The legend of the gypsy.., p.5
The Legend of the Gypsy Hawk, page 5
Zach said nothing until she was almost at the tree line, then he called out, ‘He’s not here to help you fight, if that’s what you’re thinking. Luc Géroux only ever acts in his own best interest.’
‘Then you and he have much in common.’
Against the dark horizon he was little more than a shadow. Only his eyes caught the starlight, glittering like black amber. ‘Be sure to ask him what Letter of Marque he carries. Perhaps it is you he has come for this time.’
By the time Zach returned to the Hawk, the Serpent’s crew were preparing to moor in Ile Sainte Anne’s protected harbour. Barked orders drifted across the water to unstow the anchors, unsling the lower yards, and send down the top ropes.
It was deftly done. Professionally, Zach could admire the corsair captain’s seamanship, but that was all he could admire. He knew the ship well, had fought her three times in open water. Twice he had won, once he had not and that time only Brookes’ swift thinking had saved him from the deadly nevergreen.
That the Serpent should now be mooring within cannon range of the Hawk … Well, it didn’t sit right. It didn’t sit right at all.
‘Géroux showing up here will raise a breeze.’ Brookes’ words echoed Zach’s thoughts as he came to join him at the rail, watching the Serpent’s crew hang the anchor to the longboat. ‘I say we sail tonight, find a safer anchorage to rest the crew.’
Zach shook his head. ‘If Géroux was here for us he’d have come in, guns blazing, not moored on our stern. He’s here for some other purpose.’
‘A purpose we don’t want to know about, I dare say. Which is all the more reason to sail tonight.’
‘With half the crew still ashore?’ Zach glanced over at his old friend. ‘Besides, sail where? Back to the Spanish Main or the Floridas, where the seas are full of navy frigates?’
‘To the Indies. Madagascar. Take our chances with the East Indiamen. They’ll be ripe for plucking in a month or two, on the way to the pilgrimage.’
‘Aye, running well armed and with a naval escort too.’
Brookes turned, leaning one arm on the rail, and studied Zach with sharp eyes. ‘Géroux coming here is no coincidence, not with the combined fleet mustering.’
Zach couldn’t deny it.
‘What will you do?’ Brookes pressed. ‘Sit here and wait for his masters to come for us? That’s madness.’
‘We’ll not do that. We’ll run, as always. Keep one step ahead.’
‘To run,’ Brookes said, eyebrows rising, ‘we must have a heading. South? Back west? Where will we run?’
It was a good question and Zach had no answer. The world was shrinking; they were pressed in from all sides. Where was there left to go for men who refused to obey the laws of tyrants? He glanced towards the lights on shore, towards Dauphin’s stone fortress, and thought of the old man sitting by his fire, of his unfettered daughter and the freedom they imagined they’d found here. It was an illusion about to be shattered and, for the first time since leaving this place, he felt a weight of sadness at the prospect. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t know where to go.’
With a sigh, he looked over at the Serpent. A second longboat was being lowered now – the captain going ashore, no doubt. He imagined Amelia on the quay, waiting to welcome Géroux to the island, and felt an unexpected and unwelcome pang of envy. Irritated, he quickly tamped it out. Why should he care if Géroux lured her in with romantic tales of his tragic past? Zach had no claim on Amelia Dauphin.
‘Captain?’ Brookes was regarding him with shrewd eyes and not a little unease.
Aware he’d been drifting, Zach pushed aside all thoughts of Amelia. ‘There is a place,’ he said, smiling at the memory. ‘A little slice of heaven in the Mediterranean; an island too small to be noticed. A place where a man might live free, and happy too, with a fishing sloop and a woman at his side.’
Brookes snorted. ‘An island? If it’s marooning you want, Zach, me and the crew can arrange it.’
That was no idle threat; the crew had little patience with a captain’s indecision. Even less with his bad choices.
‘Anyway,’ Brookes added, ‘you’d never give up the Hawk nor the sea. It’s in your blood, as it’s in mine. We’re born for it and for nothing else, you and I. It’s why you left this place to begin with, is it not?’
