The Dagger X (The Dagger Chronicles) (30 page)

“Duck is not safe in Port Royal,” William said. “Perhaps you are still involved in that other business?” His eyebrows arched.

“Business? That is not a business. Businesses make money. That is only an expense.”

“So you still help the caged birds to freedom?” he said slowly.

Bethany nodded. “Now and then. Not enough as I should, but yes. I remember you and I were of like minds in this regard.”

“In Jamaica even the priests bless slavery,” William
answered. “That is proof enough to me it is an evil thing.”

It was Bethany’s turn to caress William’s hand. “I can get Duck to Nanny. But I am not a woman of means. We’ll need you, too.”

“My personal worth is at a bit of a low, madam. The pie in my stomach is all I have left in the world.”

“Where is all your treasure, Pirate Quick?”

William shook his head. “By now it is all in Morris’s greedy hands.”

Bethany turned. Sims’s footfalls approached gradually from the abyss of darkness. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Life has set upon me more times than all the times you have ever known, young man. Remember the Greek proverb: ‘There is many a slip twixt a cup and a lip.’ ” Bethany rose. “Stay alive for now, and leave the rest to me.”

“My men, too,” William said. “My men, too.”

Bethany scowled. “As stubborn as ever.”

“Pigheaded,” William agreed.

Bethany walked with the lantern toward Vernon Sims, who had come to a stop several yards away. She handed him the lantern, the yellow light distorting the man’s features into the mask of some kind of demon.

“Mr. Sims,” she said. “I will be taking care of Mr. Quick’s food and drink for the remainder of his stay here.”

“That’s all fine and good, ma’am, but . . .”

“Shut your mouth, Mr. Sims, if you please,” Bethany whispered. “Hold the lantern up a bit higher, man.”
Sims raised it. “I would like you to see the look in my eye when I say these words to you.”

“Now wait, Dame.”

“I will not wait. You may kill me now, here, in the dark, Mr. Sims, and discard of my body. If that is your intention—”

“Of course it ain’t!”

“If it is not, sir, then you had best hear
my
intention. Should Mr. Quick or any of his compatriots in this cursed gaol meet with any further torments at your hands, I can assure you that I will arrange to have your head stove in. I would wager that even Gibbs would do it for an extra meat pie, and if not him, then I have plenty more who owe me a favor or two who would do it gleefully. Am I understood, Mr. Sims?”

“You threatening me?”

“I am. And not idly.”

Sims grunted.

“The words, if you please.”

“Good enough,” Sims said, scowling. “But I don’t like it.”

“I
am sorry, Gran-B, but Julius could not hold it. He made his business over there in the corner.”

Bethany had just reentered the parlor after unlocking it with the key that Richard had given her for the task. She rested her collapsed parasol against the leg of an upholstered chair and looked to where Duck indicated.

“As tidy as a cat,” she said, impressed.

“Even cleaner!” Duck said. “Cats lick themselves with their tongues all the time. Everybody knows that ain’t clean.”

“
Isn’t
clean,” Bethany said, arching an eyebrow.

“Aw, Gran!”

Outside the sun had just set, and the shadows stretched long.

“I need you and Julius to come with me. There is someone you must meet.”

Duck gathered Julius up onto his shoulder and followed as Bethany led him to a door at the far side of the room. She opened it to reveal a back stair leading down to the kitchen.

“Very quiet now,” she said. “Two of the boarders have returned. It is best that no one knows you are here.”

Duck knew how to be quiet. He hoped that Julius remembered as well. They stepped gingerly down the painted planks and reached a kitchen in which a slim and very dark woman poked a wooden spoon at a boiling chicken on the stove. The woman turned to greet them but froze when she saw Duck. Duck smiled and waved at her. The woman pointed the spoon at the boy.

“Miss B, is this one of them things I am not really seeing?” she asked in a low voice.

“That is correct, Janie. Two of them, actually. You neither saw a boy nor a monkey in my home.”

“Seems I would remember if I had seen such strange sights.”

Duck looked down at himself, then up at Bethany. He leaned a cupped hand toward the old woman. “Is she blind?” he said. Bethany winked at him and pushed him toward a narrow door at the back of the kitchen. She undid the bolt at the top and turned the knob. Janie brought over to her a candle she lit from the fire in the oven.

Behind the door was a set of rough steps leading down into darkness.

“Go on, Duck,” she said, but the little boy hesitated.

“Oh, not again!” Duck lamented. “Can’t whoever it is come up here instead?”

Bethany held her hand out to him and Duck took it. “Fear not,” she said, and together they made their
way down the creaky stairs. Behind them Janie closed the door and turned the deadbolt. Duck squeezed tight Bethany’s hand.

“I think she just locked us in, Gran-B,” Duck said. Bethany tucked the boy’s arm under hers. “All is well, Duck. Trust me.” The stairwell was not long, and ran itself out against a hard-packed dirt floor. Duck looked around at the stacks of old vegetable crates and cobwebbed jars. The cellar was larger than a typical root cellar, occupying most of the rooming house’s footprint.

“Dumaka!” Bethany said. The dirt walls and floor seemed to swallow up her voice. Duck looked up at her questioningly, but then recoiled in fear as he saw something move off in the recesses of shadow. The shadow approached them, and the first that Duck could make out of the darkness were the whites of two eyes. A young man stepped forward into the candle’s glow.

