Chapter 28: PLEDGES AND PROMISES

The sloop was rocking very slightly on a slow, lazy swell. Jack’s damp chest rose and fell with each breath under Tory’s cheek, and she no longer knew if she were waking or dreaming, rocking in Jack’s strong arms or lying still. Jack had stretched out on his back to fill the little bunk, one knee bent up and his other foot hanging over the edge. She was sprawled half over him, cradled in his arms. When she opened her eyes, she could see tiny stars glittering on and off in the dark out through the stern cabin window as the sloop rocked slowly this way and that.

There was still some sporadic singing and laughing from the men above. The candle had guttered in the lantern, but not before Tory had seen Jack’s face in the moment that he gave himself to her forever. She closed her eyes and shivered at the memory. Jack drew his arms more snugly around her and lowered a kiss into her hair. The lines were moaning softly in the breeze in the rigging overhead. The damp wood creaked like a sigh whenever the sloop rolled to starboard.

"Does it strike you as odd," Tory murmured, "that we have never loved each other on a ship, before?"

"Odd? Mmm," Jack considered. "Between chasing down prizes, dodging grapeshot and running for our lives, no, not especially odd."

"I used dream about how romantic it would be." Tory sighed.

"Well, you ought to have stayed aboard the Providence when you had the chance. Tried your luck with some more likely fellow."

"I didn’t want any other fellow. When Matty asked me to stay—"

"Matty asked you to stay?" Jack interrupted her. "Aboard the Providence?"

"Begged me. Made a damned nuisance of himself, yapping on about how you were sure to die, and I should stay on with him, until I was nearly frantic—"

"And you refused?"

"I believe I told him I’d rather share your grave for eternity than spend another hour in his bed." Tory smiled, relishing the memory.

"Hellfire, that foolish puppy must have cared for you after all," Jack exclaimed. "Handsome as a god and rich, besides! And you—" There was half a beat of silence. "What do you mean another hour?"

Tory swallowed an oath, but it was too late now. "Aye, that’s one less crime in your accounting, hombre. You never...deflowered me."

"And Matty did?"

"Oh, I went willingly enough. Fool that I was." Even now, she could not bear to admit that her maidenhood had been the subject of an idle wager, nothing more. "It meant nothing to him. Less than nothing. Or to me."

"Why did you never tell me?" Jack asked very softly.

"Do you think I wanted to trumpet my humiliation all round the ship?" Tory sighed again. "I cared what you thought about me. You were always so sensible. I couldn’t bear for you to know how stupid I'd been."

"But I might have been some…comfort to you."

"Oh, hombre, you have no idea!" Tory's smile bloomed again. "Every trick you ever taught me, every laugh we ever shared, hellfire, even when we quarreled, Matty grew smaller and smaller in my memory. He’d have vanished long ago, if you wouldn’t keep bringing him up."

"Still," Jack reasoned, "have you never thought...he must have cared something for you, Rusty, to plead with you as he did."

"He cared for his own hide," Tory said tartly. "It was that damned Spanish ring he was after. It connected him to a crime, and he must have recalled throwing it at me. Didn’t want me getting away from him with such a dangerous piece of evidence in my possession."

"There’s a curse on that bloody ring, I know it," Jack muttered. "Look at all the trouble it’s caused. Everyone who touches it comes to some sort of grief—" His words drained away, but his mouth stretched slowly into a smile.

"What?" Tory demanded.

"I was just thinking of the last time I saw that ring," sad Jack.

"Where?" she quizzed him. "On Nevis?"

"In Basseterre. In the possession of Chief Constable Raleigh."



Jack sprang up at first light to help make sail for Antigua. The men were a groggy, irritable bunch this morning, with little taste for high spirits, so Jack kept his under wraps while doing all he could to speed their journey along. But Downie, the young Cornish fellow, was pleased enough with Jack’s company, as they hauled on the throat halyard.

"You’ve put in and out of Basseterre a few times, have you not, Hugh?" Jack struck up a conversation as the line was sheeted home.

"In St. Kitts, ye mean? Aye, and like to again when Mr. Dykstra takes command."

"Have you never heard of the Devil’s Ring, then? No? And you in the smuggling trade?"

"What be it, then?"

"Only the handsomest ring ever seen, pure Spanish gold." Jack shrugged a little closer and dropped his voice, making each word more precise. "And the most haunted. There’s a curse on it."

Downie frowned at him. "D’ye believe in such things, Jack? Mr. Dykstra says curses and the like be only superstition."

"Aye, he’s a practical fellow. But you being a Cornishman, I thought you’d know better."

Eager curiosity was kindling in the lad’s blue eyes, despite his expressions of doubt.

"Aye, well, he may be right at that," Jack went on, briskly. "I only thought to tell you what I’ve heard, for your own protection."

"What have ye heard, then?"

Jack’s eyes swept the deck as he leaned in a bit closer. "It’s buried somewhere in secret in Basseterre. No one knows where. Only, now and again it takes a notion to turn up when there are smugglers about, luring 'em, as you might say, to their doom. Anyone who so much as touches the Devil’s Ring is a marked man. You’ll know it by it’s crest, two engraved 'R's, face to face."

"Two 'R's?" repeated Downie.

"Aye. For, ah, ruin and retribution," Jack temporized, with a meaningful nod.

Downie nodded too, in complete accord, now. "Why be it called the Devil’s Ring?"

"An inscription often appears on the inside, always in a foreign tongue. Sometimes in Greek. Sometimes Latin. When I saw it, it was in Spanish."

The lad’s eyes became completely round. "Ye’ve never seen it?"

"I have. And come away with my hide intact, so you’d best heed me."

"What’s it say, then?"

"Uno Dio Sobre Todo," Jack recited.

Downie shook his head.

"One God Above All. Meaning the God of Darkness, the Devil above all others," Jack explained. "The Devil’s Ring. Whoever touches it will be hounded with ill luck. Whoever’s unlucky enough to possess it—"

Jack’s voice trailed off. He gave a slow, sorrowful shake of his head. Hugh Downie paled as if his own doom had been foretold, despite the eager light in his eyes.



"How do you even know Raleigh has that ring?" Tory asked later that afternoon, as she and Jack were making their little boat ready. They had wanted to speak no more about the chief constable last night, but she had been wondering ever since.

"I saw it," Jack replied, securing their provisions beneath the after thwart. "In his rooms."

"You went to his rooms?" Tory gaped. "Why?"

"To have a word with him."

"Hellfire, Jack, he was there? And you paid him a call? He's sworn to kill you! Why would you take such a risk?"

"To prove a point." Jack sat back on his heels and tilted up his straw hat. "To show him I had escaped his clutches and you would too. To prove to him we were in league with Fortune."

"Of all the witless, addle-brained—"

"You might as well save your breath, I’ve already heard it all from Alphonse," Jack grinned, bending back to his work. "But I had a pledge to deliver. Not as enjoyable as the one I made to you last night, but no less earnest. If anything happened to you, I promised to kill him. But now you’re safe, I’m sworn to let the bastard live."

"Well, I’m not!" Tory cried. "The man’s a pox, a blight! He ought to be stamped out!"

Jack glanced up at her from under the brim of his hat.

"Would that make you happy?"

"You were going to murder him yourself!"

"It wouldn’t have been the same. In that event, my life would already be over, I wouldn’t care what happened to me. But now we have ours yet to live."

"It’s not just for my sake," she argued. "He’s a dangerous man, dangerous to others."

"Aye, consumed with hatred and wielding a little bit of power," Jack agreed. "A very dangerous combination. But he’s not the disease, Rusty. He’s only a symptom of a bigger blight that infests all the Indies. You may root him out, but the blight will remain. And in the meantime, he’s won a victory over you; he’s lured you down to his level." He sat up again, swept off his hat and raked back his damp hair. "There is no shortage of vermin crawling around in the slime, Rusty. Count it a victory if you can manage not to become one of 'em."

"It might be gratifying to wallow in the slime now and then," Tory muttered.

"Aye, but once you’re down there, it’s damned hard to ever crawl out again." He clapped on his hat and got to his feet. "I know."

Tory stood too. "Doesn’t it seem a trifle coincidental that ring should appear in his possession? Are you sure it was the same ring?"

