of ships on the account.
Whether this was still Baldridge’s kingdom or not, Marlowe did not know, but it was clearly still an active pirate enclave. It put him in mind of Port Royal, his own former haunt, before it was swallowed by the sea. He felt a vast relief lift him up, like floating in warm water.
All of his plans had depended upon his being able to buy powder, shot, and guns in Madagascar. From everything he knew of the island, this was not an unreasonable assumption, but it was an assumption nonetheless. He might well have arrived to find the Royal Navy in command of the big island and St. Mary’s as well.
He had developed certain contingency plans-capture another pirate vessel and take its guns, go after the Mogul’s ships by boarding alone, buy the spare guns of various other ships-but now it looked as if none of that would be necessary.
“On deck!” the lookout aloft cried. “Boat’s putting off from shore and looks to be making for us!”
“Very well. Mr. Dinwiddie, I reckon we should have a side party or something. In case this is some sort of official of the town.”
“These pirates,” Bickerstaff observed, “are much given to aping the customs of the civilized.”
“When in Rome and all that, Francis.”
“Yes, well, I should think we will see precious little genuflecting and fiddling with beads and Latin prayer here.”
“Precious little indeed. But still, we must do our best to give no offense.”
So among Marlowe and Dinwiddie and Honeyman they managed to arrange a side party of sorts, with a dozen men on either side of the gangway. The boat pulled alongside, double-banked with twelve men in matching outfits and a big, bearded man in the stern sheets. The big man called, “Delegate from Lord Yancy of St. Mary’s! Permission to come aboard?”
“Pray do so,” Marlowe called back, and the big man stepped with the ease of an expert seaman from the stern sheets to the boarding steps and up. He stepped through the gangway, and the boarding party raised their swords and clashed them together overhead, making an archway of men and swords through which the delegate had to walk, a handsome effect, Marlowe thought.
“Welcome aboard the Elizabeth Galley,” Marlowe said, extending his hand as the man passed through the twin lines of sailors. “I am Captain Thomas Marlowe. This is my first officer Peleg Dinwiddie, my quartermaster Duncan Honeyman. And this here is my wife, Elizabeth Marlowe.”
The big man shook hands, nodded his greeting, did a poor job of hiding his surprise at seeing Elizabeth. He turned to Marlowe, looked him up and down, seemed to scrutinize him. “I’m Henry Nagel, I’m first officer to Lord Yancy, what is king of this place.”
“ ‘Lord Yancy.’ Is Adam Baldridge no longer lord of this island?”
At that, Nagel straightened a bit, his look part surprise, part consternation. “No, he ain’t been here this ten year or more. And you’re best if you don’t mention that name again.”
“I’ll remember that,” Marlowe said.
“Elephiant, Lord Yancy is ruler of this island now, and all here are devoted to him. You are, again…”
“Thomas Marlowe.” The side party dispersed with little ceremony. Nagel ran his eyes over the ship, the casual, knowing look of an experienced seaman, first up aloft, over the rig, and then down along the deck.
“You sailing in company with a tender?” Nagel asked.
“No.”
“Where are your great guns?”
“We have none. We had hoped to purchase them here. It is well known that Lord Yancy is the man to see for anything one might need.”
Nagel nodded, seemed to be satisfied. He did not notice Marlowe’s sudden familiarity with Lord Yancy’s reputation. He, at least, seemed entirely devoted to Yancy, though Marlowe doubted if the others were any more devoted than pirates were to anything, save themselves.
“Lord Yancy will have guns to sell, if you gots gold to buy them. You’re welcome to make use of the island as you need. I reckon my lord will wish to come out and greet you. You’d do well to have that side party for him, and musicians, if you got ’em. And bunting. He likes bunting.”
“Thank you for that,” Marlowe said, wondering what kind of lunatic this Yancy might be. He knew from personal experience the depravity that power could induce. “I would be delighted to welcome Lord Yancy aboard with all that my humble ship has to offer.”
“Good. That’s good, Captain.” Nagel ran his eyes over Elizabeth one last time. “I’ll bid you good day, then.” With that, he lumbered back to the gangway, dropped easily down into the waiting boat. The boatmen shoved off, pulled for shore.
Marlowe watched them go, thinking, Lord, I have been here for one hour, and already I am desperate to be gone.
Chapter 14
DESPERATE HE might have been to leave St. Mary’s, but Marlowe knew that being desperate did not necessarily mean being able to leave. And able he was not.
The Elizabeth Galley had now crossed the Atlantic three times, with never a bit of attention paid to her hull, and he knew that attention must be paid. They were taking on water, and great tendrils of weed could be seen streaming aft under the counter when the tide flowed around the hull. They would have to strip her top-hamper and careen her, run her up on the beach and roll her on her side to get at the weeds and the leaks. It was an onerous task, though not as bad as it might have been, since they had no guns to get off of her and precious little in the way of food or water left to sway out of her hold.
Marlowe was pulled from his consideration of that grim reality by a second hail from the lookout, the report of yet another boat pulling for them. Marlowe fixed the boat with his telescope. It was bigger than the last, sort of an ornamental barge with a canopy and a big ensign that he did not recognize streaming from a staff in the stern.
“This would be Lord Yancy, I’ll wager,” Bickerstaff said, his voice carrying the subtle flavor of irony and amusement.
“I’ll wager you are right. And it will do us well to recall that, crackbrained though he might be, he is nonetheless the crackbrain who commands all of the guns past which we must sail. I think the utmost deference is called for, until such time as we are well beyond long-cannon range. Mr. Honeyman, what have we in the way of bunting?”
They managed to muster quite a bit in the fifteen minutes it took for the barge to make its leisurely way across harbor. Along with that, they rounded up what musicians the Elizabeth Galley could boast-a fore topman who was something of a hand with a fiddle; the cook, who was a master of the recorder; and one of the boys who had been practicing with a drum and found a natural talent with that instrument.
These few, and the men with cutlasses, made their best show as the barge drew alongside and Lord Yancy stepped slowly up and through the gangway.
Given the size of Henry Nagel, Marlowe had expected Yancy to be a hairy giant of a man, and so he was surprised at what stepped onto his deck. A small, thin man, squirrel-like, with a neat mustache and chin beard. He wore a wide hat with a great feather, like a French soldier of a former age. From his shoulders a cape fell nearly to the deck, lined with brilliant red silk. His clothes were immaculate. He wore a jewel-studded rapier on his waist.
“I take it I have the honor of welcoming Lord Yancy aboard the Elizabeth Galley?” Marlowe said, making a shallow bow.
“You do,” Yancy said, never looking at Marlowe but rather darting his eyes around the vessel, not the slow, professional assessment of the seaman but rather a jerky, suspicious motion. He made to speak and then stopped as a coughing fit overcame him, and he bent over, hacking into a blood-spotted handkerchief. Finally he straightened again and said, “You did not salute the fort.”
“Forgive me, my lord, I was unaware of the protocol of the island,” Marlowe said, “and, as you can see, I have no great guns.” He struggled to sound sincere, did not care for that kind of kowtowing. Two sentences, and already
