The Silver Swan (9 page)

‘Damnation,' Papa cursed. ‘Too high. We need to hit her below the waterline.'

Then we were past, with only a few yards between us. We whooshed beyond
Gisella
and out into open water. I let out a puff of breath.

‘God's teeth,' said Jem, ‘that was close quarters.'

He inspected our sails and tasted the wind. ‘About ship!'

I ran with the deck hands to let go and haul again, while the gun crews ran to larboard to prepare the next round. I knew Jem would take her in close again, on the opposite tack, but this time
Gisella
had the wind on her side. The sea was rough now; both ships pitched and reared. The wind had come around to the south-west and up a few notches — it screeched through the rigging. This time the gamble was even greater.

‘Look!' shouted Ricardo.

‘What the Devil?' Papa gasped.

High in Gisella's bow, aimed straight at us, was the biggest cannon I had ever seen in my life.

‘How in Drake's name did they get that up there?' said Jem, staring with widening eyes.

There was a flash of powder and a puff of white smoke from behind the gun.

‘Get down!' I screamed. Even at this distance the roar of the gun nearly knocked me over. I threw myself to the deck. Jem was there before me.

Somewhere behind us there was a huge smashing noise, loud as a thunderclap and twice as scary. Then silence. The ship shuddered to a halt.

I got to my knees and looked aft. Max was wedged strangely under the smashed tiller. His eyes were open, staring up at the sails, just as he would on a fine afternoon at the helm. But now his eyes were empty and he lay surrounded by torn canvas and splintered wood.

‘Max!' Miller scrambled over the debris to reach him.

Jem was growling like a wolf.

‘Goddamn you!' He jumped to his feet and started yelling at
Gisella
. ‘I've had enough of this.'

Everyone started shouting at once. Miller dragged away the debris and pulled Max's body to one side. Ahmed and Moggia scrabbled through the broken timber and leaned over the stern to test if the steering still worked. It didn't. We drifted off the wind, and the sails flapped uselessly.

The
Mermaid
sat like a fish in a barrel waiting to be caught.

Gisella
slowed in her race towards us and began a gradual graceful turn, so she could bring all guns to bear on us at once. Everything seemed to be happening very slowly.

Then Papa's hand was on my arm. ‘Lily, it's time for you to go.' I gazed up into his face.

‘No, Papa, there's still a chance.'

‘Of course there is.' He smiled, his teeth gleaming white through the black smoke and gunpowder smudged over his face. ‘But you're going anyway.'

‘Frances!' He cupped his hands around his mouth to call up to the tops. ‘Are you all right up there?'

Mama's face appeared over the edge of the platform. ‘Yes, we're having a lovely time. I fired at him twice, but I can't quite make it aim the right way. Doesn't it take an awfully long time to reload?'

In spite of everything, Papa and I both chuckled.

‘We need you to come down here now,' Papa
shouted, watching as Mama, Lucas and Carlo began their swift climb down the ratlines.

Then he turned to me. ‘We'll hold off Diablo as long as we can. But you three must go.'

I opened my mouth to say something.

‘Now.' He barked it at me, and I jumped.

‘Bring the dory around!' he shouted at Gideon.

Two of the men ran aft to haul in the boat that was tied behind us, ready for flight.

‘There's no more time to talk, Lily.'

Mama stood, a little breathless, at his elbow. ‘What is it?' she said, unaware of the carnage behind her. ‘Why are we luffing so badly?'

I sighed. This was my duty and I had promised to carry it out, even though my heart felt like a boulder. I knew the worst possible thing I could ever say to my mother was that she had to part from her husband — all over again. Yet I had to.

‘Max is dead,' I said. ‘The tiller's smashed, and maybe the rudder.'

She put one hand to her mouth. ‘Dear God. I felt so certain we'd win.'

‘Mama,' I said in a voice that seemed as heavy and cold as my heart. ‘You have to save me and Lucas. We have to go away in the
Swallow
.'

I saw her grope for Papa's hand, almost surreptitiously. She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face.

‘Is this what you want, Rafe?'

‘Diablo must not get his hands on the children,' he said. She nodded slowly, her teeth biting into her bottom lip.

‘I'll do it,' she said. ‘You and me, Lily, we'll do it together.'

I've never loved anybody so much in my life as I loved my mother at that moment.

‘Boat's ready,' said Gideon gently.

Mama put on her brightest face. ‘I finally get to be captain of something.'

Papa smiled and raised her hand to his lips. ‘My darling, you always have been.'

I walked away to give them a few seconds alone, but to be honest I couldn't bear to watch.

