Scipio runs a hand over his beard, looking at each of us in turn like he is searching for a definitive reason to either trust us or strap us to a cannon and fling us over the rail.
“You could get a ransom for us,” Felicity pipes up. “But they won’t issue letters of marque to our kidnappers. And that’s far more valuable.”
“I’m sure we could console ourselves with a good deal of money. And I’ll be much less moved to compassion if I find out this is all a con.”
“We’re not lying,” I say, though it sounds feeble.
“I’ll have to consult my crew—”
“Aren’t you the captain?” Felicity interrupts.
“We’re more of a democracy. Though if none of them protest, and if you—” He scratches a hand through his beard. “You really think you can get us letters issued?” he asks, and Percy nods. “Well, then we’ll take you to Venice. We can facilitate your return to your families from there.”
I’m about to extend a hand of accord to him, but Felicity has a few more terms. “You’re not to mistreat us on this voyage,” she says. “We’re not to be kept as captives.”
“Then, in return, you’ll stay out of my crew’s way, give them your respect, and cause no havoc,” Scipio counters. “Any whiff of ill intentions toward any of us from any of you and I’ll shackle you to the masthead. Do you agree to that?”
“Agreed,” we three chorus.
Scipio helps us unwrap from our imitation bindings, then leads the way up from the gun deck so we can make our proposals to the crew. Felicity follows close behind him, her surgical kit rewrapped and clutched close to her chest the way some girls might cling to a favorite doll. Percy and I bring up the rear.
As we climb the steps, Percy nudges me with his elbow. “You’re daft, you know.”
“Am I?”
“James Boswell. Rooking the navy. Making deals with pirates.”
“Well, they’re not pirates. And”—I poke him in return—“the deal was mostly your doing.”
“You’re still daft.”
“Are you complaining?”
“No,” he says, giving a quick tug on my sleeve that turns into his fingers pressed into my palm in a way that makes me weak in the knees. “I sort of love it.”
26
It will be weeks before we make port in Venice, weeks that I assume will be filled with hard labor and abuse from our captors, but instead consist of a strange calm and a stranger camaraderie.
We’re given hammocks on the lower deck alongside the crew (Scipio surrenders his captain’s cabin to Felicity for the sake of her modesty), and we take meals with them—meals being a loose term, as they mostly eat hardtack softened in coffee or warm rum. Ebrahim teaches us that the biscuits need a good soak so that the maggots burrowed into them drown and float to the top, which is a positively scrummy thing to consider every time you tuck in.
The crew keep their distance from us at first and we from them, though the ship is small and there is only so much space in which one can avoid the other. The standoff breaks when Percy and I, starved for entertainment, play a game of dice with a handful of the men, which feels at first like conspiring with the enemy and ends up being a better night than many we’ve had with the blades back in Cheshire. They don’t cheat half as much as Richard Peele and his lot.
They are not what I expected of pirates, nor really of tars at all. They’re not bloodthirsty, drunken rogues passing round-robins and black spots and ready to knock the man in charge on the back of the head with a belaying pin. Rather, they are a small, tight-knit crew, who trade jokes and stories and songs mostly in jack-tar lingo, and we become their strange, temporary crewmates, assigned small tasks with no irreparable consequences if bungled.
They all take to Percy right away—their greenhorn, who they all call King George, follows him around like a puppy, not saying much, just always staring with his enormous eyes at Percy, like he’s a rare orchid brought aboard.
“Is he truly a lord?” King George asks me one night, as he, Ebrahim, and I sit on the deck tying monkey’s fists.
“Who, Percy? Not a lord, no, but he’s from a highborn family.”
“And they raised him well?” Ebrahim asks. “Even though he’s colored?”
“I don’t think he was allowed to take supper with them when they had company, but, with some exceptions of that sort, they’ve been first-rate to him.”
Ebrahim tosses his monkey’s fist between his enormous hands, his mouth pulling down. “So it’s not the same at all, then, is it?”
