The Rebel Pirate (29 page)

His father hesitated on the threshold, torn between his son and the woman he so evidently loved.

“Go with Sarah,” Sparhawk implored him. He knew what would happen to her, a woman without interest, accused of piracy, imprisoned in a British jail, if she was not plainly attached to a powerful man.

Reverend Edwards stepped forward. “I will stay with the boy, Anthony.”

His face a mask of anguish, his father managed a responsive nod, then set off after Sarah and her escort. And shortly after he was gone, the remaining marines began beating Sparhawk in earnest, eager to get back a little of their own for the unlucky bastard who’d been stabbed, while Francis Graves looked on. The reverend begged that officer, with all his powers of persuasion and the best of precedents, to put a stop to things. But young Graves, it transpired, was not a God-fearing man.

They would have clapped her in irons, but Trent would not stand for it, and he stayed by her side as they marched her over the neck, through the streets of Boston, and down to the boats at the Long Wharf. He refused to allow them to put her in the cutter until someone rigged a sail to shield her from the late-afternoon sun, and he sat next to her on the bench, between her and the sailors, despite the protestations of the marine sergeant who had been assigned to lead the detail.

Castle William, sitting atop its rocky island in the harbor, was no Otranto. It had none of the gothic romance of Mr. Walpole’s novel. The walls were squat and graceless, the scrubby slopes below the ramparts littered with refuse and slick with mud. The cell they led her to was dank and stank of mildew, with only a single barred window high on one wall.

The cell itself did not frighten her, but the sick expression on Trent’s face told her that as he looked at the filth and squalor, he was cast back into scenes of horror that had played in his mind for fifteen guilt-ridden years, scenes in which he saw another prison, another woman.

“I will be fine,” she said. Until they hang me. “I was born on a schooner. It was cleaner, of course. And drier.”

“I will not let anything happen to you,” he said. His hand returned again and again to the hilt of his sword, but his blade could not help her here.

He demanded a room for her above ground, with a guard on the door and a servant, preferably a woman, but the marine sergeant was only following the admiral’s orders and did not have the authority to command anything better in the castle.

Something rustled in the far corner of the cell, and she did her best to ignore it.

“I will speak to the governor,” said Trent.

The tight look on his face told her that he was still held captive by the horror of the past, but rustling corners were the least of their problems. She drew James Sparhawk’s father deeper into the fetid chamber and out of the marine’s hearing. “I am not James’ mother. No one will pour lye down my throat.”

He flinched.

“And this is not Nevis. I cannot be spirited off to some plantation. This is an English colony, ruled by English laws, and I will be fine passing a night in an English jail.” Her brother had done so often enough, for drunkenness and fighting. And her mother had bailed Mr. Cheap and Abednego out on occasion, when rum and nostalgia had gotten the better of them.

The thought of those carefree days in Salem, of her loving, disreputable family, of the
Sally
and the home she had lost, threatened to overwhelm her.

“It may be an English jail, but you are an American, accused of piracy. The navy has always dealt harshly with pirates, but in the past you would have been protected by the due process of the law. Not now. The Port Act and the Administration of Justice Act have effectively suspended your rights as an Englishwoman. They permit Graves to hold you indefinitely, and transport you for trial.”

And put an ocean between her and her family. Her mother would have told her not to picture it. To imagine herself safe, on the deck of the
Sally
 . . . but that only made her ache to be there in reality, to be free.

“The admiral is commandeering fishing boats to patrol the harbor,” she said, trying to reassure herself. “He does not have a ship to transport me.” She was not sure that was true, but she clung to this reasoning because it fended off despair. And there was still a slender hope that James at least might win free. “There is a woman, a rebel, who says she has the evidence to implicate Admiral Graves in the theft of the gold. You may be able to use it to save James.” But it would not help Sarah.

Trent’s hand closed around his hilt. “Tell me how to find her.”

Sarah shook her head. “She will not just hand the papers over to you. Sentiment does not move this woman. Benji and I made a deal with her, but failed to honor it. We were to take the
Sally
to Lisbon on a powder run. In exchange, she was going to deliver the papers. But James learned that you were here and that I was to marry you, and he would not sail.”

