Buch lesen: «Pirate Blood»

CHAPTER ONE
PORT ROYAL

Jonathan Underwood opened his eyelids, in spite of the sleepiness making his body still numb. His thoughts started slipping slowly, like drops on an opaque glass surface. From the only window in the room, he could see the sun beams falling oblique on the floor planks, dragging dusty specks in their track.

He lived with his mother in a room on the second floor of a crumbling building, like many others downtown. The Pàssaro do Mar inn below had welcomed its customers till late at night, so he had fallen asleep lulled by laughs and screams. However, as it often happened to him when he found himself in the middle stage between sleep and wake, he was wondering about the fact that those noises weren’t keeping him awake more than his curiosity about the stories told by the customers.

He was born and had grown up in the town that many people considered as the wealthiest and most ill-famed in the world. Anne always kept telling him. He had never got into serious trouble. Some acts of bravado… very usual for a boy of his age. But according to his mother, the world was dangerous and Port Royal above all.

Civilization is also that, his father had explained him once. Only it is lived differently here. And you will have to do the same, Johnny.

He decided to get up. He moved to the window, stopping for a moment in the middle of the room to fix the leotard slipping on his naked legs. He opened the shutters, encrusted with salt. A wave of light hit his face. He lifted a hand instinctively to protect himself and waited patiently for the nuisance to pass by. When he got used to it, he let himself be charmed by the wonderful landscape.

The bay was lapped by a large stretch of crystal water. Rocky walls, their tops covered in vegetation, surrounded it in a messy semicircle. Foaming waves were breaking softly against the coast, pushed by the wind running into the straight connecting the inlet to the open sea. The western part of the beach grew thin into a sandy string in the shape of a horseshoe, where Fort Charles stood. On the fortress’s main tower the English flag was waving proudly.

Johnny kept gazing at that wonder. He could distinguish the houses, the stores and the docks where the ships were laying at anchor to let the crews get down. Flocks of seagulls were flying among the masts, croaking in a choir.

“Johnny, are you awake?” His mother’s voice reached him behind the door.

“Yes”, he answered. “I’m coming.”

He was used to sleeping with Anne, also because they couldn’t do otherwise. With the little money they earned, it was a miracle if they could afford paying a rent to Bartolomeu, the innkeeper. Anne worked for him.

“Hurry up!”, she shouted once more, on the other side of the door. “Avery is waiting for you. You’ll be late as usual.”

Johnny could hear the typical reproaching tone he knew so well, followed by a cough soon after. He rolled his eyes. She had been ill for some days. And there had been no need of consulting a doctor to understand. He had tried to talk about that just once, but she had warned him, adding she was just tired.

“You’re just like your father”, the woman ended, trying hard to stop the spasms.

Always with my head in the clouds, Johnny thought.

The reason of Anne’s continual reproaches were about Stephen Underwood himself. She had never forgiven him for bringing her to Port Royal.

Thanks to the trade company he had founded, Stephen had been able to credit himself with a small part of the transport of the goods coming from England to the Caribbean Sea. It all had gone very well at first. The situation had come to a head later, because of the Indies Company monopoly. As if that wasn’t enough, some creditors the man had addressed to, had forced him to close his activity and declare bankruptcy. He had answered his wife’s never ending requests telling her he would leave as soon as possible to balance his debts. Anne had wanted to trust him, as usual. She surely couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t see him anymore in a few days.

Stephen Underwood had left on a ship flying the Dutch flag. Many rumours had started going around after his disappearance. Some people said he had been attacked by pirates and some others had seen the ship sinking off the Aruba coast, at the mercy of a storm. In spite of that, Anne had lost everything and had been forced to turn her well-to-do life habits upside down: she had had to find a job in the place she hated the most in the world.

The place which had taken her husband away from her.

And her dreams.

Every time his mother tormented him with this story, Johnny kept listening to her in silence. He didn’t dare contradict her, fearing to make her suffer. He had heard her crying next to himself at night and he had wondered why the Davies family hadn’t come to Port Royal to help them.

