The Dagger X (The Dagger Chronicles) (34 page)

This history Kitto did know. “Yes, sir! William Quick was there. He was one of Henry Morgan’s buccaneers.”

Alberto set the goblet on the table. “Those men burned the city to the ground and stole everything they could get
their hands on. But the inhabitants of Panama had gotten word from friendly natives that the English were coming.”

It was Kitto’s turn to lean forward. “My father told me of this! And my uncle. The treasure the buccaneers expected to find in Panama was not there.”

“
Correcto.
It had been removed, mostly by ship, but not all. There was a great trove of very fine religious art in Panama as well, most of it kept in the church there in the heart of the colony. They were truly magnificent, these pieces, the work of an artist inspired by God. The artist’s name was Ignacio Asalto.”

“Were these works of art stolen during the raid, then?” Kitto said, looking down at the cross in his hands, realizing its presence already answered his question. The padre continued.

“The head priest of that church, a Cardinal Pérez, worried that a ship containing all of Asalto’s great works would be too vulnerable—pirates, shipwreck, etcetera. So he ordered that a mule train travel ten miles into the jungle, far from the path of the buccaneers, and remain hidden there until they received word that the infidels had fled.”

“And those were the men and women who . . .” Kitto began, then faltered.

“Who were found dead? Yes. I know this because I was one of the priests who was sent out to find them after the pirates had burned our fair city and left. I led the expedition.”

“Why?” Kitto shook his head. “Why would someone have killed priests and nuns?”

“They were unarmed,” Padre Alberto said. “A few of
the men had machetes for moving through the jungle, but otherwise nothing. So you tell me, Christopher Quick, nephew of William Quick, why would your uncle have killed fourteen men and women when all he had to do was take the treasure from them without violence?”

Kitto wrapped one hand around the cross and closed his eyes, thinking back to what William had told him of Panama.

“He told me,” Kitto began slowly, “that he and his men had hiked off into the jungle, but it was not this treasure he was after. He was hunting down one of his fellow buccaneers, a John Morris, one of Henry Morgan’s closest friends and partners.”

Padre Alberto grimaced. “Yes. I know this name. He is a vile predator whose cruelty was once known widely among our people.”

“Yes,” Kitto said. “John Morris and Henry Morgan had stolen . . .” Kitto paused and chanced a glance at the padre. The man was watching him intently. Kitto decided that he must speak the truth, that the man would know otherwise. And the priest was likely all that kept him and his friends from the hangman’s rope.

“Morgan and Morris had stolen nutmeg. The spice. Many barrels of it. It had belonged to the Dutch, but somehow ended up in Panama at the time of the attack.”

Padre Alberto gave a slight smile of satisfaction, knowing honesty when he saw it. “Yes, I know of the nutmeg. You are correct about its origins. Continue.”

Kitto let out a quiet sigh of relief. “William said that he came upon Morris in the jungle. Morris only had a few
men with him. They fought, and Morris escaped into the jungle, but not before my uncle had . . . cut off a piece of the man’s nose.”

The padre’s eyebrows arched. “That is where ‘The Beak’ received his wound? In Panama?”

Kitto nodded. “But this is the part that has always troubled me. When my uncle spoke to me of the nutmeg he took from Morris, he sometimes used the word ‘treasure,’ and then would correct himself. I believe there were two treasures, and that he was not ready to tell me of the second.”

Padre Alberto folded his hands before him in a position that resembled prayer. “You believe your uncle found Morris after Morris had stolen the Asalto collection?”

“I do, sir! Truly I do,” Kitto said. “Make no mistake, my uncle would have quite happily taken it from priests and nuns. But kill them? He is not that kind of man.”

Padre Alberto shrugged. “If not, then you are saying John Morris is capable of such butchery. Why is this any more believable?”

Kitto gritted his teeth, and he could feel the heat rise in his cheeks.