It occurs to me suddenly, as I look down the deck to where Percy’s sitting with his fiddle and two of the men, who are singing a tune for him in hopes he can pick up the melody, that this must be the first time in his life he’s around men who look like him. Men who don’t assume he’s worth less than them just because of the color of his skin. Among the pirates, he has nothing to prove.
“Maybe I’m a lord,” King George says.
“Maybe, Georgie,” Ebrahim replies, with no conviction.
We round the tip of Italy—the heel of the boot, as Scipio calls it—and enter the narrow straits between the Neapolitan state and Corfu, where Archaic temples sit like bulwarks along the cliffs. The water shifts from turquoise to emerald as the light billows across it. Percy and I spend long stretches of these days standing together at the prow, marveling at the way the whole world around us seems to be made of raw cerulean pigment and playing a silent and absolutely maddening game of who can get his hand closest to the other’s without actually touching it.
We haven’t yet had a moment alone since the unfinished one in the hold of the xebec, though we both keep finding increasingly creative ways to touch each other without anyone noticing. I think I quite deserve some medal for the restraint I have thus far shown in regard to Percy now that I know he and I seem to be reading from the same book on the subject of our romantic sentiments, until Felicity mutters one night at supper, “Be a bit more obvious, won’t you?” Though, in fairness, I had just hooked my foot around Percy’s ankle and he had nearly choked on a mouthful of salt pork.
The almostness of it is driving me mad—nearly as mad as Percy’s fingertips brushing mine between us and not being permitted any more of him than that—coupled with a desperation bordering on panic to not be parted from him at the end of this tour. I have lost years of my life loving him from afar and I’ll be damned if I’m robbed of him as soon as we realize we’ve both been admiring each other from a distance all this while. I’d fight Death himself one-handed to get the panacea for him.
Scipio has been tight-lipped about asking us what our business is in Venice, but considering our brush with the French navy, he’s likely deduced it’s not particularly savory. He might prefer ignorance to sharing the weight of a secret, but I cough up the truth with no prompting, while he and I are together on deck slopping a new coat of paint over the sun-weathered rail. Partly because I expect we’re going to need further assistance from our piratical allies in getting to the island itself, but mostly because I’m starting to get twitchy about reaching Venice before the duke and hope the captain might have some sort of hidden sails he will offer to roll out for increased speed.
I expect he’ll contest it—alchemical compounds and sinking islands and coded puzzle boxes are rather fantastic when said aloud—but all he says is, “You’re very impressive, you know that?”
“Who, me?” I laugh. “I’m the deadweight. It’s mostly thanks to Percy and Felicity that we’re all still alive.”
“Do you truly not see it?”
“See what?”
He drags his brush along the rail. “You’re worth far more than you seem to think. You have value.”
“I’ve no value. None at all. My best attribute is getting into scrapes I need to be bailed out of.” As though to prove my point, a string of paint drops off my brush and splashes across the canvas we’ve laid. “And the dimples.”
“Be kinder to yourself. You saved us f
rom the navy. You saved yourselves from the navy. And you’ve clearly had some hand in defending your crew.” He points his brush at my jaw. “You’ve the scars to prove it.”
I scrub a thumb up over the spot where the thief-taker struck me. It’s still sore to the touch. “Thought my cheeks needed a bit of color is all.”
“Didn’t you fight back?”
“I’m not well practiced at fighting back. I’m far less gallant than you seem to want to believe me.” I give the rail a zealous thwack with my brush. Paint sprays from its bristles like the powder from a cannon shot. “Has she a name?”
“Who?”
“Your pirate ship.” I knock my fist against the rail.
A glop of paint drips onto his bare foot, and he scrubs it against the back of his leg. “The Eleftheria.”
“What does it mean?”
“It’s Greek,” he replies. “The word for freedom.”
“Did you name her?”
“When we stole her, yes. The men who’ve agreed to buy the VOC goods from us are all in Oia, so a Greek name helps us there. And we all needed a new start. It seemed fitting.”
“How long have you had her?”
“You’re changing the subject, your lordship.”
