The legend of the gypsy.., p.30
The Legend of the Gypsy Hawk, page 30
Afraid of never seeing Zach again, of never telling him the single truth in all of Luc’s many truths that had touched her most deeply: love, not duty, should be her pole star.
For what else could guide her true, but love?
Zach slept upon the deck. He breathed easier there than in the confines of his cabin, haunted by some half-lost suffocating memory of the ocean closing over his head and death wrapping her icy arms about his neck.
Or perhaps it reminded him of those nights beneath cold English skies with Amelia at his side, in his arms. He’d learned the art of celestial navigation in these northern skies, at his father’s knee before duty had taken him away forever. He thought of it now, of the old sextant in his father’s nimble hands, of his gruff voice and of the pain Zach had felt when his father left him behind in London’s stinking streets. Left him for Ile Sainte Anne, just as Amelia had done. Duty, always duty.
You could have followed, a small voice whispered in the back of his head. You chose to let her go.
He shifted, irritated by the thought. That child, the half-starved lad he’d once been, could not have followed. He’d had no ship, no coin.
Unlike you.
‘Will you be taking the early watch, sir?’ The question came from Brookes, holding up a lamp and looking down at him with an irritating all-knowing scowl.
‘Shiner has the watch,’ Zach growled pulling his hat over his eyes to hide from that look. ‘I’m sleeping.’
‘Aye,’ Brookes muttered. ‘A fine place for the captain to be sleeping.’ Nevertheless, he put down the lamp and lowered his old bones to the deck at Zach’s side with no apparent intention of leaving. ‘Dawn’s almost here.’
Giving up on sleep, Zach sighed, propped himself up and cast an eye to the horizon. It was turning steel grey, like the blade of a knife.
‘We should bear east,’ Brookes said. ‘If we’re heading for the Floridas.’
‘Heavy crossing, at this time of year,’ Zach said, with a glance up at the Hawk’s foremast, still lost in the dark.
Brookes grunted. ‘Precious few other places left in the world, Zach, for the likes of us.’
There was more truth in that than Zach wanted to admit. It made him think of Amelia – what didn’t, these days? – and the impossible utopia she was determined to rebuild.
Perhaps Brookes saw something of it in Zach’s eyes, for he said, ‘It would be worth the voyage, though, for some good Cuban rum.’
‘So it would.’ A chill wind cut across the deck and he pulled his coat closer. ‘I’ve been thinking about my father,’ he told Brookes. In the lamplight he could see little but the weathered lines on his old friend’s face. It was an honest face, one of the most honest faces he knew. ‘Amelia told me it was him who saved me that day, his shot that severed the rope that would have hanged me.’
‘Is that so?’ Brookes rubbed a hand through his scraggy grey hair. ‘He always was a good shot, your father.’
‘I wish I’d known it,’ Zach said, turning his eyes back to the horizon. ‘I wish I’d known it before he died. Things were not left well between us.’
Brookes huffed a sigh. ‘’Tis always a bad thing, unfinished business.’
Unfinished business indeed.
He glanced at Brookes, to find his friend watching him in return, washed of colour in the grey dawn light. ‘You’ve been a shadow of yourself, Zach, since you came back from London.’
‘Seems that I left something of myself behind,’ he said with a listless smile.
Brookes grunted. ‘Not like Captain Hazard to leave behind that what he wants to keep for himself, even if it did belong to another.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Zach said. ‘But Captain Hazard wasn’t there, Jed. It was only Zachary Overton, and he never had much luck in London Town.’
Brookes shifted where he sat, sniffed a little in the cold wind. ‘Well, we ain’t in London now, are we? And Captain Hazard is the best pirate these seas ever saw. Perhaps it’s time he claimed back what he left on England’s shores?’
‘It’s not in England any more.’
‘Mother and child, Zach,’ Brookes growled. ‘You know where she is!’
‘Aye, amid the dead of Ile Sainte Anne! Throwing her life away on that dream, again. I’ll not be part of it.’
‘Why not?’ Brookes said. ‘God knows, Zach, if I had my way we’d put the wench to our stern and never look back. But if being apart from her leaves you like this, a ghost in your own bloody life, then why not go to her?’
