the pirates, the musket shots that would end his life. But there was only quiet, the seamless quiet that he had heard since leaving the shore.
Then he heard a snort, like a wild pig, just a few feet away, and he almost leapt off the thwart. Felt the fear ripple through him. He sat entirely still and listened, and the snort became a more rhythmic breathing, someone snoring on the other side of the bulwark.
He sat for what seemed a very long time, but nothing more happened, so he put his hands flat against the side of the ship and slowly worked the canoe aft. The main channel jutted out over his head like a roof, blocking his view of the ship. And then he was past it and directly under one of the open gunports, the black muzzle of the gun thrust out above him.
He reached up and grabbed the edge of the port and checked the canoe’s sternway. Slowly, silently, taking great pains not to breathe out loud, he stretched his back and craned his neck upward.
He could just see over the port sill, with the top of his head brushing the underside of the gun, and in that awkward position he took his first look at the terrible and forbidden world of the pirates.
The man who was snoring was no more than four feet from Wilkenson’s face. George could smell the stale sweat from
his body, the foul drunken breath that came in puffs with every porcine sound. He toyed with the thought that he could draw one of his pistols and shoot the man right through the head. One second he would be sleeping, the next he would be dead, and he would never know what had killed him. Here was a man over whom he had the power of life or death, a soul that he, George Wilkenson, could send hurtling down to hell.
That thought thrilled him, and he stared at the sleeping pirate for some time before running his eyes over the rest of the ship. The gunport opened onto the waist. He could see a few dim stars overhead, but where he would have expected to see the break of a forecastle there was only empty space. The pirates must have ripped that structure down, for what purpose Wilkenson could not imagine.
He could see a few heaps of stuff lying about the deck. They might have been sleeping men or discarded gear- he could not tell in the dark. In any event, there did not seem to be many men aboard, at least not topside, and those that were there did not seem to be awake. It was no wonder that his approach had gone unchallenged. He settled back down on the thwart and began to work the canoe aft once more.
He came at last to the aftermost gunport, save one. It was that one and its neighbor that he had seen softly outlined by some light aboard the ship. There could well be men within, men who were awake, who would see him. He stopped, gripping the bottom of the port with sweating palms, and let the rush of fear and exhilaration pass.
He sat still for a moment more, feeling the canoe’s gentle motion in the river, and wondered who he was, who he had become, taking such risks for no purpose.
He had tried to court danger before, but the experience in the whorehouse was the closest he had ever come, until now.
Until now. Now that his father had killed off the last of the family’s honor, what little real honor it ever had. Now that his father was dead, and his more beloved younger brother was dead as well. Now that he had been made to participate in the humiliating spectacle of failed vengeance.
The sun would come up in the morning and put an end to that terrible night, and it would find him alive or dead, and he was surprised to find how little he cared which it would be. Any fear he felt now was animal instinct, not a rational desire to preserve his life and position.
With that thought he looped the canoe’s stern painter around the mizzen chains and made it fast. He craned up again and peered through the gunport and found himself looking into a great cabin of sorts. There was a single lantern hanging from a beam amidships. It was entirely shuttered up, but enough light was leaking out to vaguely illuminate the space, and Wilkenson’s eyes, not quite acclimated to the dark, were able to pick out details.
His idea of a great cabin was based on that of the
Most of the space was taken up by the four long guns, two starboard and two larboard. The aftermost gunports, crudely hacked through the sides, suggested that those two cannon had been moved in after the pirates had taken the ship.
There was a big table amidships, lashed to ringbolts in the deck. The varnish on the legs glowed in the faint light and bespoke a once-fine piece. Wilkenson could picture an elegant dinner laid out there for the master and his guests. But now there were piles of debris scattered over the top, piled so high that even from his low angle Wilkenson could see clothing and bottles and discarded food.
There was not much else, no carpet, no wine cabinet, no sideboard. Most of the paneling was gone, perhaps ripped down for firewood. It looked more like a cabin for a gang of woodcutters than a refuge for a ship’s master.
There was no one in the cabin, of that he was quite certain, for he could see nearly all of the space. Still, it smelled
as if there were a hundred unwashed bodies there, like the hold of a slave ship. Well, perhaps not that bad, but bad enough. He could smell sweat and rotting food and a vague trace of feces and urine. He was accustomed to the unpleasant smell that ships developed, but he had never experienced anything like that outside a blackbirder.
He had no idea how long he had been staring into that dim cabin, but it seemed a long time, and in that time there had been no more noise than he had heard while paddling out to the ships. Even the snoring had stopped. The night was devoid of human sounds. And in the quiet, clinging to the side of the brigands’ ship, Wilkenson’s thoughts turned to Marlowe.
Marlowe had been one of these men. That was what Ripley had said. He had lived this life, a life that he, George Wilkenson, could only peer at from a canoe. Marauding, looting, raping, Marlowe had done it all. Was it any wonder that Elizabeth was so eager to fuck him? And now he was sailing downriver to fight it out with these pirates, to plunge right into battle with men the very thought of whom made Wilkenson sick with fear.
He had seen the pirates coming up the hill. There were hundreds of them, many more than the Plymouth Prizes, vicious killers all. Two ships against the one. And Marlowe was coming to do combat with them, while all he could do was float alongside in a canoe, peering in the gunport like some kind of peeper. That was all he had ever been, a peeper.
Then the next thing he knew he was standing in the canoe and half thrust through the gunport, squeezing with some difficulty around the barrel of the gun that was run out. He paused as his pistol caught on the sill, twisted around until it was free, and then slid in the rest of the way. He picked up his musket, which he had thrust in before him, and, half crouching, looked around.
He was aboard the pirate ship. That very realization surprised him, as he had never intended to do anything of that kind. He was thrilled at the thought. He was aboard a pirate ship, the only conscious man, as far as he could tell. He held
their lives in his hand. He could kill them all, just as he had killed Ripley.
But that was not entirely true, he reminded himself. He could kill three of them, for he had two pistols and a musket, and then they would kill him.
But he had not come aboard just to look around, he had come to do something, to make himself a part of Marlowe’s world, if even for a moment, even if he was the only one who would ever know it. These were the men who had burned his home, and he wanted vengeance on them, real vengeance, vengeance the way Marlowe would have it. These men had to be eradicated, any suggestion of a link between them and the Wilkenson family had to be wiped out. But he did not know how.
And suddenly the answer was obvious, as obvious as the glowing lantern and the pile of flammable debris and the wooden beams that smelled of linseed oil and tar.
He picked up his musket and stepped softly to the forward end of the cabin. There was a rack for cutlasses against the bulkhead, with two of the weapons still in place. There was also a portrait of a woman, probably the former master’s wife. Her image had suffered great insult in the hands of the pirates. There was a slash across her face and various stains on the canvas where something-food, it looked like-had been hurled at the painting.
George took those things in as he stepped cautiously toward the door that communicated with the waist. He paused just inside the frame. The door opened outward, onto the deck, and it was half open. He leaned forward and