“Dumaka,” Bethany said. She pointed at the young boy clutching her dress. “This is Duck. Duck,” she said again slowly, and Duck looked across the candlelit space suspiciously, thinking this other fellow must be a bit hard in the head to have to be spoken to so simply. He cast a wary look at the man. He seemed barely old enough to call himself a man, really, but he stood tall enough and had the darkest skin that Duck had ever seen. He wore no shirt, simply a pair of ragged trousers that ran to the knee.

“And Julius,” Duck said, pointing at the monkey on his shoulder, who gave Dumaka a leery appraisal.
Dumaka held an open hand out to Julius to show the animal he meant it no harm, and Duck was curious to see that the skin on the palm of Dumaka’s hand was much lighter than on the rest of his body.

“Duck,” Bethany looked down at him. “This is Dumaka. He is a slave who has run away.”

“Oh!” Duck had very little sense of what it meant to be a slave. Before his journey across the ocean he knew the term only from hearing it when little kids complained after being ordered around by the bigger ones down at the wharf in Falmouth. They would say things like, “It ain’t like I’m your slave!” Now he knew slavery mostly by smell, a visceral memory of the slave ship on which he had spent a single night some weeks before, an odor that etched an indelible mark in his memory.

“I am a slave who ran away too!” he said to the young man. He held out his hand to shake as his mother had taught him. Dumaka looked at the boy’s hand, then back up at Bethany. She nodded at him, and slowly Dumaka extended his own. Duck lifted the man’s arm in two dramatic shakes, then released his hand. Dumaka’s lips lifted into a slight smile. “Who did
you
run away from?” Duck asked. The man looked up at Bethany expectantly.

“Henry Morgan,” she said.

“Same!” Duck said aloud, grinning broadly. “Well, sort of.” He grinned. Dumaka smiled broadly now, deep dimples puckering his cheeks. He reached out and patted Duck atop the head. Julius growled softly and shoved Dumaka’s hand away.

“Julius, be nice! He ain’t hurting me or nothing.” Duck tilted his head.

“Isn’t,” Bethany corrected.

“Aw, Gran.”

“Listen to me, Duck,” Bethany said. “This is important. Dumaka was very lucky. He happened to hide in a shed owned by a Quaker man opposed to slavery. That man knew to bring him to me.”

“Why you, Gran-B?”

“Because from time to time I help slaves to make it to the maroon colonies, something for which I could be severely punished by the law.”

“What’s a manure colony?”

“
Maroon.
It is a place on this island where runaway slaves live. It is far from here, deep in the mountains, hard enough to get to that no one ever tries to bring them back.”

“Oh. Is that where he is going?”

“Yes. And you are going with him.”

Duck looked up at Bethany with wounded eyes. “But, Gran, I thought I would stay with you!”

Bethany brushed her thumb against the boy’s cheek. “It is only for a time. Until I can get my affairs in order, and then I shall fetch you and we shall go far from here to live.”

“Will my mum and Kitto be able to find me there?”

“We can hold out hope, can we not?”

“Right,” Duck said. “More of that hoping stuff.” He breathed a heavy sigh.

“So when are Dumaka and me leaving for the manure?”

Duck slept atop a fresh pile of straw, a bundled wool blanket tucked under his head for a pillow. Julius curled in his customary place—in the crook between Duck’s legs—while Dumaka made his bed farther along the dirt wall of the cellar. A rickety stack of crates on the floor provided a makeshift wall to hide them should one of the boarders happen to venture down, but the likelihood of that was small. Janie could be quite cross when her kitchen was invaded during the day, and her nights she spent on the sleeping porch adjacent to the kitchen.

“Wake up, son. Wake up!”

Duck stirred but did not open his eyes. He had not slept in safety for weeks, and for the first time in so long his dreams were untroubled and deep.

“Rise up. It is time,” Bethany said. Her efforts were helped along by Julius, who scampered up Duck’s prostrate body and inserted a furry monkey finger into the boy’s left nostril, and then—when Julius received little reaction—a second finger into the other. Duck sat up sneezing and swatted at his pet.

“That’s rude!” Duck said, scowling up at the lantern Bethany held. The boy’s eyes came into focus, and he saw that Dumaka had already risen and was standing behind Bethany, his eyes wide with fear.

“Is it time?”

“It is. Sit up now and be alert. I have important
things to tell you. Dumaka will not understand it all, so you must be able to hear and to remember for the both of you. If you do not, then neither of you will survive.”

“Oi!” Duck rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, then gave his head a savage shake. Blades of straw slipped from his head onto his shoulders. Bethany brushed them away.

“A man will come to take you on a wagon ride. Get in the back of the wagon and cover yourselves with straw.”

“To stay hidden?”

“Yes. He will ride you well out of town, to a creek. Follow the creek upstream and just keep going. It will take you several days before you get there.”

“To where the other runaways live.”

“Yes. They will see you before you see them. And they have guns.”

“Do they know we are coming?” Duck said.

Bethany shook her head. “Stay with Dumaka and they will understand that you are runaways. Find a woman named Nanny. She is the leader of the colonies. And tell her that I sent you.” Bethany produced a small leather pouch with a thong that she looped about Duck’s neck. She tucked the pouch beneath his shirt.

“What’s that?” he asked, patting the pouch under his shirt.

“It is some money for Nanny, and a note of explanation.”

“When will you be coming, Gran-B?” Duck said. He hated the thought of having to leave the kindly woman.
“You’re . . . well . . . you and my uncle, you’re like the only family I have got in Jamaica.” Bethany pulled Duck in for a hug. She held him long and tried to squeeze all her love into the little boy. How could he have found his way into her heart almost instantly? But she knew how. She knew that her heart had been waiting for just such a moment for the last seven years.