‘Because—’ His jaw worked but he found the words were not there to argue. ‘She is too much like my father.’
‘Your father loved you.’
‘He abandoned me.’
‘Aye, and saved you in the end.’
Zach sighed, leaned his head back and gazed up at the fading stars. ‘Amelia will never leave Ile Sainte Anne.’
‘And you will never stay?’ Brookes pushed himself to his feet. ‘She ain’t the only one too much like your stubborn bloody father.’ With a shake of his head Brookes stomped across the deck, heading for the galley and breakfast.
Zach didn’t move, he just sat in the cold morning light and thought on Brookes’ words, thought on the moment Amelia had left him on the beach – the moment he’d let her go. Thought on the prospect of never seeing her again.
To the east, the sun was breaking over distant French shores; to the west the wild North Atlantic spread dark beneath the stars. But to the south …
He took a breath, the air icy in his lungs. To the south lay the woman he loved, the woman he had risked everything to save and then let go at the last. Perhaps Brookes was right; perhaps he was fooling himself to think he could ever live in this world without her.
Perhaps he had been a fool all along to think it better to have none of her than that part of herself she could give.
Before he could think better of it, Zach scrambled to his feet. ‘Brookes!’ His first mate stopped and turned, the lantern swinging low from his hand and bumping against his leg. ‘It’s a foul time of year to cross to the Floridas,’ Zach said. ‘And the Bay of Biscay will be little better.’
‘Aye,’ Brookes agreed. ‘We’d do well to find a friendly port for the winter, Captain. The crew’s tired and the Hawk in need of careening.’
‘As it happens,’ Zach said, ‘I’ve some unfinished business in a port close to these waters.’ He cleared his throat, did his best not to notice the wary resignation in Brookes’ eyes. ‘That is, I’ve a mind to pay my last respects to my father.’
Brookes gave a solemn nod, an odd mixture of unease and relief. ‘Then we sail for Ile Sainte Anne after all.’
‘Where else?’ Zach said with a weary smile. ‘Where else in the world would I go but there?’
Where else would he go but to her?
They’d been a week at sea, heading south along the Portuguese coast, and already the weather was warmer. Luc Géroux sat with his back to the mast of the ship that had once been his and tried not to listen for sounds from below.
Instead he closed his eyes and thought of Josette, of her dark curls and sweet smile. Everything he suffered, the guilt and shame, he suffered for her – and gladly. If he could have saved her from danger by laying down his life, he would have done so, but his sacrifice was not so simple, his pain so much greater. He must deceive and betray; he must watch others suffer because of him, and he must not lift a finger to help them. That was his fate; that was his punishment for youthful pride, ignorance and naivety.
A shadow fell across him and he opened his eyes. Morton was there, cold-eyed in his scarlet uniform, flanked by his lieutenant. ‘On your feet,’ he said. ‘We have matters to discuss.’
Luc didn’t move. ‘What matters?’
‘Lieutenant Ashton is not happy with your navigator.’
‘In what respect?’
Ashton glared, grabbing Luc’s arm and hauling him up. ‘On your feet, man, when you speak to Lord Morton.’
Shaking off the man’s hand, he said, ‘What is wrong with my navigator?’
‘We should be close to Lisbon by now. Yet, by my reckoning, we’re still a day’s sail north.’
‘So we are. In these winds our progress is not so fast. Do you think I sail my ship slowly on purpose to delay you? You can see how the sails are set. What is your accusation?’
‘On an English ship—’
‘This is a French ship.’
‘Yes, as we’re painfully aware.’ Ashton looked Luc up and down, making a show of his contempt. ‘What is that, on your knees?’
He looked down at the dirt marring his britches. His heart lurched. ‘I— It’s—’
‘I sincerely hope,’ Morton said, dripping menace into each word, ‘that you’ve not been visiting our prisoner. That would be most unwise.’
