On Stranger Tides (27 page)

“You know,” Shandy remarked to Davies, “I'm going to get her out of this ...just for the pleasure of showing her one more thing she's all wrong about.”

“ARE WE glad to see you boys!” one of the jostling pirates exclaimed. They had dragged the boat all the way up onto the sand of the mangrove-shorn notch, and Shandy and Davies got out and stood up, stretching. The shouting began to die down.

“Glad to be out of there,” Davies said.

“You must be hungry as hell,” another man put in. “Or did you find something to eat in there?”

“Didn't have the leisure.” Davies turned to watch the progress of the other two boats. “What time is it? Maybe Jack'd throw together some kind of pre-breakfast for us.”

“I don't know, Phil, but it ain't late—no more'n an hour or two after sunset.”

Shandy and Davies both turned to stare at him. “But we
left
about an hour after sunset,” Shandy said. “And we've been gone at least several hours ...”

The pirate was looking at Shandy blankly, and Davies asked, “How long were we gone upriver?”

“Why ...two days,” the man replied in some bewilderment. “Just about precise—dusk to dusk.”

“Ah,” said Davies, nodding thoughtfully.

“And ashes to ashes,” put in Shandy, too tired to bother with making sense. He looked again toward the approaching boats. Idly, for in spite of his deductions all he wanted right now was an authoritative drink and a hammock and twelve hours of sleep,
he wondered how he would prevent Hurwood from forcing Beth's soul out of her body so that the ghost of her mother, his wife, could move in.

IN THE morning the fog had overflowed its river boundaries and formed a damp, only dimly translucent veil over the land and sea, so chilly that the pirates huddled around the sizzling, popping fires, and it was almost midmorning, when the fog began to break up, before anyone noticed that the
Vociferous Carmichael
was gone; and another half hour of rowing up and down the shore in boats, and shouting and ringing bells, was wasted in confirming the ship's disappearance.

Most of her crew was ashore, and the first supposition was that she had somehow come unmoored and drifted away—then Hurwood came running down the slope from the hut yelling the news that his daughter was gone and he couldn't find Leo Friend.

Shandy was standing on the beach near one of the boats when Hurwood's news was relayed. Davies and Blackbeard stood a hundred feet away, talking in low, urgent tones, but they looked up when this fresh lot of shouting began.

“Not a coincidence,” pronounced Blackbeard flatly.

“The fat boy?” protested Davies. “But why?”

“Your quartermaster knows why,” Blackbeard said, nodding past Davies at Shandy. “Don't you, Shandy?”

Shandy walked up to them, feeling hollow and colder than the fog. “Yes, sir,” he said hoarsely. “I've seen the way he'd look at her.”

“But why take
my ship?
” snarled Davies, whirling angrily to face the still-veiled sea.

“He had to take Beth away,” said Shandy. “Her father had plans for her that were ...incompatible ...with the plans Friend had for her.” He spoke quietly, but he was as tense as a flexed length of steel.

Blackbeard, also staring out to sea, shook his massive head. “I knew he was more than just Hurwood's apprentice—that there was something he was after, all on his own. At the Fountain he finally got what he needed. I should have killed him last night, after we all got back. I think I could have.” The giant pirate reached out a hand and squeezed it into a fist, and then drove it into the palm of his other hand.

The sound of the slap was lost in the sudden, jarring crack of a close thunderclap, and the flash of the sky-spanning lightning bolt sent Shandy and Davies reeling back, dazzled.

“I think I could have,” Blackbeard repeated thoughtfully.

As the echoes tumbled away along the shoreline and Blackbeard lowered his hands, Shandy half wished he'd thought of dropping some of his own blood on the mud by the Fountain. The thought reminded him of the way Davies had vanquished—perhaps killed—the
loa
-like thing in the jungle. Surreptitiously he lifted his foot and dragged a fingernail down the groove between the sole and the side, and he rolled the resulting bit of muck into a ball and tucked it into his pocket. He didn't know whether it contained any mud actually from the marge of the Fountain, or what sort of enemy he might want to use it against even if it did, but it was clear that anyone with only guns and swords at his disposal was ludicrously ill-equipped for the kind of combat they were engaged in now.

