Pirates (17 page)

She gave a convulsive sob of relief and plunged her fingers deep into the sand, holding on as if the sea might find her and try to pull her back into its embrace. Duncan loosened her hold, gently, and brought her to her feet.

“No,” she said. She was so spent that she could not say more, nor take another step.

“Just a little farther,” Duncan urged. He was barely able to stand himself, but he lifted her into his arms all the same. He carried her a long way, or so it seemed to Phoebe, who was in a half-stupor by then, seemingly incapable of sustaining the same thought for more than a few moments.

Finally, Duncan laid her down on something—it felt like a grass mat—she felt her chemise being pulled away and replaced with a dry blanket. It was bliss, not to have to swim, or walk, or even be carried any farther, and Phoebe gave herself up to a profound, deathlike sleep.

She awakened once or twice and knew she was inside a hut of some kind and that Duncan was nearby, but she drew no other conclusions. She simply sank back into the quiet
blackness, like a stone settling to the bottom of a pond, and dreamed no dreams that she could remember. When she finally meandered to the surface of consciousness, Duncan was there, holding a wooden bowl and spoon. She blinked and became aware of her aching muscles and the stinging rawness of her palms.

“How long have I been asleep?” she asked, stretching cautiously and then raising herself on one elbow.

Duncan held the spoon close to her mouth, and she tasted the steaming, savory broth. “Probably sixteen or seventeen hours,” he replied, giving her more soup. “We’re the guests of Monna Ungalla—she claims to be a distant relative of Old Woman’s.”

Phoebe took another spoonful of broth and then collapsed onto the mat with a groan. Her soreness went deeper than the marrow of her bones, into some inner infinity. “Good. We can ask her Old Woman’s true name.”

Duncan made her sit up again and gave her the bowl and spoon. “I tried that. She said we might say it aloud, if we knew it, and make big magic.”

Realizing that she was hungry, Phoebe discarded the spoon and drank the soup from the lip of the bowl, with no concern for etiquette. After all, Emily Post and Miss Manners wouldn’t be born for a long, long time.

“You know what I think?” she asked, when she was finished with the broth. “I think they’ve all forgotten what they called her in the first place—maybe she’s even forgotten herself—and this whole ’big magic’ thing is just a way to save face.”

“Monna’s right about one thing,” Duncan conceded, still on one knee next to the mat. His arms were folded, and he was wearing the same breeches and shirt he’d had on when they left Queen’s Town. “If I knew the name, I’d say it, just to see what would happen.”

Phoebe grinned. “Yeah,” she said, relishing the prospect. “So would I.”

Presently, Monna herself appeared—she was a large woman, and the robes Phoebe wore and was practically lost
in must have been hers. She touched Phoebe’s forehead in a motherly way, frowned, and shook her head.

“What?” Phoebe demanded, alarmed. Duncan was sitting on another mat by that time, juggling a small, sleek knife one-handed.

“Too soon. You stay. Rest longer.”

Duncan did not look away from the knife, and with good reason. The blade glittered as he sent it flying, end over end, caught it smoothly by the handle, and repeated the whole unnerving process. “If Mornault finds us before I’m ready,” he observed, “we might rest forever.”

Phoebe shuddered, remembering the danger, the stark, numbing fear, and the vast, star-dappled sea, like black velvet under the night sky, seeming to go on forever and ever. She caught Monna’s eye and said, “What’s Old Woman’s real name?”

Monna laughed. “You find that out on your own,” she said.

“Damn,” Phoebe muttered.

“I don’t think that’s it,” said Duncan.

They sailed that night, in a fishing boat, with two of Monna’s many sons for escorts. Phoebe sat huddled in the rough, muumuu-style robes the native woman had given her and thought private thoughts. Duncan stood in the prow, like Washington crossing the Delaware, keeping watch, and the boys, both teenagers, worked the tides and currents with impressive skill.

It was nearly dawn when Phoebe was jolted out of a doze by a hand on her shoulder.

She opened her eyes and stared at the handsome, rumpled man bending over her, in his salt-stiffened, costume-party clothes, and a few moments passed before she recalled where she was. Then she remembered coming to Paradise Island, stepping out of an elevator …

“It’s just a short walk to the house from here,” Duncan said, and his smile, incredibly white, contrasted nicely with his suntanned skin. “Can you manage it?”

