The Windflower (32 page)

"Hey! Watch it! You'll tip us. And I could have had the gun off you too," he added morosely. "Don't you forget, if Devon should happen to catch us, it was all against my will—-you had the pistol on me the whole time."

"I'll tell him anything you like, but he
won't
find us if you'd put a little Norwegian steam into your rowing."

"Humph." Meadows picked up the oar, and the boat began to move forward again. "Darn female. Likes to see a man work himself to death. And only a fancy-thinking fellow like Devon would have a woman that'd insist on running away with a squid in a bucket. There's the aristocracy for you."

There were times when it was particularly trying to listen to one of the men on the
Joke
place Devon on an exaggeratedly high pedestal. Ready to argue with Michael Meadows, ready to do anything but think about the insanely desperate thing she was doing. Merry said, "Aristocracy?" She tried, as an experiment, to sneer. "He's well-favored, educated, and bossy. That doesn't make him an aristocrat."

Lot you know about it. He's got bloody aristocratic ways about him and anyway, Sails says he is, and Sail's been with Morgan since got his first ship."

Sails and the mermaid. Sails and the wind-seller. Sails and the ghost ship off Nova Scotia. Wonderful stories Sails told, but not true ones. "I'm sure titled British gentlemen frequently sail with pirates?"

"Beats walkin'." Meadows gave a short guffaw. "Course, not by much. Didn't know, did ya, that Morgan and Devon are half brothers?"

"Yes, I did," she said. "And that Devon is legitimate, and Morgan is not. I find it hard to believe that if Devon's family was as influential as you are implying, they would have allowed Devon to meet Rand Morgan."

"Well, a course they wouldn't," he said contemptuously. "Morgan met his fine little brother by accident."

There was a certain look in Meadows's eyes that warned Merry the tale was hardly likely to uplift her. Arguing with Meadows, it seemed, might be more taxing than she had bargained for. She had an intense and active curiosity about everything connected with Devon, but hard experience had taught her that there were things to be learned about Devon that one had better be in a well-rested state to hear. And she was tired, frightened, and in no mood to be teased—which was clearly what Michael Meadows had in mind. Turning her head, Merry stared at the fresh, paling horizon with a laboriously manufactured expression of indifference. She could feel Meadows's rheumy gaze study her. Then he said, "You in love with the fellow?"

A long pause. Finally, with a sigh, "What fellow?"

"Devon. You in love with him or what?"

"What," she answered emphatically.

"Yep. You love him. I can tell. Heh, heh."

"Mr. Meadows," she said, "if you want to think that, I'm not going to quarrel with you about it. I'm only going to say this once: I'm
not
in love with Devon."

As though she hadn't spoken, he said, "Yep. I can tell. Know what it takes to make a man like that fall in love with you?"

A miracle. "Obviously I don't, because he's not in love with me."

"Heh, heh. Know how to keep a man like that?" Meadows tipped his head down until he could tap with one finger on the part of his temple exposed by his russet stocking cap. ' 'To keep a man like that takes brains."

As advice went, it was a little too general to be of any use. Anyway, some of the things you don't do if you want a man like that to fall in love with you are to run away, steal his letters, and refuse to tell him the facts he needs to acquit you of any connection with his worst enemy. That aside, Merry hoped, and feared, that she would never have to see the man again. Lifting with some difficulty the arm that had been bruised by Morgan's door, Merry began to rub the aching stiffness at the back of her neck.

"That Devon," Meadows went on. "The boy was a proper hellion in his teens, so they say. To give themselves a rest, his people sent him to look over some property in the Indies, and happens he was on a three master that Morgan took. Prettiest boy you ever saw, they say. The crew was dicing over who was to have their way with him, and Morgan, they tell, saved the lad from a fate worse than death."

"Pray don't continue!" Merry exclaimed, going rigid.

Highly encouraged, Meadows went on gleefully, "O' course, depending on who's telling the story, Morgan was after keeping Devon for himself. Hey!" Meadows protested, finding that he was gazing down the barrel of Merry's sea service pistol. Hastily, "Take your finger off that trigger there, missy. I was funnin'. Here, now, if you shoot me, you'll be rowin' the measure of the way yerself."