“It is far more believable, sir. John Morris murdered my father. Right before my eyes!” Kitto stared balefully at the padre and did not turn away when his eyes filled with tears.

Padre Alberto stood and walked to the window. He let his eyes trace the leadwork on the stained glass. The silence grew long between them before he spoke.

“If you speak the truth, then your life was forever
altered by that man,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I will share with you another truth.

“Before I became a man of God, I had a wife and a son. When my wife died during childbirth, I turned to God to aid me in my grief, and he saw me through. I returned this generosity in the way I felt I should, abandoning my profession as a tradesman and taking the orders of holy office. My son was raised with the help of church members, nuns, and myself, of course. God ran deep in my boy, but he and I . . .” The padre ran a hand across his clean-shaved chin. “We struggled. He left me when still a young man, left Spain, and traveled to Panama. Some years later I received orders to minister in Panama, and I discovered that my son was making a name for himself there as an artisan—an artist even.”

Kitto understood. “And he worked in gold?” Kitto said. “Ignacio Asalto was your son?” The padre turned, and Kitto was surprised to see a single tear roll down the man’s cheek. Padre Alberto seemed not to notice it.

“We had just begun to mend our relationship when the barbarians attacked Panama. My son insisted on traveling with his art into the jungle, accompanying the church officials.”

Kitto’s jaw dropped. “Your son was one of those who was murdered?”

Alberto nodded. “If what you say is true, Christopher, then John Morris has undone both of our lives.”

Kitto looked down at the cross in his hands and felt a momentary loathing for it. He rose and hobbled over to the priest, holding the gold cross out in front of him.

“I . . . I should not even have this a moment, Padre,” he said. Kitto held out the necklace, but Padre Alberto did not turn. “Please take it, sir.”

Still the man did not move. “Wear it, Christopher. Many people have said that my Ignacio’s hand was blessed by God himself. You need all the protection our Father can possibly provide you.”

Kitto saw his moment.
Now, when the man’s back is turned.

“William Quick knows where the rest of your son’s works are hidden,” Kitto said, speaking quickly, hoping that the detail he was leaving out—that he too knew the location of the treasured art—would not be written on his face somehow for the padre to read were he to look now. “He could lead you to them. But, Your Excellency, we have little time! William Quick has been captured by John Morris and has by now reached Jamaica. He is sure to be tried and hanged, sir!”

The padre turned, a look of alarm on his face.

“Your uncle could return my son’s works to me? To Spain?”

Kitto nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Then we must act with haste.”

K
itto stood at the starboard rail of the Spanish ship, looking out over the endless glister of blue that was the Caribbean Sea, lit with gold fire from the new sunrise. The Spanish crew had kept to themselves the last three days. Only Exquemelin, who seemed to know passable Spanish, could provoke them to speak at all. He informed Kitto that they would likely sight land that day.

A deal had been struck back in Havana. Padre Alberto—using his sway as the most powerful church official in the New World—arranged for a ship to take Exquemelin and Kitto to a remote section of northeastern Jamaica, along with Van, Sarah, Ontoquas, Bucket, and Akin. None of the other pirates were allowed to accompany them. Although Padre Alberto had not put it in such terms, Kitto understood that the remaining fourteen men were collateral to the deal. If Kitto and Exquemelin returned to Cuba with the Asalto treasure, the men would go free. If not . . .

Unconsciously Kitto traced his fingers along his neck. The abraded skin from his near hanging had
grown scaly, but it was not so tender as it had been.

“You are thinking of it again,” Sarah said. “That horror.” She came up behind Kitto and wrapped her arms around him. Nearby, Ontoquas held Bucket up in outstretched arms, then would lower him slowly to rub noses together. Akin looked on, grinning broadly. Bucket’s brown cheeks glowed, and his low chuckle was like music, but this time Kitto did not smile.

“I woke myself up dreaming of it last night, the moment when you were taken from the prison cell,” Sarah said.