Phoebe gave him a look of mock rebuke and rose awkwardly
to her feet. “Can I manage it?” she echoed. “Didn’t I climb down an anchor line? Didn’t I swim a hundred miles through shark-infested waters?”

Duncan put out a hand to steady her, his grin on highbeam. “It was more like five miles,” he said. “I did most of the swimming, and sharks are harmless, unless they’re hungry.” He paid Monna’s sons with a silver coin, stepped out of the boat into shallow water, and reached up for Phoebe. He carried her ashore, set her on her feet, and looked down at her with a serious expression. “You were very brave.”

The compliment pleased Phoebe, and she might have been blushing a little when she smiled up at him and said, “So were you.”

They set out for Duncan’s grand house together, bantering as they made their way through the foliage, following a well-beaten path.

There was great joy when they returned—Duncan’s crew-men came from their quarters to shake his hand and slap him on the back, and the housemaids surrounded Phoebe, chattering like birds. Old Woman fussed and fretted and led her to the kitchen, saying she looked half-starved.

Simone did not greet Phoebe, or even look at her. She was standing at the rear of the crowd that had come to welcome Duncan, with her soul luminous and sorrowful in her eyes.

Phoebe felt sorry for her and, at the same time, fiercely possessive of Duncan.

“I knew he would find you and bring you back,” Old Woman said when they were alone in the large cookhouse, with Phoebe seated at one of the long trestle tables, a cup of tea and a plate f coarse, sugary biscuits in front of her.

“Of course you did,” Phoebe retorted. “That’s why you let me leave in the first place.”

Old Woman laughed and added a bowl of fruit to the feast. Her gentle eyes were watchful and bright with affection. “You look different.”

Phoebe ignored that. They were both aware of what had changed, but it was a very personal matter, after all, and
Phoebe did not wish to discuss the details. “What did you see in my palm that day?”

“You know,” Old Woman said.

“Besides babies,” Phoebe urged.

Old Woman sighed, as though some glorious vision glimmered before her. “A good place, far from here, with laughing and much music.”

Phoebe resisted an urge to bend down and beat her forehead against the table. Even when Old Woman answered a question, she didn’t really
answer
it, she simply deepened the mystery.

Peeling a banana, grown no doubt on that very island, Phoebe presented another inquiry all the same. “What would happen if I said your name? And don’t say ’big magic.’ I want the truth.”

Old Woman merely looked at her with a wry expression.

“Okay, don’t tell me your name. All I want to know is this—if I discover it on my own, will the magic work?”

“Yes,” Old Woman said. “Finish your food. You want a bath and a bed.”

Phoebe sighed, her eyes narrowed as she mused. “Daphne,” she speculated. “Evelyn. Almira…”

There were no thunderbolts.

Phoebe took the promised bath, in a large copper tub reserved for the purpose and stored in a room behind the kitchen. Old Woman brought her a gown and wrapper—more belongings of that poor, nameless, shipwrecked lady whose wardrobe had washed up on the beach without her.

“It would be a native name,” Phoebe ruminated, scrubbing. “Of course…”

Old Woman poured a pitcherful of warm water over her head.

Alex stood on the veranda, late that afternoon, facing the sea and leaning on a cane. His leg had never taken an infection, God be thanked, but it was withering, like a blighted branch on an otherwise healthy tree. Duncan paused, indulging, yet again, in the futile wish that the British musket ball had struck him instead of Alex.

His friend turned, and his mouth shaped itself into a too-careful, highly polished smile, but his eyes were hollow. “You’ve found her, then. The prodigal wench with strange tales to tell.”

“Yes,” Duncan said, leaning against the porch rail, a few feet from Alex. “She earned Jessup Billington a beating before I could get to her, but otherwise the damage was minimal.”

“I don’t suppose she meant it to happen.”

“No,” Duncan admitted, recalling the look in Phoebe’s eyes when she spoke of tending Billington on the floor of the smithy’s back room. She had nightmares about it, too, ones that made her thrash and cry out, though he doubted that she remembered them on wakening. “It’s just that if there’s trouble anywhere within a day’s ride of where she is, Phoebe will find it, hoist up her skirts, and wade in.”

Alex chuckled, but the sound, like his eyes, was empty. “You ought to marry the minx,” he said. “Such a match would produce the kind of sturdy, adventurous children our new country will need.” There was a certain sorrow in his manner, despite his attempts to seem cheerful, and Duncan suspected it was rooted in Alex’s oft-mentioned desire to father a pack of rowdy patriots himself.