I flick a bit of paint at him as I bend to load my brush. When I straighten, he taps me upon the cheek with the back of his hand in retaliation. It’s hardly a glance, and all in fun, but I flinch so badly I drop my brush. It falls to the deck with a clatter, leaving an ivory stamp on the wood between my feet.
“Dammit. Sorry.” I go to scoop up the brush, trying to wipe the paint off the deck with my foot and instead smearing it. I expect he’ll chastise me for it, but when I look up, he’s watching me, his face sober.
Then he sets his own brush across the rail and climbs to his feet. “Come here.”
I don’t move. “Why? What are we doing?”
“I’m going to teach you something. Stand up.”
I toss my brush into the trough, wipe my hands on my trousers, then stand and face him.
“Put your hands up,” Scipio instructs, holding his own forward with the palms flat toward me.
I don’t move. “Why?”
“I’m going to show you how to swing at the next man who strikes you.” He pushes his sleeves up, then raises an expectant eyebrow at me. “I mean it, put your hands up.”
“I don’t think—”
“Hands up, my lord. Even a gentleman should know how to defend himself. Especially a gentleman.”
It feels futile, but I shake out my shoulders, then pull my fists up close to my chest. It’s so unnatural that I drop them straightaway. “I can’t.”
“Course you can. Get your hands up.”
“Isn’t there a way I’m meant to stand first?”
“When you’re in a proper fight, you’ll be lucky if you’re standing at all. But put a foot forward. Your right one, if that’s the arm you swing with. Come now, square up. I know you’re taller than that.”
“I’m not.”
“Get your arm back. And cock your knee there.” He hooks his foot around my back leg and tugs until I sink into it. “It comes from the knees. And keep your other hand up, to protect your face. Come on now, give me a swing.”
I swat at his hand with my fist, flimsy and loose like a wet cloth flicked through the air. I give it a few more tries, too self-aware to ever get much power behind it.
“Like you mean it,” Scipio says. “Like you mean to protect yourself.”
I think of my father—not of him swinging at me, but of all the times he’s told me how pathetic I am. How useless and hopeless and embarrassing I am, good for nothing and will amount to nothing and nothing, nothing, nothing—reason after reason until I had begun to believe it wasn’t worth putting up my hands.
And here’s Scipio, telling me I’m worth defending.
I pull back and swing harder this time—it’s still not a good punch, but there’s a bit more enthusiasm behind it. Less of a defense or an apology. It feels like my bones crack in half when I make contact, and I double over. “Son of a bitch.”
Scipio laughs. “Get your thumb out of your fist. That’ll help. That was a good swing, though. You meant that one.”
He sits down on the step, flicking the sweat off his brow, then takes a flask from his pocket and offers it to me. I can smell the vinegar tang of gin, and I want nothing more than to snatch it from his hand and down it. But I shake my head. “No, thanks.”
Scipio takes a drink, then picks up his paintbrush. I think he’s going to start in on our chore again, but instead he turns, looks me straight in the eye, and says, very seriously, “Now, next time someone takes a swing at you, you swing straight back at him, all right? Promise me that, Henry.”
We’ve both started back into the painting before I realize it’s been a long while since someone’s called me Henry and it didn’t make me flinch.
Venice
27
From my first sighting, I fall in immediate and passionate love with Venice.
It is, to be fair, a spectacular first sighting—that white-and-russet skyline surrounded by a lagoon of bright teal water. Flocks of ships and striped mooring posts jut from the waves like resting cormorants, black gondolas flitting between them. Against the amber burn of the sunset, domes and bell towers peak, the columned facade of the Doge’s Palace and the capped point of Saint Mark’s Basilica along the Grand Canal flanked by palaces with checkered fronts, their balconies hanging over the canal. The glassy water clasps the light and reflects it back, like there’s a second city beneath the sea.
