Cinnamon and Gunpowder (44 page)

“I was asleep,” I blurted. “I dreamed … a woman came to me—” Her swift glare shut my mouth and told me that she remembered all too clearly the events of that evening.

“No one wants to hear your ridiculous dreams. Enough that you were locked in your chamber, weren’t you?”

“Yes. Mr. Apples had locked me in.”

“And now, Mr. Apples, you were saying?”

“Only that Spoons was with me below—he weren’t the one making trouble there.”

The crew outside murmured as they passed the verdict to those who couldn’t hear.

Conrad opened his mouth to speak, but Mabbot drew a blade from her boot and placed the tip of it upon his tongue and held him there; his eyes became egg yolks rolling in a bowl. From his throat came the sounds of a cat.

“He said he merely wished to slow us, to surrender to Laroche.” I was hoping to soften things for him somehow—to let them know that he didn’t want to sink us outright, but at this the crew outside began to shout, pounding upon the door.

Mabbot nodded at Mr. Apples and he ducked out and roared, “Is this a ship or a menagerie? All men to the foredeck.”

As the crew dispersed, I begged Mabbot. “I want to claim my reward. Keep the gold. Only do not torture this man. I ask this favor. Do not mutilate … Oh, for God’s sake. I beg you.”

She crouched there for some time, and I thought she might gut him like a trout with that blade.

Mr. Apples returned with a satchel from Conrad’s locker—inside was a cask of water, waxed bags of figs, hardtack, and two ingots of silver. I shuddered—except for the silver, it could have been my own escape provisions poured out onto the table.

“What was it, Conrad?” asked Mabbot. “Row for land in a longboat while we ran about bailing the water from the bilge? Or did you fancy Laroche would give you a cut of my bounty?”

Conrad was silent, though. His gaze was fixed on the middle distance; he had retreated to a place somewhere deep inside himself. Even his breathing seemed easier.

“I’m begging you, Captain. Show him mercy.”

Mabbot told Mr. Apples to lock Conrad away.

When they had left, she gripped my throat, but instead of choking me, this time her hand was soft. “Wedge, what are you doing to me?” she growled.

Then she let me go and collapsed back into her chair with a sigh. “I’m afraid I might have contributed to this particular mess,” she said, running her hand over her shorn scalp. “Before you inspired me to take on a personal chef, I got it into my head that all Conrad needed was inspiration. I tried to get him to make some of the dishes I remembered, spotted dick, mince pie, that sort of thing. Poor soul, he took it very seriously. It was demeaning for both of us. I tried to coach him but—”

“The man could curdle water.”

“They were worse than his usual fare, and the crew came close to mutiny. Your arrival must have stung the chap.”

“He loved you.”

“Who doesn’t love me?” Mabbot joked, but her smile was weary.

Wednesday, Later

This afternoon Mabbot made an announcement to the gathered crew. “The saboteur has surrendered himself. For this I grant him a certain clemency.” The men hissed, but Mabbot continued. “Meanwhile, you are forbidden to molest him in any way.”

The mob grumbled and one sailor, a cooper named Peter, yelled, “You promised theater paint!” At this the mob erupted with calls for blood.

“Sentencing is a captain’s prerogative!” Mabbot yelled as she jumped from the poop deck into the crowd to confront Peter. “But the cooper would like to be captain.” Mabbot took off her coat and tossed it to Mr. Apples. “In order to be captain, you must wear the captain’s hat.” Mabbot walked directly to the man and looked up into his eyes, for he was a head taller than she. She drew her knife and handed it to Peter. She said, “Are you ready to take my hat, cooper?” When the man’s eyes flitted to Mr. Apples, Mabbot called back, “Mr. Apples, go and check the bowsprit lines, will you?”

After a breath, Mr. Apples strolled away, leaving Mabbot alone before the mob.

“Now, then,” said Mabbot, “I asked you a question.”

Peter’s lower lip was quivering. “No’m,” he said, dropping the knife.

“Can’t hear you over the wind.”

“No, ma’am. I don’t want your hat,” shouted the cooper.

“Are you quite sure you like being cooper with your hoops and barrel wood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, good. Because you make a fine keg,” Mabbot said, and the crew laughed as the tension broke. “Back to work!”

When the crew had dispersed, I took Mabbot aside. “Wasn’t that reckless, Captain? Sending Mr. Apples away?”

“If this crew wants my head, even Mr. Apples won’t be able to protect me. In the end I am alone on a ship of pirates with nothing but their respect to shield me. But your weak stomach doesn’t make it any easier, Wedge. I have gone back on my word and disappointed my crew all for your aversion to blood.”

“I thank you, Hannah.”

“Of course, the crew will be much mollified if they have a proper meal. After all, we’ve lost a cook.”