“There’s nothing to stop you from marrying,” he told Alex quietly. “It was your knee that took a musket ball, my friend, not your man-parts.”

Alex’s face contorted for a moment, and his struggle to regain his composure was painful to watch. “We’ve discussed this before,” he said, when the inner battle was over and he had won—or lost. “I won’t have some woman take me for a husband out of pity, apologizing for me, making excuses, saying, ‘it happened in the war, you know.’”

“She wouldn’t say any of those things about you, this imaginary wife of yours. You say them about yourself, you damnable fool. Don’t you see that? We can’t govern what happens to us, to any significant degree, but
by God
we can choose the attitude we take toward it!”

“All very inspiring,” said Alex bitterly. “Perhaps you should have been a cleric, instead of a pirate and a mercenary.
But that wouldn’t do for you, would it, Duncan? Because you’re a whole man, with two good legs!”

“Christ, Alex—why are you doing this to yourself, to me, to everybody who cares about you? We’re all cripples, one way or another—that’s part of being human. Your affliction shows on the outside, that’s all—but it’s in your heart that the poison lies, and in your mind. You feel exceeding sorry for yourself, don’t you?” He saw the fury rising in Alex’s eyes, and Duncan exulted in it because it meant there was still somebody inside that once-perfect body. “Well, damn it, why don’t you just get drunk, like any other man would do in your circumstances? Why don’t you lay your head down on your arms and weep for what’s gone and let some comely wench give you comfort? God in heaven, Alex, don’t you see that this is a chance to be better, to be more than you ever could have before? Yes, something like this can break a man. But only if he elects to be broken.”

There were tears standing in Alex’s eyes. “Leave me alone,” he said. “If you have an ounce of pity in your black, bloody soul,
leave me alone
!”

“I will not,” Duncan vowed. “I will follow you to the grave if that’s what I must do. I will plague you even in death, my friend, but I will never…
by God I will never
let you rob the world of the gifts only you can give! Never!”

Alex began to weep and then to sob. “Jesus God, Duncan, you don’t know how it is …”

Duncan gripped Alex’s shoulders, to lend him strength, to share the very substance of his soul if that was what it took. “No,” he said. “I don’t know, and I wouldn’t presume to say I did. But you can’t give up and die, Alex. You talk about our new country—well, it must have people like you to survive. For the sake of your countrymen, if for no other reason, you’ve got to get past this. We need you in this fight, and beyond it, too, when the victory is won.”

Alex shuddered with grief. “I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough.”

“You can,” Duncan argued, still holding his friend. “Don’t turn your back on us, Alex. We’ve come so far, we rebels, and fought so many bloody battles. We’re hungry
and footsore and, heaven help us, all we want is our liberty, the freedom to choose our own fate! Have you forgotten the dream so easily? Will you abandon us now, when we need you the most?”

“You promised,” Alex wept. “You swore you would help me die, if I decided not to live!”

“And I meant what I said,” Duncan replied softly. He embraced his friend. “But I never promised not to make a case for living. We will go to Queen’s Town, Alex. You can drink and wench and expel your demons. And then we shall go back to the business of winning this war.”

Alex smiled; his face was still wet with tears, and though it was fleeting, it had been a genuine smile. “How can you go a-wenching, when it’s plain you love Phoebe Turlow?”

There are some things one does not try to deny, not to one’s closest friend, anyway. “Alas,” Duncan admitted, “I am smitten and want no other but her. I have retained sufficient wit, however, to make a
show
of sowing wild oats, and I can still drink, thank God.”

“Very well,” Alex said gravely. “shall accept this challenge, if only to prove to you, once and for all, that you are defending a eunuch. But heed me and heed me well, Duncan—I have not released you from your promise to aid me if my final choice is death.”

Duncan felt a chill of foreboding at Alex’s words, but he was, in many ways, at his best in a crisis, and he spoke in easy tones. “You’ve been such a horse’s ass of late that I may decide to spare you the trouble of choosing and shoot you myself.”

“Then perhaps I shall endeavor to make myself even more obnoxious,” Alex replied with weary humor and stumped past Duncan, on the crutch he’d whittled for himself, to take refuge in the house.