Secrets of the Realm (3 page)

Annie crossed her arms. "I'm not going back to Aunt Mary."

"There must be someone, family or friends, who can take you in."

Annie wanted to say Lord and Lady Spencer, but reality punched her in the stomach. She was maid and companion to their daughter, Abigail, nothing more, nothing less. "There's no one," she said.

The floorboards creaked with each step Doc took. Annie caught two words mumbled under his breath: girl and trouble. He stopped, frowned. Deep in concentration, he paced some more. Again, he stopped. This time he scowled at Annie. "There's one thing for certain, you won't be sleeping in the men's quarters if I have anything to say about it. That would be highly improper."

"Where will I stay then?"

"Here, of course." 

Doc watched Annie squirm on the table, her bladder about to burst. He pointed to a stained chamber pot in the corner of the room. "Feel free to use it. I won't look."

"Uh, thank you, but I'll wait until you are out of the room."

"I don't leave these quarters often."

Annie blushed. "That's what Christopher told me."

"But not to worry, it's time I spoke with the captain." Doc proceeded to the door.

Annie slid off the examining table. "Kind sir, please don't tell him I'm a girl."

Doc whirled around. "I am not particularly kind and you had best call me Doc like the rest of the crew does. Remember this, nothing gets past the captain. If he discovers you are a girl, he will have you off this ship faster than you can say, 'God save the King.'"

He smiled. This time, Annie saw it wasn't forced.

"But he won't find out, because I have a plan," he said.

*     *     *

While waiting for Doc's return, Annie explored his cramped quarters. There was no bed, only a stowed hammock lying next to the chamber pot, now christened with Annie's fresh urine. Books arranged alphabetically were held in place by a one-inch wide wooden slat running the length of a single shelf.

"No Thomas Carew poems here," Annie said while she thumbed through a book entitled
De Morbis Cutaneis: A Treatise on Diseases of the Skin
.

She put the book away and turned toward the medicine cabinet. Pulling open a drawer, Annie looked at its contents, scalpels and scissors. Another drawer contained saws. She picked up one and stared at its serrated edge. Annie realized it was used for hacking off human limbs and not those of trees. She quickly dropped it back into the drawer.

Annie continued to look through the cabinet. The medicine bottles were in snug individual compartments. An object wrapped in velvet was wedged behind one of the bottles. Before she could remove it to get a better look, Annie saw the door swing open.

"Find anything to your liking, Annie?" Doc said as he shuffled in.

"No." She quickly closed the cabinet. "Please, Doc, you can't call me Annie. If I am to have any chance of staying on this ship, you must call me Andrés"

Doc waved his arms in the air. "This is my home. I will call you whatever I wish to call you in my home. Is that understood?"

"Yes." Annie changed the subject. "What did you and the captain talk about?"

"You, of course, his cabin boy."

Goose bumps peaked on her arms.

"The captain is allowing you to sleep here only until your infection is gone."

"You didn't tell me I had an infection."

"You don't, but I told him you did. I said you would never make it to the colonies if I didn't treat it vigorously."

"I'm impressed that you convinced him."

"Oh, I didn't convince him. He is suspicious, but since I have never caused him any trouble, he said he would indulge me in this bit of folly. But you are not to have a hammock."

"It won't be the first time I have slept on the floor," Annie said. "I don't care if I have a hammock or not."

"You should care. The captain doesn't want you to have a hammock, because that would be considered permanent. In the meantime, you will sleep on blankets on the floor. You will slide around when we are in rough seas. Not much we can do about that."

"As long as I can stay here, that is all I care about," Annie said.

"And once you are
healed
, Captain Hawke expects you to sleep in the fo'c'sle with the rest of the sailors."

Annie couldn't help but utter a nervous giggle.

"That will never happen. Perhaps, you would like to be a surgeon's mate." Seeing the confused look on her face, he added, "My assistant."

Remembering the saw in the drawer, Annie shivered. "Thank you for wanting me to be your assistant, but I was hired on as a cabin boy. What will my duties be?"

"You will bring Captain Hawke his meals, mine, too, clean up after him, like a manservant."