“I've
got
to get my ship back,” said Davies, and Shandy realized that when Davies had lost the ship he'd lost his rank, too—without the
Vociferous Carmichael
he was just the skipper of a
notably battered but otherwise unimpressive little sloop. Davies looked desperately at Blackbeard. “Will you come along and help? He's more now than he was, and he knew some good tricks even before.”

“No,” said Blackbeard, his dark face impassive. “By now Woodes Rogers may have arrived in New Providence with the pardon calculated to rob me of my nation.” The breeze was from the sea, and it blew back the pirate-king's lion-mane of black hair and beard, and Shandy noticed streaks of gray at the temples and chin. “I meant the
Carmichael
—with you as her captain—to be the flagship of my fleet ...and I hope you do get her back. But it seems the age of free-for-all piracy is ending ...just as the merry buccaneer days are passed ...this is the age of empire.” He grinned sidelong at Davies. “Would the Brethren follow me, or take the pardon, given the choice?”

Davies grinned wearily back, and waited for a wave to crash, come swirling and churning almost to their boots, and then slide back, before answering. “They'll take the pardon. To sail with Blackbeard is to leave a pledge with the hangman.”

Blackbeard nodded. “But ...?”

Davies shrugged. “The problem will still be there—unless King George has the sense to get into another war. The Caribbean is full of men who know no other trade than sailing a fighting ship. Since the peace they're all out of work. Sure, they'll take the pardon—gratefully!—to write off their past crimes ...but a month or two later every one of 'em will be back on the account.”

Blackbeard nodded, and though Shandy and Davies stepped back, he didn't even look down as the next wave boiled up past where he stood and draped a length of kelp across his ankle. Finally he spoke, slowly. “Would they follow a new captain, who had ships and money?”

“Of course—and if this captain truly had no criminal record, he could have his pick of every sailor in the New World, because
they wouldn't be violating their pardons by sailing with him. But who have you got in mind? Even Shandy here has got a fair reputation.”

“Do you know, Phil, why Juan Ponce de Leon called that place the Fountain of Youth?”

“No.” Davies laughed shortly. “If anything, I feel a lot older since being there.”

Blackbeard turned to Shandy. “Any guesses, Jack?”

Shandy recalled Hurwood's antics with the head of his dead wife. “Because the place can be used to bring dead people back to life.”

Blackbeard nodded. “I was sure you'd figured that out. Yes, old Hurwood plans to raise his wife's ghost from her dried head and plant it in the body of his daughter. Hard luck on the daughter, left with no body.” The giant pirate laughed softly. “Hurwood came out to the New World last year—he'd heard that magic was as common as salt out here.”

More shouting was going on around the fires behind them, but Blackbeard was caught up in remembering. “A pistol ball smashed his arm all to hell,” he said. “We had to chop it right off and tar the stump. Never thought a man his age would survive it. But then only the next day you'd swear he'd forgot about it—all he did was watch me. The ghosts were troubling me pretty bad then, and I was having a rum-and-gunpowder two or three times a day. And even though magic has been dried up in the Old World for thousands of years, he'd tracked down its old footprints and found its bones ...and studied 'em. He knew what my trouble was and had a pretty good idea of how I'd got infested by all those ghosts. He offered to cure me of 'em—
exorcise
'em—if I'd show him exactly where it was that I'd picked 'em up. I said fine, let's go, but he said not so fast. We need a ghost repellent, he said, this special medicine weed the Indians grow in Carolina—I was to sail north and get some—
and he had to go back to England to get a couple of things: his daughter and his wife's head, it seems. The whole reason he'd begun trying to track down living magic was to get the wife back. But before he went back to England he came to New Providence with us, and lived a few weeks with the
bocors
. One night he sailed off west with one of 'em, and came back next morning all worn out and crazy-looking—but excited. I knew he'd somehow managed to contact the wife. And then he left, promising as the last piece of the deal to bring back a fine ship for me.”