He came to know the truth once he reached adolescence. William Joseph Davies had never accepted his daughter’s departure to a part of the world where the idea of civilization was relative. By the way, Anne had kept in touch with her family, at least till her husband’s disappearance. She had then stopped replying to the letters coming from London. Johnny had thought that would last for a while, waiting for better times. But when he had found her burning the letters, he had understood that any link with the past was broken.

He got dressed very fast that morning. He tidied his dark locks up in front of a mirror whose borders were oxidized, then he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. The scar on his left cheek got thinner till it became quite an invisible line. Some black and dirty spots had appeared on his teeth: he put a finger into a small basin next to him and brushed them with force.

When he had finished, he went down the stairs like his mother had done just a moment before; he believed he would find her on the landing coinciding with the back of the Pàssaro do mar, doing the tiding up. She was there in fact. She was singing a song. He greeted her quickly; Bartolomeu’s voice called her after a while.

“Anne, come here”, he said, in his strange Portuguese accent. Even if he was a very odd man, he was the only one who had offered her a place where to live and something similar to a job. He had also tried hard to convince Bennet Avery to hire an apprentice at his workshop.

Johnny opened the door and ran into the alley stretching outside the inn, getting deep into Port Royal’s frantic life.

***

A crowd was assembled in the streets. They were walking among the junk stalks of sellers or they were chatting lively under the house windows. There were every kind of people, from prostitutes blinking in front of the inns, to the sea wolves guffawing between them, to the British navy soldiers pushing carelessly every people coming in front of them.

Wiping his forehead beaded with sweat, Johnny turned into a side street getting down to the port. In that way he would avoid the messy crowd of the people going to the market. He had just to get over the ancient Spanish area, then…

Damn it!, he thought. He bit his lips without realizing it.

Alejandro Naranjo Blanco was the last person he wished to meet. He had made up a gang with some other boys, tormenting everyone passing through that area. They didn’t look favourably on anyone. The English people above all. That was because Port Royal had been a Spanish fortress before the British conquest.

Their frictions had started when a sword had been ordered to Avery. He was a very good carpenter, but also a very capable and known blacksmith. He had appointed Johnny to deliver it and the boy had entered into the Spanish area, without even thinking about it. Alejandro’s gang had immediately assaulted him. The boy had tried to defend himself, but Alejandro had jumped on him, taking out a knife and leaving a memory of their meeting on his left cheek.

When he stopped in the middle of the street, Johnny felt again the burning sensation of liquid warmth he had had soon after the cut. He touched his scar, starting from the cheekbone and going down to his lips. He could hear his mother then: This place is dangerous, that’s why I keep worrying about you! And are you fighting against people of your age, now?

“Shut up”, he muttered to himself.

“Who are you talking to, amigo?” Alejandro was waiting for him a few steps behind. He hadn’t entered the area yet and the boy had already found him.

“Let me go, gordo”, Johnny replied. He knew that calling Alejandro a fat boy wasn’t a good idea.

Yet just meeting him made his blood boil into his veins. “This is not your neighbourhood yet. I can come back from where I came from and take another way.”

“Of course.” The Spanish boy didn’t seem to react to the offense. “But you were always getting through this area.”

“Are you looking for a pretext to quarrel?”

“Maybe.”

Johnny moved forward cautiously. “That’s just what I dislike about you. Don’t provoke me.”

Alejandro’s smile widened into a much deeper line, parting his fatty face in two.

“How is your father?”, he asked.

Johnny’s feet refused to go on. He clenched his fists. That bastard knew exactly where to hit.

“Have they searched into any shark’s stomach?”, he went on. “Or he might have run away with a bitch he met anywhere. He had perhaps got bored of your mother. And of you. What do you think about it, pendejo?”

He wished he could jump on him and settle the question all at once. But he forced every nerve of his body to let go.

“I’ll tell you again for the last time”, he cut it short. “I don’t feel like…”

He could hardly finish the sentence. Something flew next to him. It was a stone. He turned his eyes behind his shoulders, even if his brain answered faster. Taking him by surprise had been just an excuse to let the other members of the gang catch him on the wrong foot. Johnny saw three guys running to him.

“I’m ready this time.” His voice revealed a certain amount of confidence, as Alejandro changed his expression. His smile had turned into a grimace of gloomy hesitation. He then took out a flat-top knife, reminding a bit a barber’s razor.

