Kit Black Page 6

  Chapter 4

  On the way back from Greece, I experienced my first run of bad luck as a privateer. My crew became ill with typhoid and I lost ten good men. I became ill myself, but fortunately not with typhus. Roger was forced to nurse me for weeks, while Terry took over my duties.

  I was still weak and tired when we pulled into Barataria with our cargo of Italian marble earmarked for one of Jean’s villas. It was a good month of rest and decent food until we could set out for Amsterdam to trade fruit for tulip bulbs, of all things. I was becoming quite the little errand girl for Jean.

  I was writing in my journal, when Terry knocked on my cabin door.

  “We’ve picked up a man overboard, Captain Kit. A Frenchman from a ship called L’Esprit.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s well, all things considered. He has burns to his feet and hands. They were attacked by a British ship that was flying under French colors. A captain by the name of Wardman. I’ve heard of him. They say he’s a right weasel.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  The man’s name was Pierre. He had survived eight hours of swimming in the Atlantic. Our ship’s doctor wondered if he might lose one of his feet.

  “You’ve nine lives, lad.”

  “Yes, sir, I mean, ma’am. I’m very hungry.”

  “We’ll feed you when your fever is down. What happened?”

  He explained that he had jumped after the ship was set ablaze. Most of the men were dead by then.

  “Did your Captain die?”

  “They took him. They wanted to interrogate him, I’d expect. Captain Dupuis was a fine man, ma’am.”

  My heart leapt in my chest.

  ***

  “You want to do what?” Roger yelled. “Board a British war ship?”

  “We’ll do it at night. I’m sure they’re docked not far from here. They’ll have sustained a lot of damage, according to Pierre. I know we can do it.”

  “It’s insane. Armand is likely dead, lass. They’ll have tortured him or—”

  “I have to try, Roger. I have to save him.”

  “Strange thing to do for someone you supposedly hate.”

  We found the English ship docked just off the coast. Most of the crew was drunk, including the night watch. They were easily taken.

  “Find the prisoner,” I tried not to let my voice quaver as I said it. I prayed that he wasn’t dead.

  I don’t think that Captain Wardman expected to be awakened by a masked woman holding the tip of her sword to his exposed privates. He was on his back in bed, a drunken frowsy doxy curled up beside him.

  “Jesus,” he gasped. He tried to sit up and then thought better of it.

  “No, not Jesus. My name is Kit Black. And if you move, Captain Wardman,” I lifted his flaccid penis with the tip of my sword, “I’ll cut it off.” A little trickle of blood flowed down into his pubic hair.

  At the sound of his scream, the doxy beside him awoke. She pulled the blankets up as far as she could and began to emit a high-pitched wail.

  “Get out of here,” I told her. “He wasn’t even worth it. He’s got the smallest manhood I’ve ever seen.”

  The whore just picked up her clothes and ran.

  “Let me dress,” Captain Wardman pleaded.

  “I think not. I plan to parade you out in front of what’s left of your men.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his skinny neck. “Why are you doing this? You have broken all the rules of engagement. We are a docked ship.”

  “You broke the rules of engagement when you sailed under French colors to trick L’Esprit du Mer.”

  He swallowed hard.

  “Party’s over, Captain.” I moved the sword, allowing him enough inches to rise to his feet. “Slowly, now. We’re going to the deck.”

  “You are an unnatural female,” he muttered.

  I poked him in his skinny buttocks, drawing more blood, and making him squeal.

  “Move.”

  The flogging technique is referred to as Moses Law. A shirtless man is given forty lashes, minus one. The name came from the number of lashes that Christ received from King Herod as related in the bible. It rarely results in death if the ship’s surgeon is allowed to treat the wounds directly following the beating.

  Armand had been given at least that many lashes with a whip dipped in tar and studded with musket balls. A vinegar and salt bath had followed to add further punishment. He smelled as if he’d been pickled. Add these insults to the musket ball that had grazed his temple during the battle and a deep cut to his thigh, and the man was lucky to be alive at all. The ship’s surgeon told me later that the salt and vinegar was a blessing. It tended to have an antiseptic effect.

