The Island (27 page)

“Survive . . . to do what?”

“Survive to survive. Never forget, Mencken, that beneath it all, man is an animal. Civilization is fur. These people are shaven; they are true to their nature.”

As he said this, Windsor had looked at Maynard, but now his attention snapped back to the fight, drawn by an anguished wail from the catamite.

The catamite lay on his back, curled up, his hands clamped to his bleeding crotch. The whore crouched over him. Her fingernails dug into the flesh surrounding his pharynx.

The catamite looked at Windsor and raised a hand to him, pleading.

“Doctor?” Nau said. “He’s yours.”

Windsor grimaced at the devastated wreck. “He is not pretty,” he said, and he shook his head and turned away.

The catamite’s scream was throttled by the whore’s claws.

Maynard felt bile rise in his throat.

The cut-and-battered whore paraded around the clearing, triumphantly twirling the leather codpiece above her head, grinning in acknowledgment of the crowd’s applause.

As he watched the catamite’s body being dragged away, Maynard said, “An expensive party.”

“Two? Expensive?” said Nau. “No. Many battles cost more.”

Maynard had not seen Beth leave the clearing, so he started when he saw her appear from the darkness and walk, with measured pace, to the center of the clearing. She had changed into a clean white linen robe and had oiled her skin and hair. She looked demure, virginal. She stood silently by the rum pot, hands clasped in front of her, eyes downcast.

“Hold!” called Nau. “Be still.”

The whore sat down, and the crowd noise subsided.

“Goody Sansdents has a statement.”

Beth raised her eyes and said, “No longer am I Goody Sansdents. I carry a Maynard child.”

An appreciative whoop rose from the crowd.

Nau saluted Maynard. “You have done your work.”

Maynard’s fingers touched the raw skin of his neck. He knew now why there had been a sadness, a tenderness, to Beth’s love-making, why Nau had permitted his chain to be removed, why he was suddenly “trustworthy.”

Hizzoner patted Maynard’s shoulder and said, “Journey’s done, lad. Take thine ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” Routinely, he added: “Luke 12:19.”

Windsor picked up the thread. “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Luke, 12:20.”

“God is in heaven,” Hizzoner responded to Windsor, “and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. Ecclesiastes 5:2.”

“When?” Maynard said dully.

“Tomorrow,” replied Nau.

“The Lord’s day.” Hizzoner nodded. “A good day to die, for He is resting and will attend to your welcome.”

“How?”

“Quickly,” Nau said. “As you choose, for this is surgery, not retribution. But for the moment”—he passed Maynard the chalice—“give thought only to revelry.”

Maynard wet his lips but he could not drink. Fantasies of elaborate, impossible escapes flashed through his head, and though he knew, realistically, that he had no hope, he was unwilling to signal complete surrender by drinking himself into a coma that death would only deepen. Besides, for all he knew they were right: Death might be an adventure, and there was no point in starting a new adventure smashed.

The rum pot was refilled and reheated, and drinking resumed with an active fervor which suggested that a gold star awaited the first to reach unconsciousness.

Hizzoner opened a new bottle of brandy and took it back to his tree stump, where he slapped his companion awake and embarked on a new course of religious instruction.

Windsor lay back and sucked on his scotch bottle and contemplated the stars.

Beth filled a stoneware jug with rum and sat on the ground, occasionally rubbing her stomach and smiling. She refused to look at Maynard—reluctant, perhaps, to mar happy thoughts of her future with reminders that Maynard, who had given her that future, had no future of his own.

Nau drank less hastily than the others, and every few seconds he glanced into the darkness.

“Expecting someone?” Maynard asked.

“Aye. The capstone of a successful day.”

A moment later, they heard footsteps on the path and turned to see the two boys enter the clearing.

Manuel led the way. He wore a white shirt and clean white trousers and, around his neck, a gold coin on a gold chain.

Justin, following, was dressed like a dauphin. He wore a doublet of lavender velvet, white satin knickers, silk stockings, and silver-buckled black leather shoes. An ivory-handled dagger was stuck in his belt. The little finger of each hand bore an emerald ring. He was a perfect period piece, except for the shoulder holster slung under his left arm.

Justin’s hair was swept back and tied, and a ribboned pigtail had been pinned onto it. His manner was self-consciously regal: He carried his head high, and, as he crossed the clearing, he looked at no one but Nau.