"Absolutely," said Jack, as he hoisted a cask of watered rum over the wales to her. "Uno Dio Sobre Todo, I read it. Who knows what ill wind blew it his way? He treats with smugglers, and there’s a great deal of illicit trade between the two islands. The point is, it belongs to the chief constable now, and I can think of no one more deserving."

"It’s solid Spanish gold," Tory pointed out. "What sort of justice is that, after all he's done?"

"Oh, there'll be a just reckoning," Jack assured her. "Leave it to Fortune."



Tory was prepared for jeers when she emerged from the cabin in her female outfit. Mr. Dykstra had procured it from a port on Sint Maarten, in the optimistic hope she would soon be leaving them. The grained and patterned silk looked fine and costly, but Tory had no use for the columns of lace ruffles marching up her throat, the tightly buttoned waist intended to be worn over stays, or the silly puff-pillow sleeves flouncing down to her elbows. How was she going to row a boat in this rig? But she must be a female when she arrived on Antigua, not a counterfeit man. Nor a slave.

But the men held their peace. The lingering effects from their recent revels had them so subdued, old Queen Bess herself might have paraded among them without causing much of a stir. Only Jack raised an eyebrow at her as she hauled her skirts across the deck to the boat where he was waiting, clad simply in muslin shirt, unbuttoned at the throat with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and a pair of dark broadfall trousers. It irritated Tory how little effort it cost a man to look dressed.

"What?" she challenged him, as he looked her up and down.

"Nothing at all," Jack replied hastily. "Only I never realized until now all you were willing to suffer to keep our promise."

"Aye," she agreed, "let’s be off before I regain my senses."

The boat was in the davits ready to be lowered over the side, and the coast of Antigua was in sight. Mr. Dykstra was heading for an isolated stretch of beach on one of the milder, less reefy sections of the north coast, east of St. John’s, but still on the far side of the island from English Harbour. Captain Hart strolled out to join Jack and Tory by the davits, as their destination hove into view.

" 'Tis a great pity ye’ll not be coming back to the Providence with us," he told them. "I hate to see good seasoning go to waste. Experienced hands are hard to come by these days, between the damned pirate squadrons and the colonial warships."

There was a hard glint in the captain’s black eyes, and his weathered face suddenly looked older and more worn than Tory had remembered.

"Captain," she piped up, "I’ve just remembered. I’ve something that belongs to you. You remember the logbook I kept at your request? The log of the Blessed Providence."

"That cursed book," rumbled Nada, appearing at the captain's side. "Burn it!"

"Ever the sentimentalist," Hart grinned at his mate.

"I wrote it for you, Captain," Tory went on. "I’d be pleased for you to have it. It’s in safekeeping with our friends at English Harbour, but give me a safe address on Saba where I may send—"

But Captain Hart shook his head. "No, Mistress. I could never be more delighted that ye’ve kept the thing all this time. But if I take that book, it dies with me, sooner or later. But you seem to have a gift for keeping alive. Hellfire, you’ve even infected Jack, who was as close to a corpse as ever I saw when we last met. No, you keep the ship’s log. You be the midwife. Ye’ll know when the time comes for the world to know of our deeds. If it ever does."




"That was a generous offer," Jack told her, as they rowed for the shore. "I know what that logbook means to you."

Tory’s eyes drifted over Jack’s shoulder to where the sloop Fortune was slipping away from them, north by west over the swells.

"We’ll never see him again," she murmured.

"No, I don’t suppose we will," Jack agreed gently.

"I wanted him to have something of mine to remember me by. And...I suppose I wanted some part of myself to go off with him."

There was no interruption in the rhythm of his rowing, but Jack tensed. Did she regret her choice already? Would she pine in secret for the life she had lost for the rest of her days?

"The childish part," Tory continued, wistfully. "The foolish part that was content to play the counterfeit boy, before I knew there was anything else I could be." Her eyes shifted back to Jack. Her smile was warm. "All the rest belongs to you, hombre."

Jack returned her smile. She had not forgotten her promise; she’d come back to him for good. But he tried not to think overmuch about what he might be bringing her back to.


(Top: Pirate Nights, by Lisa Jensen © 2010)

Chapter 27: LOST AND FOUND

All the next day Tory grew more miserable, keeping below as the Fortune cruised to her anchorage off Sint Maarten. During the night, they had passed Saba, where the Providence was waiting, had seen the distant cone of the island off the port quarter most of the day. The crew was eager for the end of their cruise, and the distribution of their spoils. But Tory could not be roused by their excitement.

Jack had stowed his hammock and gone above at first light, lending a hand, making himself useful. Keeping out of her way. Tory had been so keen to return to the pirate's life, yet here she was idling below, unfit to join her fellows. She had tried to work herself up to a fine, righteous outrage over Jack’s betrayal, but in the unforgiving light of day, she could not quite shake off the bleak suspicion that he was right. He had made obligations and now he must honor them. Other people’s feelings were at stake, people she cared about. Perhaps Marcus’ entire future. Jack could not betray them for his own selfish pleasures. Or hers. What sort of a man would he be if he could? Not the sort of man she could ever love, as she loved Jack.

But how could she bear to lose him? How could he leave her? He had always been the most damnably stubborn, honorable man. How much simpler, how much more entertaining it would be to love a rogue, a high-spirited bastard who did as he pleased and would sweep her along for the ride, a short-lived arrangement, perhaps, but sure to be a merry one. But of course, she had loved a rogue, once, or thought she did. Matty had swept her along for a time, and she had reaped nothing but mockery and humiliation for her pains. But that was back before she knew what love was. Before Jack.

At last, Tory made herself go above to help take in sail as the little sloop glided into her anchorage. When she was done hauling in the brails, she turned to see Captain Hart up into the bows speaking to Nada. They stood together on the foredeck, Nada pointing out some aspect of the coastline before them, as a swell rolled the deck slowly under their feet. The captain’s steadying hand touched Nada’s broad back, as light and fleeting as a caress of the wind. A gesture so familiar, they didn’t even notice it. But Tory noticed. How little they cared that they were aboard a borrowed ship in a crew of strangers. So long as they were together, they were always where they belonged.

She turned again to see Jack coming toward her along the port rail. Her heart quickened; perhaps he had changed his mind. She tried to read his face, unsure how to greet him after last night. But his resigned expression said he was done with pleading.

"I have something for you, Rusty. I meant to give it to you sooner, but in all the confusion—" He gave an apologetic shrug and handed her a worn, folded paper.

She opened it up, unsure what to expect. It was a certificate of manumission, like Alphonse’s, dated five years earlier. It bore the signatures of two men she had never heard of, and was branded with the official seal from the Registrar’s Office at Basseterre, island of St. Christopher. Everything was in order but the line for the bearer’s name, which had not been filled in.

"I left it blank," Jack explained. "I wasn’t sure what name you’d want to use."

"This is...for me?" she whispered.

Jack nodded.

"It’s...real?"

"Real enough. Printed from official plates on official paper. Those are real magistrates’ names. Only the date is not strictly true."

"Where did you get this?" She could scarcely speak.

"Our friend, Mr. Greaves. The printer." Jack’s voice had dropped as low as hers. "He was most obliging. All it wants is your signature and it ought to stand up in any court in the islands. It’s only a paper, I know, but freedoms have been claimed on far less evidence. I hope it will be useful to you, Rusty. Wherever you go."

Tory scanned through the paper again and glanced up at Jack. What must he have endured, slinking into Basseterre at the risk of his own safety, convincing that upstanding gentleman to commit a forgery? All for her. She wanted to cry, to rail at the gods, to throw herself into his arms, and never, ever let him go. At the same time, she felt a desperate emptiness.

"You are giving me my freedom?" she asked.

"That has never been mine to give," he told her gently. "But it’s yours to take." And he walked away before she could reply.

She had to flee below, before the others saw her sobbing like an infant. The Fortune crew tolerated her, out of respect for their new captain, but she dare not press her luck with them. It would be different aboard the Providence; she would have nothing to prove to her old compañeros. She longed to be there now, this minute. But first, she would have to leave Jack somehow. Nearly two months apart and they had scarcely touched, scarcely spoken without quarreling. She would hate herself forever if they parted like this.

