The Guardship

particular friend. The return address was London.

George moved his eyes back to the top of the letter, but he could not read it because his hands were shaking. He stepped over to the bed and sat down. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and read.

My Dear Matthew,

It was with great Delight that I read yours of the 23rd and I am pleased that all goes on well in the Colony. We have been much grieved here with the news of my Father’s passing, as I have no doubt all have been there, who knew him. But with him now gone from this Life, I think I must set certain things

straight, if only so there is no Misapprehension between you and me that would serve to harm our dear friendship. You may have guessed that I speak of Elizabeth, who fancies herself Elizabeth Tinling and my stepmother, though I suffer the greatest horror at the very thought of it…

George read quickly through the letter, then closed his eyes and forced himself to take several deep breaths and read it again and again and again.

“Oh, my Lord,” he whispered. “Oh, my Lord, my Lord.” It was no mere letter that he held in his hand. It was the first step toward the ruination of Elizabeth. And when she went down, Marlowe would not be far behind.

He sat and stared at the pile of books on the floor and thought about his next move, planning out each step, examining each possible cause and effect like a chess player, intent on his game.

The sun was gone and Matthew’s bedroom was cast in the gloom of the early evening when George finally stood up. He ignored the wreckage that he had created as he crossed the room and stepped out into the hall. He had no time for a dead man’s room. He had a great deal yet to do.

Chapter 22

THENORTHUMBERLAND stood in past Cape Henry, beat southwest through Hampton Roads, and reached up the James River with the tide. It was six days after the Plymouth Prize’s fight with the pirate, and somewhere out on the big ocean Marlowe was about to bid the fleet goodbye.

King James laughed out loud to see the forlorn Wilkenson Brothers still at anchor in the Roads, all but abandoned. With the fleet gone there were not enough sailors left in all Virginia or Maryland to get her under way.

In the long shadows of the evening James luffed the sea sloop up to the dock at Jamestown. Two of the Northumberlands leapt onto the wooden platform and the two still aboard tossed them the dock lines. Twenty minutes later, the sloop looked as if it had never gone to sea.

“All right, boys, I reckon you can have a run ashore,” James said, and in the gathering dark he could see four heads nodding. “I need you back here noon tomorrow, not one damned second later,” James continued. This was greeted with four of the most sincere promises, then the crew of the Northumberland scrambled over the side and was gone.

There was no trip to the secret warehouse this time, no hold full of pirate loot to conceal. The quarry had gotten clean away, which was a disappointment to the men of the Plymouth Prize as well as those of the Northumberland. After the rich haul at Smith Island, none of Marlowe’s men were content anymore just to have lived through the fight.

But as it happened, the captains of the merchantmen had given Marlowe a handsome reward as thanks for his good work, and that Marlowe had shared out among the hands. He had split it up on the barrelhead and called each man up in turn, giving each a share, including those aboard the Northumberland, and two shares for the ones who had been wounded. That had pleased the Prizes to no end. There was nothing they would not do for Marlowe.

“Thank you, James, for your good work,” Marlowe had said as he handed the former slave his gold, two shares, as was befitting an officer.

“Thank you, Captain Marlowe. I reckon a man could get used to this pirating.”

King James went below to set the great cabin to rights. Two hours later, with the Northumberland in perfect trim fore and aft, keel to truck, he slung his haversack over his shoulder, took one last look around his command, and then hopped on to the dock and headed up the dark road.

The dusty surface of the rolling road was the color of dried bone in the moonlight, and from the woods and swamps on either hand came the sounds of frogs and crickets and a host of other night creatures. James breathed the heavy scented air, smiled to himself, quickened his pace.

Marlowe had sent the Northumberland in well ahead of the Plymouth Prize. He was worried, or so he had said, about the sloop venturing too far off shore. That was a valid concern, but James knew that it was only part of it. Marlowe also wanted to make certain that the tale of his recent victory was well known in the colony before his return. And with the men of the Northumberland turned loose on Williamsburg, money in their pockets, he was assured of the story being told, as much as if he had printed broadsides and pasted them on every building in the tidewater.

It was almost six miles from Jamestown to Williamsburg, but King James was well motivated and he walked quickly. It took him less than two hours to arrive at the outskirts of the capital city, a cluster of civilization amid the wilderness. One moment he was in the dark countryside, all but devoid of houses or people, and the next he was looking down Duke of Gloucester Street, lined with clapboard homes and shops, and at the far end the foundations of the new capitol building, all but lost among the stacks of material and the detritus of construction.

James moved into the shadows of the buildings, stepping slowly, noiselessly, listening to the sounds of the night, just as he had been trained to do as a boy until it had become second nature. Most people in Williamsburg did not believe in the concept of a free black man, Marlowe’s words notwithstanding. No one in that city believed a black man had the right to be wandering around the streets late at night, certainly not with a pistol thrust in his belt, a cutlass at his side, such as those James was sporting. Being caught thus would be enough to see him hanged.

He moved cautiously down the street, pausing to listen and then moving again. Once he thought he heard the sound of a heel on gravel. He froze and crouched low by a tree, lost in its shadow, peering around, senses alert, but there was nothing more and he moved on.

He came at last to Elizabeth Tinling’s house, the small, cozy, wood-framed home not far from the sight of the Capitol. He glanced up and down the road, and then, satisfied that there was no one there, slipped into the yard past the stable and around to the back of the house.

Lucy’s room was on the first floor, in the back, just off the kitchen. It was a tiny room, no bigger than most of the closets in Marlowe’s house, but it was a private room and that was a greater kindness than most slaves would ever know.

James snuck up to the window, glanced around again, and then tapped softly on the glass. He shook his head and grinned at the strangeness of the situation. A month before he would

never have done this, sneaking around like some criminal just to visit a silly girl. He would have considered it far beneath his dignity.

But now, he reckoned, with all that had happened to him-command of the Northumberland, the fight on Smith Island, Lucy’s confession of love-he had enough real dignity that he could sacrifice this little bit. And, he imagined, it would be worth the sacrifice.

He knocked again, a little harder, and Lucy appeared in the window, an amorphous form through the darkness and the wavy glass. She pushed the window open. She looked confused, sleepy, a bit annoyed, but when she saw James she smiled wide. The sleep vanished from her eyes.

She was wearing only a cotton shift, and the thin material draped off her body in such a way that it accentuated her breasts and the curve of her waist. She could not have been more enticing if she were wearing nothing at all. Her soft brown hair fell forward over her shoulders and hung in big ringlets around her neck.

“What are you doing, sneaking around, looking like some kind of pirate?” she asked.

“Whatever it is that pirates want, ma’am, that’s what I come for.” James smiled back at her.