‘Lucas,' I called. ‘Quick! We're taking the
Swallow
to safety.' I peered over the side to the boat. He was already sitting in it, waiting.

‘Come on, Lil!' he shouted. ‘We have to save Mama.'

That's a bloody small boat in this storm, I muttered to myself, but at least we're all saving one another.

Another huge blast rocked the ship. Water sprayed all over us.

‘You missed, you fool!' Jem was still shaking his fist at
Gisella
. ‘All those guns, and you can't hit one little sloop.'

My parents sprinted down the deck, holding hands, to the ropes that held the
Swallow
fast alongside.

‘Over you go, Lil,' said Papa. ‘There's no time to lose. I'll see you at home next week sometime, eh?'

‘Of course you will, Papa.'

I looked around me, at the wreckage on the deck, at the boys working frantically on the rudder. Carlo stood alone, staring sadly. His sword hung listlessly
in one hand. Max's feet were sticking out from under the canvas Cookie had thrown over him.

‘I need to say goodbye to everyone.'

‘There's no time for that,' Papa said softly. ‘They'll be all right. Hurry now.'

I gulped back the taste of tears.

Mama simply climbed over the rails and clambered down the rope. She'd stripped off a layer of petticoat so she could move more easily.

‘Come, Lily.'

‘You'd better take this,' said Papa. He held out my scimitar, still in its scabbard. ‘You never know where you might end up.'

I took it in both hands. The metal was cool to the touch and somehow reassuring.

‘Thank you, Papa,' I said. ‘Thank you for coming home.'

One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. ‘Thank you for coming to find me.'

I stuck the sword through my belt and leaped over the side of my ship.

I pushed off as hard as I could, and Mama took the tiller as we edged our way out of the
Mermaid
's shadow. Lucas was on the mizzen sheet; I took the mainsail. The moment we got clear of the ship, gusts of wind filled the sails and buffeted the boat.

‘Ease that mizzen off a bit,' said Mama. Lucas let go the sheet until the boat felt steady. ‘Good lad.' He tied it off but kept the end of the rope in his hand. In this weather, we were going to have to be ready for anything.

Waves were already peaking higher than our gunwales. Mama headed the bow into the swell, so that the boat cut into the waves instead of catching them on the beam.

‘What's the course, navigator?' she asked.

I squinted at the murky sky. ‘It's a bit hard to tell with all those clouds, but I think that's the sun there — and we ought to still be south-east of the islands …' I took a calculated guess. ‘Ideally, we'd sail thataway.' I pointed. It was the same way that the storm was headed.

‘That's lucky,' said Mama. ‘Since it's the only
direction we can possibly go in this weather. Let's try to keep the
Mermaid
between us and Diablo as long as we can, eh? He might not even notice we're gone until it's too late to catch up.'

She put one arm around Lucas and squeezed him tight. ‘It's about time you took me sailing. We always used to go out together when you were little.'

‘I didn't know that,' said Lucas, and I could hardly remember it myself. I knew Mama had sailed her whole life, in small boats and great ships, with a captain for a father and an adventurous mother. A bit like me, really. But after Papa had vanished, she never went sailing again.

I watched the way her eyes darted from the black sky up to our little gaff-rig, and then down again to the swirling water.

‘Lucas and I have sailed the
Swallow
in big waves before, Mama,' I said.

‘Not far out to sea in a gale like this, I hope.'

Tricky woman — here's me trying to reassure her, and she finds something else to worry about.

‘No,' I admitted, ‘but she's seaworthy enough, and very fast.'

‘Really fast,' Lucas agreed. ‘If you bring that mainsail in a bit, she'll fly.'

Mama shook her head. ‘We don't want to fly too fast in this chop, darling. She's a
Swallow
, not an albatross. We'll just go gently until we've found our way.'

She twisted backwards, peering around the mizzen to see what was happening behind us. The two ships were still many cable-lengths apart, and the sound of cannon, large and small, pounded
through the air. But it was getting harder and harder to hear them over the howl of the wind.

The swell was building. I could tell, even from this distance, that the
Mermaid
was suffering without her steering gear. She was beam-on to the rising seas, so each wave smashed sickeningly into her side, lifting and dropping her as if she were a toy. Without the rudder, Papa and the boys were at the mercy of the sea — and of El Capitán de Diablo and his forty guns.

Mama turned back, her gaze fixed ahead on a horizon that was crowded with waves, buckling and heaving, white and green, before us. Her fist tightened on the tiller.

‘Yes, indeed,' she murmured, half to herself, ‘it's about time we went sailing together, we three.'