She sat up in the shadows and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her borrowed shirt. Her "masculine usurp’d attire," Jack had once called it. Symbol of the male freedom she had claimed for herself that had always been her dream, her salvation, her destiny. It had always been enough before. But now? Listen to your heart, that's what Cybele had told her. But what if her heart were torn in two? Which half should she heed? Then a shadow crossed the light coming in through the skylight.

"Captain!" Tory scrambled to her feet. "I’m sorry—"

"At your ease, Mistress, there’s nothing astir." He gazed at her, shrewdly, and Tory was ashamed of herself. Her foolish femaleness. "Jack has asked me to put him off in his boat off Antigua, tomorrow afternoon. Before we raise Saba."

Tory nodded miserably.

"This is our last port of call on this voyage. After the boat comes in tonight, I expect the men to be making rather merry. We’ll have the devil’s own time keeping 'em all in line, and the ship afloat, Nada and me. Like to be up all night with 'em. Ye might oblige me by staying in my cabin tonight. Most of these fellows have never sailed with a female before. Who knows what sort of mischief they might get up to in their cups? I’d be grateful for one less temptation to throw before 'em."

"I...understand." She might play at male freedom all she liked, but she would never truly be one of them.

"Take Jack with ye, for company, if ye like."

"Thank you, Captain."



The sleek black boat was coming back from its rendezvous ashore, and the mood of the men was jubilant, when Jack looked up from scraping the bottom of his rowboat to see Tory watching him.

"We’ve scarcely talked," she murmured, eyes on his little boat.

"I know." He straightened up. "I’m sorry."

"I don’t want it to end like this, hombre. Will you come back to the cabin with me? To say goodbye?"

Jack sighed and nodded. He owed her at least that much. He owed her everything. When he'd stowed his tools away, he followed her into the stern, and down the hatch into the cabin. The men above were at the rail now, hailing the boat, making ready the davits to haul her inboard. They would have much to occupy them for awhile. In the cabin below, a heavy-bottomed bottle of red French wine stood open on the sturdy little table next to the bunk built into the bulwark. A single candle burned in a lantern hung up on a peg.

Jack raised one eyebrow. "Is this a seduction?"

"It’s a goodbye," Tory replied, climbing onto the foot of the bunk. "I don’t want us to part on unfriendly terms."

Jack stood where he was. If this was his last chance to ever love her, he would be a fool to pass it up. He kicked off his shoes, walked up to the bunk, but his heart wasn’t in it. Not even if this was the last chance of his life. Not this way. He leaned his elbows on the edge of the bunk and gazed up at her, not knowing what to say.

"Or we can talk," she murmured.

Jack half-smiled, and took her two hands in both of his.

"Tell me you’ll be all right," he said to her.

She nodded back.

"All the time we were searching for you," Jack went on slowly, "Alphonse and I, when we found out what the chief constable had done to you, when we went up to that place where they sold you, when we heard how you’d run off and been recaptured...all I wanted to do was find you again, hold you, comfort you somehow. If it was not too late. Is it too late, Rusty? Is there anything I can still do for you?"

"Hold me, compañero," she whispered. "Please."

He climbed up onto the bunk beside her and drew her into his arms. She clung to him, trembling a little, but not crying. Even she must realize it was too late for tears. If there were only some solution, Jack thought, desperately. But he had only to think of Alphonse’s crippling guilt, and Marcus’ tear-streaked face, both of them blaming themselves, and he knew he must go back to them. And Tory’s life was here, on the sea. Even if he could discharge his obligation to the others eventually, what good would it do to plan to rendezvous later at some safe port? She would be a pirate, living by her wits and the whims of Fate, not by calendars and schedules; Jack knew that life very well. When she sailed off with the Fortune, that would be the last he would ever see of her. But at least he would know she was living the life she chose. Free. And he pulled her closer.

"I’m so sorry for the way things have turned out," Tory whispered. Her fingers crept up his shirtfront to rest on the exposed skin beneath his throat.

"Me too," he sighed, feeling himself tense. Some part of him didn’t want to feel her touch, knowing it would be the last time. "I ought to have taken you back to sea long ago. I was such a fool."

"It’s not your fault," she told him. "You tried your damnedest to make a life for us ashore. You couldn’t help it that I was no good at it."

Jack sighed again. "When I think of all you had to suffer to finally get here—"

She shrugged a little in his arms. "It wasn’t so much. Missing you was the worst part."

"They never...beat you?" Jack made himself ask her. "The chief constable, he never...I’ve a score to settle with him if any harm has come to you."

Tory sat up with a sarcastic laugh. "He would never sully himself with me, never you fear, even to prove how powerful he was. Not like—"

"Birney?" Jack frowned.

"His nephew. It was only a threat, but—" She sank back, peering up into Jack’s face. "I didn’t know you would come after me. I didn’t even think you knew where I was—"

"I know, I know," he muttered. "I’m always too late."

"Not always," Tory half-smiled. "You came along just in time for Marcus. I’m glad you want to return to him, and to Alphonse. You’ve committed yourself to them in a way you never could to me—"

"You know that’s not true, Rusty," Jack protested.

"No? Not a day has gone by since we left the Providence that I didn’t wonder if I would wake up and find you gone," Tory went on. "I can’t...endure that any more, not knowing."

Jack tilted his head back against the bulwark and closed his eyes. He felt Tory rest her head lightly on his shoulder, but his heart was turning to ice. He had always known this moment would come when they would part, had done everything he could to hasten it, get it over with, too foolish to appreciate what he had. And now he couldn't bear to lose her. Now that it was too late. Again.

"Promise me one thing," Tory murmured, in his arms. "Before I come back, you must promise you will never run away from me."

Jack’s eyes snapped open. The dim shadows were dancing in the cabin; the men were roistering above. He was not dreaming.

"But...what do you mean, come back?" he stammered. "All you’ve ever wanted is here, on the sea—"

"Can you promise, or not?" she demanded.

He stared at her. "If you give up the sea on my account, you’ll hate me for the rest of your life."

"I’ll hate myself more for losing you," Tory declared. "Why do you think I was in such a hurry to get off that mountain, to get out of Basseterre? To take the damned sea air? It was to find you again. All I could think of was getting back to you, I didn’t care how or what it cost. As long as I could feel how much I still loved you, it helped me know that I was still...human. Not a thing. Not a slave. It was all I had."

Jack could not imagine what he must look like, with all the emotions rioting inside him, but Tory sat up a little straighter and tried again.

"I know I'm not much of a bargain. I've the temper of a fishwife and a tongue to match. I don’t know my own mind from one moment to the next. But at least I have the wit to love you, Jack, I know that much. You’re the best part of my life. You’re the only thing in all the world I’m sure of. I’d be a stranger to myself if I lost you."

"But you can’t give up your freedom—"

"I’m free now to make a choice. I choose you. Hellfire, any idiot can call himself free in the middle of an ocean, but if I run off to the Providence again, I’ll never know what I might have been in the world. I’ll be a runaway all my life. If you can carve out a life worth living on dry land, b’God, I can too. As long as I have you, Jack. That’s why I need your promise."

Jack drew a long, slow breath, battling to master himself. They were facing each other now, and he reached for both her hands. "You can find another destiny, you know," he told her. "With another lay of the cards."

"I don’t want another one. I want you."

"Contra todo el mundo," Jack murmured. Against the world. "If you’re foolhardy enough to come back to me, Rusty, I promise I’ll cling to you like a barnacle for as long as you’ll have me."

"Forever?" Tory prompted.

"For the rest of my sorry life, or until you get thoroughly sick of me, whichever comes first. I caution you to think very seriously about what you’re in for before you accept."

"I’ve had a great deal of time to think about it, every minute that I was away from you. I love you, Jack. I can’t lose you. Swear it."

Jack sat forward to gaze into her face, her bright, clear brown eyes, her sun-kissed coppery complexion under her fire-lit hair, her frank and tender mouth.

"I belong to you, mi vida. Nowhere else," he told her, leaning in to kiss her forehead, then the high bridge of her nose. "I swear it. On my life. On yours. On the memory of my parents. I swear by all the gods I will never, ever leave you. I love you, Rusty. I promise." He kissed her mouth, very softly. "I promise," he whispered again, and he kissed her again.

