Master of Paradise (15 page)

“Rodrigo, you want to decide for me what my
future should be. Just as my father and Hastings did. But I refuse
to be told what to do, what to think, what to want. Beau Vallon has
been my dream for most of my life. If I let you take that dream
away, I’ve done the same thing my mother did. For whatever
reasons.”

He thought a moment, taking a turn about the
cabin. “Some things are more important,” he said at last.

“It’s my home, Rodrigo.”

“Seychelles is my home, too. But the problem,
Gabé, is that in order for you to build your home here, you must
destroy mine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Then I shall make sure you do.” He was quiet
for many moments, as if musing to himself. “You will go on a
journey with me tomorrow.”

“Rodrigo, you have no time to waste on
journeys. I heard Hastings say he and the Grand Blanc have gathered
a fleet to come after you, island by island, until they’ve blown
you apart.”

Unperturbed, he said, “That would be
extremely foolish of them. Not knowing these reefs, they wouldn’t
have a chance in the Amirantes. And I daresay they know it.”

His lips curled slightly, and she sensed the
challenge in his next words. “No, the trouble lies not with
Hastings but with what I am going to do with you.”

For two days,
El Paraiso
and her
sister ship,
El Fortuna,
sailed the open seas toward Africa,
flying over the waves like specters fueled for speed.

Gabrielle was dressed like Rodrigo’s sailors
in tawny breeches and a soft cotton shirt covering her bound
breasts. Rodrigo had found her some boots that were closer to her
size than Hastings’s had been. She was free to move about
unhampered, but she felt weighed down by concerns.

No one answered her questions about why they
were at sea. She was told only that they were intercepting an Arab
vessel sailing out of Mozambique. One of the infamous sultan of
Zanzibar’s personal fleet. But she’d overheard Wallace expressing
his worry about the impulsiveness of this journey to Rodrigo.
“We’ve precious little preparation, man. We know not how many men
are onboard. ’Tisn’t like you to be so rash, when so much is at
stake.”

Gabrielle’s one satisfaction came from seeing
Cullen so enthusiastic about life at sea. The Indian Ocean might
make a man of him yet.

On the morning of the third day, she’d
retreated to the rigging, high above the quarterdeck, in a vast
world of blue, when she spotted the ship on the horizon and
simultaneously heard the lookout’s call. All at once, the
atmosphere changed. Men jumped to their battle stations. Cullen was
given the task of raising Rodrigo’s pirate flag. His fingers
fumbled as he tried to fasten it, but once he’d hoisted it, he gave
Rodrigo a proud look.

They gave chase to the ship, which was slow
and bulky, and it wasn’t long before
El Paraiso
was looming
down on its bow. From this distance, Gabrielle could see the
sailors’ dark faces beneath their white robes, see the panic the
sight of the golden lion had instilled in them.

The pirates were readying the cannons at
Rodrigo’s command. “There’ll be no firing into the ship,” he
called. “I don’t want anyone hurt who needn’t be.” As he spoke, he
moved toward a cannon that had been wheeled to its place on deck.
Motioning to Cullen, Rodrigo began to explain what he intended.
“What we want is to knock off the main mast and immobilize the
ship. I’m going to show you how it’s done, but you can’t learn just
by watching. You must go by instinct as well. This is my favorite
cannon,” he explained, running his hand along it as if caressing a
lover’s thigh. “She never fails me. You want to be sure to put in
just the right amount of powder. Manuel will work with you on
that.” The Spaniard snickered as he rammed in the powder. Picking
up the cannon ball, Rodrigo hefted it in his hand. “The ball must
be perfectly round. I have these honed for hours.” The ball was
inserted into the cannon’s mouth. Then Rodrigo lowered his head
level with the weapon and aimed it carefully, speaking as he did
so. “You must always accommodate for the curvature of the earth.
Never fire a straight shot. With practice, you develop an eye for
judging.”

Finally the wick was lit. Gabrielle’s
realized Rodrigo was actually going to fire on the sultan’s ship.
The weapon exploded, lurching back, and in instants, the main mast
of the enemy ship was severed with the same surgical precision that
Rodrigo had used on the East Indiaman. With a mighty creak and
groan, the mast toppled to the deck.

