Salamander (25 page)
Authors: Thomas Wharton
– I’m sure you’re planning to enlighten me.
The Abbé smiled.
– That remains to be seen.
He toed a chunk of dried clay to the edge of his cage, nudged it over into the well, where it dropped into silence.
– My time here is growing short, he said. There are underground sluices running from the river that could drown this well again in a matter of minutes. I expect that is what will happen if the anti-European faction wins out at court.
– It probably has, Flood said. The pasha is dead.
The Abbé blinked.
– Dead?
– Just now, in the Hall of the Divan.
The Abbé gazed upward into the darkness, and a cold laugh burst from him.
– Just now. And so time wins again.
Pica stepped in front of Flood.
– You were on the ship, she said. When I was born.
The Abbé stared at Pica open-mouthed and then, recovering himself, bowed slightly towards her.
– You have an astounding memory, mademoiselle.
– You were there. The man in black.
– Ah. Yes. The midwife. I knew she was not to be trusted, but yours was a difficult birth, and something had to be done to preserve, if possible, both mother and daughter. In other words, you should be thankful I was there, Countess, since it was my task to make sure you were both safely … delivered.
– Then it’s true, Pica said.
– What story did they tell you at the Ospedale, about your mother? That she was dead, no doubt. Forgive my bluntness, but did it ever occur to you that they might be telling the truth? Or that they were, but in another sense. Perhaps, child, they were hoping to spare you further pain and loss.
Pica stared at him, her eyes searching his. The Abbé turned to Flood.
– Surely you’ve prepared the girl for the possibility that her
mother does not want to be found. Especially by the daughter she cannot acknowledge as hers.
– I don’t believe you, Pica said.
– As you please. But believe me when I say I do not know where the Countess is. I cannot even tell you whether she is living or dead.
He gestured to the darkness around them.
– This is the world, mademoiselle. Few questions find answers. Few stories end the way we might wish. Ask your father.
The chains jerked and squealed and the Abbé’s cage began to ascend ponderously into the upper darkness.
– I am called to my accounting, he said, tucking the scroll into his sleeve. But I would advise you to stay where you are. There is, after all, nowhere else to go.
Selim found them wandering the corridors and led them safely through the palace.
– As you see, I don’t exist, he whispered to them as they slipped across the parade ground where the janissaries preened with their horses. At least not here.
They took a devious route to his house to collect Djinn.
The clerk insisted they stay with him until the excitement over the pasha’s death quieted down. There was no need, he went on, for them to leave at all, really. There was certainly plenty of work for a printer in Alexandria.
– We can’t stay, Flood said. Someone will come for us sooner or later.
– At least you, Selim said, embracing Djinn with tears in his eyes. You belong here. That much I know.
Djinn smiled.
– I wish I did.
When they returned to the
Bee
, a huge warship, crowded with sails, was just gliding into the Port of the Infidels. She had clearly been on a long and eventful journey: the hull, pockmarked by cannonfire, was bleached to a driftwood paleness by salt and long exposure to the elements.
The
Bee
was standing away from the mole as the white ship passed them, so near that the hull towered overhead like a great chalk cliff. The figurehead, a mad-eyed harpy, grinned down for a moment and then turned its shoulder to them. The
Bee
lurched through the warship’s wake, caught a favourable breeze, and began to make way.
By late afternoon, as Alexandria dwindled to a white mirage on the horizon, Flood looked for Pica and found her at last in the last place he expected, the galley, slicing up a cuttlefish Djinn had bought in the souk before they left.
– We’re heading for London, he said. There’s nowhere else to go, now.
Pica turned the cuttlefish over, plunged her knife into the pale underside.
– I can set up shop there again, he went on when she had not spoken. If you want, you can help me. Work in the shop. We can’t sail around the world, after all.
She drew out the translucent, quivering ink sac.
– Why not?
She could not sleep.