"Y yo, hombre." She was smiling, but Jack felt her fingers trembling where she touched him. Then her entire body began to shiver so convulsively, Jack had to throw both his arms around her .

"Rusty...sshhh, Rusty, what is it?" he murmured, gathering her to him. "What’s wrong?"

"I'm sorry. I’m all right..." She was trying to laugh at herself, but her teeth were nearly chattering. Jack fought down his panic and held her closer. "It’s only—" she drew a breath, "—I was so afraid you'd say no. After all I said to you yesterday—"

"Hellfire, Rusty, how big a fool do you think I am?" He rocked her closer now, calming her, warming her. "Ssshh, mi vida, mi alma, te quiero tanto," he whispered, kissing her wherever he could, as he felt her arms, shaking less now, slide up his back. "I love you so much, mi bruja."

He could feel her regaining command of herself, even as she gave herself up to him. He was ready for her now, in a way he had not been, before. Now every kiss, every shudder of her body, carried with it the weight of his promise. And hers. They would seal their promise, now, and then there would be no going back. He gently tilted up her face, searching her eyes.

"Si, hombre," she answered him, with her slow, sure smile, and he was a lost man. Lost and found.


(Top: Sea Fancy Unidentified period woodcut, as seen on joyfulmolly.wordpress.com/2007/10/)

Chapter 26: FORTUNE'S WHEEL

"I might have known with Mistress Lightfoot aboard, ye’d not be far behind," chuckled Ed Hart, as he handed Jack a jug of his best rum. "It gladdens me to know when my people swear an oath to each other, they see it through."

Jack sucked down a liberal portion of the rum, which made the friendly acquaintance of the brandy he’d had, earlier, steadying his nerves somewhat. Hart had invited him and Tory into his stern cabin to have a word in private.

"'Twas Nada recognized her in that Basseterre hellhole," the captain went on, nodding to his mate who crouched in the open doorway, where he could keep one eye on the companion ladder out in the passage. "I’d have thought all females were one to Nada, but it only shows how well ye may think ye know someone and still be surprised by 'em." Hart grinned fondly across at Nada. "He felt it reflected poorly on the dignity of the Providence for one of her crew to be sold into slavery."

Nada grunted off this evidence of his concern, and glared up the hatchway.

"I never even saw him in the place," Tory continued the tale, eagerly. "I was blinded by the lights around me, and he must have hung back in the shadows. Afterwards, I was so intent on getting away with Van Brugge and onto his ship, my guard was completely down. I never saw what was coming."

"Fought like a hellcat, she did," Hart chuckled. "Clouted poor Nada in the belly and damn near unmanned him before he had a chance to reason with her. He had to knock her on the head to get her aboard quietly."

Nada muttered something belligerent in Spanish about the female sex.

"Then, you were not forced to go with the Dutchman, this Van Brugge?" Jack asked Tory.

"He had a ship," she explained. "I had to get out of Basseterre."

"She was in a rare temper when she woke up," the captain continued. "Mad as a wet hen."

"Until I saw where I was, and with who," Tory smiled. "It was like a miracle."

"It’s Blesséd Providence," Hart agreed, taking another swig of rum.

"But how do you even happen to be in the Leewards?" Jack asked the captain. "We thought you were off to the Republic of Colombia."

"Oh aye, so we were. But Bolivar had alrady waged his last campaign at some Godforsaken outpost in Peru, on the far side of the continent, before we ever joined the fray. We sailed up the coast to Mexico for a time, to join the Mexican fleet blockading the Spanish garrison at San Juan de Ulua. But that’s not what any man would call action, certainly no fit duty for the Providence. It’s police work, and none of the men had any heart for it. We later heard that Bolivar’s ships had taken some rich prizes out of Havana, Spanish supply ships bound for San Juan de Ulua, and some of the men wanted to slip off home to Cuba and collect our share of the spoils. But the hell of it is, Cuba has become a way station for Spanish troops and warships trying to regain a toehold in Mexico, not only Havana but Santiago de Cuba. We can’t go home to Cabo Cruz with half the Spanish fleet stationed in our back yard."

He gave a bitter shake of his head and passed the jug to Tory.

"By the time we caught up with the Colombian fleet, it was stranded off Cartegena without enough seasoned hands to work their ships nor so much as a reale left in the Colombian treasury to pay 'em. So ended a damned unprofitable year, and an unlucky one. The fleet, as she pleases to call herself, is still off Cartegena for all I know, but we peeled off to cruise the coast to Caracas on our own account. But we didn’t like to disturb the commercial shipping bringing supplies to Bolivar’s republic—that’s what politics does to ye, warps your perspective."

"But what happened to the Providence?" Jack asked.

"Ah, what didn’t happen to her? As if the general wear and tear on that thankless cruise to Mexico and back wasn’t enough, she was pummeled in a gale in those rocky isletas off of Caracas."

"Pummeled?"

"Dismasted, for one thing. Her sternpost rattled, missing stays. Oh, we jury-rigged her, got her fit for the sea again, but she’s not what she was. But then our fortune changed." Hart’s black eyes lit up with cunning. "Fast as she is, we took this sweet prize out of Curacao; a smuggler all loaded up for market into the bargain. Ye must never, ever underestimate the value of surprise, especially when your enemy is a complacent fool."

"Maldito holandes," muttered Nada.

"Aye, another Dutchman, he was," agreed Hart. "Funny, ye rarely see ‘em in the pirate trade hereabouts, but every other merchant or smuggler you meet is one of ‘em. This fellow was a damned poor specimen of the breed, no sense of adventure, and a poor sailor. Had commercial interests all though the Indies, but none of his crew liked him much. When I asked who wanted to come aboard the Providence, damn if every man jack of ‘em didn’t volunteer! The lay of it was, we needed a faster ship until we could get the Providence in trim again, and this sloop needed a new captain. So we put the Dutchman and his steward into a boat, and entered into this venture with his crew. Half of ‘em went into the Providence with our men to sail into a safe anchorage while the rest of us complete this smuggling cruise up the Antilles. We’ve taken a few prizes along the way; amazing how much more attractive the trading ships of Europe become when they’re carrying supplies to their own fat colonies. We’ve increased our profit into the bargain, and everyone seems satisfied with the arrangement."

Jack took another turn at the jug and wiped his mouth, surprised to feel a short stubble of beard against his fingertips. "But where is the Providence now?"

"Saba. A little Dutch outpost above the Leewards. She’s not a sugar island, so no one pays any mind to what goes on there. Her people are smallholders, mostly, and Dutch merchants. And the occasional contrabandista or picaron in need of a friendly port."

"And you’re sure you can trust ‘em with the Providence? These fellows from the sloop?"

"I left Cuervo in command," Hart shrugged. "He'll keep 'em in good order. Salvador Gris and Rudy and Diego and a few others are on board to see to her handling; with a bit of babying, she ought to do fine. I’ve kept Mr. Bustamante and his best gunners here on the sloop; she’s only got four six-pounders, but that’s all ye need with such a fleet sailer, if ye know what you’re about. The rest of this crew are Dutchmen, and a few Brits, late of the French wars. As it happens, the second mate is a Hanoverian name of Dykstra. One of Bolivar’s German mercenaries. Shipped out of Caracas a few times under my command, and we struck up an acquaintance."

Jack grinned. "Is there anybody in the Indies you didn’t ship out of Caracas with, sometime or other?"

"Not many," the captain laughed. "All the flotsam and jetsam of Europe has floated down to the Indies these last twenty years, and I've sailed with most of 'em. This Dykstra’s a good lad. Reads books, if ye can imagine, navigates like a fish, and solid as a gold Spanish ingot. Took to the smuggling trade after Bolivar carried his revolution inland. Fellow of his mettle deserves his own command. I’m giving him the sloop after we split the profits, and I get the Providence back in trim. But they all know if anything goes awry, I’m keeping her." He sent a satisfied grin round the cabin that encompassed the entire ship. "Trim little strumpet, isn’t she? Fleet as the wind. Christened her Fortune when we took her, Rudy ran up the ensign himself."

"A gold compass rose on a blue ground," Jack nodded. "That’s how I knew her."

"Some of the lads call it a ship’s wheel under the Pole star," said Hart. "Myself, I see a gold doubloon marked with its cross."