A cheer arose from the pirates as they
swarmed to the rails. Before they could board the conquered ship,
Rodrigo called them to a halt. “Let’s allow the lady the honor of
boarding first.”

They turned to look at Gabrielle. Most of
them had witnessed her duel with their captain. Some remembered the
way she’d forced him on the deck of the
Drake
at the point
of her sword. As she gazed at them in shock over Rodrigo’s words,
she saw the respect reflected in their smiles of consent.

Rodrigo had picked up a hat and was holding
it out to her with an inviting hand. In a daze, she felt herself
climb down the rigging, walk toward him, take the hat, and tuck her
hair up under it as she placed it on her head. Nervousness
slithered through her stomach like a snake. What was this game
Rodrigo dared her to play?

She felt Cullen come up behind her, his
excitement receded, his face ashen. “Gabby, you could be killed!”
he exclaimed, frightened now that the ramifications had struck
home.

“Oh, that’s right,” drawled Rodrigo. “I’d
forgotten you’re but a
stage
pirate. You have trouble with
reality.” Taunting her with a sword, his grin widening, he added,
“Didn’t you put your sword between your teeth in the play? I hear
it brought the audience to their feet. Damn fool thing, for a real
swashbuckler. You could get your head cut off if you should slam
against the ship.”

He was goading her—to what end she didn’t
know. But she wasn’t about to let him reduce her to a sniveling
heap in front of his men. Ignoring Cullen’s whispered warnings, she
stared Rodrigo in the eyes and said, “Head cut off, be damned. I’ll
show you how a pirate boards a captured ship.”

Rebelliously, she put the sword between her
teeth, grasped the rope he held out to her, and with her best
theatrical flourish, swung across the ocean to knock over three
Arabs and land on her feet on the opposite deck. From the decks of
El Paraiso,
she heard a rousing masculine cheer.

But there wasn’t time to feel her oats.
Assuming she was a man, the Arabs charged with drawn swords. They
carried scimitars, curved and deadly-looking as they glinted in the
sun. Gabrielle drew the sword from her aching teeth and engaged in
a fierce battle that called for every bit of her concentration.

There appeared to be no more than ten sailors
on board. Puzzled that the pirates should send only one man, they
held back for a time, allowing her to duel with one at a time. Soon
she was besting them easily, so they came at her in pairs. She was
in her element, slashing at one while she danced out of the way of
the other’s swinging blade.

She knocked the sword from the hand of a
sailor and, gleaming in triumph, turned to face four men
surrounding her on all sides. Her swordplay, she’d soon found, was
superior to theirs, even if her strength was not. She could handle
two of them easily, but it was impossible to defend her back at the
same time. As she paused, taking a precious second to ponder the
difficulty, she felt a swish of wind beside her and heard the heavy
thump of boots. Glancing aside, she saw Rodrigo, sword drawn,
looking like the pirate he was, kicking one of the Arabs at her
back and engaging the other with his sword.

With the two fighting side by side, it wasn’t
long before the Arabs were subdued. As the pirates swarmed on deck,
Gabrielle fought to breathe. She was perspiring and the air was
burning like fire in her lungs. Rodrigo put his arm about her
shoulders and guided her. “Come, Gabé. Let me show you
something.”

On frightfully shaky legs, she went with him
past the stairwell to the middle of the quarterdeck. As the pirates
from his ship went about the task of binding the conquered vessel’s
crew, Rodrigo reached down to a latch on the floor of the deck.
Grasping it, he pulled up a hatch. A portion of the deck rose with
his arm.

As it did, a ghastly smell assaulted her like
a wave, almost knocking her down. She hesitated, thoroughly
confused. But he took her arm in a firm grip and pulled her down
the steps behind him. On the way, he retrieved a lantern and paused
to light it. It sputtered and fizzed before settling into a gently
swaying flame.

As they descended into the darkness,
Gabrielle began to see a sight of such horror, she knew she’d never
forget it. There, in the cramped hold of the ship, were hundreds of
Africans chained to the floor. Men, women, even children, all hid
their eyes from the glare of the light, as if they hadn’t seen any
for the two weeks they’d been on board. As they walked through the
bodies, Gabrielle’s flesh began to crawl. The captives were
gruesome, some with open, running sores that hadn’t been tended.
They were surrounded by their own filth. Some had vomited blood and
lay in the remains. Some, she could see when Rodrigo nudged them,
had died during the voyage and been left where they lay. Those who
were alive were so emaciated, their bones showed through their
skins.