Trent made a bitter, desolate sound and said, “So again I have consigned my son to hell.”

“It may still be possible to bargain with her,” said Sarah. “Though I fear what she would ask from a naval man with money and interest.”

“Sarah, I lost my son once. I will not lose him again. You are here because you would not let the navy take your brother. I would do the same and more, trade places with you now if I could, to save you and Tristan.”

He was not, she now understood, blameless in the death of his wife and the degradation of his son, and youth did not excuse his errors; but men changed and learned from their mistakes, and she believed Trent capable of sacrifice, so she told him. “There is a house in the North End. James bought it for me. The cook there can get Benji a message. He will know how to find this woman.” She gave him the direction of the little green house with its side to the street and the three dormers in the roof, where she had lain with his son.

“I will go to this house in the North End, and send a message to your brother,” he said, “but first, I will see you in more appropriate accommodation. If I allow them to keep you here, the guard will think you are fair game for abuse. No lady would be held in such conditions.”

“Not even one who picks pockets?” she asked, trying to keep back the tears that threatened.

“Not even one who picks them badly,” he said. “Don’t worry, Sarah. All will still be well, and I will call you daughter as gladly as I would have called you wife.”

It was kind and generous and meant to buoy her spirits, but she did not believe it. Angela Ferrers’ evidence might save Sparhawk. He was innocent. Sarah was not.

Trent kissed her chastely on the forehead and promised to return within the hour. For good measure he told the guard his rank and title, and made it clear that Sarah was under his protection, and that any insult she suffered would be met with swift retribution.

The door closed. The corners rustled. The
Sally
had rats, of course. She and Benji had named the ones too clever for the cat to catch. There had been, over the years, a piratical roster of rodents aboard that schooner: a great beast called Teach, a weedy sly one called Rackham, and a plump mottled titch who had been named Quelch, but who was demoted to Squeaker when the cat finally caught him.

Trent was as good as his word, and returned, miraculously, within the hour.

“I have spoken to the military commander of the fort who reports to the governor. He is writing to Tommy for further instructions but agrees that you should stay with the fort major for now.”

Most likely he had agreed because he did not want to meet Trent at dawn over the matter.

“Fort major is an honorary post,” Trent continued, “held by a veteran of Louisbourg who lives with his family in an apartment within the walls. And fortunately for us, his pension is miserly, so he is very amenable to bribes. Come.”

He led her out of the dungeon and up into the yard, trailed by the marine sergeant, who did not like this change of plans but could not gainsay the commander of the castle.

The fort major’s apartments were located on the second floor in the south wall, and the outside rooms offered a view of Roxbury, with the cupola of the old governor’s mansion visible in the distance.

The fort major himself, one John Phillips, was avuncular and kind, and had been a chaplain in the army for many years. He no longer preached, but his extensive library of sermons was at Sarah’s disposal. Their establishment was a modest one, as his position was honorary and the stipend accordingly small, but Sarah was invited to share their table and his spinster daughter’s chamber.

“Once a day we have a boat. It is for the correspondence of the customs inspector and the tea agent, but the boatman’s wife will make any purchases you might need in town. You will make a list straightaway, and I will give it to the boatman, and by tomorrow you will have all the little comforts necessary to life.”

Trent left her a purse full of gold, and in private, a knife to keep in her pocket and use if anyone attempted to abuse her.

The fort major’s daughter brought her ink and a pen and paper, and Sarah sat down to make a list for the boatman’s wife, but she could think of nothing that was necessary to life except James Sparhawk.

•   •   •

James passed the night unmolested in a locked compartment on the
Preston
. The last time he had been confined aboard a man-of-war had been on Slough’s
Scylla
, and child that he had been, he had still hoped that his father would appear to rescue him.

Rescue on that occasion had never come. Slough had summoned him, directed him to kneel and open his mouth, and when James had refused, had ordered him tied to the gratings and flogged. Sparhawk had realized then that his father was never coming, and accepted that it was Trent’s actions that had put him there in the first place.