Jack nodded, again; every doubloon was stamped with a cross for cutting it up into quarter bits.

"The coin of Fortune under the stars," mused the captain.

"Or Fortune’s wheel," Tory smiled at Jack.

"But I confess, I’ll not be sorry to leave the smuggling trade," Hart went on. "Ledgers, bookwork, timetables; it’s a job for an accountant. Dykstra takes to it like a cat in cream, the man’s got a ledger-book for a brain! But once we get the Providence back to rights...Hellfire, it’s like old times already having ye both back aboard! However did ye find us, Jack?"

"I came after Tory. I’ve been trailing you for weeks," he told her. "Ever since Marcus got back to Charlestown to tell us—"

"Did he?" Tory cried. "All by himself? Oh, thank all the gods, I’ve been so worried! Was he all right?"

"Shaken and scared, but he’s a plucky little fellow." Jack could not smother a grin of pride.

"He would sooner die than disappoint you," Tory nodded. "I should have known nothing would stop him."

"Alphonse and I—" Jack began again.

"Alphonse came with you?"

"He wouldn’t let me go to Basseterre alone. We tracked you all over the damn island, even up to the Birney place and back, but you were always one step ahead of us. Fortunately, Alphonse—" Jack paused; this was probably not the moment to tell her all he knew about Alphonse, "—has powerful friends. Someone saw you carried aboard this sloop. When we learned she was still cruising St. Kitts, I sent him back to the others."

"But how did ye follow us?" Hart wanted to know. "Not by sea; we’d know if we were being pursued."

"From the coast. On horseback. On foot. We explored this part of the coast once before, remember, Rusty? I could only guess what your destination would be tonight."

"But the gamble paid off," Hart nodded approvingly.

"Aye, but that I nearly got my bowels blown away into the bargain," Jack replied. "When have you ever wielded a pistol?" he demanded of Tory.

"Since I joined a smuggling crew," Tory declared. "The watch is always armed. Can’t afford to surrender our cargo to any common brigand that boards us. You’re lucky I recognized you in time."

"You’re lucky you turned around at all, or you’d be nursing another headache now."

"I knew exactly when to turn around; I timed it to the instant."

"You never heard me board!" cried Jack.

"Up the port bow to the windlass to the mainmast," Tory countered. "Why do you think I kept my back to you all that time?"

"Because you had no idea I was there!"

"B’God, it’s good to have the both of you aboard again!" Hart’s bark of laughter interrupted them. "These contrabandistas are a clever lot but they haven't much in the way of conversation."

Jack darted a sheepish glance at Tory. How well she looked in her borrowed male outfit, completely at her ease. Coloring just a little from their exchange, fit and sun-browned, with a new dusting of soft, rusty freckles just below her throat in the V of her unbuttoned shirt collar. He’d been expecting to rescue her from abject misery and degradation, but she had rarely looked happier. He had never wanted her so much, nor felt so awkward about it. He couldn’t think how to put into words everything he had gone through to get here; he could only quarrel with her like an obstinate child to conceal his confusion.

"Ah, there’s our boat coming back," Hart announced, as Nada moved out to the hatchway and nodded to him. A deep, cheerful booming carried over the water above the muted slap of oars just outside the sloop. "That’ll be Dykstra gloating over the bargain he’s made. Make yourself a berth wherever ye please, Jack. Mistress Lightfoot will show you the lay of things." And he disappeared up the hatch after Nada.

Jack glanced again at Tory. All this time, he would have moved heaven and earth just to see her again, and now he was as tongue-tied as a boy.

"I can string up a hammock in any corner," he told her. "I’ll never know the difference."

Tory nodded, smiled at him a little, hesitated.

"You never heard me board," he added, and her smile bloomed.

"Of course I did. Who do you think taught me?" She put out a hand to touch his unshaven cheek. "I am so glad to see you again, hombre. I’ve missed you so much."

Jack reached for her hand and pressed it to his mouth, then held it in his lap in both of his. "Are you sure you’re all right? We heard so many—I didn’t know what to expect."

"I’m fine. Now. Now that you’re here."

Jack smiled, gently squeezed her hand. She leaned toward him and lightly kissed his cheek.

"Get some sleep," she whispered. "We’ll talk later."



Tory was glad to see that a watch below, lulled in a seaman’s hammock, seemed to fix Jack right up. When she saw him again in the morning, he was frisking about like a boy, as eager as she had been to find himself at sea again. When the captain invited him to go aloft, Jack flew up into the shrouds, and scrabbled through the Fortune’s rigging, getting the feel of her.

After breakfast, Jack renewed his acquaintance with Bustamante, the Cuban gunner, falling easily into the Spanish they had spoken for years aboard the Providence, and toured the ship with Captain Hart, learning all about her particular quirks. He met Mr. Dykstra, and thanked him for agreeing to allow Jack to come aboard. He made a friend of the young Cornishman who heaved the lead on their journey into the channel for their last port of call, the Dutch half of the divided island of Sint Maarten. Tory even glimpsed him off in the bows, jesting with Nada.

Every time she saw him, her heart rose. She and Jack were home at last. It wasn’t the Providence, but at least Tory was at sea, with work to do and people to care for. She was a free woman, again. And now she had Jack back too.

That evening, as the Fortune sped for Sint Maarten with the last of her cargo of French wine and champagne, Captain Hart invited Tory and Jack up to take a turn on the quarterdeck.

"We’ll raise Saba in two more days, if all goes well tomorrow night," he told them. "It’ll be a fine thing to see the Providence again. We’ve lost so many seasoned hands," he added, shaking his head. "Arne. Mateo, we sent him ashore in Barbados, did you know? Hector went home to Cuba, refused to leave his woman alone for so long a time."

Tory glanced at Jack. Hector, the African who was Jack’s closest compañero, had taken passage as a slave to get back to Cuba. When they'd met him by chance last year in Tortola, he'd run away from his master, insisting Jack and Tory turn him in for the reward. That was how they'd paid their passage to St. Kitts.

"Once we’ve put the Providence to rights, I’d be pleased to have both of you back in my crew," Hart went on. "I can offer you nothing but a fair share of the profits, and the freedom of the seas. But so long as I draw breath, I’ll see ye never receive anything less."

Tory’s heart was pounding; she wondered how her frail flesh would ever contain so much joy.

"Captain—do you mean it?"

"It must be Blesséd Providence sent ye back here," Hart chuckled. "I'd be a rare fool not to make use of such fortunate circumstances."

"Then, yes!" Tory cried. "Si, gracias, Capitan. You can’t know what this means to us! Oh, Jack—" but as she spun around and saw Jack’s expression, her exuberant words died in her throat. He stared at her for a moment, his dark eyes anguished, glanced at the captain, then looked away.

"Captain," he murmured, slowly raising his eyes again. "I am honored beyond words by your offer. But...I can’t."

"What?" Tory gaped at him.

"I have to go back to the others," Jack told her. "I owe it to them."

"And you owe nothing to me?" she cried. "I thought you came all this way to find me."

"I did! But there are...other considerations." He looked miserable.

"What other considerations?"

"Alphonse, for one. I can’t simply disappear after all he went through to help me find you. He cares very much what happens to you. And then there’s Marcus. I promised him I’d come back. If I don’t, he’ll think we’ve both perished. And he’ll think it’s his fault. I can’t let him bear that kind of guilt."

"But—"

"He’s nine years old!" Jack’s eyes were pleading with her. "It will cripple him for the rest of his life. I can’t let that happen."

Tory put a hand out to the rail, to steady herself. She felt as if the ship were being scuttled, the deck sliding sideways out from under her. Jack had been fifteen, almost a man, when he ran off from his foster parents; they had died alone soon after, and Jack had spent the better part of his adult years trying to throw his own life away out of guilt and remorse. He would do anything to spare Marcus that kind of misery, anything.

"Can you not...send him a message? By way of Cybele?" She was struggling to appear rational.

"He would never believe it." Jack shook his head. "Would you? If you were only nine?"

"But perhaps we could...visit. Let him see we’re all right..."

"And abandon him again? Besides," Jack added, eying Hart, "the captain isn’t running a transport service."