“Hear me!” Nau said.

What little chatter there was, faded, and all that remained were faint sounds of snoring and, from a clump of bushes, retching.

“I had a son and he died,” Nau announced. He was drunker than Maynard had thought: His head seemed heavy, and every time it tipped slightly it unbalanced Nau’s stance, forcing him to compensate with a half step forward. “I would have taken this one as my second son.” He let a hand flop on Manuel’s shoulder. “But he’s got Portugee and zambo and a rightful stew of others in him, so if he is to lead it will be by conquest. This one”—he clapped his other hand on Justin’s shoulder—“I therefore take now as my son, to share the burdens and the benefits and . . .” He forgot his words. “And . . . the rest.” Nau staggered, and steadied himself on the two boys. “But I predict the day when this Manuel and this Tue-Barbe will have at it for the office. Who will win? The better, and that is as it should be, for the strong must prevail.”

Unbidden, Hizzoner proclaimed from his place by the tree stump: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever.”

“Well said.” Nau took a gold-coin pendant, larger than the one Manuel wore, from his pouch and hung it around Justin’s neck.

Justin smiled a complacent half smile, almost a smirk of
noblesse oblige.

You insufferable little twit, Maynard thought, and he had consciously to restrain himself from leaping to his feet and, as his last mortal act, punching his child in the mouth.

“And so the time has come,” Nau said, taking Justin by the hand, “to become a man.” He led the boy among the slumbering bodies, stopping here to examine a countenance, there to squeeze a thigh. “Here,” he said finally, and with his toe he prodded a whore awake. “Up, lady. You’ve got work to do.”

The whore stirred and coughed.

“Take this lad and teach him the use of his weapon.”

Snorting and spitting and grumbling, the whore struggled to her feet. “I’d be more lively with a night’s sleep.”

“I say be lively now.”

The whore took Justin’s hand. “Come, boy.”

“When next I see him, he’d best be no more a boy.” Nau turned to Manuel. “Go with them. That sow is like to sleep before her duty’s done.”

As Manuel passed in front of Maynard, he glanced Maynard’s way, and in the glance Maynard read Manuel’s intention that Justin should never reach the age of leadership.

One by one, they fell asleep. First Beth, who passed out while draining the last drops from her stoneware jug. Then Windsor, whose bottle slipped from his hand and gurgled empty on his chest. Hizzoner launched a statement about the Kingdom of Heaven, which sank in snores. Finally Nau, who crawled for the shelter of his hut but succumbed with his legs sticking out through the doorway.

Maynard sat and listened for sounds of wakefulness, but there were none.

He was alone and free. He could leave the clearing and go to the cove and take a boat and sail away. No. There would be a guard on the boats. He could make a float, then, and float away. Something was wrong; it was too easy. Perhaps they wanted him to try to float away, perhaps they thought—in some perverse solicitude—it would be a kindness to let him float away and drown. After all, they had said he could choose his own death. No. They couldn’t take the chance that he might survive. It was possible. Windsor had.

It was something else. Maybe they knew he wouldn’t leave without Justin. But what was to stop him from taking Justin? Not the whore. Manuel? Maybe, but Manuel could be taken unawares and quickly silenced. Did they think he wouldn’t kill Manuel? Were they counting on him being restrained by his “worldly” code of ethics? He hoped that was the case. It would be a pleasure to show them how well they had corrupted him.

He would get Justin and go to the cove. If he could kill the guard and take a boat, he would; if not, they would go to a far end of the island and make a raft—or something, anything—and cast themselves adrift. Maynard wished he could tell time from the stars, for he would have liked to know how much time he would have before daylight, before discovery and pursuit.

He crawled to the edge of the clearing, where Jack the Bat’s trousers hung from a bush. There was a knife in a sheath threaded onto the belt, and Maynard took it.

When he was well away from the clearing, walking silently—careful to avoid snapping dry branches—in the assumed direction of the prostitutes’ lodges, Maynard stopped and cut a length of vine to use as a garotte, if Manuel could not be otherwise subdued, or as bonds to tie Manuel or the guard stationed by the pinnaces.

He rounded a bend in the path and saw the prostitutes’ lodges. He stopped and held his breath, searching the darkness for Manuel. The clearing was empty, the lodges dark and silent.