Now James knew his father was not the villain that he had thought, but that did not mean his father would come for him now. He had seen the devotion on Trent’s face when he looked at Sarah in that shabby little room. In Trent’s place, Sparhawk might be tempted to try to enforce the bargain he had made with Graves—to trade James’ life for Sarah’s. And thinking of her in the cells of the fort, at the mercy of the admiral’s lackeys, Sparhawk wished he would.

The reverend had come with him all the way to the flagship, and finding the sailors of the
Preston
a more God-fearing lot than their marines, sent for and received water and bandages and a beaker of rum. He cleaned Sparhawk’s cuts and bruises, examined and wrapped Sparhawk’s ribs, one of which might be cracked and hurt like the devil, and asked him if he would like to pray.

Sparhawk attempted to explain his notion of the Divine, of stars and angles and cosigns and the map of the heavens, but after the rum and the beating, it came out sounding like a treatise on navigation crossed with the Admiralty Rules and Regulations, and James gave up. The Reverend Edwards proclaimed him a deist and produced a small book of sermons from his pocket that he claimed he kept close to hand for such occasions, which made Sparhawk wonder exactly what manner of “occasions” regularly came up in American colleges.

Edwards read to him for some time, the words less important than the reassuring sound of the divine’s fluting voice, and it occurred to Sparhawk as he drifted off to sleep that the man had read to him before, though the text when he had been a child, if James recalled correctly, had been
Robinson Crusoe
.

Just after noon the next day, a midshipman brought James a meal from the mess, an indication that while the charge against him might be gross theft, someone on board thought it wise to treat him as an officer and a gentleman—of sorts. The rather sheepish young middy apologized for the quality of the meat and described the item on the plate—generously, to Sparhawk’s mind—as a chop.

“Our servant is not allowed to go to the market,” he explained, “until after the senior officers’ servants, and he cannot get anything good now. It was different before the army made a hash of things at Lexington.”

It certainly had been.

Sparhawk thanked him. He did not think Graves above poisoning him, but he was hardly likely to do so with anything so unappetizing as the “chop.”

Sparhawk ate.

The afternoon passed.

The midshipman returned with a tankard of grog and waited until Sparhawk had finished, then lingered a moment more, screwing up his courage. Finally he said, “Ned Ward was a gentleman on the
Preston
for a week. Then he was transferred to the
Diana
. Captain Graves says that he deserted like a cowardly Yankee, but I thought he might have run away to join your pirate crew.”

Sparhawk was unaware that he had a pirate crew. “And why would you think that?” he asked without rancor. He could recall those heady days, just after McKenzie had made him a midshipman, when life seemed like an adventure and the world was filled with wonders: monsters and pirates and corsairs. And the most terrifying creatures of all: girls, of course.

“Because Ned said that he knew you, and when you were arrested for stealing the admiral’s gold, he said that if you had done it, then you had done it for a good reason, and probably because you were in love with his sister.”

It was a twelve-year-old’s understanding: wildly romantic, totally wrong, and, at the same time, completely true.

•   •   •

Trent did not come back to the island the next day, or the day after that. A trunk from the mainland arrived, however, filled with her things, and in the same boat, her maid.

Trent had overseen the packing himself, the woman told her, though Sarah could have gleaned as much from the neat naval corners into which her garments had been folded and the efficient way they were wedged inside. A good sea chest was stuffed tight like an oyster, her father used to say.

At the bottom of the trunk was her sewing bag with her embroidery silks and a yard of fresh canvas with a letter rolled inside. It was from Trent, and it warned her that the admiral might bar him from visiting, but assured her that she was never out of his thoughts. It made no mention of Sparhawk. Sarah assumed that everything Trent sent to her would be opened and read, and that he could vouchsafe no confidences in his letters. He closed by reassuring her that he was working tirelessly for her release.

The fort major’s wife lent her a frame and helped her stretch her canvas in their comfortable parlor, which she confided to Sarah had been much larger and better appointed when her husband had been the castle’s actual commander, but such was the gratitude of princes, or governors, that Major Phillips had been turned out of his post with nothing just after his sixtieth birthday, a time of life when he could not possibly be expected to secure new employment. She hinted that these financial difficulties had contributed in some way to her daughter’s disappointment. Major Phillips had only attained this poor sinecure through the strenuous efforts of her family’s connections.