"We-e-ell," shrugged Ed Hart, "we might offload ye one time—"

"Not at English Harbour. That’s where they are by now."

"The Leeward Island Station, is it? Not the safest port for a smuggler, at that," Hart agreed. "Much as I’d like to see Mistress Lightfoot happy—"

At that moment, Nada signaled the captain from where he and Dykstra stood at the binnacle, and Hart went to join them.

"There’s more," Jack admitted to Tory, when they were alone. "We are engaged to play at the Bath Hotel next winter. Four months, for the season. Friday evenings in the ballroom. Upon a real stage." His fragile attempt at a smile failed. "I signed the contract."

Tory stared at him. "When did this happen?"

"Just before you...disappeared."

"And you never even asked me?"

"Ours is a gipsy profession. How could I deny Cybele and the Bruces the right to earn a steady income?" Jack reasoned.

"How could you deny me the right to choose for myself?"

Jack looked away. "I...didn’t know what you’d say."

"You knew I would refuse!"

He nodded, looking wretched. Tory was ashamed of herself for causing his wretchedness, and furious at Jack for forcing her to do so. All the long, lonely time without him, wanting him, needing him, and this was how she was treating him? She didn’t want to badger him like a fishwife, but she must make him understand.

"I can’t go back with you, hombre," she reasoned, as calmly as she could. "I’m a legal runaway ashore, an outlaw. There might be bills posted for my capture. I can be taken up and sold at auction."

"I know," Jack whispered, meeting her eyes again. "I could never ask you to take that risk. But I can’t stay with you."

"You could if you wanted to badly enough!" she cried, in desperation. "The fact is, you care more for your engagement and your damned stage than you do for me! You may go back to your gipsies, Jack, but my profession is the sea!" And she heeled round to the hatch and stormed off below.



(Top: Wheel of Fortune Original drawing by Lisa Jensen © 2010.)

Chapter 4: CONFESSIONS

They made an unlikely trio, a tall white man, a bold woman of color, and a small Negro with the manner of a lord. But their novelty turned a profit at the busy weekday markets during crop-over. Jack and Tory slept in lodgings every night, however spartan. Alphonse was frequently off about his mysterious calls, but he met them every morning at Pugh’s, fit and ready for the day’s work.

When there was no public market, Alphonse knew which tavern-keepers would trade them a meal to attract custom to their door and which preferred to keep their roadways clear. He had an unerring instinct for which areas of the town would be least frequented by constables at any given hour of the day. He also had them painting their props and keeping their clothing in better repair, despite Tory’s woeful deficiencies as a seamstress.

But it was at the Sunday market where they played their most audacious tricks. Alphonse was particularly watched and admired by the slaves, who sometimes crept up to speak to him when Jack and Tory performed their duets. Swept up in their new enterprise, Tory was enjoying her life ashore—for now. She had not abandoned her dream of the sea, only deferred it. The sea would always be there, waiting, like a forgiving lover. When the time was ripe, she knew she and Jack would return to it.

But the frenzy of crop-over was winding down. The few ships still in the bay were anxious to be gone by the first of August, when double insurance had to be paid on their cargoes against hurricanes. The planters were returning to the safety of their hillside estates. All of Basseterre would soon be shuttered up for the hurricane season, leaving the streets to a few hardy tavern-keepers and occasional British soldiers from the nearby fortress of Brimstone Hill. Alphonse suggested they remove to higher ground and try their luck up the coast in Old Road Town, where he had business to see to.



Tory had lived eleven years on her papa’s farm, five more that felt like fifty at the Worthen Female Academy in Boston, after her mama died and her father lost his wits, and two more sailing the Indies for profit aboard the Blessed Providence. Eighteen years, plus these months with Jack in the islands, she thought, as she packed up her basket, and still so little to show for it.

She picked up her most cherished possession, the leather-bound logbook she had once claimed for her own off a prize ship while Jack was raiding the captain's library. That was Jack's idea of plunder: books. He never shared their shipmates' fantasy of someday growing rich in the trade. She had spent many sultry nights ashore filling her logbook with the history of her life, while the men diced or drank away their boredom. Stuck into its pages to mark her place was a worn Spanish playing card, the sota de oros, Jack of Diamonds. Tory had been told it was her fortune, hard work rewarded. Indeed, Captain Hart soon set her the task of keeping a proper ship’s log—despite the opposition of Nada, the big, glowering Cuban, Hart's trusted mate in every respect. Jack told her the Scots privateer and the dispossessed cubano peasant had been through every kind of hell together. "What else," he'd asked, "do you suppose love is?"

Tory half-smiled at the memory. What had become of them all? She folded the white cotton shirt and moss-green canvas trousers she'd worn in the trade into her basket. Her shipmates had been an unlikely family, but the best she could find after losing her blood family so long ago. Patting her clothes into place, she felt something hard under her fingertips. Drawing out a small fabric pouch tied inside her trousers, she caught her breath.

She'd forgotten about this. Gingerly pulling open the knotted drawstring, she peeped inside at the gold Spanish ring. A tiny inscription ran around the inside of the band, Uno Dio Sobre Todos, One God Above All. Two elaborate "Rs" were entwined on the crest of the ring, two fine old Spanish families whose hopes for the future were dashed when that proud Creole youth died for his imprudence by Matty’s sword on the rail of the Blessed Providence.

Matty Forrester. How long had it been since she'd spared a thought for him? Not long enough, the memory still rankled. He was the most skilled swordsman aboard the Providence, who cared for nothing but the glory of battle, but to whose handsome, youthful face and form Tory had attached all her half-wit girlish yearnings. Matty, whose thoughtless bravado got their prize hostage killed and caused them to be hounded out of the Indies by the warships of three nations. All for this trifling folly, this ring. Then he'd pressed it on her in a rage, eager to be rid of the blood guilt it bore. And Tory had not had the wit to refuse, smothering it among her things to prevent the ill fortune from spreading.

She shivered and knotted up the pouch again, to keep the mala suerte from getting loose. She ought not to keep the wretched thing, but after only an instant of indecision, she thrust the pouch deep into her trousers again. Blighted as it was, this ring was one of the few relics she had left of the Providence and her crew.

At the last, she picked up another small packet, a brittle banana leaf folded into a square and tied with straw. Inside was nothing. The herbs she had gotten from an old African woman on Tortola Island were gone, and Tory did not know how or where to purchase more. Well, she consoled herself, she and Jack were traveling with Alphonse now, who would doubtless keep them far too busy for anything but sleep at night.



"I shall miss this place," Tory announced over her strong, spicy coffee on their last morning at Pugh’s. "We won’t have such nice meals on the road."

"Does not this gallant Englishman feed you when you travel?" Alphonse never lost an opportunity to needle "the English."

"Well, we eat..." Tory began.

"In the odd moment when I’m not forcing her to bathe my feet in spring water or fan me with palm fronds," Jack added, peeling an orange.

"...but our provisions often run out before we can afford fresh," Tory finished, laughing.

"Then you let the vendors overcharge you," said Alphonse.

"We pay them next to nothing," Jack protested.

"Which is what you receive in return," Alphonse replied. "You must manage what you earn, if you would show a profit." He hopped off his chair. "Today, I shall bargain for our bread, and I promise you we shall not spend another dog from here to Old Road Town. Watch me and see how it is done."

Jack stood up, too. It was his turn to pay for the meal.

"You go ahead, Rusty," he grinned. "See what trade secrets you can pry out of Monsieur Rothschild here. I’ll meet you outside."

He strolled off to settle the bill while Tory and Alphonse went out into the street.

"Why does he call you that disrespectful name?" asked Alphonse.

"What? 'Rusty?'" Tory was surprised by the question. She could not remember a time when Jack had called her anything else, and she was rather fond of it. "I think it had something to do with my hair, once."

"But you have a perfectly beautiful name, Victoria. You should make him use it."

"I’m afraid you’ll find us far less elegant in our speech than you," she smiled.

"I make no pretense to elegance," said Alphonse.

"I’ve heard your French," she reminded him.

"But my mother spoke French, she was born on a Frenchman’s estate. When he died, we were sold to an English estate, where I learned the English of the overseer."

"You speak it far better than any overseer I’ve ever heard."

Alphonse made a little bow. "I have learned that if one would be treated like a gentleman, he must not speak like a slave."

