The Guardship

evidence. I have read Lucy’s statement-she does not implicate Elizabeth in the least. Quite the opposite. This is a sham, brought against her by the bastards Wilkenson, and done so for the sake of vengeance, no more.”

“You will not, not speak of the leading family in this colony in that manner,” Finch said.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen.” Nicholas held up his hands, and Marlowe and Finch were quiet. “Please, Captain Marlowe, for all that, Jacob Wilkenson is a member of the House of Burgesses and he has brought charges that can only be cleared in a court of law. I beg you understand that Mrs. Tinling must still be considered a prisoner until her trial.”

“I understand that.”

“Then you will allow us to take her back into custody?”

“I will not.”

“Then, sir,” Finch said loudly, “we shall arrest her anyway, and your own base desires be damned.”

“And how, sir,” Marlowe asked, “do you propose to do that?”

“Now, Marlowe,” Nicholson tried to inject civility once again, “this is really harboring a fugitive, you know, and it won’t do.”

“I understand all of that, Governor.”

“And understand as well,” Finch broke in, “that your own status is very much in question, very much in question indeed. There is reason to believe that you are not who you say, sir, and might well be wanted by the law, right along with that little tart.”

Marlowe shifted his gaze to Finch, and his cold stare stopped the president in mid-bluster. He resettled himself in his seat and cleared his throat.

“Men have died for less than that, sir,” Marlowe said. “By my own hand.”

“Are you threatening me, sir?”

“Yes.”

Finch was at a loss for words, taken aback by the directness of that answer, and Nicholson leapt into the breach.

“Now, gentlemen, I think there is no need for this. We are all of us on the same side, what? Not squabbling like a bunch of Dutchmen. But see here, Marlowe, it is true that there have been questions raised. I should not like to have to relieve you of your command.”

“I should not like to have you try.”

“Be that as it may…” Nicholson was too much of an old campaigner to be thrown off by that implied threat. “I’ll own there’s no evidence against Mrs. Tinling, that her arrest was all Wilkenson’s doing. I think perhaps we can forget all of that, the charges and such, in consideration of the good work you have done, and the service I hope you will continue to perform.”

“Now see here, Governor,” Finch found his tongue again, “don’t you start making promises that you are unable to keep. We said that perhaps we would consider overlooking some of this. But this man’s attitude is insufferable, and his harboring that-”

“What is this duty you hope I will continue to perform?” Marlowe leaned back in his chair. Nicholson would not have said that if he did not have something specific in mind. He would not be so liberal with his forgiveness if he did not still need Marlowe’s services.

“Well.” Nicholson cleared his throat, and for the first time he looked uncomfortable. “There are reports abroad that a pirate has been sailing into the bay. I have had some word from down Norfolk way. They’re in a state there, I should say, damn near panic. Hampton Roads is all in a fright, sure the pirates will plunder all the country homes, like them villains did up to Tindall’s Point back in ’82. There is even some thought that they may have taken the Wilkenson Brothers-”

“Which, I might add,” Finch interjected, “would have been safe with the fleet were it not for you.”

“The fleet would not have been safe at all, sir, were it not for me. Jacob Wilkenson should have obeyed the law.”

“Jacob Wilkenson, who it pleases you to speak so ill of, is at least seeing to some defense against this villain. He has requisitioned a prodigious amount of military supplies from the militia, he is gathering powder, shot, small arms, and intends to organize his neighbors. I hope, sir, that you can be as helpful.”

“Yes, yes,” Nicholson said, “now look here, Marlowe, can I count on you to see about this pirate? It would do much to improve your position with the burgesses, which, I have to say, could use a deal of improving.”

Marlowe looked at Finch’s red and angry face and the governor’s blank countenance, the face of a born negotiator.

Here were his choices, laid out for him like dishes on a buffet table. He could resign his captaincy, turn the ship over to Rakestraw, turn Elizabeth over to the sheriff-and turn a gun on himself. He would have no other choice.

Or he could continue back down the path he had come, take the Plymouth Prize to the Caribbean, go on the account. Bid farewell to Thomas Marlowe and all he had become. It was the dishonorable route, but at least he would escape with his life.

Or he could go and fight Jean-Pierre LeRois, for he was certain that the pirate spreading terror in the lower bay was indeed LeRois. Vicious, brutal man, his crew probably twice the size of that aboard the Plymouth Prize. LeRois would be looking for revenge on the guardship that had fooled him and had so mauled his men. He did not care to think on what would happen once LeRois discovered who was in command of that ship. And he did not think his men could beat LeRois. But that was the honorable route, the route to horrible but honorable death.

Death or disgrace, those were his choices.

“I am still the captain of the guardship, I take it,” he said at last, “and so I still have my duty.”

Chapter 28

TWO SHIPS were fighting it out, somewhere downriver from Jamestown. Marlowe did not need to see the fight to know it was taking place. The sound told him that. The roll of gunfire echoing off the banks of the James River. The cloud of gray smoke building like a small anvil head on the other side of the long, low peninsula.

They were fighting somewhere past the point of land that terminated in Hog Island, perhaps as far down as Warixquake Bay, but most likely nearer than that.

The sound also told him something of how the fight was going. The two ships were hotly engaged, and had been for close to an hour. One was firing three guns for every one gun the other managed to get off. One had larger guns than the other; the sound was different, which was how he was able to differentiate between them.

The one with the larger guns was the one firing more slowly. Perhaps it was their superiority in weight of metal that accounted for their holding out as long as they had, for the slow rate of fire probably meant a small, poorly trained crew. And that most likely meant the ship was a merchantman, fighting for her life. And if that was the case, he could well imagine what the other ship was.

He looked aloft. On the fore- and mainmast the men were scampering around the uppermost rigging, setting royal sails that had been sent up from the deck. They represented the last bit of canvas the Plymouth Prize could spread as Marlowe pushed her hard to join in the fight.

He was desperate to stop the slaughter of the innocents, desperate to be done with LeRois or have LeRois be done with him. He was ready to make his final bid to rejoin Virginia society, or at least prevent his being cast down from it. Ready to fight to maintain the thin and largely worn veneer of respectability that covered him and Elizabeth. He could sit still no longer, letting his fear and paranoia fester.

The day was lovely, with a gentle southwesterly breeze pushing them along. It all seemed so incongruous, the gray sails sharp against the blue, cloudless sky, the green fields rolling down to the wide river, the gentle sound of the water against the hull, and the distant blast of cannon, the chance whiff of expended powder.

Elizabeth was there by his side, a parasol held over her head to shield her fine skin from the sun. They might as well have been aboard the Northumberland for a yachting excursion.

But of course they were not, and she was in as great a danger as any of them. Greater, really, for she would