“Wha – how dar’ you, s-sir!” Kydd spluttered, trying to dislodge the grip clamped on his collar. Somehow his feet found the deck and he wriggled free.
Renzi regarded him grimly.
Kydd bristled. “You never l-liked Joe,” he said. “You don’ like anybody, you slivey bast’d!”
Renzi had deep reasons for his detached position. But something had to be done: if he did nothing, disengaged himself – the result would be inevitable. A pang of memory stabbed at him.
“Wha’s matter? Can’t speak? Don’t wanna speak wi’ a common jack – you too high ’n’ mighty, then?”
Kydd had changed, Renzi acknowledged to himself. Far from being a naïve young man from a country town pressed into an uncaring, alien environment, he was gaining confidence in his considerable natural abilities and had a very real prospect of being a fine seaman – if he survived.
“Ah, yes!” He looked at Renzi sideways with a leer. “I know – I know why you’re at sea wi’ the rest of us!”
He made exaggerated glances around to check for listeners. “You’ve done something, haven’t you? Somethin’ bad, I’ll wager, ’n’ they’re after you. You go ashore, they’re gonna nobble you. You’re runnin’, Renzi, running from somethin’.”
Renzi drew a sharp breath. “You ignorant jackass. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Put a rein on your tongue before you say anything you might regret.”
“It speaks! The gran’ prince deigns to address th’ mobility.” Kydd made a bow, but staggered forward, colliding with Renzi. “Ge’ your hands off me, sir!” Kydd said, wrenching himself free. He took a swing at Renzi, clumsy and wild. Renzi easily ducked under it, but knew that if he left now all would be over for Kydd. Tempted, he drew back – but Kydd’s guileless face and dark features pricked him mercilessly. Stepping around him, Renzi seized his arms in a lock and frog-marched him toward the hatch.
“Ger’ away – wha’ you doing? Le’ me go, you -”
He threw Kydd down the ladder and resumed his hold when Kydd picked himself up at the bottom. It continued until they were in the orlop. Renzi dragged Kydd over to the gratings between the pump room and sail stowage, and flung him down. “There, you fool! You want to give your life to the bottle, do it in company.” He jerked up the grating to reveal, in the stinking blackness below, a huddled figure clutching a bot tle. The face looked up anxiously, rheumy eyes and trembling grasp pitiful in its degradation. Renzi spoke scornfully. “Eakin, cooper’s mate. Why don’t you introduce yourself, Mr. Kydd? I’m sure you’ll find you have much in common!” He let Kydd drop to the deck and left.
“Don’t worry, mate, we squared it with Jack Weatherface. Good hand, is Tewsley.” Doud spoke softly, as to a child.
Kydd said nothing, holding his head and staring at his breakfast.
“Yeah – look, we understand, cuffin. He was our shipmate too.” Whaley reached over and squeezed his arm.
Kydd looked up wordlessly. His vague memories of the previous night were shot through with horror – waking from a drunken sleep to find the sickening Eakin pulling him down into the hold to evade the Master-at-Arms before clumsily going through his clothes for drink or valuables. He remembered also Renzi’s pitiless grip and implacable face, and the cold ferocity of his movements. Kydd shot a glance over at Renzi in his usual place opposite Claggett. Silent and guarded as ever, he gave no sign of recognition.
Why had he done it? What had made Renzi break with character so much as to involve himself in a shipmate’s fate?
Kydd needed answers – but not here.
At dinner, he watched Renzi quietly. No one knew, or particularly cared, where Renzi spent his time and, true to form, he slipped away afterward.
Kydd rose and followed. Renzi emerged onto the upper deck, then swung out to the fore shrouds and up to the foretop, where he disappeared from view.
He did not return. Kydd made his way up the ratlines to the foretop.
Renzi sat with his back to the after rail, a book balanced on his knee. Looking up as Kydd climbed into the top, he assumed an expression of cold distaste, but said nothing.
“I’m to thank you for y’r concern, sir,” Kydd began.
Still no words, just the repelling look.
“I was much affected. My friend…” Kydd tailed off.
It was hard. Renzi felt himself weakening.
“Why did you interfere?” said Kydd abruptly.
Renzi put down the book and sighed. It was no good, he just could not bring himself to repel Kydd with his usual malignity. “Do I have to be in possession of a reason?” he asked.
“Your pardon, but you’ve never shown an interest in others before.”
“Perhaps I choose to in your case.”
“Why?”
Renzi looked out over the moving gray seas under the wan sunlight. How could he speak of the depth of feeling, the cold remorseless logic that had driven him to self-sentence himself – that same discipline of rationality that had kept him from following the others to self-destruction. It had its own imperatives. “Because you remind me of one who – I once met,” he said finally.
Kydd looked at him, unsure of how to respond.
“And because I have seen others go to hell the same way.”
“Then please don’t concern yourself. I don’t make a practice of it.”
“I’m gratified to hear it.” Renzi’s educated voice seemed out of keeping.
“Who are you?” Kydd asked boldly. “I mean, what are y’ doin’ on a man-o’-war?”
“That can be of no possible concern to you.”
“I see you do not care f’r conversation, sir. I will take my leave,” said Kydd, aware that, despite himself, when speaking to Renzi he was aping his manners.
“No – wait!” Renzi closed his book. “I spoke hastily perhaps. Please sit down.” It was rash, perhaps, but right now he felt a surging need for human interaction.
“Have you – are they after you?” Kydd said, looking at him directly.
Renzi toyed with the nice philosophical distinction between legal criminality and moral, but decided to answer in the negative.
“Then…”
“I was not pressed, if that is your impression.”
Kydd eased his position. “So I must find that you are runnin’ – hidin’ – and from what, I do not know. Am I right?”
Renzi could not avoid Kydd’s forthright gaze. “Yes, you are right,” he admitted. How much could he speak of his situation and hope to be understood? Kydd was strong-minded – he had to be to endure – but he had no acquaintance with Descartes or Leibniz and their cold logic, no appre ciation of the higher moral forces that might motivate a man of the Enlightenment.
Kydd smiled thinly. “You do not look a one who’d be craven.”
Renzi half smiled and looked away. The months of self-imposed isolation, the deliberate lack of human contact, had been hard, but he had borne this as part of the punishment. But what if this could rightly be construed as ultra poenas dare – beyond the penalty given? The condition of exile might be sustained, yet he would have the precious mercy of human company.
He looked directly at Kydd, considering, and found himself deciding: if he was going to confide in anyone it would be Kydd. “You wish an explanation.”