Annie scrunched up her face. "I don't have to dress the gent, do I?"

"He would box your ears if you tried."

Her cheeks cooled.

"Many of your duties won't involve the captain, like helping the ship's cook."

"So, I'm to be a servant
and
a cook? I thought my life as a sailor would be more exciting?"

"You are not a sailor yet. Just be grateful you have a place to stay."

She ignored his rebuke. "I saw men climbing the masts. Now that would be exciting. I always liked climbing trees."

 "I hope you were good at it, because the captain is sending you aloft this afternoon with Christopher. He says he doesn't want you hidden away in the bowels of the ship like me." Doc pulled out a flask from his desk drawer and unscrewed the top. "I told him maybe he should make you a gunner's mate and then you could simply blow yourself up, a less painful death than falling off a mast."

Annie's mouth went dry.

"The captain's not a patient man." The creases in Doc's brow deepened. "Mustn't keep him waiting. Off with you now."

CHAPTER FOUR

While Annie stood outside Captain Hawke's cabin, the soft rumblings of her stomach became insistent roars. She began to tremble. Whether it was from hunger or nervousness, she didn't know. Annie grasped the door handle for support. Her knuckles barely made a sound when she knocked on the door.

No answer. She rapped harder.

"Come in."

The captain's voice didn't sound inviting, she thought. Annie opened the door. She took several halting steps into the cabin before her eyes rolled back in her head as she collapsed on the Turkish rug.

In her dreamlike state, she heard an unfamiliar name called. She heard it again, this time louder.

"Andrés!"

A sharp slap to her uninjured cheek followed. Her head flopped to one side. An even harder slap stung the same cheek. "Leave me alone," was what she wanted to say, but she could only moan.

Annie heard retreating footsteps and then quicker ones returning. She remained motionless on the blue, red and yellow carpet until…

Splash! 

Annie sat up with a start. Captain Hawke stood over her with a dripping tankard in his hand. At first, she did not recognize him without his tricorn hat. She licked the sweet port trickling down her lips before wiping her face on her sleeve.

Captain Hawke's dark eyebrow jutted upward. "Thought I lost my cabin boy before we even set sail."

Annie struggled to focus her eyes.

"You passed out," he said.

With eyes half shut, Annie's nose twitched in the direction of the captain's half-eaten breakfast.

"When was the last time you ate a full meal, boy?"

Her head throbbing, Annie thought a moment. "I can't remember."

He waved his arm toward the food. "Help yourself."

Aware the captain was not helping her off the floor, Annie self-consciously crawled to his desk. She pulled herself into a musty-smelling armchair before reaching for the plate and stuffed her mouth with cold eggs, bangers and mash. She swirled her finger around the dish, wiping it clean of the potatoes. Annie then licked her finger up one side and down the other.

With the food settling in her stomach, Annie looked at the dish and then at the captain. "Oh my, I didn't mean to eat it all."

He laughed. "Keep eating like that, boy, and we'll fatten you up in no time."

"Pardon my poor manners."

He shrugged, leaving Annie to believe he didn't care one way or the other.

While light streamed through the stern-side windows, Annie scanned the cabin. She took it all in. There was an unmade bed securely attached to the wall and floor, a hammock stowed next to it. For rough days out at sea, she assumed. Unlike the surgeon's quarters, the ceiling was high enough for the captain to stand at his full height.

Her attention returned to the desk. Amid rolled charts and maps was an assortment of snuffboxes. One intricately carved box caught her eye. Annie reached for it, and then hesitated. "May I?" she asked.

Captain Hawke dipped his chin.

She picked up the box, turning it about in her hands. She opened and closed the lid. No tobacco. After examining the carved figures of two men holding swords, she said, "It is beautiful craftsmanship, Captain."

Through looking at it, she put the box down on the edge of the mahogany desk and slipped off the chair.

She rested her hand on the corner of the desk. Confident she would not faint again, Annie ventured across the floor. She looked at the sword and knives of various lengths and shapes, some jewel encrusted, displayed on the wall. 

But it was the bookcase spanning one side of the cabin that interested her the most. While Captain Hawke's book collection would have filled only a few shelves of Lord Spencer's library, it was imposing nonetheless.