‘One reason.’
‘And you should leave again. Sail tonight. You’ve given your warning, and there’s no more to be done.’
‘Abandon them to their fate, you say?’ He looked over at his first mate, at the lines of experience etched into his face, and knew that he was right. ‘Run before the storm and the devil take the hindmost.’ He’d lived by that rule since he’d sailed from the Port of London on that bitter winter night long ago. It had saved his life many a time since, and yet …
Impatient, Brookes levelled a finger at him. ‘Think on this, lad: were the situation reversed, were you in mortal peril, would Dauphin and his people risk themselves to save you?’
Once he’d thought not, but in his mind’s eye he saw James’ sincere welcome, Amelia’s fierce integrity, and thought that maybe they would. ‘I’ve been absent too long,’ he said. ‘And I can’t leave without knowing Géroux’s purpose here.’
Brookes scowled. ‘And if his purpose here is the bounty on your head?’
‘Then we’ll scupper his bloody ship and be done with him, won’t we?’ He turned away from the rail, looked back towards the island and the lights along the shoreline. ‘My father’s here, would you have me abandon him to those who would see him hang?’
‘You hate your father. Besides, I don’t think it’s your father you’re unwilling to leave behind.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Have a care, lad. There’s been many a sailor lured to his death by just such a siren as Amelia Dauphin, perched upon just such a godforsaken rock as this.’
‘Come now, do you really think me as big a fool as that?’
‘I think you’re as big a fool as any man of nine-and-twenty what’s cursed with a face pretty enough to invite trouble.’
Shaking his head, Zach smiled. ‘We’ll be heading south by March, I swear it. As soon as I know what Géroux wants here.’
‘Or who.’ Brookes stomped away from the rail. ‘Best hope it’s not you, eh?’
‘Perhaps I’ll be lucky,’ Zach called after him. ‘Perhaps he’s here to take my stubborn bloody father!’
Brookes didn’t turn around and Zach’s humour sank beneath his disapproval. For one thing was sure: Luc Géroux had come to Ile Sainte Anne for a purpose, and that purpose would do no one but himself any good.
Chapter Six
Runaway Bay was exactly as the name implied: a haven for runaway slaves, outlaws, and misfits of all stripes. Ramshackle huts clustered along the shore, wood smoke drifting from the shacks further back in the trees beyond the water’s edge.
The bay itself was sheltered by a narrow opening that widened into a small, shallow cove on the north side of Black Church Rock. Several boucans were set up at one end of the beach – a permanent fixture – and the smell of smoked meat hung in the warm morning air. Amelia felt her stomach begin to growl and threw an apologetic smile to her companion, Captain Luc Géroux.
‘If we’re lucky,’ she said, ‘we’ll find breakfast here.’
Géroux returned her smile with a polite incline of his head. ‘I can imagine no better place, nor any better company.’
Géroux had proven to be thoroughly charming, which was fortunate, for Amy had decided to find him so from the first moment he’d set foot on Ile Sainte Anne. He smiled and spoke of the wonders of Venice, Paris and Rome. His accent rolled pleasantly from his tongue and, unlike most of the sailors on the island, barefoot in their ragged slops, Luc dressed in linen shirts and silken waistcoats, his hair tied neatly at his nape. He looked and acted every inch the gentleman, and Amelia was happy to be captivated by a man so very different from Zach Hazard.
‘We don’t seek riches,’ she explained as they walked, ‘only to share fairly the wealth rich men take from the poor and hoard to themselves.’
‘You call it fair,’ Géroux said mildly. ‘But I think the traders you board would disagree, no?’
‘They have plenty,’ Amelia said, bristling. ‘Far more than they need.’ She indicated a couple of old salts sitting nearby, mending sails. ‘Those injured or too old to sail are still cared for here. No one begs for food, no one starves on Ile Sainte Anne. We each have what we need and no more, as set down in the Articles of Agreement.’
He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Even your father, in his castle?’