The only sobering greeting is the gibbets dangling from a row of scaffolds where the Grand Canal opens to the Adriatic, each stuffed with a half-moldered corpse, jagged bones jutting through dimpled gray flesh. Ravens and seagulls swarm them, turning in the sky like Catherine wheels before they break ranks into a dive. Scipio and his men may not be pirates in the strictest sense of the word, but they’re near enough to be afeard of meeting the same fate, and the three of us are as good as crew now—declaring us as such is easier than explaining our role as “quasi-hostages” to the dock officials. Percy and I have even swapped our impractical dandies for wide-legged linen trousers and knit Monmouth caps on loan from the crew, along with rough shirts made from striped ticking, and leather boots worn soft by the sea. We’re proper tars now. Felicity, bless, keeps her lady’s garb in place.
Ebrahim and Scipio stay with the ship and see to customs and port taxes, while the three of us are sent into the city to cash some of the long-suffering Mr. Boswell’s letters of credit, as I’m the only one who can pass for him, then to find lodgings. A fine mist of rain is falling, soft and steamy as it flutters against the canals. The heat is sultry and fragrant, and the rain clears the stink of sewage from the air.
The city is a splintered labyrinth, with canals running like veins between the narrow streets. We find a public house in Cannaregio, near the Jewish Ghetto. Our crew fills a corner of the barroom to enjoy the first hot and hardtack-less meal in weeks, punctuated with posset and fruit pastes and some very fine wine that the barkeeper is overly willing to supply. As darkness settles, the noise in the barroom rises until we’re all shouting at each other to be heard—or perhaps that’s the drink as well. Everything’s louder when you’re in your altitudes, and I’m the tipsiest I’ve been since France.
Felicity goes up to bed as soon as supper is finished, leaving Percy and me to our own devices with the crew. We keep losing each other in the crowd, then coming together for just long enough to comment on how we lost each other, before we’re pulled apart again. He finally leaves me sitting in corner booth with instructions to stay put, then fights his way to the bar for drinks.
Almost as soon as he’s gone, he’s replaced by Scipio, who places his hat upon the table as he slides down the bench to my side. “I think I found your island.”
“Hmm? Has there found . . . ? Have you found . . . ?” By the time I’ve s
orted out my conjugations, I can’t recall how I was intending to finish. I nearly slap myself across the face. “What did you find?”
Scipio frowns at me. “Are you drunk?”
“No.”
“You sound drunk.”
I shake my head, trying to make my eyes as wide and innocent as possible. My no spirits have touched these lips face that my mother is fond of.
Scipio’s frown holds formation, but he goes on. “One of the dockhands knew it. It’s been quarantined, like you thought, but it’s not sunk yet. There were too many catacomb tunnels built beneath it and they’re collapsing, which is why it’s going under.”
I say a silent but sincere prayer to the God who raised Lazarus from the dead that one of those collapsed tunnels isn’t the one we need, because at last—at last—something about this absurd journey seems beautifully simple. “But you found it. It’s still standing, so we can go straightaway.”
“There are officers patrolling the waters around it to keep people away. Apparently there have been problems with looting.”
“So we go tomorrow night, when it’s dark. We knew there would be guards, what’s the trouble?”
“Look here.” He fishes a piece of jaundiced vellum from his coat and unfolds it on the table. “This was given to me by the dock officials.”
It’s a crude drawing of our Lazarus Key, with the inscription below:
STOLEN FROM THE HOME OF MATEU ROBLES BY A TRIO OF YOUNG ENGLISH RASCALS, TWO GENTLEMEN—ONE SMALL AND TALKATIVE, THE OTHER OF A NEGRO COMPLEXION—AND A LADY, BELIEVED TO BE HARBORED IN VENICE. UPON THE RETURN OF THE KEY AND THE CAPTURE OF THE BLAGGARD THIEVES, THE REWARD AND ALL REASONABLE CHARGES WILL BE PAID BY THE FAMILY.
I suppose I could do worse than small and talkative, though the notice sobers me too much to comment upon that. The duke must have beaten us here—we were delayed enough that I’m not surprised, but it still makes me anxious, knowing we’re in the same city as him. He might very well be skulking about the island, waiting for us to arrive. I wrap my hand around the key, now snug in my pocket. “So tomorrow. Straightaway, at dawn before anyone’s out, let’s take the ship to the island.”