Virgin Star (39 page)

She bit her lip, unable to contain her excitement. "Is it a bargain?"

"Oh, very well," Seanessy agreed reluctantly. "But I get to choose which one you sing and you must recite it word for word as the old bard wrote it or else. Agreed?"

She nodded vigorously, waiting for him to lift her safely over the rail. "Lift me back!"

"Not until you're done."

"Oh, Seanessy!" She looked at the menacing rush of water beneath her feet. "You just said your arms were tiring—"

"I lied."

"Even you are not strong enough to hold me here much longer—"

"Pray, dear child, that isn't so."

It took a full minute for her to realize he intended to hold her over the water as she recited this sonnet, another full minute to realize he now searched for the most obscure of Shakespeare's poems, hoping, no doubt, she would not know it. The truth was she only knew the sonnets numbered after one hundred and twenty-six, the ones that Shakespeare wrote to the Dark Lady, whoever that was. Truthfully, she knew only the most famous of these love poems. Actually she only knew four by heart, the ones she had read a million times...

She glanced down at the water and held tighter to the arms keeping her at his mercy. She bit her lip and squirmed. "Do hurry!"

"Ah, yes." He knew which one he would make her sing. "I know the exact one. Selected because it so poetically expresses my unambiguous feelings for you. The Dark Lady sonnet."

The amber eyes widened with shock, and she shook her head. 'Twas the very one—the Dark Lady one. The men who knew the sonnet, a surprisingly large number, laughed and laughed hard. Her already flushed cheeks colored more as her face contorted with agony. She knew that one, all the world knew that one! Dear Lord, if that expressed his feelings for her ... "Not that one again!"

"Then ..." Seanessy's brow lifted, he looked at the water, and his men joined in. "Say goodbye, Shalyn!"

She almost chose the drop—he had her nailed. If not for the sharks ... She had no choice. Silence fell over the men, broken only by a soft flap of the sails and even the rush of ocean water across the stern seemed suddenly to slow and then stop altogether to hear the girl as she began:

"My love is as a fever, longing still, For that which longer nurseth the disease; Feeding oh that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now Reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly expressed; For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright—"

"Who art as black as hell, as dark as night," Seanessy finished for her to the wild applause of his men.

Shalyn bit her lip again. A pained—very!—look crossed her face as she cried, "Tell me you don't mean that, Seanessy!"

"Well, no," he conceded, grinning. "Not that last line. The rest pretty much sums up my sentiments. I would change that last line to: 'Who art as doomed as the damned, as luckless as blight. Goodbye, Shalyn."

She gasped. "But you said—"

"I lied again!"

"Why, you mean, contemptible, bullheaded—"

It was as far as she got. The scream sounded briefly as she fell through the air, her arms circling like windmills until she splashed into the cool ocean water. She emerged to hear the warm sound of his laughter joined with that of the men. Frantically she searched the water for the dark shape of what until now had been her worst fear, only to realize, fatefully, she never did have a choice. The men had had no doubt she would be in the water; they had lowered sails and dropped anchor and then stood to watch the show.

Seanessy's laughter stopped as a band of light struck his forehead. His vision blurred. He tensed dramatically and cursed softly as his hand reached to his head.

Tiny pinpoints of light danced across his vision.

He knew, of course. It had been so long, he half thought he had escaped the wretched torment. He had maybe an hour before it struck, no more. It would last until tomorrow evening ...

Butcher listened for a moment. A brow rose with dismay. "I fear the boys have taught the lass how to curse like a longshoreman."

Butcher turned from Shalyn's impressive curses to Seanessy. He knew immediately. He had been with Sean the last time it had happened.

"Send Toothless to my quarters with his bags of tricks, will you?"

Seanessy turned away from the offending sunlight.

Butcher nodded solemnly as he stared at the wide width of Seanessy's back. Sean's tightly corded muscles on his back were already tense with an effort to brace against the oncoming pain. He hurried off to find Toothless.

Shalyn hadn't seen him all day since he had dropped her into the water, and it scared her. That sonnet scared her senseless. The words kept echoing through her mind: "Past cure I am/now Reason is past care,/ And frantic-mad with evermore unrest/ My thoughts and my discourse a madmen's are..."

Merciful heavens save me...

The orange ball of the sun sizzled into the darkening blue water as she sat against the lower mast with what was politely referred to as supper—a large bowl of sweetened oatmeal, a piece of dried beef, and a hard piece of bread. The spot offered a direct view of the captain's quarters. Like a theater patron awaiting the rising curtain, she kept looking toward the door to his quarters. No one went in and no one came out.

She stirred her bowl of mush absently.

Oly stared intently at her bowl.

Edward and Ham had spread out navigational star maps on the deck nearby and finally, unable to resist, Shalyn asked, "Where is Seanessy? I haven't seen him since ... since ..."

Edward looked over to her, surprised she hadn't heard. "Three sheets to the wind by this point, I suppose. Toothless pumped enough opium in him to topple an Indian elephant."

She set down the bowl of oatmeal. Oly took it as an invitation. She never noticed. "What?"

"He's out, lass."

Hamilton smoothed the map over a makeshift table. "He is suffering one of his headaches. It'll keep him down until tomorrow night."

Her eyes filled with concern, Seanessy's headaches were famous because anyone who knew Sean found it impossible to imagine a thing like a headache could knock him off his feet and into bed. For Seanessy's body was an exercise in masculine perfection: his unparalleled strength, a strength matched only by Mr. Slops on board, his famous fighting ability and uncommon speed, his agility, unheard of in a man his size.

How many times would he perform a circus acrobat's tricks for no reason past the fun of it? He could throw himself backward in the air, landing miraculously on his feet. Knolls and Edward swore he could do the same trick on a galloping horse! He always somersaulted three times before he stretched into a graceful dive into the water. Things she'd never believe if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.