She knew the
Bee
so well by this time that she could move easily, even in the near-darkness, through its formerly baffling interior. Every night she made her rounds, often closing her eyes, which had too often missed the ship’s well-disguised secrets, searching only with her fingers and toes for hidden recesses, sliding panels, undiscovered passages between decks. So far she had told no one about her nightly wanderings, nor about the phantom prowling just ahead of her through the sleeping vessel, not knowing for certain whether her fancy or the ship itself was playing tricks on her.
She thought for a while that it might be Darka, who could often be found in out-of-the-way corners of the ship, picking up after the children. But it made no sense for her to be doing this in the middle of the night, even considering her fanatical tidiness. And besides, Darka usually took watch on deck while Pica was creeping around below.
She took her turn at the helm, only half-listening as Turini lingered to puzzle over the fact that ever since Alexandria the
Bee
seemed to have developed a will of its own. Every day he fought against the winds and currents bent on driving them east, only to shorten sail for the night and the next morning find the ship had accomplished what he could not, having righted itself to their northwesterly course.
The next night she stood impatiently at the helm through her watch, and when at last the carpenter relieved her she went below and continued her search, creeping along passageways, listening, and then breathlessly hurrying after the fading creak of footfalls on the planks. Dawn neared, and heading at last for bed, on a sudden impulse she crouched in one of the hidden
crawlspaces and waited without moving. After a while she heard the laboured breathing of someone moving through the cramped passage towards her. As the someone shuffled close she reached out a hand and clutched a bony wrist.
The phantom struggled, struck Pica on the breastbone with a flailing hand, pulled her hair. She would not let go.
– Very well, a woman’s voice muttered. You caught me.
She followed her unseen captive out of the crawlspace and into the light of the companionway lantern. The woman was dark-skinned, and wore a white blouse that hung untucked to her knees. Her face was streaked with dirt and shadowed by a tangle of woolly hair, through which her dark eyes glittered. There was no doubt any longer that the phantom was flesh and blood.
She would not tell them her name.
When everyone had been roused from sleep, they all gathered in the great cabin, watching the young black woman wolf down the bread and cheese that had been her first request. When she had finished her meal she sat back, belched, and commenced chewing at a fingernail, staring at each of them in turn from behind the matted ropes of her hair. Turini was the first to break the silence.
– You’ve been righting the ship’s course, he said. Why?
The young woman spat out a sliver of fingernail.
– You’re going to London, she said. So am I.
She would answer no more questions, and snatching up the spyglass on the chart table, she dashed from the great cabin and climbed out onto the quarterdeck. Like lost sheep they all followed.
She had the spyglass trained to the stern, where sea and sky were merged in a grey dawn haze.
– This ship is a madhouse, she muttered, lowering the spyglass. It took me days to figure out how everything worked. We’ve lost so much time.
– Time for what? Flood asked.
She looked at Pica and the twins and then turned again to Turini.
– Those guns in the hold. We need them up here.
– Antiques, the carpenter said. Ballast. They’ll probably explode the first time they’re fired.
– We will see.
Just then Miza pointed to the stern.
– Look.
They all turned and to Flood at first it seemed that a fragment of Alexandria had somehow broken away and followed after them. Out of the haze a shining white pyramid had materialized. He snatched the spyglass from the young woman. Into the scope jumped a huge ship under full sail, flying British colours.
– She’s called the
Acheron
, the young woman said. She’s after me.
THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE NOTORIOUS FEMALE BUCCANEER, AMPHITRITE SNOW, AND HER BLOODTHIRSTY CREW OF ADVENTURESSES, HARLOTS, AND JEZEBELS
The cargo ship
Gold Coast
, out of Southampton, was bound for New Providence in the Bahamas with a cargo of beef, beer, and women. It is not recorded that
the beef or beer gave any trouble, but the young women were another matter. Most of them were serving girls, promised well-paying positions in good homes, although the real plan was to help redress the lamentable shortage of white female flesh in the troubled colony. In a letter to the king, the governor had warned that if something wasn’t done soon to provide the male population with marriageable (or at least beddable) white women, the entire island would soon be overrun with mulatto bastards.