They began to cry out to them, a ghostly wail
that made her want to cover her ears and run. She felt herself
inside some Hieronymus Bosch vision of hell. She could feel their
suffering, their agony, the desperation of their fear. The hand at
her mouth was shaking so that she couldn’t control it.

She became aware that tears were streaming
down her cheeks. Soon, she realized Rodrigo was looking at her and
she raised tear-streaked eyes to his face.

“Look at it, Gabé,” he told her. “This is
your Beau Vallon.”

For hours, Gabrielle forestalled her grief by
throwing herself into the process of helping the rescued slaves.
Carefully, she helped unchain their limbs, weeping inwardly at the
crusted blood that caked their ankles and wrists. Again and again
she made the trip up those rickety steps, supporting the weight of
a woman or carrying a child in her arms that was so light, it felt
more like a sparrow than a human being. In the process, she stopped
seeing them as one mass of brutalized humanity, and began to feel
for them as individuals, each with wounds and needs she felt
insufficient to meet.

Once the Africans were transferred to the
sister ship, the slaver scuttled, and its crew put adrift in a
longboat, Gabrielle helped tend to the human cargo. She put salve
on raw burns and open wounds. Rodrigo, of course, had known their
mission all along, had brought her specifically to see this
abomination, so he’d come well-prepared with medicines and bandages
and barrels of fresh water to cleanse their injuries. After hours
of this, Gabrielle felt numb and drained, as if she couldn’t feel
anything if she tried.

She was so exhausted by the time she returned
to
El Paraiso
that she was fairly catatonic. All she could
do was watch helplessly as
El Fortuna
sailed back toward
Africa, taking the frightened captives home. She was vaguely aware
of Rodrigo’s hands on her shoulders, urging her to rest. She heard
his words as he ordered Wallace to take her to his cabin so she
could. She had a sensation of movement as she was guided down the
gangway. But nothing registered. Nothing but the horror her mind
fought to reject.

When the door to the cabin closed softly
behind her, she stared about her as if she’d never seen the room
before. Rodrigo had relinquished his cabin to her for the duration
of their journey, so she’d slept in his bed, tangled in the scarlet
sheets that had taunted her so from the day she’d first seen them.
Now, she stared at the bunk without recognition. It was all she
could do to make herself walk toward it. To reach for it with a
quivering hand. To crumple like a severed leaf to the floor before
the bed. To lay her forehead on the sheets and close her weary
eyes.

When Rodrigo entered minutes later to check
on her, she was sobbing with all the passion she’d never allowed
herself in all her years of anger and frustration as the bastard
daughter of a duke. Her shoulders shook with her pain. Her throat
burned. Her breast heaved with the intensity of her despair. She
cried for those she’d vainly tried to help. She cried for all the
years she’d wasted, hoped, and dreamed. She cried, she had to
admit, for herself.

She heard his voice above her.
“
Carícia.
” Just the merest whisper. But in that word was all
the pain he’d borne through the years. All the loneliness. All the
frustrated desires he’d sacrificed for the good of the many.

“How could you do this to me?” she cried.

She stared up at him accusingly, to find him
gazing down at her with the most compassionate look in his eyes
that she’d ever seen. “I remember well the first time I saw such a
sight. I know all that you feel, for I’ve felt it all myself.”

“Have you?” She didn’t realize she was angry,
but suddenly she was consumed with it, so angry it drowned out the
confusion and disillusionment for one blissful moment. “You tricked
me. You did this purposely.”

“I wanted you to understand.”

“And what have you left for me, Rodrigo? You
knew if you showed that to me, I could never go back to my former
life. I can’t go home and see slaves everywhere around me without
thinking of what I’ve seen this day. You knew that when you brought
me here. But what do I do now? I’m caught between two worlds. I
can’t go back and I can’t go forward. A part of me knows I had to
see this. I couldn’t go on as I was. But there’s another part of
me, Rodrigo. A part that hates you for showing this to me.” She
felt the sobs shake her once again. “Beau Vallon was all I had.
It’s all I’ve ever had. And now you’ve killed it.”