“Nothing like it. See the clever way I frame the thing.”
Marlowe stepped up to the binnacle box where Fleming had stationed himself. “Mr. Fleming, pray have the men assemble aft.”
Five minutes of calling around the ship and jostling in the waist and the Elizabeth Galleys were all gathered, looking up at Marlowe on the quarterdeck like they were waiting for a Royal address.
“You men, listen here,” he began. “If I’m not mistaken, yonder ship is a French East Indiaman. You people are not strangers to the sea, you know how well armed the Indiamen are. Trained like men-of-war’s men. You didn’t sign on to attack an enemy that was so greatly superior to us. We’re not a man-of-war, not under Admiralty orders to risk our lives. So I don’t feel it’s my right, in this case, to order you into battle, not when the odds are this much against us. I won’t do it. So in this one situation, I am going to allow you to vote! Either we fight, and the odds be damned, or we’re off seeking other prey. What say you?”
From forward the captain of number-two gun, a great burly fellow from Plymouth, called out, “I say we’re with you, Captain!”
Smart fellow, Marlowe thought.
And then another man added, “Aye, hear him! I say the odds be damned! Let’s have at them!”
His words were greeted with a great rolling cheer, up and down the deck, as the Elizabeth Galleys shouted their concurrence.
Bickerstaff stepped up to Marlowe’s side. A smile was playing across his lips. “Very cleverly framed, indeed. The men never suspected you. They seem not to have even been listening.”
Marlowe sighed. It was the sound of a man accepting the inevitable. “You know, Francis,” he said, “I envy King James and his piracy. At least for him it is a fate of his own choosing.”
Chapter 21
The BLOODY Revenge had been five days under way, running north along the coast with the wind and the Gulf Stream under her coattails, before Elizabeth worked up the courage to ask even one of the questions that plagued her.
She had stayed in the great cabin for the chief of the time, and Billy Bird had not encouraged her to come out. After the fight on deck, after she was secured aft and Billy had taken his leave of her and ordered the Revenges to up anchor and creep away under topsails, she had sat, silent, waiting for the sounds of Billy Bird’s men murdering him for having smuggled a woman aboard.
But after a while he had come back to the great cabin and she let him examine the slight wound across her stomach as she held her breasts in cupped hands.
“Whatever was that about?” she had asked, then gave a little gasp as Billy gently swabbed her cut with whiskey. “Who were those men?”
“Bloody villains. We had an arrangement, you know, for certain goods, and those damned thieves were hoping to storm the ship and take it all. God’s body, I don’t know what is happening these days. Is no one to be trusted?”
“Humph.” There was more that she wanted to ask, but she was afraid, and more afraid of the answer, and so she remained silent and waited for the moment when Billy would be killed and the others would come for her.
But five days later it had yet to happen, and she could discern nothing but the routine operations of a ship at sea, the change of watch, the clanging of the bells, the men tramping below for their regular meals. So on that fifth day, when Billy stepped into the cabin bearing their dinner, she said, “Billy, my dear, I am pleased to see that you have not been knocked on the head or thrown overboard.”
“As am I. But why ever would you think such a thing would happen?”
“Well”-she spoke softly so that her voice would not carry through the skylight-“you did tell me that there was a rule concerning the smuggling of women on board.”
“Oh, that? I suppose there could be some trouble, if I had brought a woman aboard, but you are the honored younger brother of Malachias Barrett. Besides, the punishment is marooning, and it ain’t so bad, you know. The guilty party is given some water and a loaded pistol for when that runs out.”
“The soul of mercy, to be sure. But Billy, I fear that during the fight on deck I might have revealed my true colors, as it were…my hair and my… the tear, you know, in my shirt. And I believe I was screaming a bit.”
“Oh, nothing of the sort. You were the very picture of manhood. I was screaming as well, you know.”
“Billy, tell me the truth.”
“Ah, the truth…well… let me say first that those lovely breasts of yours were never for a moment revealed to those who should not see them, not even to me, in fact, who should. But the hair, and the screaming, that may have given you away. In truth, it did.
“But as it happens, we never suspected those rogues were laying for us. That’s why the chief of my guns was still below. They had insisted on no firearms. Would have taken us quite by surprise had you not kindly dumped piss on them. And even with that warning the fight was going badly for us, damned badly. Without you had come on deck when you did and shot such a string of them we might well have been taken. You saved Quartermaster Vane’s life, and he knows it. Saved mine as well.”
“Shot a string of them, you say? For the life of me I cannot recall but a few images. Well, in any event, I am glad to have helped.”
“You more than helped, my dear. I’ve been keeping a weather eye out for some grumbling amongst the men, but there is none. Not a word has been said. I do believe they are inclined to overlook the one little fact of your sex, in gratitude for the great service done them.”
“I am pleased to hear that your people were pleased. But they will not turn on you?”
“They will not. Though if I try to pull such a thing again, I must make sure the lady is of the same heroic bent as you. Now will you not come on deck and see Long Island? Long Island in New York?”
Elizabeth did indeed go on deck, gladly, for she was heartily sick of looking at the inside of the great cabin, even for all its fine appointments and grand store of books and wine.
The warm air that blew in through the after windows below was stronger still on deck. Her long hair would have plagued her, blowing forward and whipping her in the face, had it not been tightly clubbed, with a cocked hat shoved down on her head for good measure.
She was still dressed in a thoroughly masculine fashion, she and Billy agreeing that if the Revenges were inclined to be so charitable as to ignore a capital offense, then they should not push their luck by flaunting it. So she stepped up to the quarterdeck, awkwardly, in Marlowe’s too-big shoes, her breasts and her feminine contours again hidden by shirt, waistcoat, and coat. She was greeted with enthusiastic smiles and nods-which she returned with what she hoped were manly gestures-and knowing smiles and lascivious stares, which she ignored.
“William, good day to you,” said Quartermaster Vane without the least hint of irony. He pointed with his bearded chin over the larboard side. “That land yonder is Long Island, in New York. This wind holds, I reckon we’ll fetch Boston in a day or two.”
Elizabeth nodded, smiled, a sort of crooked grin. She did not trust her voice, but neither did she feel she could remain silent, so she swallowed and said, “I look forward to that, Mr. Vane,” in as manly a tone as she could muster without sounding like she was trying to sound manly. Such an absurd charade! She would be glad to shed herself of it.
But she could not until they were in Boston, and then she would be faced with a new set of problems. She was going there to find out what secret Dunmore held in his breast, what truth she might reveal to the world to destroy him before he destroyed her and Thomas and all that they had.
It had seemed daunting enough in Virginia, but now, faced with the real question of how she would begin that search, the problem seemed insurmountable. And to make it worse, it was all based on a vague recollection of Billy Bird’s, a fact on which she quite purposely did not dwell.
She turned her face into the breeze, cocked her head to feel the sun direct on her skin. It was warm and the air was fresh and the brig rolled along on a rich blue sea under a robin’s-egg sky.
The Bloody Revenges were delighted with her presence, and it appeared that they would not leave her old, dear friend Billy Bird to die on a barren stretch of sand.
