murdering bastard named Malachias Barrett who goes by the name Thomas Marlowe now. I arrested him, and those idiots with me let him escape. Hanson is dead.”
“Dead. Aye, sir.” Tasker was smart enough not to inquire further, smart enough not to ask Press about his wet clothing or his lost hat or how he seemed to have had no part in Marlowe’s escape. That was why Press had shipped him as first officer.
“Barrett is out there, on a ship. Close. And I intend to find him. I want the longboat brought alongside.”
It would have to be a boat attack. Press would have liked to use the Queen’s Venture, his powerful warship, but she was in disarray, still fitting out. They were not slated to sail for Madagascar for another three weeks. It would take hours just to get her under way.
The longboat, then. “Thirty men in the boat crew,” Press continued. “Armed. Cutlasses and pistols. I want to be under way in…”
Press paused, cocked his ear. He could sense Tasker tensing up with the gesture, but he ignored the officer, his concentration directed entirely outboard. Some little sound had caught his ear, some familiar tone.
The Queen’s Venture’s rudder groaned below them, drowning out everything else in the muted night. And then it stopped, and then Press heard the sound again, a steady, mechanical sound.
Clack, clack, clack… the sound of a capstan’s pawls falling into place. He had heard it a thousand times before, and he could not mistake it, the sound as much a part of his life as his own voice. It was the sound of a ship getting under way. There was only one man he could imagine who was desperate enough to up anchor and move on a black, fog-shrouded night, in a river on a falling tide.
“Damn it!” Press slammed his hand on the cap rail, bit down hard on his silver toothpick. “Get that damned boat alongside now!” he hissed between clenched teeth. “Do you not hear that? They are winning their anchor!”
“Aye, sir!” Tasker turned and ran forward, knowing better than to move at a pace slower than that. Into the waist, firing a broadside of orders, conveying both the intent and the urgency of the captain’s commands.
Men ran in every direction. Handpicked, able seamen, they knew when it was time to move and move fast. Cutlasses came up from below and were handed out, pistols clipped to belts. The longboat, already in the water, pulled alongside, and the boat crew dropped into it and took up the oars.
Four minutes from the moment he gave the word, Press climbed down into the fully manned, fully armed boat. It could not have been done fast enough to please him, but neither could it have been done any faster than it had been.
“Shove off. Give way,” he growled, and the boat swung away from the Queen’s Venture’s side. The long sweeps came down and caught the water, and the boat shot forward, despite its being heavily loaded with men and arms.
Press pushed the tiller over, aimed the bow in the direction of the capstan noise. He had not brought any kind of light, so he could not see the boat’s compass, and he cursed that fact and he cursed the fact that they had not had time to muffle the oars. The squeaking of the looms in the rowlocks seemed like the screaming of the damned in the quiet night. He was certain Barrett would hear it and be alerted to the pending attack.
But it would not matter, Press assured himself. Surprise was not so crucial. In that light air the boat could move faster than any ship under sail. And Barrett’s ship was a merchantman, twenty sailors at most. It was unlikely that they would be willing to fight and die for their captain. And even if they were, they would be no match for his band.
No, beating Marlowe was no problem. He had only to find him, to come upon this Elizabeth Galley on the river, and the rest would be simple. He toyed with the toothpick in his mouth, waggled it back and forth with his tongue, beat the gunnel of the boat lightly and rhythmically with his fist.
The Elizabeth Galley inched forward, pulled against the tide as the men at the capstan hauled her up to the anchor in preparation for getting under way.
“How much cable have you veered, Mr. Dinwiddie?” Marlowe asked, an irritable and unnecessary question.
“Cable and a half, sir. We was to moor, you’ll recall.”
“Yes, yes,” Marlowe said, and paced away. A cable and a half, almost a thousand feet of rope to haul in. He was growing more anxious with each passing moment. The loud clacking of the capstan pawls was like some kind of torture. He was sure it was increasing in volume every minute.
Elizabeth, who had gone below seeking the privacy of the great cabin to compose herself, returned to the quarterdeck. She gave Marlowe a half smile, an expression of support, then moved to the opposite rail and stood there, quiet and unobtrusive. Thomas knew she would remain in that place, ready to help if asked, not questioning, not interfering, and he loved her for that, for knowing what he needed in every instance and giving it, willingly.
Then his mind moved on from those warm thoughts. He leaned on the rail and looked out into the night. Between the dark and the fog he could not see beyond twenty feet.
Press is dead, he thought. If he had been able to swim, he would have got back into the fight.
But he could not shake the gnawing worry. It was not the first time he had assured himself that Roger Press was dead.
Clack, clack, clack…
“Here’s the splice coming aboard!” Duncan Honeyman called aft, sotto voce. The splice where the two cables were joined. That meant that they had hauled in one third of the cable they had let out. Marlowe pounded the cap rail softly with his fist.
Clack, clack, clack… It was like a town crier announcing that they were slipping away, and Marlowe could hardly stand to listen to it.
And then he heard another sound, a creaking, like any of a hundred creaking noises that a ship might make. But there was something about it that caught his attention, a certain rhythmic quality. What was more, it did not sound as if it came from the Elizabeth Galley but from somewhere out in the dark. He strained to listen.
Again, there it was. Oars in tholes, he was certain. He crossed to the other side of the quarterdeck, listing in his mind all the reasons a boat might be out at that time of night-a drunken party returning to their ship, a bumboat looking for a late-night customer, even whores being ferried out to a ship-it was not unheard of. A hundred reasons a boat might be out on the water at that hour.
He leaned on the starboard rail as the boat appeared out of the mist like some nightmare water bug, a longboat, oars double-banked, men crowded at the thwarts, just fifteen feet away before it was visible. In the stern sheets, too indistinct to see in any detail but unmistakable in his gangly form, sat Roger Press.
Marlowe stood upright, gasped as if a ghost had suddenly materialized, and then Press’s voice shouted, “Backwater! What ship is that?”
The men at the capstan froze, the clacking ceased. Marlowe flailed around for an answer, but before he could grab one, Peleg Dinwiddie, standing on the gangway and looking down on the boat, answered helpfully, “Elizabeth Galley! Who goes there?”
“Give way,” Press said to his boat crew. Then to Dinwiddie: “We are going alongside.”
The Elizabeth Galleys seemed to have turned to stone. They stood, unmoving, unsure what to do, but Marlowe had no doubt.
“Cut the cable!” he shouted. No need for quiet now. “Cut the damned cable!”
Still no one moved. They remained frozen long enough for a curse to build in Marlowe’s throat, and then Honeyman snatched up an ax and brought it down on the bar-taut anchor cable, one stroke, two strokes, the strands shredding with each blow.
Marlowe leaned over the rail. The longboat was ten feet away, less than its own length, the crowd of men- armed men, he could see- ready to swarm up and into the unarmed, unprepared, and untrained men of the Elizabeth Galley. It would not even be a fight.
“Pull! Ship oars!” Press cried. He looked up, and his eyes met Marlowe’s. Press looked calm, no surprise on his face, as if he had known all along where he might find his old enemy.
The boat crew pulled hard, the boat shot forward, and the oars came up and were laid on the thwarts, out of the way, where they would not hinder the men from clambering aboard the Galley.
The heavy boat bumped along the Galley’s side, its momentum carrying it fast, the bowman standing with the boat hook and reaching for the main chains, when the anchor cable parted under Honeyman’s ax. The wind and tide seized the Galley’s bow and swung it away. The bowman lunged, slashed at the chains, almost fell overboard as the