Despite this commission, the
Gold Coast
also carried a few black females, to help defray the cost of the voyage. They were kept under watch in the hold, as somewhat less valuable cargo. The girl who would become Amphitrite Snow was one of them. She had been stripped of her real name and dubbed
Amphitrite
in the house of the nobleman who had first purchased her, an admiral in the navy.
A goddess of the sea
, he had called her one day when he and his wife were inspecting the kitchens. The admiral’s wife had watched her closely after that day and she was let go soon after, and brought aboard the
Gold Coast
.
The crew was loud and often drunk, and from the hold Snow could hear much of what went on elsewhere in the ship. Screams and sounds of struggle soon made it clear to everyone on board that the captain had permitted his men to enjoy some of the cargo, as compensation for the rigours of the voyage.
Those lads in New Poxidence
, he could be heard encouraging them,
aren’t likely to be too picky about used goods
.
The crew eyed her often but never spoke to her as they did the others. When she was let up on deck for air one of the men gripped her arm and winked at her.
– You must be white as snow on the inside, my dear. The captain’s been saving himself for you.
So she acquired her names. Before being taken below decks, Amphitrite Snow got hold of a nail the ship’s carpenter had mislaid. The captain sent for her that night, had her brought to his cabin. When he climbed on top of her she drove the nail through the back of his hand and in between her ribs.
Goodness, you’ve crucified us
, he said, plucking out the nail with a ghastly smile. She closed her eyes and tried to fall out of her body, certain of a beating, but only silence descended. She opened her eyes. The captain was inspecting the wound she had given herself.
Not as bad as it could have been
.
He had a basin of hot water and a cloth brought to the cabin, and washed the blood from her body himself. She sat motionless, the water cooling on her skin.
We can’t mar the goods
, he finally said, standing back to look at her.
At least not until I’ve been paid. So first we’ll get you sold. Then, rest assured, I’ll be coming to pay you a visit, to catch up on old times
.
Not long afterward the crew indulged in its most riotous night of drinking. Since there were no male slaves aboard, even the watch had been allowed a tot of rum or several, and were soon sprawled about the decks, incapacitated.
Snow led a party of seven other women who broke into the weapons locker and armed themselves. In a
few minutes they had taken over the vessel and rounded up the half-uncomprehending crew. The first man who rushed them she shot at, hitting him in the belly. He sat down on the deck, holding his gut and crying until the captain growled at him to shut up. Once she had fired the gun her fear was gone, leaving the same emptiness she had felt when she was taken from her own country.
They drifted for the first few days, debating what to do next and where they might go, with the captain and his men howling at them from their prison in the hold.
You’ll hang. You’ll be torn apart by horses. You’ll be burned at the stake as witches
. Some of the women were for surrendering, for making some kind of arrangement with the captain so that the whole thing would be forgotten. She lowered a boat for them, told them to gather what they would need. No one took her up on it.
Eventually the men were brought out of the hold, herded at gunpoint into a longboat, and set adrift in the icy North Atlantic. All but the sailmaker, who was half-blind, and the doctor. Snow reasoned their skills would be needed, at least until the new crew of the
Gold Coast
could fend for itself.
They wandered the seas for months, afraid to anchor in any but the most remote places. When other ships approached, they ran up a plague flag. In time, however, they had enough contact with the rest of the world to hear about the reward of one hundred guineas
for the capture, dead or alive, of Amphitrite Snow & her crew, for the Disruption of Trade & Commerce on the High Seas; & for their diverse Abductions of Young Women, with the manifest
Intent of corrupting Morals & Persuading Others to a Life of Crime, Villainy & Murder
.
They also heard two stories that interested them greatly.
The first was a rumour about the great arch-pirate, Henry Avery, who had never been caught. It was said he had sailed away to the South Seas in his ship, the
Fancy
, and founded a pirate republic on a remote tropical island.