One of the boys tried to hit him with a stick. Johnny heard it hissing near his ears. The boy tried to come close to him, wanting to make a lunge. He couldn’t. His rival was punching faster and faster. Suddenly Alejandro pushed him from behind, making him hit the boy who had attacked him first.

“ Hijo de puta!”, the boy shouted and hit him with his elbow on the face.

Johnny wasn’t surprised. He instinctively plunged the sword into the thigh. The boy fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Alejandro on his side started attacking him again: he took out the knife and tried to hurt him. He was aware of that and could move away just in time. The stroke hit the boy who had thrown the stone, hurting his shoulder. The two guys started to insult each other at once, giving up the fight. The last member of the gang kept looking at them apart, as if stupefied.

And then Johnny suddenly understood.

The time of revenge had come.

“I’ll return the favour, gordo”, he sentenced and hurt the Spanish boy in his eyebrow. He saw a stream of blood dripping from his eye, dimming his sight. He decided to take advantage of it and beat a retreat.

He turned on his heels and rushed to the direction he had come from, leaving behind him the very rancorous shouts of his aggressors.

***

“I’m late”, he apologized, opening the shop door suddenly. He was panting, his chest was dancing under his clothes. The elbow stroke he had got gave him a strange nose accent.

“I know”, Avery agreed. He was sitting on a stool, in a shadowy corner. Puffs of light blue smoke where coming out of the pipe sloping three quarters from his lips. They whirled sleepily to the ceiling planks, where they lay stagnant in a dim cloud. The wrinkled face didn’t show any kind of feeling. He got up slowly and passed by the stone arch dividing the shop into two separate areas. He got to the forge. He started observing the anvil absent-mindedly.

It looked as if he hadn’t seen it before.

“Let me explain…”, Johnny tried to say.

Avery moved with an incredible dart for a man of his age. He stretched his wrinkled hand and caught the boy’s forearm, grasping him tight. “I don’t know what to do with you!” Splashes of saliva were spurting from his toothless mouth. “You are always late and you go home when you like. You’re an irresponsible! I wouldn’t have hired you if Bartolomeu hadn’t asked me.” He then changed expression. “What happened to you?”

Johnny hesitated. He saw an indefinite sense of bewilderment into his interlocutor’s blazing eyes. Or was it mercy? He would rather get his usual scolding than discuss about his meeting with Alejandro.

“It’s not your business, old man”, he addressed him.

Avery’s wrinkled face seemed to relax. He let him go and scratched his bald head, crossed by just two wisps of grey hair on his ears.

“It was the fat Spanish, wasn’t it?”, he asked.

The boy turned his eyes away.

“Ok”, Avery went on. “Do as you like. You don’t need adding anything else. Let’s try to understand whether your nose is broken. Then we’ll find an excuse for your mother. We could tell her you got hurt here. That woman is always worrying too much about you. You’ll break her heart one day.”

“How do you know?”, Johnny replied.

“There are lots of things you don’t know about me.”

And that was true.

He knew almost nothing about Bennet Avery.

Some rumours depicted him as the protagonist of raids made on board the Queen Anne’s Revenge, pirate Blackbeard’s vessel. Obviously, according to the old man that was only nonsense spread to give him problems. But Johnny had still some doubts. He had often wondered if it was his fancy speaking: maybe he had better not let it so free. However, the uncertainties about the old man past had stirred his curiosity. He had heard him talk on different occasions about pieces of his life, accompanied very often by a couple of glasses of rum. Being Bartolomeu’s friend, he was constantly present at the Pàssaro do Mar. Nevertheless, his stories had always something which didn’t fit. He even seemed to avoid some details willingly.

“Come closer”, Avery called him, handing a bucket of water to him, “and wash yourself, to begin with”.

Johnny obeyed, without uttering any single word. He placed the basin on a barrel and put his head inside. The fresh water gave him a light thrill. He held his breath for a short while. He then came out, breathing the fresh air deeply. His fingers went up unintentionally to touch the top of his nose.

“So?”, the old man spurred him.