‘No.’ He licked his lips, knew the lie was blatant. ‘That is, I—’
From below, there came a muffled scream. Luc flinched, blood running cold. Morton only smiled. ‘You realise, of course, that she is of great value. If anything were to happen – should she escape …’
Another cry drifted up and then sank back into a deathly gurgle. Morton frowned, listening. ‘What the devil is he doing to her?’ He jerked his head at his lieutenant. ‘Ashton, go and see. Remind the fool that she’s to be kept alive until we actually have the Articles.’
The lieutenant nodded, disappearing quickly down the steps and Morton returned his attention to Luc. ‘If it should get back to Paris that you hindered our search for this wretched piece of calumny … Well, I dare not imagine the consequences for dear little Josette.’
Luc said nothing. From below he heard footsteps – the lieutenant returning – and held his breath. Had she used the knife? Or had it been discovered before she was able to take her life? Would they suspect him? Damn the dirt on his knees, he should have been more careful. If they suspected he had played any part in this …
Morton turned towards the steps. ‘I hope the brute hasn’t damaged her too badly, I—’
He stopped dead.
For at the top of the stairs stood Amelia Dauphin, bruised and beaten but fierce as a new dawn with the lieutenant’s sword and pistol tucked into her belt and another aimed straight at Morton’s head. ‘Not too badly,’ she said, by way of an answer. ‘Certainly not so badly that I can’t kill you where you stand.’
Silence. The whole world held its breath, even the sails were frozen for a single, breathless moment.
Then Morton said, ‘Géroux, disarm the harlot.’
A dozen thoughts raced through his mind – a hundred options, all with the same dreadful consequence for his daughter. But he had no time to act, no time even to make a choice.
Amelia pulled the trigger. In a flash of powder and shot, Morton fell dead upon the deck.
‘That,’ she said, with relish, ‘was for my father.’
Dropping the pistol, Amelia pulled the other, cocked and ready, from her belt. It was aimed at Luc. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ she said, ‘but if you stop me from leaving, I will shoot.’
He raised his hands, gazing down at Morton’s body. Lifeless eyes stared into the bright morning sky, dead. Lord Morton was dead.
‘Dear God,’ he said aloud. ‘Josette.’
Confident of Luc’s cooperation, Morton had brought only his lieutenant and his inquisitor, Crouch, aboard the Serpent. Both lay dead, throats cut, in the brig. Which left only Morton’s body in need of disposal.
‘Throw it overboard with the other two,’ Amy said, teeth gritted as she sat on deck and let the ship’s surgeon examine her wrist and tend her other wounds. ‘Let the sharks feed on his guts.’
Luc shook his head. ‘No, if he disappears how am I to explain it? They will know – at the very least they will suspect – that I am involved. It is too big a risk. We must think of something else.’
‘This will pain,’ the surgeon said in heavily accented English.
‘Ce n’est pas grave,’ she said with a smile. ‘I am strong.’
He moved her wrist, and it did hurt. A great deal. She didn’t cry out, though, and after a moment the pain began to ease as the surgeon quickly bound her wrist. When she could speak again, she said to Luc, ‘Pirates. Tell them that the Serpent was raided and he was killed in the attack.’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Though the Serpent is undamaged.’
‘Set him adrift, then, in one of the longboats. Let them find him adrift.’
Luc was silent, pacing away to the ship’s rail.
Behind her, the surgeon lifted her tattered shirt. She hissed as it came away from the lash wounds on her back.
‘Hmmm, I will need to clean this,’ he said in French, light fingers probing the wounds.
Amy winced. ‘D’accord.’ Although she knew the cleaning would hurt far more than the setting of her wrist.
They took her down to the surgeon’s quarters, where he stripped the shirt from her back, bathed and salted her wounds. Unlike Crouch, the surgeon was no artist in pain – he didn’t have the skill to keep his patient conscious long enough to endure every last moment of the torture and Amelia quickly, gratefully, sank into oblivion half way through the process.
It was some time before she was able to think or talk again. Longer still until she could stand. Queasy from the pain, she resisted the surgeon’s efforts to keep her below and sought fresh air on the deck.
Dusk had turned the winter sky to violet and in the far distance she saw the glitter of a city on the coast.