"But you never learned such fine speech on a plantation," Tory prompted.

"No. I was once employed at a very grand estate...oh, very far from here. The proprietor was an Englishman who lived like a prince in the ancient style. Armies of servants, lavish entertainments. He even named the place for what I believe was an English palace. Whitehall."

Tory shook her head; she knew little of English palaces.

"An ironic name in any case for a place built upon the labor of Africans," Alphonse shrugged. "It suited him to employ a black dwarf who could juggle and speak French to his guests. It also amused him to instruct his pet monkey in the proper King’s English."

There was no particular rancor in Alphonse’s voice, but Tory’s experience with Jack had taught her to tread with care in the mire of another person’s past.

"Could you not leave, if you were a free man?"

"Leave?" echoed Alphonse. "Turn down such a useful gift while the English paid me a wage to receive it? Never turn down an opportunity, Victoria. Especially at another man’s expense."

No pirate could have said it better, Tory thought. Aloud, she said, "And that’s where you got your elegant name, Monsieur Belair?"

"I was called 'Alphonse' after my father. But I never knew him. He was sold off before I was born. I took my second name to honor my mother. She had few enough joys in this life, poor woman, but she loved to sing at Christmas time. It is called the belair style, the comic songs sung in the female processions. It is quite a spectacle."

"Ive seen them," Tory smiled again.

"She had a sweet voice," Alphonse recalled. "It was the only time she was ever truly happy and that is how I remember her. After she died and I bought myself free, I had myself baptized 'Alphonse Belair' in her honor." His gaze flicked up beyond Tory for an instant and he raised his voice a notch. "For another thing I have learned is that every respectable gentleman has a surname."

"Which excludes me, thank God," Jack grinned as he came strolling up behind Tory to join them.



Soon, very well provisioned, they had left Basseterre behind, traveling up the leeward coastline overlooking the sea. Steep green inland hills swept up toward the high ridge of cloud-capped mountains that dominated the interior of the island. The sugar estates were planted in strips from the middle of the central mountain range down to the coast. At this time of year the fertile hillsides were checkered in squares of new green cane—Alphonse called them cane-pieces—alternating with golden squares where ripe cane had been cut and harvested. The road was damp from the recent rains, but today there was blue sky between high, rolling white clouds and a fresh breeze. It was a day made for running and whooping, as every step took them farther away from the civilizing influence of the town. But Alphonse’s short legs rendered his progress steady, not swift, and Tory and Jack had to shorten their stride to stay apace with him.

"What sort of business have you in Old Road Town?" Jack asked Alphonse as they ambled along.

"Sedition."

Jack grinned. "Revolutionary, eh?"

"I am a free black man, that most fearsome of God’s creatures. Do you not tremble at the mere sight of me?" Alphonse squinted up, far up, at Jack. "So I must be a criminal into the bargain. Ask any constable."

"It’s true, then?"

"It is true that I traffic in that most dangerous merchandise, information. The ministers in London are talking of abolishing slavery. I make it my business to know what they are saying."

"Aye, they’ve been talking about it since I was a boy," Jack put in. "Wilberforce and The Saints and all the rest. For all the good they’ve ever done."

"They did end the slave trade at sea," Alphonse pointed out.

"Only legally," countered Jack.

"It would be a useful law if not for the smugglers and pirates."

Tory’s head jerked up to protest, but she remembered herself.

"It would be useful if slavery were illegal on the plantations," Jack argued. "Then there’d be no profit in smuggling 'em in."

"Yes. Leave it to the English to write two opposing laws when they cannot make up their minds about a thing," Alphonse agreed.

"What part do you play in the business?" Jack asked.

"A small one, only. I am an observer and a messenger. There are many associations of freemen of color who write to their agents in London on behalf of their own civil rights. As my trade takes me through many islands, I am useful to them, carrying news and messages from one organization to the next."

"And these fellows are abolitionists?" Jack frowned.

"Very few of them, I find, are much interested in ending slavery," Alphonse admitted. "It would be foolish to elevate the only class lower than themselves. But in return for the messages I carry, they inform me of the anti-slavery movement from the letters they receive from their allies across the sea."

"It seems to me your method of gathering information is awfully hard on the feet," Jack observed.

"At least I am not soft and gouty like the English."

"Have you never heard of a newspaper?"

"I was born a slave," Alphonse replied crisply. "It is illegal for slaves to read."



That evening they pitched their camp on a small plateau sheltered by scrub woodland and palms in the low foothills above the road. They were still some distance out of Old Road Town, so Jack and Tory were surprised when Alphonse announced that he had calls to make in the neighborhood. Left on their own, they split open a papaya and watched the evening fade into night.

"Do you think Alphonse really is some kind of revolutionary?" Tory wondered. "What can he be up to out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"Revolutions get people killed, slaves especially. Alphonse is too sensible for that." Jack sliced out another chunk of vivid orange fruit and handed it to her on the blade of his knife.

"When are you going to teach me to juggle those?" Tory asked, nodding to the blade as she plucked off the papaya.

"Certainly not tonight," he laughed.

"Why not?"

"It’s too close to Lammas, Rusty. The first of August, the beginning of the harvest season in the old calendar. Faeries and witches and all sorts of spirits are said to run amok in the woods at Lammas, wreaking all sorts of havoc. Very powerful, these spirits. Not a good time to be flinging cutlery about."

"And these faeries would bewitch our knives?"

"Oh, aye. And show your future, if you’re fool enough to ask."

"But I know the future," she smiled. "The immediate future, anyway." She crept closer to kiss him, letting her hand drift slowly down his shirtfront, across his lap and down along the inside of his thigh. His mouth opened slowly under hers and his arm curled around her back. But then he peeled his mouth away.

"I thought your herbs were gone," he reminded her.

"They are, but I don’t always need them," she said, still gently rubbing his thigh. "Perhaps we’ll be lucky."

"At Lammas?" Jack laughed, plucking her roving hand away. "It’ll have two heads and cloven hooves into the bargain." He lifted her hand and pressed her palm to his mouth in regretful farewell. "I hope you’ll put it on my account for later."

"I will, but I intend to charge you a great deal of interest," Tory grumbled back. "Ruinous, in fact."

A silver scrap of new moon was creeping into the shelter of the western hills, leaving the night to the Lammas faeries. The rainclouds had blown away and a thousand stars were winking open in the black sky. Perhaps talk of English faeries had put Jack in a wistful mood, or perhaps he meant to distract Tory from her purpose. But when he spoke again, his voice was very soft.

"Do you remember much of your mother?" he asked her.

"She was beautiful," Tory murmured, "small and lively, with dark eyes always full of laughter. I remember her long black hair that she wore in two plaits, and the sound of her voice when she told me the old stories."

"It's just…I never seem to think of you as Indian," Jack confessed.

"I didn't know it, myself," Tory shrugged. "I grew up on a little farm like other country children. Papa was a Scotsman, and his sons, my half-brothers, were both fair; I don’t suppose it ever occurred to me that I was any different. It wasn't until I got to Boston that I realized what a savage I was."

"Aye, that’s what civilization is for, making sure we all know our place," Jack observed. "I suppose they locked you up in the scullery?"

"Worse," she laughed. "They gave me a proper Christian education."

"I’m pleased to see so little of it rubbed off."

"Aye, I’m afraid I was a great disappointment to the Worthen Female Academy," Tory agreed. "They could never make me ashamed of my mother."

Jack drew her closer. "The world is full of righteous fools," he murmured, his lips brushing her hair. "The vicar at my parish school used to scold me for loving Shakespeare better than the Bible."

"Of course," Tory laughed again. "All that sin and wickedness! The Worthen sisters were too pious to have Shakespeare in the house."

"But Shakespeare is so much better than the Bible!" Jack exclaimed. "There’s no censure in Shakespeare, and every facet of life is represented, bawds and kings and villains and fools. Everything you could ever think or feel or want, Shakespeare has already written about it. And everything that happens in your own life affects how you to read him, so his words always seem new and fresh, however often you play them."

Tory glanced covertly up at the most ardent expression she had ever seen on Jack’s face, outside of lovemaking.

"I suppose you miss being a player," she observed.