“The pain has decreased”, Johnny answered. He could hardly believe it.

“If it was broken, you would cry as the snotty kid you are. You were lucky.”

“Luckier than them”, he replied, showing the flat-top knife. He turned it in his hands. The blade was stained with coagulated blood.

Avery stared at him with a satisfied smile. “Stop boasting, boy. Try to tidy yourself up. Work is waiting for you.”

***

At the very moment when Johnny was wrestling with Alejandro, captain Woodes Rogers was thoughtfully scanning the horizon from one of the windows of the governor’s villa. His blurred shape was reflecting on the glass like a ghost’s one, his short, brown hair and his large forehead were giving him a look of solemn austerity, softened by his short height. His mouth, reduced to an almost invisible cut, showed up a feeling of uncertainty. But maybe the feature which made him look more strict was the thick cobweb of scars disfiguring the left part of his face.

He wished heartily that his meeting with Henry Morgan would be as short as possible. He had never accepted his political success willingly, especially after his lucky attack to Panama. He was jealous of him, at least. He had always said there was nothing trustworthy in a pirate who had been chasing his fellow men, just to please the royal family. Ceremonies and banquets were part of a lifestyle he wished he could have too, even if the most important thing for him was to find out why Morgan had summoned him again.

“Your task is simple”, he had told him during a previous meeting. “You have to catch monsieur Wynne. He’s a pirate, so any other reason is useless. He won’t be able to escape being hanged forever. As governor of Jamaica and spokesman of king George’s will, we are morally obliged to give this order to you. We wish you will understand.”

Of course, he had thought. Damned pompous idiot.

And he was still thinking the same, when a soldier walked into the room. He stopped at the door and stood at attention.

“Captain Rogers”, he addressed him. “His Excellency sir Henry Morgan is waiting for you.”

He waved absent-mindedly to him and let himself be driven into the narrow corridor taking to the anteroom, made even narrower by the host of works of art crowding there, a clear sign of the wealth the governor liked to be surrounded with.

“The execution will be held tomorrow morning, captain.” The soldier had stopped in front of a door strengthened by iron bars. “The governor wishes to curb piracy strongly. He hopes you will be there too.”

Your hypocrisy is astonishing, Henry, Rogers wondered. You found a more decent mask to put on. You would have ended up hanged too, if your friend hadn’t helped you.

Meanwhile the soldier was knocking on the planks with a resolute air. Morgan’s voice echoed on the other side, inviting them to come in and followed by a baritone voice which made Roger feel a new wave of scorn.

“He still laughs as a pirate”, he muttered to himself. He grasped the door handle and close it behind his back, leaving the soldier alone. He was immediately assailed by an intense smell of burning incense, a penetrating fragrance of dried herbs. The light was filtering through the windows and the velvet curtains were trembling in a breath of sea wind. Yet there was no sign of the governor. Neither of him nor of anyone else. He went on suspiciously till he got to a big table covered with maps.

“Is there anything wrong?”, Morgan suddenly asked him.

Woodes Rogers turned on his heels and feared to stumble on his feet. He was feeling terribly vulnerable. And slow. When his bewilderment vanished, he found himself facing a well-built man with a prominent belly. He had come out from a private room, wearing a showy light blue dress with large lace lapels. He was wearing on his head a long powdered wig, matching very badly with his red and bushy moustache.

“You’re too nervous, captain”, Morgan laughed again. “In our opinion you should learn to enjoy the pleasures of life better.”

“Pleasures are a luxury I can’t afford”, Rogers replied.

“It’s a real pity, then.”

“Why have you sent for me, Your Excellency?”

Morgan looked him up and down. He then stretched his face muscles, with a clearly amused air. “We wish to discuss a very important matter with you. We know your inclination very well. We know you aren’t a man who likes wasting his time.”

“So we can get to the point at once”, the pirate cut it short. “More than twenty days ago you sent me in search for Emanuel Wynne, a cheap pirate who…”

“Rather by chance”, the governor interrupted him. He kept smiling. “Finding him floating off, not far from Nassau was really providential. It turned your hunt into a rescue mission.”

“That was just good luck, in fact.”

“And is that what you’re worrying about?”