She finished, rubbing her hand over her gritty hair, staring out at waves crawling up the beach a dozen yards away, at the blue morning sky. Her eyes stung, but she hadn’t cried. She felt wrung out and tired, though. Like now that she’d told the story, told everything, she was empty. Ready to be filled up by sun, wind, and waves.
“Captain Cooper seems to think it’s all tied up in that broken piece of sword,” Jill said, and sighed. “But as far as she’s concerned it’s not about me, it’s about this Blane guy.”
“Yes. Edmund Blane. Your captain—”
“She’s not my captain.”
Nanny raised a brow and gave her a look. Jill shut up. “Your captain has good reason to hate him and will fight him if she can. If she thinks you have a way for her to get to Blane—she’ll keep you close. You and that bit of sword.”
“Can that little piece really find him?” Jill said.
“I think—I think the sword will want to be whole again.”
“And will that help me get back home?”
Dark eyes shining in a shadowed, sculpted face, Nanny shifted her grip on her staff and looked out at the sea and the crew still scrubbing the hull of Diana, and the others working on the beach, slow but steady. Her expression remained wry.
“Sometimes you can’t go back. These people, these stolen slaves, maybe they go back someday. Probably not. So you go forward instead. Don’t find your place in the world, make your place. I was a girl, stolen from home in Africa. I still dream of going back. But here, I have a calling, taking care of these people. I can’t argue that. Maybe you’ll get back to where you came from, but is it really home?”
Jill wiped her eyes, which were threatening tears again.
From the hills deep within the forest, the sudden noise of barking dogs sounded. Activity on the beach stopped a moment.
Nanny looked up and frowned. Planting her staff, she used it to pull herself to her feet. “We’ve got to move.”
“What is it?”
“Plantation foremen’s hounds tracking us.” She called out to her people.
Jill stood, gingerly straightening cramped muscles and aching joints. “What if they find you?”
She chuckled. “They won’t find us.”
“But what if they come here?”
“Oh, they won’t mess with Marjory’s crew. Good luck to you.”
“Thanks.”
“And if Marjory asks you to be her pirate queen apprentice, tell her no. That girl is trouble.”
If Jill hadn’t been so exhausted, she might have laughed. Nanny squeezed her arm with her calloused, bony hand, and strode across the beach where her people had gathered. The Africans stood with them, stretching their muscles, looking into the jungle with a mix of hope and trepidation. At least they had hope. Abe stood by and waved a farewell as they trekked into the trees, and away.
The work went on.
That night at suppertime, the crew gathered around the fire, and everyone moaned and complained about sore muscles and blisters. Some of the crew had gone hunting and killed one of the feral pigs that roamed the jungle, and they celebrated the good roast meat. Even Jill enjoyed the fresh food, though she wasn’t happy seeing the pig butchered. She decided she preferred fresh meat that came wrapped in plastic.
When she had her tin plate of food and mug of rum, she found Henry and sat near him.
Jill leaned close and spoke softly, “Why does Captain Cooper have it in for Edmund Blane? What happened?”
Henry glanced at her. “How much have you heard already?”
“Nothing, really. The captain hates him, from the way she talks about him. I didn’t know his whole name until Nanny told me.”
He chuckled. “Grandy Nanny is a right fierce woman, isn’t she?”
“How does Captain Cooper know her?”
“Not sure, it was before my time. But I know there’s a story there. Nanny was a slave on a plantation, but escaped. She’s been helping others do likewise ever since. You say her name in Kingston, and the white folk’ll curse you down the street.”
“She sounds like a hero to me,” Jill said.
He shrugged. “We don’t get to decide who the heroes are, do we?”
He was right, she supposed. “What about Blane?”
Henry watched the fire a moment and took a drink of rum. “He’s evil. He’s the kind of pirate that other pirates despise. How’s that for a hated man?”
“What’s he done?” Jill asked.
“What hasn’t he? Burned, destroyed, raped, looted. He’ll give a ship quarter, then slaughter everyone aboard. I don’t know what exactly he did to our Captain Cooper, but I do know they started a voyage on the same boat, and when it ended he had the boat and she was a castaway.”
However Jill felt about Captain Cooper, even that shred of story made her angry at Blane on Cooper’s behalf.
“If he’s so bad, how does he even get a crew to sign on with him?” Jill asked.
“Because some men like the kind of power he has. It’s like they hope it’ll brush off on them. But they’ll end up worse than the folk we rescued off that slave ship.”
“And Captain Cooper wants to take revenge on him.”
“I expect so.”
“What’ll she do when she finds him?”
“Oh, that’s an easy one. She’ll try to kill him. We’re all headed for a battle with him and his ship. We followed him to the Newark, where we found you—and nothing but wreckage. Then he got away from us.”
The singing started again, and the drinking progressed in earnest until Jill could smell the rum on the air. Captain Cooper, out for revenge, was apart, perched on a barrel, looking to the sea, as if she could find Blane just by staring at the horizon.
And what did any of it have to do with Jill?
Maybe you’ll get back…. And what if she didn’t? She couldn’t think like that—she’d get home somehow. Because she wanted to get home—to get back to her life. She missed her old life, she realized, all of it. But that meant she had to stop sitting around, just another member of the crew, waiting. If they were heading for a fight with Blane, she had to be ready.
Jill said, “I can fight, you know. I am a fighter.”
“What?”
“When we boarded the other ship, you said I’m not a fighter. But I am, even though no one fights for real anymore where I come from. At least not with swords. But I can.”
“You’re not. You’ve never drawn blood.”
“Have you?” she countered. “You didn’t exactly do any fighting on the slave ship. Is it really a battle if no one actually hits anyone?”
“You can’t deny us the victory.”
She couldn’t, but it still seemed like something other than a battle. Then again, they were pirates, not the navy.
“Let’s practice,” she said. She had blisters on her hands and her arms still ached from all the work. Despite all that, she itched to show him that she did know how to fight. At least, she thought she could.
“Practice?” he said.
“Yeah. How else am I going to get good enough to draw blood?”
He seemed to consider her a moment—maybe deciding whether or not to treat her request as a joke. Then, he smiled. “Don’t want to stand around and miss out on the fun next time, eh? When we meet Blane, maybe?”
“Maybe I just want to hold a sword again.” Prove to herself that she still could. Prove that the bout in the tournament was a fluke, and that she could fight. If not back home, then here.
“Fair enough. And you have a good arm, I remember. All right, then. Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, before the sun gets too high and before Jenks or Abe gets on us for slacking our work.”
8
ALLEZ
Exhausted, Jill slept well that night and woke with a start at first light, wondering if Henry would go through with the practice he’d promised her. She hadn’t held a sword in weeks, and she missed it. She was surprised—but pleased.