“That’s not fair—”

“I insist.”

“I cannot cook for you and them.”

“Don’t be modest.” Then her face softened. “If you do find a spare moment to sleep, come to my cabin.”

Thursday, November 25

The crew is much disgruntled not to have Conrad to torture. Mr. Apples has stationed the bosun at the cell door to keep vigilantes from the poor wretch.

To appease them I set to the galley. With the help of Joshua, I threw together a cauldron of spicy shark bisque built on a blond roux and the last of the cayenne pepper. Herrings were fried and served with cornmeal biscuits and pickled hominy. When the modest repast was presented, it triggered an impromptu celebration. Before long I was roped into dancing with the men, striking my peg against the boards along with the music from the fiddles and flutes.

Thursday, Later

Rat-belly Island is a craggy atoll of algae and coral no more than an acre in total, with stunted trees and a thin rocky beach curving around a lagoon on the northern side. It is distant from any proper trading route and not marked on most maps. Here, Conrad has been put to shore to perish as a castaway. His shoulder hasn’t mended and his left arm hangs useless.

Mr. Apples and two others escorted him ashore in a longboat to leave him with a knife and a Bible and little else. Before they pushed off, I threw into the boat a sack of cornmeal tied to a tin cup. Mr. Apples, considering my deviation from custom, looked to Mabbot for guidance. Mabbot shrugged. “So it gives him a few more days of loneliness. Here,” she said, retrieving a gold piece from the sack that had been tied to the mizzen. “Let him buy more when that runs out!” She lobbed the coin and it hit the man where he sat like a discarded doll in the bottom of the boat. The crew loved this.

Mr. Apples and the others in the boat each spat into the cornmeal before handing it to Conrad.

When the transport was complete, the cook stood lamely upon the beach as we departed. I couldn’t help but watch him shrink in the distance, and I believe that, just before he disappeared, I saw him wave.

Saturday, November 27

Today we passed the mouth of the Pearl River, the seat of the Pendleton Trading Company. A telescope was passed among us, and I saw the white slabs of the massive Pendleton compound set like a tiered cake on the shore, commanding a view of the kidney-shaped harbor crowded with junks, merchant ships, hulks, and, indeed, navy vessels. This was the fulcrum of the Eastern trade. Kingdoms could rise and fall on the wealth carried in those ships. Tea enough to darken the sea, porcelain enough to build another Buckingham Palace from saucers and cups, and silks to swath the moon passed through this crowded port, jostled on all sides by smugglers with boxes of opium going in the other direction.

The Pendleton offices were still and glaring in the sun above the bustling wharf. The sheer number of ships in the harbor frightened me. It would be only a matter of time before our thin disguise provoked curiosity. Our crew was uncharacteristically quiet, as if we were tiptoeing past a sleeping giant. We tarried not, and on each of our lips was a prayer that our freshly painted hull and false colors would grant us passage.

Mabbot broke the spell by shouting, “The Chinese call it the Barbarian House. Take a good look, gentlemen! It won’t be there when we come back.”

My mind is with Conrad. Helping Joshua with the great vats of chowder for the men, I find myself measuring his portions and days. Is there water on Rat-belly Island? Are there lizards to eat? My guess is very little of either. He may eat on the cornmeal for a week at the most if he can find some clean water to slake his thirst.

No doubt Conrad’s reasons were sufficient to him. If a pirate like Mabbot does not wake of a morning with malevolence on her mind, if she sees her actions as the pursuit of justice, can’t I give Conrad the same measure of doubt? I can’t help but notice in retrospect that each act of sabotage occurred after Mabbot and I were indiscreet about our lavish rendezvous. It was easy to picture him muttering about us in the darkness as he took secret drinks from the rum barrel to steel his courage. I had labored under the fantasy of escape myself, so I could imagine what Conrad hoped for: Laroche welcoming him with open arms and a bag of gold. The men call Conrad a coward, but isn’t it bravery to lift your chisel against a world that despises you? And then to take his chances on the currents with little more than a week’s worth of food?

A lifetime of sleeplessness will not relieve me of this guilt. The man’s death is on my head as surely as if I had dropped the guillotine. No matter that he was a criminal. It is a tangled knot of blame, to be sure; he had tried to ruin us all and would have fled in his boat with our charred bodies in his wake. And yet I cannot escape the grim fact that draws my breath up short as if my own collarbone were broken, that if not for my testimony, if not for my teapot cudgel, the man would be alive. Nay, there is no escaping that I have killed him, whatever may be said for the circumstances—I killed him, and it is precisely because I cannot see or invent a path that would have taken me out of the dark wood to goodness, not even in retrospect can I imagine a better course of action, that I feel I have become at last a pirate myself.