‘Lisbon,’ Luc said from behind her.
She turned with a smile, let him take her arm and lead her to the ship’s rail. ‘Have you ever been there?’
‘Of course. It is a beautiful city.’
‘Perhaps one day I’ll see it for myself.’
‘Once Ile Sainte Anne is rebuilt?’
She shook her head. ‘Perhaps, but there is something more important to be done first.’ She darted a quick look at him. ‘I must find Zach and make things right between us. After that …’ She looked out towards the distant shoreline. ‘Somehow I have to preserve my father’s legacy, Luc, pass on what the Articles promise. I can’t let them die with me.’
After a moment’s thought, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a chain on which hung two familiar keys. ‘Morton wanted these. His men could not find them when they sacked Ile Sainte Anne.’
Amelia’s heart raced at the sight of them. ‘You mean that you took care they shouldn’t find them.’
Luc gave a slight smile. ‘Perhaps I did,’ he said, watching the keys as they swayed on the end of the chain. ‘Were I to deliver them to him it might be enough to— But, no.’ He caught them up in his hand and said, ‘Zach has saved your life; now you must save his.’
Alarmed, she said, ‘He is in danger then.’
‘Only from himself.’ With a serious look he offered her the keys. ‘No man – not even a pirate – can live for silver and gold alone. Zach Hazard is in need of greater treasure, but knows not how to claim it.’
With a shaking hand she reached out and took the keys from his hand. One gold, one bronze, they felt warm and heavy in her palm. ‘He’ll not thank me for these,’ she said. ‘He never wanted this legacy. It’s not the treasure he seeks.’
‘No,’ Luc said. ‘You are, Amelia. And there is more than one way for the legacy of Ile Sainte Anne to endure.’
Her cheeks flushed, but she did not look away. ‘And what of us, Luc? What of you and me?’
He took her hand where she held the keys, closed his fingers over hers. ‘We sail on different courses, Amelia. I would not have you follow where I must go.’
‘Then we must say goodbye?’
‘Not goodbye,’ he said, letting go of her hand. ‘Not yet. You have a destiny to fulfil, and so do I. Our paths will cross again, one day, and perhaps in happier times.’
He took a step backward and called, ‘Lower the longboat.’
With a creak of rope, the longboat made its slow descent into the sea. Aboard was Morton’s body, the single shot to his head stark in the fading daylight. Amelia watched him until the boat hit the water and found not a shred of pity or regret in her heart.
‘Will you cast him adrift?’ she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the body as Luc climbed down the ladder and into the boat.
He looked up. ‘No. I dare not. I must speak with them, make them believe we were attacked. If they do not, if they suspect— This is the only way. I can be in Lisbon in a few hours, if we’re not picked up sooner.’
‘But the Serpent …’
‘She’s yours until you reach Ile Sainte Anne; then she belongs to the crew. That’s our way, is it not, under the Articles?’
He spoke calmly, but she could see the sadness in his eyes and realised that it had always been there – fear and sadness, cleverly masked, but always visible in his stormy eyes if you knew how to look. ‘Luc,’ she called, moving to the top of the ladder. ‘Wait.’
Sitting in the boat, he cast off the last rope and took hold of the oars. ‘Live well, Amelia. Be happy.’
From her belt, she pulled her pistol. ‘Luc, wait!’ Taking aim, willing her hand not to shake, she said, ‘Your left shoulder. From this distance it won’t be bad. Better if you’re picked up wounded. We’ll sound the cannon, get their attention. It’ll sound like a raid if we leave fast and run dark. No one will know what happened here, but there will be stories – stories you start when they find you.’
He smiled – a brief, bright expression. ‘You always were a better pirate than me, Amelia Dauphin.’ Then he nodded once and turned his head away. ‘Aim true.’
Holding her breath, arm braced on the rail to keep it steady, she took the shot. He fell back, crimson blooming on his coat, and for a dreadful moment she feared she’d missed, hit too close to the vital blood vessels. Then after a moment he sat up, hand clasped over his shoulder. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and laughed a little woozily. ‘A glancing blow, I think.’