‘Well, he—’
From the foreshore came a sudden cry of greeting and Amelia saw people run from the tree line to watch a longboat arriving around the bay’s headland. Children darted in and out of the water, their laughing shrieks carrying over the noise of the surf better than the softer tones of their parents. Women gathered in groups, skirts hiked to avoid the water, talking and laughing as they watched their children play. Despite the ragged appearance of its inhabitants, Runaway Bay was always a merry place.
Géroux laughed. ‘And all these people you have rescued?’ he said, waving a lace-cuffed hand towards the beach.
‘Not all,’ Amy said. ‘Some have found their way here alone, fugitives from the powers of this world, seeking the freedom we offer. But others …’ She broke off and looked at him, at the mild interest in his sea-grey eyes. ‘Others we have freed from those terrible ships that fill their holds with human cargo. You do not defend those traders, I hope?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘For that, I admire you.’
‘Admire my father,’ she said. ‘Admire Captain Overton. Without them and the Articles they swore to protect, this place of freedom would not exist.’
He gave her a gracious smile.
Her eye was drawn by the longboat again, still yards from shore. Someone now stood balanced at the prow, and with a jolt of recognition she realised it was Captain Hazard.
‘What now?’ she murmured as he leapt into the water, up to his knees, and strode the rest of the way ashore.
He was met by a crowd of laughing children, and more than a few women, and greeted them all with his infamous charm, acquiring a girl on each arm before he’d reached the shore. Amy felt that she should be exasperated, or affronted, but somehow found herself amused. He was Captain Zach Hazard, after all; she’d never wish him anything different than what he was.
‘And so you must be Captain Géroux,’ said a warm voice beside her, interrupting her thoughts.
She turned with a smile to the woman she’d come to see, one of her oldest and dearest friends. Familiar bright eyes crinkling at the edges, her smile as broad as her round face, Addy stood with an infant perched on her ample hip and another clinging to her skirts. Her mass of black hair was held back by a scarf, a clash of green and blue against her dark skin. ‘I am Adamaris Sesay,’ she told Géroux, ‘and you are welcome to Runaway Bay.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It is my honour to be here. This seems a happy place.’
Addy laughed, a rich, contagious sound. ‘It can be,’ she said. ‘And will be tonight, with the Hawk and her captain in port.’
Amelia glanced towards the shore, towards Zach. ‘You know Captain Hazard?’
‘Amy,’ Adamaris scolded, her attention drifting to the foreshore. ‘I’ve known Zachary since he still wore the name Overton and stormed ashore like a hurricane, set to claim the life of his wicked father.’
Amelia stared at her. ‘He— What?’
‘Or perhaps he was washed up by mermaids,’ she said with an unapologetic grin. ‘The sea is made of legends, eh? And it, by turn, makes its own.’
She nodded towards Zach, all swagger and strut as he supervised the off-loading of the cargo, trailed by a gaggle of girls – a legend indeed.
‘Come,’ Addy said, touching Amelia’s arm. ‘Eat with us.’
At the top of the beach, rocks had been assembled in a rough circle, at the centre of which lay cold ash; the site of the evening fire. Now, in the warm morning, women and children were scattered about the stones, eating a breakfast of rice and fruits. There was much laughter and the children seemed to belong to everyone and no one, the occasional sharp word snapping them to order when their games became too boisterous.
‘Come, come,’ Addy urged, moving into the circle and depositing the child on her hip in the lap of a yellow-haired woman with crooked teeth. ‘Sit and eat.’
Amelia did both, dropping into the warm sand with half a juicy mango in her hands. ‘How is Freema?’ she asked, glancing at the infant gumming her way through her own mango next to her. ‘She looks better.’
‘So she is,’ Addy said, tousling the child’s hair. ‘The fever broke last night and she slept ’til dawn.’
‘I’m glad,’ Amelia said, touching her hand to the girl’s sticky cheek and getting a grin in return.
‘There are so many children here,’ Géroux said, looking around him in smiling bewilderment. ‘To whom do they all belong?’
Amelia laughed. It was true: there were plenty of children in Runaway Bay. The women came and went: some down to the water’s edge to help unload the cargo; others mended nets; while up near the trees others ground grain into flour. And children darted between them all, avoiding chores where they could, content to play and leave the women to their work.