  Roger and Terry supported Armand’s lifeless body between them. His head was lolling on his shoulders. I tried not to think of anything but the blessing that he still lived. I would think about what might happen in the days to come later.

  For now, I needed all the strength I could muster. Looking at him injured and helpless like that was making my stomach heave.

  “He’s near death, Kit.”

  “Get him to the ship.”

  “What’s to be done about that one?” Terry asked, pointing to Wardman.

  “We’ll take him with us. Do we have a whip?”

  “No. You said that’s barbaric, Kit.”

  “I’ve changed my mind. Let’s borrow his, shall we? Get it,” I nodded at another of my crew.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I looked over at Wardman. He was pissing himself. The coward.

  ***

  My men threw the body of the man I had killed overboard on the same night I waited for the man I loved to die.

  Nelson, the ship surgeon, a man I did not completely trust due to his penchant for rum and the bleeding cup, did little to assuage my fears. He was waiting for me outside my cabin where I’d had Armand taken.

  “He’s been in this condition for a few days, Captain.” He recited off the list of Armand’s injuries: the damage to his back from the whip, a musket ball crease to his temple, a dislocated shoulder and a cut to his thigh, which had appeared bad at first because of the amount of blood that had soaked his breeches, but now seemed to be not so deep as feared. The threat of infection was there, but Nelson was most worried about Armand’s lungs. “He doesn’t sound good. I’m pretty certain he’ll not see the night through.”

  I closed my eyes and breathed deep. My vision seemed to blacken around the edges.

  “I think we should bleed him.”

  “You bleed him, and I’ll have you thrown over board.”

  “I’m the doctor here.”

  “You tell me what to do to treat his wounds and Roger and I will do it.”

  I had not seen Armand close up yet. Roger was still there, hovering over him. He lay face down in my bed, a sheet pulled up over his hips. I looked at his back, that beautiful back crossed now by cuts and bruised flesh, some of them black and puckered. I remembered the feel of his smooth, tanned flesh beneath my hands. I remembered how my fingers had splayed along the curve of his spine, the ridges of muscles that covered his ribs.

  “My God, Roger,” I breathed.

  “I’ve seen things like this before, Kit. He’s a strong lad. He barely cried out when we set his shoulder.”

  I sat down beside him, leaning in to look at his face, gaunt and so pale beneath a heavy shadow of beard. A gasp of wonder caught in my throat as I saw the medallion he wore around his neck on a simple leather thong. My father’s grinning moon.

  “He wouldn’t let us cut it off. Said he’d kill us. We thought it best for his peace of mind to leave it be. I recognize it, lass.”

  “Yes.” Tears blurred my vision. “You can leave us now, Roger. I’ll stay with him.” I touched a strand of russet hair at the back of his neck. He’d cut it much shorter. The ends were matted with blood and sweat.

  “Nelson says to keep putting the vinegar cloths over his back. He fight
s a bit when they go on. It burns something fierce.”

  “You’ve had this done to you, Roger?”

  “Aye, in the Navy, lass.”

  I took his hand which lay beside his head on the pillow. His fingers curled around mine, an involuntary gesture, I’m certain. “Set a course for Nice. We’ll take him to Jean’s villa.”

  His hand was gripping mine with extraordinary strength. I leaned in and kissed his fingers. It was hot and dry against my lips, the tiny creases of skin stained with his blood and dirt. “You’ll live, my love. I swear it.”

  I spent the night changing the bandages on his back, and listening to the rumble and rasp of his breathing become inexorably worse. The sheets clung to the sweaty contours of his buttocks and legs. Roger washed so many sheets and hung them out to dry; the ship must have looked more like a floating laundry. I took turns with Roger, placing the wet cloths over his back, now a mixture of turpentine and water. Wringing the cloths made our hands bleed, our muscles ache. It seemed a cool cloth would go on only to become hot and bloody a few seconds later.