He sprinted across the sand to the nearest lodge and stood outside, listening. It was empty, as were the second and the third. As he crept along the wall of the fourth lodge, he heard heavy breathing and Justin’s voice, angry: “Well? Now what?”

In response, a snore.

The click-
click
of a bullet being chambered into an automatic pistol, then Justin’s voice, menacing: “Wake up, damn your eyes! I’ll blow your head off!”

Maynard was shocked by the icy resolve in Justin’s voice, but he didn’t have the luxury of contemplative reaction: He couldn’t let a bullet explode in the still night. He swept the curtain away from the door and threw himself into the hut, reaching for Justin’s hand.

As he fell and knocked the pistol away, his eyes photographed the dim vision of his son’s bare bottom nestled between the fleshy thighs of the snoring, stuporous whore.

“What?” Justin cried. “Who . . . ?”

Maynard put a finger across his lips. “Ssshhh! It’s me.”

Justin did not try to keep his voice low. “What are you
doing?’’

Maynard read confusion in the boy’s voice, but there was outrage, too.

The whore stirred.

“Ssshhh! Let’s go.”

“Let’s
what?
If you think . . .”

A form filled the doorway, throwing the hut into utter darkness. Maynard was knocked backward. The length of vine was ripped from his hand. He heard Justin try to scream, then gag and choke and slip to the ground.

Manuel, gasping for breath, knelt over Justin and removed the vine from around his neck.

“What are . . . ?”

“Pick him up,” Manuel ordered Maynard. “Follow me.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’ll sleep, but not for long.”

“He
was
frightened.”

“He would have cried out.”

“. . . confused . . .”

Manuel found the whore’s linen shift, tore off the hem, and tied it around Justin’s mouth.

“You don’t have to do that,” Maynard said. “He was just . . .”

“Call it what you will. I won’t take the risk. Pick him up.”

Maynard obeyed. Justin was limp and unwieldy, like a sack of oranges, but light enough to carry easily over the shoulder. “Let’s go, Buddy,” he murmured. “Dad’s gonna take you home.”

Maynard followed Manuel along the dark paths—trusting him, first because he had no choice, but also because Manuel’s motive was obvious and selfish and therefore credible: pure ambition, unalloyed by any outside conflicts. The earlier and more simply competition could be eliminated, the smoother would be Manuel’s accession to the l’Ollonois leadership.

When they reached the beach, Manuel did not hesitate: He trotted directly to the pinnaces. He motioned for Maynard to lay Justin in the nearest boat.

Justin’s eyes were closed, his breathing regular.

“No guard?” Maynard whispered.

Manuel pointed to a dark heap, spread-eagle on the sand.

“Did you kill him?”

“You did,” Manuel said. “If anything goes wrong, you did everything. You killed the guard and stole the boy and bashed me in the head. They’ll find me in the whore’s lodge, crying about my terrible pains.”

“Fair enough.” Maynard leaned against the pinnace, to push it into the water. Then he noticed that though the sail was rigged and furled, there were no oars in the boat. “I’ll need oars. I’ll be all night trying to tack out of this cove.”

“There,” said Manuel, and he ran along the beach toward a teepee of stacked oars.

Maynard turned away from the boat, to meet Manuel halfway.

In an instant, Justin was up and sprinting for the underbrush.

Maynard turned at the sound and yelled at the sight. “Justin!” He took a few, frantic running steps, then stopped.

He saw the gag wrenched off and cast away, and he heard Tue-Barbe’s cry: “Alarm! Alarm! Alarm! Alarm!”

The cry echoed in the cove.

As he promised he would, Manuel ran for cover. Passing Maynard, he paused long enough to say, “Fool!”

“I thought I knew . . .” His despair had no words.

“Go yourself.”

Maynard looked up, but said nothing.

“If you stay, take that knife and stick it in your belly. Anything you do to yourself will be better than what we will fix for you.”

Maynard watched Manuel until he disappeared into the darkness. Then—unsure of himself, confused but suddenly afraid for his own life—he picked up a pair of oars, threw them in the pinnace, and pushed off from shore.

As he rounded the first turn in the cove and reached the shelter of the breakwater, he heard distant voices. He leaned into the oars, pulling with desperate strength.