"I'd
rather
row than listen to any more disgusting nonsense. How far are we from where you intend to land us?"

"Oh, that be quite a distance yet, quite a distance. We can't stop too close, or they'll find us sure as supper. Not, mind you, that supper tonight is so sure. Heh, heh." Meadows watched her lower the gun discouragedly. "What's the matter now? Wishin' you hadn't run off so hasty-like?" He chuckled. "Morgan catches me, and it's a quick swing from the yardarm, but you—ho! Devon threatened to beat you if you tried to pull up anchor on him again, didn't he? Everyone heard him say it too, so he'd have to go through with it or lose face. Never been whipped, have you? Ask your friend Raven about it. Ask Cat. Brung up in a bawdy house, he was, on Ile de la Tortue. He come to Morgan with so many stripes on his back that Morgan should've got a discount on the price." Meadows observed warily that the gun barrel had righted itself again. "Watch it, there! That thing's cocked!"

"I know it is," Merry said grimly, "and you're making me very nervous. When I grow nervous, my fingers twitch uncontrollably."

This time he could see she meant it. Staring at the loaded pistol, he asked uneasily, "What could I do to make you less nervous?"

"Row," she said. And this time Meadows put his back into it. Neither spoke, and the only sounds were the rhythmically splashing oars and the sucking lap of the ocean as it moved beneath them. The battle sounds had faded to silence. The first searching tendrils of sun warmth fell softly on Merry's cheeks, the breeze made a gentle massage on her weary shoulders, and the sea whispered a rich melody to the new day. Shifting the bucket to her lap, Merry tucked the pistol between her knees, crossed her arms on the bucket, and rested her cheek on her forearm. She meant only to close her eyes for a moment. In that moment she fell deeply asleep.

Merry woke with a sick knot in her stomach and powerful light stinging her scratchy eyelids. Her muscles burned as though someone had stitched nettles in them, and her face, nestled against the bucket's rough unfinished surface, felt as though it had been rubbed down with sand. The stench of rum, pine, and sour sweat howled into her dry throat. Fabric covered her head. Overwhelmed by the feeling that she was about to suffocate, Merry grabbed wildly at it and emerged into blank white sunshine.

"Threw one of me shirts over you," she heard Meadows say. Blinking against the heavy light, she couldn't see him at first. "Shoulda been one of yourn," he said, "but as you didn't see fit to bring nothing wi' you 'cept a no-good nothing of a squid— Here, have some of this."

A horn cup was pressed into her hands. The water inside was hot and metallic to the taste. Merry drank three cupfuls of it before saying, "Thank you. I've had enough." Shading her eyes and squinting, she was able to stand the light.

Meadows had raised the sail and lay comfortably stretched by the tiller. He had rolled his sleeves down to protect his arms from the sun and replaced the stocking cap with a dark, broad-brimmed hat that moths had long ago gotten the best of.

Moist waves of moving heat danced on the slow water around them, the swiftly evaporating slough of the mid-world sea. To the north was a high atoll of barren rock with calling seabirds landing on ridges above the tearing surf. The
Black Joke
was nowhere in sight. And that should have made her very happy.

Mechanically she lifted her hands and began to feed her fallen curls back into hot brass hairpins that were lodged, burning, against her scalp. To Meadows she said, "Thank you for covering me. It was kind of you."

"Who's kind?" Meadows said. "Not me. I just happen to know that you'll be needing your pretty looks where we're going. You ain't got nothing else to be bargaining with. Mind, there's some that likes the feel of a woman's skin fevered from the sunburn, but your head was alayin' sideways, and there ain't no one cares to see a face half red and half white like a harlequin."

The import of his words sank in slowly. "Are we not going to land on the American coast?"

"Silly wench," he said indulgently, readjusting his hat a step backward on his sweat-smeared brow. "Too far away for that. We'll land us on an island and find a better transport to the mainland."

It sounded like an unpleasant middle step. "Who lives on these islands?"

"Here? Slaves escaped from their lawful masters mostly, and renegade white cutthroats. Witch doctors. Lunatics what's run off from insane asylums. The scum of the earth, and worse."