  I didn’t see how he could live. Just the pain of the turpentine on his flesh was enough to kill him, I thought. At first, I had to straddle his hips just to get the cloths on him. He bucked and fought so much in his delirium, calling out things that must have had to do with the battle he’d fought with the English ship, calling after his men. He called out the name of his son a few times. And my name. After a time, he hadn’t the strength to move, to fight us. It was hell trying to get water into him. He would cough and sputter afterward. He looked at me once when we rolled him over to check his thigh and give him water, his jade green eyes glazed and unfocussed. His parched lips moved as if to tell me something, but I could not understand what he said. After that, he did not open his eyes or speak again. Nelson said he was too weak. He would die by morning.

  Yet, he did not die. He hung on to life all of the next day, too. Roger, Terry, and I kept up the endless task of keeping him cool. By nightfall, I could hardly see from exhaustion. My nostrils were full of the smell of blood and turpentine that permeated the small room. Even when I would go up on deck and swallow huge gulps of air into my lungs, the reek of illness and imminent death was there as if it had invaded my flesh as well.

  He continued to cough. It was agony for him to breathe and horrible to hear. I would count his breaths. I’d watch him take an agonizing breath that made his shoulders shudder and his chest suck in, then I would await the next. If it did not come, I would slap his cheek to get him started again. Soon, I began to pray that he would die so that he would not suffer like that any more.

  In the morning, Nelson was amazed that he had hung on another night despite the rattle in his lungs.

  “The lad’s a fighter,” Roger smiled, his voice proud.

  The wounds on his back were oozing, but the blood seemed clear of infection. We began to apply alum to the wounds, to keep them clean and dry. Roger remarked that with the white powder all over him, he looked like something ready for the oven.

  That night I fell asleep on the floor beside his bed, my legs folded under me, my head on the mattress. I awoke at dawn to the strange sensation of fingers tangled in my hair, the sound of sea birds, and the men calling out on the decks. I could not hear the rumble of his congested lungs. I closed my eyes again. Don’t be dead, Armand. Don’t leave me. Not now.

  My hand inched over to touch his arm. The skin was cool and clammy. The muscles beneath his skin bunched and flexed beneath my fingers. I lifted my head. He was peering at me with one misty green eye. I smiled at him.

  “Kita?” he said, or rather croaked like a frog.

  “Yes. It’s me,” I pulled my hair out of the grasp of his fingers.

  “Where am I?”

  I got up on my aching, trembling knees. “On my ship.”

  “L’Esprit?”

  “She’s gone. We saved one of your men. Pierre.”

  He closed his eye. When he opened it again, a single tear escaped. “Don’t leave me,” he managed to say.

  “Don’t worry, Armand Etienne Dupuis, I will not leave you.” I placed my hand against his cheek. It was cooler. His beard prickled the palm of my hand. “Go back to sleep. I shall be right here.”

  ***

  His progress was slow, but steady after that day. By the time we were within days of Jean Laffite’s villa, he had improved to the point where he could take my arm and walk on the deck of the ship. Some of the color had come back into his face, but he was still far too thin and gaunt, and he moved like an old man because of the stiffness in his back muscles. I think he longed for his old self again, but he did not speak of that or of his pain.

  If I’d thought I loved him before, I realized it was nothing compared to the way I felt after having looked after his needs, spent hours of time in his company. I think it crystallized for me while he was still very ill, a short time after the crisis point had passed. He was sitting up in the bed at that point, though not for long periods, because it caused his back to ache. I was reading to him from Candide, a book by Voltaire from Roger’s vast collection of books. I was struggling with it. I read well, but I was a little nervous of reading to him, and some of Voltaire’s words confused me. I became frustrated after a particularly difficult passage and frowned, slamming the book shut. I found him smiling at me. He looked so beautiful, his hair dark against the white pillows, his shoulders still wide if not a little thinner. A more romantic figure I’d never seen with the linen bandages strapped around his body. His eyes were shining with love. It was so apparent that it made me want to burst into tears. Something I did a lot lately when I knew that I was alone.