‘Many women here have menfolk at sea, or dead,’ Addy explained. ‘It’s not an easy task, to raise a child alone.’
‘No,’ Géroux agreed, shifting a little awkwardly on the rocks. Amelia glanced at him, but his thoughtful gaze was fixed on the grey ash of last night’s fire. ‘No it is not.’
‘But here,’ Addy carried on, ‘the children belong to us all. As it should be, hmm? No one owns a child. Not here. These children run free.’
‘Here,’ Amelia said with swell of pride, ‘we all run free.’
‘I hope—’ Géroux cleared his throat and looked up, but his smile appeared too bright for the mellow light of morning. ‘I hope it will always remain so.’
Addy gave a disgruntled huff. ‘Freedom,’ she said, ‘is a thing of great value, but fragile as a shell in the sand, easily crushed beneath men’s boots.’
Amelia glanced at her, surprised by her uncharacteristically dark tone, and trying to read her expression. She wondered what she’d heard, and from whom. ‘You sound like Captain Hazard,’ she said. ‘But I believe our freedom is stronger than you think. No man can crush an idea beneath his boots.’
Addy didn’t openly disagree, but she made a sceptical sound in the back of her throat and Amelia looked away rather than argue. Her gaze drifted down the beach, back to where Zach stood by the water’s edge, alone now and apparently deep in thought. He’d discarded his coat and stood barefoot, his shirt fluttering in the breeze. He looked free and wild, every inch a man of the sea, and she felt drawn to him just as she had that night on the beach. As if sensing her gaze he turned, unerringly meeting her eyes with a frank look. She wondered if he felt it too, this strange attraction, or whether it was only in her imagination.
‘Zachary,’ Addy said, ‘lives his own kind of freedom, hmm?’
Embarrassed to have been caught staring, Amelia turned back to her friend. ‘He values the freedom to do as he pleases,’ she said, more sharply than she’d intended, ‘but no deeper meaning of the word, I think.’
Addy shook her head with a fond smile. ‘There’s no anchor yet that’s held him in place, it’s true. But he’s an older soul than you know, child, and he may yet find what he seeks.’
‘And what is it he seeks, aside from women and gold?’
The look Addy gave her was arch, brimming with hidden smiles. ‘Freedom, of course.’
‘That, he already has.’
‘So he thinks, but there are many kinds of freedom in this world, Amelia.’
‘Many indeed,’ Géroux said, spreading his bejewelled hands before him. ‘The world is changing, no? Soon, commerce will make kings and queens of us all – there is no greater freedom than growing rich from our trade with the world.’
‘That depends,’ said a voice from the shore, ‘on the manner of goods you’re trading. And on the price you’re willing to pay.’
Zach approached, his predatory prowl belying the easy smile he gave them. In the low morning sunlight Amy could see golden strands glinting amid the dark locks of his hair, gilded like his skin.
Beautiful.
The thought popped, unbidden, into her mind and she chased it away with a scowl and hoped he hadn’t noticed.
At her side, Géroux rose to his feet. ‘Captain Hazard.’
Zach sketched a mocking bow. ‘I assume you’re not here to hang me this time?’
‘We all make a living as we must, Captain.’
‘Aye, and you make yours by trading the lives of other men.’
‘If such men are careless enough to bring themselves to the attention of the Admiralty Court, then that is their own concern.’ Géroux gave a tight-lipped smile. ‘Why should I not assist the navy if they pay me well enough to do so? We are both men of business, Captain Hazard.’
Zach was silent, his expression stormy, and across the cold fire Addy watched both men with bright amusement. She favoured Amy with a wry smile and climbed to her feet, placing herself firmly between Zach and Géroux. ‘Peace,’ she said. ‘The Articles call for peace among the brethren on this island and so it will be, hmm?’
Zach gave a nonchalant shrug, although the muscles in his shoulders did not relax. He switched his gaze from Géroux to Amy. ‘And what brings you down from your castle so early, Captain Dauphin? Must be something particular.’