The
Swallow
was only just big enough for three, with a thwart across the beam and wooden slats along each side. Normally, Lucas and I spread out and took it easy. Now the boat jolted and shuddered as every wave hit the prow, so I stowed my sword under the seat then wedged myself tightly into a corner, one foot braced against the centreboard. Lucas hunched down next to Mama. We all held on to the gunwales, drenched by the spray that flew up over the bows.

We stayed like that for what seemed like hours, nobody talking, nobody moving unless the boat needed our weight on one side or the other. Cold water sloshed around my feet.

‘Where's the bailer?' I asked Lucas. He gawped at me like a stunned mullet.

‘Brasher's making me a new one,' he said at last.

‘Then where's the old one?' asked Mama.

He looked away.

‘Are you trying to tell me —' I started, but Mama cut me off.

‘We'll have to improvise,' she said.

‘I can't believe —'

‘Lily, that's not going to help,' said Mama firmly. ‘Look in the locker and see if there's anything we can use.'

I sighed. Only Lucas would set sail in a heavy sea without a bailing bucket. He was always rushing into things, always too eager to think clearly, always too excited to plan ahead.

It sounded a bit familiar — I'd cursed myself for the same thing at the beginning of my pirate adventure. I shot a glance at him. He had thrust his hands deep into his pockets and was staring hard at the waves sliding by. A single tear wended its way slowly down his face.

‘I should have checked,' I admitted. ‘Papa told me to get the boat ready, but I didn't want to.'

Mama smiled at me gratefully. ‘Everything happened too fast. Never mind.'

‘Brasher packed some dinner, though,' I said, to cheer up Lucas. ‘It must be here somewhere.' But as the words left my mouth I remembered Papa's voice:
Pack food and water, too. You see to that, Lily.

Hell and damnation.

I must have looked appalled. Mama just smiled softly.

‘We'll be on land by dinner time,' she said.
‘Let's not worry about that for the moment. Find something we can use to bail with.'

I rummaged in the forward locker, among bits of canvas and odd ropes. There was no sign of the bailer or even a canvas bucket, but I pulled out an old wooden box. Inside was a lump of something that had once been biscuits. Better than nothing.

Lucas gave a muffled shout. He had his head right inside the aft locker. There was banging and thumping as he wrenched something free. He appeared waving his old bailer in one hand. ‘It is here, after all!'

Mama and I breathed a huge sigh of relief at the same time. The water was well over our ankles now, and the boat was feeling sluggish with the extra weight.

‘Since you found it, you can take the first shift,' said Mama.

‘Leave it to me,' said Lucas. He scooped up a bailer full of water and threw it over his shoulder — straight into Mama's face.

‘Over the side!' she shouted. He turned and looked, in horror, at her dripping wet hair and eyes half-shut against the salt water.

‘Good thing I was already wet,' she said.

Without a word, he bent down and started scooping up the water and emptying it, very carefully and slowly, over the side. But each time he emptied the bailer, another wave splashed over the bow. Splatters of rain splashed our faces, random at first but then heavier, until I could hardly keep my eyes open against it.

‘You might have to work a little faster, Lucas,' I said.

‘I don't want to splash anyone.'

‘I don't think any of us could get any wetter,' I assured him.

‘Put your back into it, lad,' Mama urged. ‘A bit of a splash never killed anyone.'

He bailed faster, much faster, but still the waves kept coming in. They were bigger now, almost as high as our mizzenmast, and Mama kept the
Swallow
pointed straight into them so we were lifted right up the face of each wave, splashed by the white water at its peak, and then dumped down its back like flotsam.

I held onto the mast and struggled to stand up, straining to catch a glimpse of the
Mermaid
.

‘What are you doing, Lily?' Mama snapped. ‘Sit down. If you go overboard in this, we'll never find you.'

‘I'm looking for Papa,' I said, reaching right up on the tips of my toes to peer over the tops of the waves.

But the clouds were low, the wind was whipping spray horizontally across the sea, and the waves seemed to be mounting ever higher. Still, I felt sure I'd seen something: a glimmer of white sails.

I had. Out of the darkness came
Gisella
.

I sat down with a thump.

‘Steady on, Lil,' said Lucas. ‘You nearly tipped us over.'

I took a breath. ‘Mama,' I began, my voice almost a whisper.

‘Is that old fool still following us?' she said.

‘You knew?'

‘He's been there a while now.'

Lucas stopped bailing. ‘What is it?'

‘Diablo,' I said. ‘He's right behind us.' The noise of the storm was so loud, I had to yell to make myself heard.

Lucas looked so terrified I wanted to give him a hug. His wet hair was plastered to his head, and great splashes of water dropped down his pale face.