"Desperately," Jack laughed. "I'd forgotten how much."



Jack was dreaming of Indians in war paint spouting iambic verse. There was a soft snap and rustle as they passed and his eyes opened to a black, starry sky.

"Alphonse...?" he whispered.

Then the stars disappeared and there was only the black.


Tory was waking to the sound of Jack’s voice when a weight fell on her, knocking the breath out of her and pinning her to the hard ground. It was like being trapped under a landslide; she could not move her hand to grope for the dagger strapped to her thigh under her skirt, but she felt a sharp blade against her throat and stopped squirming.

It was too dark to see the face above hers, but hot, sticky breath, labored and bitter, washed over her face. The arm of the hand clasping the knife pinned down her shoulder, and she felt a hand dragging up her skirt and a heavy knee between her legs. No words were spoken between wet bubbles of panting breath as the crushing weight pressed her down and the blade creased her throat. She knew that blade would spill her blood when he was finished, and she was powerless to fight back.

Then a sudden, sickening wheeze burst out of her attacker. The head above hers jerked upwards, not panting but gagging. The weight rose slightly off of her chest and the rigid arm across her shoulder flexed, then slackened. When Tory felt the flat of the blade slide against her neck, she lunged sideways out from under the struggling body, rolled over the fallen knife, and grabbed it as she came to her feet, poised to spring. Before her in the dark, she could just make out a small figure with one powerful arm wrapped entirely around the intruder's neck, choking him. Alphonse. A hand touched her back and she jumped.

"Rusty?"

"I’m all right, hombre..."

Jack lurched past her on his knees. "Let go," he hissed. "Alphonse!"

Alphonse relaxed his grip, and there was a wet, desperate gurgle for air. Jack’s two hands fisted together crashed down and the intruder lay still on the ground between them. The momentum almost sent Jack face-down on top of him, but Tory caught him by the shoulders and he swayed back up on his knees.

"Almighty God, Victoria, forgive me..." Alphonse began.

"For saving my life?" she panted.

"Wait!" Jack cautioned, head up, listening.

"There's no one, I came through the wood," said Alphonse.

"Who is it?" Tory’s voice was low and strained; she was shaking with rage, not fear. She crawled over to the remains of the fire, thrust a stick of dry timber into the glowing embers until they blazed, and came back on her knees, holding the light aloft. Alphonse grabbed the intruder’s shoulder to turn him on his back. Jack frowned down at the white face, and looked up at Alphonse.

"I...do not know him." Alphonse sounded surprised. "There are often ...thieves and brigands on the road."

"Thieves prey on people with money," Jack pointed out. He patted down the intruder's ragged coat with practiced fingers and fished out a small purse of delicate blue satin. "Looks like he's done his thieving somewhere else," Jack added, although there were scarcely coins enough left inside to rattle together when he shook it.

"But…I know this fellow,” Tory whispered, creeping closer with the light. Both men turned to look at her. "In Basseterre. He tried to run off with our profit, that day we met Mr. Greaves, remember? I... prevented him."

"Oh, Christ," Jack groaned, sitting back on his heels. "You see how men hate to be humiliated by a woman. Especially in public." He shook his head. "How long has he been watching us, nursing his grudge, waiting for his chance—?"

"You are not suggesting this is Victoria’s fault!" Alphonse cried. "A great deal of the blame lies with you. Look how you dress her, like a...a washerwoman, a slave. It is no wonder white men think they have the right to abuse her."

"But...we thought she would be safer..." Jack began.

"Safe? No one is safe in the Indies! The slaves are subjected to every kind of punishment and abuse, the free people of color are terrified of being made slaves again and the whites are in a panic that the slaves and freemen will rise up and murder them in their beds. There are men without scruple for hire under every rock, and a hundred port towns crawling with the lowest vermin who ever sailed the seas. Safe!" Alphonse spat out the word again.

Tory frowned at Alphonse. It was only on dry land that she had ever been assaulted by vermin calling themselves men.

"There is no safety," Alphonse concluded. "There is only vigilance. If you believed you might be pursued..."

"It was you who spoke of forgiveness," Jack fenced. "As if you believed yourself to be the target."

"There are, of course...opportunities to make...enemies...in my business," Alphonse admitted.

"But it’s not a crime to carry messages between lawfully assembled organizations," said Tory.

"It is not a crime to be a black man who is not a slave, not exactly, but there are many who do not care to see the practice encouraged." Alphonse rubbed his arm as his gaze flicked from Tory to Jack. "I see you are also accustomed to fighting for your lives."

The crumpled form of the intruder lay silent between them, the assailant Tory had brought down upon them all. She knew the very least they owed Alphonse was the truth. Jack knew it too.

"Those lowlife vermin of the seas you’re aways railing about," he said to Alphonse. "I was one of 'em."

Alphonse’s expression remained composed. "A smuggler?" he suggested, quietly. "A...slaver?"

"Both," Jack nodded. "I was also a pirate."

"And so was I," Tory injected, relieved to have it out at last. She saw Jack shut his eyes and mouth a silent oath. Alphonse gazed back at her.

"But...it happens sometimes," he offered. "A young woman taken by pirates. Held hostage..."

"I was not a hostage!" Tory exclaimed, insulted. "I chose that life and I’m not sorry about it."

"She was never in the slave trade, Alphonse," Jack put in.

"But you were?" Alphonse's black eyes shifted again to him.

"Not by choice," Tory tried to explain. "He has nightmares about it, still. But he was starving and desperate for a berth..."

"Rusty, it doesn’t mat—"

"Yes it does," she insisted. "Jack fled to the pirates to escape the slaver. I was a runaway, too. The pirates saved our lives, both of us. In all the time we sailed with them, Alphonse, we never once traded in slaves. Our captain would not hear of it. He had runaways in his crew."

Alphonse continued to look back and forth between them both. "It is never wise to probe too deeply into what others must do to survive in the Indies," he said, at last. "I hope that this will not interfere with our partnership."

"It’s your choice," said Jack. "There is no guarantee we'll not be recognized and pursued. There are handsome rewards posted in every town for the capture of pirates. It might go hard with you to be found in our company."

"I am no stranger to hardship," Alphonse murmured. "Besides, it is apparent that you are helpless without me," he added, glancing down at the prone intruder.

"Is he alive?" Tory asked warily. She had seen the face of death at times, but had never fought to the death herself.

"He breathes," said Alphonse. "After a fashion. There is a watchman’s hut some little way up the hill where we might shut him up for a time, until he is discovered or crawls away."

"Or we could tumble him down the hill and get the hell away from here," suggested Jack. Alphonse nodded and reached for the purse, shaking a gold Spanish dollar into his palm. "But do you not think Victoria ought to have some compensation for what she has suffered?"

"It was Jack who got hit over the head," Tory pointed out. The dying flame licked at her fingers and she shook it out and thrust the charred stick into the muddy ground.

"Alphonse is right, Rusty. You keep it."

Tory took the gold piece from Alphonse and stuck it through the split seam of her skirt, working it into the leather sheath that held her own knife against her thigh. The weapon she had been unable to use because she let this sweating pig take her by surprise. The coin seemed to burn through the sheath against her skin, a warning against complacency.

"We are in the borderlands, so we ought to find another watchman’s hut before too long where we can rest," Alphonse added.
"There are no watchmen?"

"Border watches are very indifferently kept, Victoria, in this season especially. It is a position for the old or lame, slaves with too little value to be sold, who might otherwise be idling. I spent much of my youth watching the borders, practicing my craft. But had I not been available, the post might just as well have gone unfilled."

Jack and Alphonse rolled the inert body into a shallow gully, then came back to collect their things.

"If anyone pursues us, for any reason, it is best that we enter Old Road Town with a bold face tomorrow," Alphonse declared. "We must be on our guard, but we must behave as if there has been no trouble and we expect no trouble. We must proceed as if we are in league with Fortune."

Tory cast a wry glance at Jack. "Let us mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel," she murmured. "Again."

She saw Jack’s crooked grin in response. It would not be the first time they had tried to bamboozle Fortune.


(Top image: Island of St. Kitts: View from above the town of Basseterre. Wood engraving drawn bt D. Lancelot, engraved by Maynard, 1878. © 2004-2009 www.antique-prints.de)