"Have you read them all, Captain?"

"Most of them." Staring at Annie's skeptical face, the captain said, "Does that surprise you?"

"A little. You don't look…" Annie's mouth slammed shut. Her eyes widened.

"Spit it out, boy. I don't look like what? Educated? Is that the word that caught your tongue?" he said. "I am not educated, not like Mr. Montgomery, but I can read. Not many sailors can say that. Can you read, boy?"

"Aye, Captain. I love reading poetry, history. I especially enjoy Shakespeare. I learned my letters at my father's knee, but it was…a friend who introduced me to the Bard." Annie almost mentioned Abigail's name. As it was, she wondered if she had given him too much information.

 "Just like I thought; you
are
an educated Englishman. Do you have a favorite book, boy?"

"My mother's poems by Garcilaso de la Vega, she read them to me in Spanish. There was another book I loved, my father's book about pirates. I really loved that one, too, but I can't remember its name."

Annie's hands became hot. She rubbed them on her trousers, but could not extinguish the memory of sifting through warm ashes. None of her treasured belongings escaped the flames, not one dog-eared page, not even a thread from her mother's embroidered sampler. "Aunt Mary burned them all," she said bitterly under her breath.

"Speak up, boy," the captain said.

"It was nothing important, Captain."

He turned and pulled out a book, flipping through its pages. "You said a book about pirates was one of your favorites?" His voice was even, each word measured. He replaced the book to the shelf. "Does a pirate's life sound exciting to you, Andrés?"

"Aye, Captain. When I was much younger, my little sister loved watching me pretend to be a pirate." Annie left out the part about how she battled the imaginary foes while wearing a dress down to her ankles.

With her left arm curved at the elbow, hand pointed upward, Annie playfully thrust her other hand at the captain. "En garde," she said.

Annie froze in mid-thrust when the captain seized her arm, almost wrenching it from its socket. When he dropped her wrist, he spat out his words. "There is nothing entertaining about pirates. When pirates hoist the Jolly Roger, they know they can take what they want. That skull and crossbones put fear into many a sailor's heart. If it didn't, then cannonballs fired across the bow certainly would." His eyes narrowed. "Merchant ships seldom fight back."

Annie rubbed her shoulder. "Why not?"

"They are not adequately armed and the miserable wages sailors are paid doesn't inspire much loyalty." 

Annie's curiosity wasn't satisfied. "Is Godenot…"

She barely got the name out when the captain bellowed, "What possesses you to speak of that devil's name on my ship?"

"I-I only wanted to know if he is as evil a pirate as I have been told, worse than Edward Low or Blackbeard."

Captain Hawke glared at her, his eyes dark as coal. "On the Realm, we speak neither his name or of his ship."

"The Crimson Revenge?" Annie clasped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late.

"Did you not hear me?"

"Please forgive me, Captain. I will be careful not to mention…Well, you know what I mean."

He sighed. "Do you have any more questions?"

His voice had softened. Annie took it as a peace offering. She felt it safe to ask, "If the Realm was attacked, would you give up without a fight?"

The captain's eyebrow peaked higher than she had witnessed before. "Never!" He slammed his fist down on his desk barely missing the snuffbox Annie had admired earlier. "
My
men are handsomely paid and we have enough cannons to blow any pirate ship to bloody hell!"

His chest heaved in and out. "Enough about pirates," he snapped. "If you want to take a book back to Doc's quarters, take one."

Annie nodded as she scanned the books.

"I don't have all day, pick one."

She ran an uncertain finger along the tomes' spines.

Impatient, Captain Hawke pulled out a book of poetry by John Dryden. "Don't care much for his writing." He pulled out another. "Here's one about the Roman Empire, conquests, murder. That should satisfy a curious lad such as you."

"Thank you, Captain."

He strolled to the door. "After you clean my cabin and take my dishes to the galley, come topside. Time you met your shipmates."

CHAPTER FIVE

On the quarterdeck, Captain Hawke chatted with Mr. Montgomery. When he saw Annie, he called to Christopher, "Show Andrés around and tell him about ship protocol."