‘Never mind dumb old Diablo,' Mama shouted over the din. ‘He may not even know we're here. It's just a coincidence. There's only one direction anyone can sail in this storm, and we're both on the same course.'

I shook my head. ‘No, he's after us, I know it.'

‘Why would he be chasing us?' said Lucas. ‘I haven't done anything to him.'

‘He can't know you're in the boat, darling,' said Mama. ‘I'm sure he's not after you particularly.'

‘I know what he's after,' I said, a sudden realisation making sweat crawl over my scalp like hot spiders. ‘It's the map.'

Mama looked blank.

‘That's what Uncle Ebenezer was telling us, when he … when he couldn't speak. He was trying to warn us. Diablo wants the map and he knows we've got it.'

‘What would he want with that map?' asked Lucas. ‘You said it didn't lead anywhere.'

I was trying to recall every one of Ebenezer's dying words. At the time, I'd been so distraught I'd hardly listened.

‘It doesn't show the tunnels under Valletta,' I said. ‘But that's what he meant!'

‘Who? What are you talking about?'

‘Ebenezer.' It all became horribly clear as I spoke. ‘He said — remember? He said it isn't Valletta. I didn't know what he meant. But it's the map. He meant that it's not a map of Valletta at all.'

Lucas and Mama stared at me as if I'd gone mad. I fumbled in my pouch and pulled out the map.

‘It must be some other place,' I said. ‘Diablo knows — he wants it so he can find his way into some other city.'

Mama held out her hand. ‘Give me a look at the damned thing.'

I passed it over, sliding close to her so I could unroll the map across her knee while she kept one hand on the tiller. Lucas hung on too.

Mama pored over it as if it were an Admiralty chart.

‘The writing's in a funny language,' said Lucas.

‘It's Latin,' said Mama. She sat up straight.

‘If I'm not mistaken, this is a map of Naples, not Valletta.'

‘What?' It couldn't be. Uncle Ebenezer had died because of this map and our bungled plan to sneak through the tunnels.

‘I could be wrong. It might be Messina, or somewhere like that. But it reminds me of Naples, the way the harbour circles around like that. It looks nothing like Valletta and the Three Cities.'

I think my mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water. Why on earth had I never thought
of showing it to her before? Why hadn't Papa? We both thought we knew what we were doing, we'd fought like cats over which tunnel to take, and all the time we knew nothing. Nothing.

‘And here …' She pointed to a blotch in one corner. ‘This looks like the Palace.'

‘No wonder Diablo wants it,' I shouted. ‘It would lead him to the Palace and he could steal everything.'

Mama tucked the map deep inside her bodice.

‘Then it's our job to make sure he never gets his revolting claws on it. We owe it to Ebenezer — and your father.'

Somehow that made me feel much better. I don't know why.

‘I wish we had a gun,' said Lucas. ‘I'd show him.'

‘You keep bailing, Lucas, that's your job.'

‘I'm tired.' His voice was thin and weary.

‘I know, sweetheart. Just keep going a little longer, and then we'll change over the watch.'

‘Aye, aye, sir,' he said, and got back to work.

I tried to stand up again, but the little dory was being tossed around like one of those paper boats we used to fold and send out to sea from the old jetty.

‘Don't bother trying to keep lookout, Lil,' said Mama. She pulled me close to her so she could talk without having to shout through the wind. ‘There's nothing we can do but keep sailing as fast as we can towards land. Where do you think we are now?'

‘It's hard to say,' I warned. ‘It's so wild, we might miss Malta altogether.'

‘Then we'll just keep right on sailing until we hit the Italian coast.'

‘We won't last that long without water, Mama.'

‘Don't be silly, darling, look at all this water.' She opened her mouth and let the raindrops fall in. ‘We've got everything we need.'

She smiled at me. ‘Do you think you can take a turn at the tiller for a while? I'll help Lucas with the bailing. He won't be strong enough to hold us on course, so you and I will have to share the helm.'

‘Of course, Mama.'

She slid along the seat to make room. I put one hand on the tiller and she took one of hers away. Even with both of us gripping with one hand, I could feel the way the boat shivered and struggled against the rudder. The wind was pushing us one way and the waves tried to force us back. I had no idea whether we were moving anywhere at all, besides up and down.

‘All right? Keep her straight.'

I nodded and took the tiller in both hands. It wrenched against me and it took all my strength to bring it back to centre.

‘Take it down a little,' said Mama. ‘That's right.'

I remembered it all now: those long afternoons of sailing, with Mama teaching me how to steer, and Papa talking about the winds and the currents. All this time, I'd imagined it was my father who'd taught me to sail.