“All I could think about at first was that I had failed Father,” Kitto said.

“How could you possibly have done that?”

“You. And Duck. I was going to die and not be around to see to you.”

“Kitto,” Sarah said, squeezing him tight. “It is not your role to care for me. It is no one’s role but my own. Do I seem so fragile to you?”

Kitto lowered his head, his cheeks flushed. “I suppose I could not care for you, anyway,” he said. “Without my foot I am even more useless than I used to be.”

“Not true,” Sarah said. “You are somewhat less able, yes. But the world will see you differently now, strange as that is.”

“Yes, it is strange. Makes me . . . angry,” he said.

“Do not bother with the anger, Monsieur Quick!” Exquemelin said, suddenly appearing beside them, a spyglass raised to his eye. His voice still rasped as it had
since the near hanging. “Anger devours the soul.”

“What do you do, then?”

“I laugh. Laughter is a balm, young pirate. Keep laughing and life’s bitter arrows will never find their mark on you.” X winked.

Kitto raised an eyebrow. “Good advice if it could be heeded,” he said. “You have not been laughing so much since we were cut down. I would have thought that alone would give you plenty to laugh about.”

X shrugged. He fished about in the brown sack at his belt, producing a small handful of roasted coffee beans, which he inspected with a scowl.

“It would be easier for me to laugh if the Spanish knew how to roast coffee like the Dutch,” he said.

“You are worried for the men,” Kitto said, then wished he had not.

X nodded, chewing thoughtfully. “Only Little John is beyond worry.” They were quiet a moment, each thinking of the gentle giant of a man.

“But does that help me, this worrying?” X shook his head. “No.
Helemaal niet.
Worry makes a man think too much, and too much thought makes him dead.”

“You love your men,” Sarah said. “That is nothing to be ashamed of. Love is a blessing that sometimes has the weight of a burden.”

“Easier not to love,” X said.

“No. That is far more difficult indeed.”

“Tierra a la vista!”
hailed a voice from above them.

“Land!” said Exquemelin. “They have sighted it.
Dónde?
” he called up to the sailor, but an officer had occupied the lookout’s attention. The man above pointed straight ahead, a few points to port.

“
Ja, ja.
That will be Jamaica,” X said. “Eh,
jongen
, lookee here.” Kitto turned to see the comical grin spread across the captain’s face. “I am feeling better already!”

Two hours later Kitto, Van, Sarah, Ontoquas, Bucket, and X were all piled into a small rowboat along with several satchels full of provisions and leather skins filled with fresh water. X skulled the oars to keep them a safe distance from the Spanish ship while he engaged in conversation with Captain Peña up on deck.

“Two weeks,” the captain called down to them in a thick accent. “In two weeks time we return. We wait for one week, no more.” Peña had a long mustache groomed to perfection and waxed so that the ends came to neat curling points. The mustache added to his haughty air.

“Perhaps I will need you here before then,” X said.

“Two weeks, pirate. Be thankful I will do even that.”

“Oh, but I am!” X put his hand to his heart. “Your generosity fills me, and my cup runneth over. I will be sure to commend you to His Excellency Padre Alberto.” Peña sneered and turned away.

“Is it wise to irritate a captain we will need in a few weeks?” Van said, but X simply stuck his tongue out at Van and started rowing for shore.

The rolling waves tossed the rowboat, and Bucket opened his eyes to wail in protest. Sarah offered a finger
in front of the infant. Bucket snatched it and popped it into his mouth.

“Is there a path to follow?” Kitto said. The island ahead was a mass of tropical forest stretching out as far as the eye could see in each direction. Were it not for Exquemelin’s certainty that it was indeed Jamaica, Kitto would never have known it was an island at all. It seemed enormous. He searched the wooded shoreline for some sign of humanity, but there was none.

X wagged his head side to side. “There is a path. It might be a while before we find it.” Kitto and Ontoquas exchanged a look.