Merry dropped her forehead into her open palm.

Pleased with his effect. Meadows said, "Where we're off to, see, is called the Devil's Kettle. Smugglers come 'n' go from it, and I'm going to bribe me a passage to New Orleans. What you're going to do is yer business and not mine."

Merry said tightly, "I shall go to the—the authorities."

Meadows gave a crack of laughter. "There ain't no authorities in a hundred miles of here."

"There must be someone. Missionaries—or—or priests."

"Missionaries! That's a good one. Kind of missionaries we got around here, why, they'll be ready to teach you all kinds of things you can do on your knees, missy, but you can bet one of 'em won't be prayin'. Heh, heh. Maybe you'll run away into a swamp and get eaten by an old granddaddy alligator.'' He made a chomping motion with his jaw. "Gulp!" Meadows chuckled at her expression. "And they got big old snakes longer than a mizzenmast that'll drop down on you from the trees and squeeze you till you can't breathe no more and then swallow you whole. And you make a lump in their middle that don't go away for six months."

All in all, Merry had had better afternoons. There was worse to come. From time to time Meadows took a yellowed sheet of paper from his breast pocket. He shook it open, studied it, shrugged, folded it up, and put it back in his pocket.

"What is that?" Merry asked, after the fourth such occurrence.

"This here's a map drawn by the hand of Mr. Benjamin Treadwell himself. Yep. You've heard of Benjamin Treadwell."

"No."

"Sure you have," he insisted.

"No, I haven't. Is he a cartographer?"

"Course not. Ain't no kind of an ographer. Never met an ographer in my life. Ben Treadwell's a gentleman and a smuggler, and used to sail with Jean Laffite. And you know where Ben is now? Struck out on his own and made it to the top of the smuggling racket. Why, in New Orleans he's got him a house that any man of business would be proud to own, with fancy lady friends, and the gov'nor howdy-dos Ben on the street. A friend of mine, is Ben Treadwell. Good friend. Old Ben, he used to work these islands. Knew this area like the hairs on his own belly."

Merry craned her neck a bit to glimpse the map as he shaded it with his hand to fend off the harsh, bleaching sun. After she had looked it over she said, "You've got the map upside down."

"Eh? No I don't."

"You do Look at the compass that's drawn on the bottom of the page. The —meaning north—is pointing downward."

Meadows squinted fiercely at the
N.
"That ain't no
N.
That's a
W.
Look at it. One line down, one line up, one down, one up.
W."

"It's not," Merry said. "That first line down is a wrinkle."

"Wrinkle?
Ain't no wrinkle. I know a wrinkle when I sees a wrinkle, and that ain't no wrinkle."

"Now, look," Merry said, borrowing her manner from Cat. "That is an
N!
Smooth it out on your knee so that you can see it correctly." With bad grace he did as she asked, and she tapped the controversial letter with the barrel of her pistol. "See?" Firmly, "An
N.
And directly across the compass from the
N
is an . . . an
E.
Wait a minute! This compass has north opposing east and south opposing west! Oh, this is a fine map indeed

"It
is
a fine map! The compass that's drawn on a map don't mean nothing anyway; it's the outline of the land mass that counts. What's a female know about maps? Nothin'. Let me tell you something, missy. I was reading maps before you was born. And watch that pistol! I've no fancy to be shot in my manhood. This map is one hundred per cent reliable. I trust it like I would the milk from my mammy's paps."

Merry was not about to be dragged into a debate. "Oh, well," she said warily, "I hope you're right. I can't tell one of these islands from another."

Satisfied with that, Meadows said, "That's because yer a woman, and women just don't got a sense of direction the way men do. With men it's born in 'em; females is just plain made different."

"Hallelujah for that," Merry said, and it was
not
a compliment to the male sex.

"You oughta be damned glad it's so confusin' around here," Meadows said in a testy fashion. "Because it's so confusin' around here that the
Joke
won't be able to trace us. Probably they'll look around on the near shore and leave it at that. Take them forty years to look through all these here islands and archipelagos and such."