Shandy remembered old Chaworth, and the realization that he was now one of the breed that had ruined and killed the kind old man brought a bitterness to his mouth.

“And Hurwood was right, of course,” Blackbeard went on quietly. “We do use magic out here, and those of us who aren't above listening to the black
bocors
—especially those of us who live on the sea—know some thefty tricks. I know more, maybe, than anyone ...and since our trip upriver, I've now got the power to do every one of 'em splendid.” He had been facing the sea, but now he turned back to Shandy and Davies. “For years I've heard about this Fountain, and I tracked it down because of a magic I'd heard of in connection with it. A man with the right kind of power can be immortal by means of it, if he takes care to live on the sea. Blood,
fresh
blood, and sea water, and you don't need the head, nor a body for the soul to go into; the sorceror's blood will grow a new one in the sea, in a kind of egg, within hours of dripping into the water ...”

Davies was frowning thoughtfully. “I see. So you plan to—”

“To sail north, Phil, to some place civilized, where things happen documentably and get recorded official. And I think maybe the famous Blackbeard will be trapped and killed in some sea fight, in such a way that some of his blood will fall into the ocean ...and then I wouldn't be surprised if some stranger were
to appear, who'll happen to know where I've hid all my lucre, and he won't have
any
reputation or previous history or fame to foul him up. I think he'll get a ship in some quiet way—hah! I'll bet Stede Bonnett will help out with that—and then make his way south to New Providence Island. I think he'll want to speak to you, Phil—and I think it'd be a good thing if you'd got the
Carmichael
back.”

Davies nodded. “Do you ...want us to accept this pardon Rogers is bringing?”

“I don't see why not,” Blackbeard said.

“Hear that, Jack?” Davies asked Shandy. “Back in the shop window again.”

Shandy opened his mouth to answer, then closed it and just shook his head.

“He's too great a sinner, Phil,” Blackbeard said, amusement rumbling in his voice.

BENJAMIN HURWOOD covered the last ten yards in a sort of anxious, bounding prance, making the square wooden box tied to his belt jiggle and whirl wildly. “When do we
leave
?” he screamed. “Don't you realize how essential it is that we
hurry
? He may
kill
her, he's certainly got the power now to overcome the protections she has.”

Blackbeard ignored Hurwood. “I'm going north,” he said, and plodded away back toward the fires.

Davies eyed the pale, trembling Hurwood speculatively. “Can you find 'em ?”

“Of
course
I can find them—her, anyway.” He slapped the wooden box irreverently. “This thing's a damn lodestone for her now, better than the pointer that led you to the
Carmichael
a month ago.”

“We'll leave instantly,” said Davies. “As soon as we get the
Jenny
manned. We—” He paused. “The
Carmichael
's crew,” he
said. “What's to become of them, the lads we can't carry on the
Jenny
?”

“Who
cares
?” yelled Hurwood. “Let them split up—half with Thatch, half with Bonnett. Damn my
soul
, what I'm going to do to that fat young worm when I find him! Prometheus never suffered as much as Leo Friend will, I promise you—”

“No,” said Davies, still thoughtfully, “none of my lads sail north with Thatch. I'll load the
Jenny
gunwale-deep with men before I permit that ...”

Hurwood had been dancing with impatience, and now the raging old man screwed his eyes shut and clenched his fist, and slowly rose up from the sand until he hovered unsupported with his boots dangling fully a yard above the ground. He opened his eyes a squint, hissed angrily and shut his eyes harder—and then was flung like a loose-jointed doll at the sea, and struck with an enormous splash out beyond where the breakers began to swell and roll in.

A number of pirates were on the beach, and several of them had paused in their various labors to gape at this performance, and now were staring wonderingly out at the falling splash spray.

“Get him,”
Davies rasped at the nearest cluster of them, and the men leaped to the boat, dragged it down to the water and got busy with the oars. To Shandy, Davies muttered, “You want to find the girl, right?”

“Right.”

“And I want to find my ship. So let's get Hurwood aboard the
Jenny
before he perfects his flying and flaps away to find them without us.”