she plucked the bullet from her chest and tossed it over her shoulder. This time Laroche was sent yelping and covering his arse to protect it from the flailing Mabbot was giving him.

Mabbot, searching for Ramsey, ran to every corner of the stage, while he, still fingering his mustache, lurked just behind her at every turn until she gave up. Then, when Ramsey sat down to a celebratory meal, Mabbot appeared and shouted, “Tell the devil I’ll be late for tea!” and shot him. When the red kerchief fluttered, Mabbot danced a jig over his body.

These, then, are the stories the wicked tell themselves that they may sleep.

The ending prompted a clamor of cheers and applause, which lasted only until the real Mabbot yelled from her chair, “Lies! Defamation!” The ship went silent. The actors, clutching their wigs to their chests, stood pale and attentive. Mabbot rose and turned her terrible visage upon the crowd. She drew her pistol and said, “That is not how I dance. I dance like this!” Shooting her pistols at the sky, Captain Mabbot performed a jig of her own, her light hops punctuated by the clopping of her boots. Mr. Apples joined her, his false bosom bouncing. The crew erupted in cheers, and music played, and the bacchanal continued well into the night. From my chamber, even now, I can hear hedonism galloping to and fro above me.

Could it be true that Mabbot had worked for Ramsey—was he, even as he ate my sauces, waging hidden wars against foreign competitors? It would mean Mabbot and I had been paid from the same purse. Even I, whom Ramsey called “an Englishman with a French tongue,” cannot believe the world is that muddied. I never considered my French apprenticeship to be unpatriotic. What skills I learned I used to the benefit of England. And besides, though despots may whip the world to war, a brioche did not sail against Trafalgar. Cathedrals were never shelled with chèvre. The one exception to this rule is the boiled cabbage I encountered in the monasteries, which is a weapon in a bowl. The proper way to treat a cabbage leaf, of course, is to blanch it ever so briefly, wrap it around a piece of thinly sliced ham, and dip it in hollandaise.