The idea of a headache knocking him out gave her an idea of the terrible power of this internal demon that seized him.

She remembered what Gschu had said about headaches: most headaches were a warning of excess: an excess of spirits, tea/or emotions, and that there were as many good cures as there were kinds. Yet, by far, the worst headaches were caused by a vicious cycle: a body braces against the pain, and the tension of bracing for the pain causes a worsened headache, which causes more tension and more ... indefinitely until the body weakens and can fight no more or until hands are set in motion against the tension.

How well she knew that remedy!

She stood up and turned toward his cabin.

"Oh no, you don't," Edward said, sympathetic to her concern but knowing better. "You are about the last person he'd want to see now."

"Oh, but I can help—"

'There's no help for him but the pipe, lass. The pain pretty much knocks him out anyway, and what’s left, Toothless takes care of. Just leave him be..."

The bright light of a full moon filtered through the crack in the door, illuminating the otherwise dark space of the carpenter's room. She could not sleep. The idea of Seanessy suffering was her own agony. She wanted badly to help him. The only thing stopping her was the idea that 'twould be cruel indeed if she did rouse him from the merciful doze of an opium haze ...

It was so hot. She wore only his long white shirt, and still it lay against her skin with a thin sheen of perspiration. She tried to settle her mind by focusing on the stream of moonlight, but it was no use. The hammock felt like an irritating web of knots on her skin; she kept twisting and turning and—

She finally gave up. Bare feet to the ground and not expecting anyone up at the hour, she rose and quietly went through the door.

Merciful heavens.

She stopped and stared, her hands lifting to her heart as if to contain her awe. The full moon shone brightly just above the dark water, casting a long ribbon of light on the ship. Butcher was up as well. He stood at the rail silhouetted in moonlight, staring at this moon's haunting light, a moon that somehow held all the dispassion of a disembodied soul, and something of its mystery.

This moonlight bade her to move softly toward it, as if with reverence. "The goal of Zinja, Ti Yao once told me," she whispered, "is nothing less than to be as a heavenly sphere: a light that shines with indifference above the human tragedies that played over and over on earth. I don't think I understood until now. Until I beheld this moon, so beautiful and yet utterly impervious to the march of human follies beneath its glorious light."

Butcher had not known she stood at his side until the moment the soft melodic voice sounded these words. Then he looked back to the moonlight as his mind turned the words around in his mind. "If only I could muster this magical indifference ..."

She nodded agreement. She thought of her own mother, so newly remembered and so long ago lost, and then of Ti Yao and Gschu. Gradually she became aware of Butcher's silence and what filled it. "You are thinking of her ... of Kenzie."

"Aye."

She studied the moonlit face, searching. The poor baby he had saved, and then all the bags of moneys he dropped on beggar's laps. "What happened, Butcher? What happened to Kenzie?"

"Shalyn, 'tis a sad story—"

"Please."

For a long moment, she thought he would refuse, but no. In a distant and sad voice he began the tale. “The day I met her, she was standing at a well before her small farm just outside of Dublin. I was riding past on my way to port. I stopped to beg a drink of water, and yet now I see I stopped for her: she had these beautiful brown eyes and long dark hair that fell in plaits past her knees, a smile that reached me across the distance. She was so young--only ten and four then. She said I could have as much water as I wanted, but only after I put my back to the pile of wood behind the barn. There didn't seem to be a man about the place, so I obliged. Once I finished, she sent her young brother, Kenyon, and her little sister, Brenna, to invite me to supper.

"'Twas a modest cottage and their means were poor, but there was a light in that place. It came from Kenzie, from her heart. Kenzie's laughter transformed the simplest things: the meal, the cottage, the children, changed them into something delightful and wonderful, and with nothing more than the bounty of her love. She was alone. Her father had left her when she was seven and her mother three years later after a long illness. And while they were too poor to buy shoes against the winter, Kenzie raised Kenyon and Brenna alone and raised them well: to the church, the work on the farm, and what few books she could get her hands on.

"I think I fell in love that first night, though I didn't realize it, not really. Not until three weeks later when the parish priest showed up at the door and told me bluntly that either I marry Kenzie or I leave.

"He married us that very night. I knew happiness then. I came to love Kenyon and Brenna as my own, and soon Kenzie gave me a son, Christopher. I was working a small merchantman that flew from Dublin to Amsterdam during the war. I made a fair wage, but I wanted more, I thought. For Kenzie. I wanted to dress Kenzie in silks and set her in a fancy parlor and give her nothing to do all day but mind the children and gossip with her neighbors. How Kenzie would laugh at my foolishness. She'd swear she never wanted anything more than the love and health of the family, that this made her happy and that she would not dare ask God for more than this happiness ...

"Not me though. I could not get rid of my grand notions of mansions, silk dresses, jewels, my own ships. Lord, I wanted all of it. I told her it was for her too, for Kenzie, Kenzie who was happiest when barefoot, dancing in a sunlit meadow with the children. And then one day I got the opportunity I was dreaming about. There was a place on a merchantman leaving London and sailing the Orient. A risky venture but one that would start this grand fortune and give me plenty of opportunity to increase it. So I moved Kenzie and the children to London. I set them up in a nice flat and left to make this precious dream of mine come true. And I did. I sent every penny back to my banker in London for Kenzie and the children. I always sent letters too, letters that spoke of how much I missed her and little Chris, Brenna, and Kenyon, but glad letters as I instructed Kenzie to hire an agent and find a fine townhouse, where to do it, what to look for and all. Then as my luck made this fortune grow, more letters instructing Kenzie now on how to hire servants, an exalted thing she had never done before, where to find the best dressmakers and whatnot. Almost a year and a half passed before we finally set sail for home.