Page 86 of The Sea Witch
Alys lifted her chin and sailed away.
He plucked at the grimy cuff of his coat. “Most bridegrooms don’t look like a half-drowned dog.”
“You look like afullydrowned dog,” the quartermaster said. “I shall see what our stores can provide. Now, I have duties that require my attendance. Inés,” she called down to the woman in question, “you are to watch him.”
As Inés escorted him off the quarterdeck, he exhaled. At least he wasn’t being shut back up in the captain’s quarters. Perhaps some progress was being made in his efforts to get the crew to trust him.
Even if he would betray them all.
The freed women gathered in small groups. A few played a dicing game with members of the crew, using a collection of objects for betting, including coins of every origin and denomination, sparkling many-hued jewels, and strands of pearls. After the newly freed women won seven rounds in a row, it became clear that the crew purposefully lost so their guests might take all of the winnings.
One woman braided another’s hair. Another read a book aloud to a quartet of women, who listened with rapt attention, though one had her head on her raised knee and her eyes closed, as if to imagine the scenes of adventure being described to her.
In the midst of this, Olachi sat calmly near the windlass. Her comrades approached her frequently. Judging by the way Olachi listened, her head slightly tilted, her expression thoughtful, the women were posing questions, which were carefully answered. As Olachi offered her counsel, the ship’s cook approached at regular intervals. Josephine handed out cakes and fruit to the liberated women. Yet she shyly presented Olachi with steaming fresh biscuits, wedges of golden cheese, and quartered guavas artfully arranged on wooden platters.
Only yesterday, they had been in chains. In no small part because of the Royal Navy. Because of men like him.
Ben rubbed his forehead. God above, the world was a complicated place.
A group of the crew practiced fencing. Some of the liberated captives had joined in. They moved back and forth across the busy deck as they honed their swordsmanship. The familiars darted between their legs, mistaking the practice for play, until they were corralled by Dorothea, who entertained the animals with a display of butterflies made of light.
Thérèse appeared, holding a coat. “Put this on.”
He held out his wrists, still encircled by manacles. When both Thérèse and Inés looked at him with wariness, he said levelly, “I’m accompanying the captain ashore and playacting the role of her bridegroom. It might look a trifle irregular if I am chained.”
“Couples do all sorts of things to keep the bedroom interesting,” Thérèse replied.
Well.“I can’t change my coat with my hands bound like this.”
After a moment, Thérèse gestured in the air as green light danced along her fingers. The manacles’ lock sprang open.
Ben removed the manacles and rubbed his wrists. His arms were suddenly lighter than feathers, and he almost believed he could take flight—although, after his last experience with flying at the waterfall, that option wasn’t particularly appealing.Still, he exhaled to be free of the iron bands abrading his skin.
Inés took the manacles, but held them at the ready.
He shed his old coat, which Inés also took. What had once been his pride was now shabby and stained from being submerged in seawater. Half the buttons were missing, the golden trim unraveling into filaments.
Exhaling, he pulled on the new coat. It was rather tight across the shoulders and arms, and too short, but it was clean and had all its buttons and trim, and for that, he was grateful.
Striding by, Alys caught sight of him in his borrowed coat. “Been eating more beef? Someone had a growth spurt.”
“It was either this, or resemble the underside of a ship that hadn’t been careened in a decade.”
“Barnacles are so becoming on a man.”
“I’ve dueled men for lesser insults, and beaten them.” In truth, he’d only practiced his fencing with voluntary sparring partners, though hedidoften win.
“You haven’t foughtmeyet.” She turned away in a rustle of skirts, her hair a satiny red curtain around her shoulders.
Shortly after two bells, the island appeared as a fringe of green on the horizon. TheSea Witchput in at an uninhabited stretch of sand a mile from the town’s harbor, and Ben and Alys rowed themselves ashore. They beached the jolly boat before making their way through a forest, dense with gumbo-limbo and ironwood trees. The forest was welcome and cool after the scorching heat of the day, noisy with the raucous laughter of woodpeckers.
Soon Ben and Alys stepped into full sunlight again. They crossed open meadows and skirted around a yam field before emerging at the edge of Domingo’s only town, imaginatively named Domingo Town.
It was a typical settlement, with clay and redbrick buildings with both thatched and tiled roofs, demonstrating the prosperity of the island’s inhabitants. People of many colors walked along well-packed dirt roads, and donkey-drawn carts trundled up and down these lanes, laden with local and imported goods. A few carriages brought over from the Continent also added to the traffic. There were shops and offices, and taverns that seemed to cater to a more subdued clientele than the pirate-infested saloons in St. Gertrude or New Providence.
“All Saints,” he said, pointing to the church’s elaborate spire rising at the center of Domingo Town.
She whistled. “Bit nicer than what I’m used to. Norham’s church was made of plain clapboard, held together with guilt.”