  I would miss him terribly when he went. More than I had before. It was different now. I had yearned for him before, but I had not really known who he was. I had helped to save his life. I had willed him to live. He had become my dear friend, not by light of that rescue, but from the things that had happened since. I was intimate with every part of his life now. We were joined with a bond stronger than the sexual encounter we’d once had. We were not lovers at this moment, but we loved each other in a way far more profound. I knew what he was thinking or needing just by looking into his eyes. It was a fact that would never change.

  Just as it would never change that he would go home again to Sandrine and his son. I would not go with him and he would not ask me to do it, because he knew what my answer would be. I would never share him with another. He understood why. If I gave myself to him again, it would be with the knowledge that it was the last time.

  “What are you thinking about? What has you so irritated?”

  I flushed. “That I can’t read worth a damn.”

  He smiled. “You do a lot of other things well. I think you could likely best me with that sword. I’ve heard the tales of the daring, dashing Captain Black.”

  “All tales. They were heartily impressed with my poking Wardman in his lily white ass.”

  He laughed. He knew that I was no lady. “Did I thank you? Did I ever thank you for getting me out of there?”

  “You don’t have to thank me. I would have done anything to save you, Armand.”

  “I know that. I think it’s time I give up my commission. I don’t want my son to be without a father. He’s going to grow up and I’ll never have known him. I don’t want to be a mere memory that he keeps. I don’t want to be some portrait at the top of the stairs.”

  “Then don’t be. Go home to him.” Go home to her.

  He nodded. “Do you ever think of having children of your own?”

  I blushed. “I don’t expect to.”

  “I think Jean would marry you.” His eyes searched mine.

  I just stared. “We’re just friends. I told you before, and nothing has changed. Do you understand that? I have no man in my life. No one else.” I had not meant to add that.

  He gave me a look that begged me to say more. I didn’t, and the silence hung in the air between us, tremulous like a leaf hanging o
n to a wind-torn branch. He would not stay. I would never go with him. His son came first, and that was how it had to be. I would never love him as much if I knew he could even consider the alternative.

  “You need sleep, Armand. You’ve coughed a lot today.”

  He sighed deeply and closed his eyes. I stayed there until I was sure he slept. Then I rose to my feet and covered his bare arms with the quilt, letting my fingers stray on the warm smooth skin of his forearms. So smooth, so hard, so male. And not mine.

  ***

  I stayed away from the villa for a few days after we took him to Jean, on the pretext of having things to do. A missive was to be delivered to his family in Paris, informing them that he was alive and recovering. Jean told me that he was expected to return to them in a few months if all went well. I could feel my heart shrivel in my chest.

  I would drop by the villa every few days, stopping in to see how he was doing. Though he was improving, his spirits seemed down at times. More often than not, we would have stilted conversations about the weather and Jean’s propensity for ostentatious architecture and material goods. His hair had grown, though it was shorter than before when I had known him in Ajaccio, and it gleamed with health now. He was dressing in loose shirts, tight black breeches, and Hessian riding boots that belonged to Jean. My handsome Armand looked even more the gentleman pirate than Jean did. Looking at him stole the breath out of my body.

  It was not easy, not that it ever had been. Something ponderous always stood between us. We both knew exactly what it was. We knew what the ending of the story would be.

  I wanted to stay away from him, to pretend that we could remain friends.

  Until the night before he was to leave. He sent a servant to Jean’s guesthouse where I often spent the winter months. He wanted to come and see me before he left for Paris. The note he sent to me was imperious and demanding. He was put out with me, it seemed. At first, I bristled. Then, I found myself laughing. He was like that sometimes, and it was part of what I loved about him.

  I agreed that he should come, I didn’t know what else I should do. I remember pacing my room, and thinking about what I should wear. The question of how I ought to arrange my hair almost drove me to scream. I never cared what I looked like. In the end, I just braided it and let it hang down my back. I wore a loose, cinched shirt, and the breeches I always wore. I wanted him to remember me the way that I always looked, the way that I would always be; raised as a boy, but very much a woman. A woman who loved the sea and the salt wind as much as he did.