Chapter 284: Home Sweet Home

Up in the ridge at the estate front step, and James led his bundle up by the hand.

Spare canvas covered a woman from head to ankle, with one hand poking out to hold his own. The hem dragged through the dust, her shells clicked against the cloth, and the bells jingled like a cat trapped in a sack.

The canvas held in the smell of camphor and burnt sugar, warmed by the sun and the heat of its captive.

It heaved, shuddered, and from near its middle a muffled voice rose with all the wounded grandeur. "Chéri! Chéri! The sibyl will say this once, and from inside a sack, which is an insult in itself. ’A prize topsail down with the malaria fever, taken up the hill for the air.’ A topsail! With fever! Mon Dieu, and not one of those imbeciles laughed!"

The bound hand clamped tighter around his own, and the whole bundle gave a lurch of pure indignation. "The sibyl cannot see her own feet! She is stewing like a pigeon in the pot, her hair is flat as a flounder, and the bells, these bells, they ring so loud she hears them in her skull! And you, chéri, you lead the sibyl about like a parcel at the fair!"

The hem snatched at her heel and the whole bundle pitched forward, and only James’s hand, quick on her elbow, kept her out of the dust.

"Ah! The hem! It conspires against me, it is trying to murder the sibyl!"

"Och, it’ll not manage that, lass. Hold steady now."

Beneath the canvas the bells erupted like a tinker’s cart downhill. James lifted his eyes to the heavens and, wisely, kept his own counsel.

Then some noise swished in the grass beside the step.

Kit stood knee-deep in weeds, his shirt black with sweat, chopping docks and nettles with a sickle he held like a cutlass. Beside him lay a heap of cuttings taller than the boy himself.

He heard the jingling and stopped with the sickle halfway through its swing.

"Cap’n! Oi, Cap’n! What’s that yer leadin’ up the hill?

He pointed the blade at the bundle.

"It’s got an hand! It’s holdin’ yer hand!"

James halted before the step with all the dignity. "Wheesht, Kit, mind your manners. That’s the Fortune’s best topsail, caught malaria off Cuba, poor lass, so I’m takin’ her up the hill for the view."

"Sails don’t walk, Cap’n. I seen hundreds o’ sails, and not one o’ them ever walked."

"Aye, well, this one was taught."

He said it blandly, without a flicker.

"The Fortune’s a clever lass, Kit. When her sailcloth takes ill, she lends it a hand."

Kit stared at the bundle. The bundle jingled back at him.

"Bleedin’ hell!"

He crossed himself with the sickle, narrowly missing his own ear.

"And what’s the sickle for, laddie? That heap’s taller than the house."

Kit hugged the blade to himself. "Agnes says if I clears all this by sundown, she’ll bake me a mutton pie. Suet crust an’ all! And I ain’t sharin’, Cap’n!"

"Mutton, is it?"

James glanced at the kitchen chimney.

"Ach, I’ve not tasted decent pastry since Leith, lad."

"It’s mine, Cap’n! Agnes promised! It’s me pie, and she’s a woman o’ her word!"

James laughed and dropped the tease. "Aye, aye, laddie, it’s yours. Now drop that sickle and run into town, fetch me every runt captain, quartermaster, and officer in port. Tell them Calloway wants ’em."

Kit seemed to swell three inches on the spot. His chest puffed, his chin went up, and his voice cracked in a heroic attempt at a bellow.

"Tell ’em the Scourge wants ’em! Conqueror o’ Havana! Herald o’ the Alliance!"

The sickle went into the turf and his heels went down the path in a spray of dust. From the bend, thin and fading and frantic.

"Mind me pie, Cap’n! I’ll know if it’s been looked at!"

James shouldered the courtyard door open and stepped onto the stone tiles.

He brought Zephy into the shade, then swept the canvas off her in one pull. She emerged flushed and flattened, her hair crushed against her head, shells hanging every way, and her bells finally free to ring as they pleased.

A cart creaked through the gate. Dunk pulled, Nub and Pike pushed, and the three of them came forward, as the cart brought three chests, a bundle of gourds, a basin, a clanking sack, a long bundle lashed across the top like a mast, and a lamp wrapped in a shirt that glowed white through the weave.

"Why’s it allus me what has to push next to the lamp?

Pike squeaked.

"Dunk? It’s lookin’ at me! I swear it’s lookin’ at me!"

"Easy, Pike. Easy now, lad. Betsy do say, ye never drop a thing what glows."

The group set everything down in a neat row, taking care to look away from the lamp. Zephy surveyed the handiwork with extra seriousness.

Eventually, she explained. "The lamp goes in the sibyl’s chamber, by the window. Never, never, in the dark! The gourds, they stand upright, always upright, never upon their heads, comprenez? Bon, the sibyl thanks you."

James propped himself against the wall and ticked off the terms on his fingers. "Zephy. Now, the rules, keep this house free of trouble, no hexin’ the stovies, and no frightenin’ the lasses."

"The sibyl does not hex stovies! She is not a savage!"

He raised both palms, the very picture of reason. "Salt stays off the sills, as agreed. Salt in the food’s different, and besides that, all will be fine."

Zephy’s nose wrinkled. "’All will be fine.’ Ha! The sibyl has heard those very words at three hangings and a wedding, and the wedding, chéri, was the worst of them! Swear it, swear it upon what you love!"

James slapped a hand to his chest and raised the other, gravely.

"I swear it, on Doyle’s rum, and on the last good tooth in Pete’s head."

Her lips wavered. She snapped her face toward the wall, chin high, so he wouldn’t see what it did.

"Pfft, the oath of a man with nothing left to lose. Bon, the sibyl accepts it."

James clicked his tongue and grinned.

"Dunk, Pike, Nub. Up with the chests, the lot of you, to the room over the bay!"

The three men hauled the chests upstairs, then returned for the rest.

As for the courtyard, the trophy wall was waiting for its share.

The torn flag from San Felipe, Corbin’s smallsword, the Falmouth’s green-brass lantern, and every other prize won on the water.

James slit the sack open and let a dented breastplate crash against the tiles, a rusted morion after it, and a hog-hide jerkin, stiff as a board, flopped on top. This was the flibustier’s kit from the heap at the pyramid’s foot, old enough to pass for an antique and dead enough to be trusted.

Pike staggered back from the sack as the armor spilled out. "That’s him! That’s the bastard wi’ the knee! He took me eyebrows, Cap’n! Me eyebrows! An’ now he gets ’himself a whole wall!"

Nub flexed a green finger, a tiny pale bud unfurling at the knuckle, and sniffed it. "Pffsh. Eyebrowsh grow back, Pike, fingersh jusht flower, shtop yer whimperin’."

The crew hung the morion and jerkin on iron hooks beside the lantern. The breastplate remained on the tiles, and the long bundle contained a hog skull mounted on a effigy, bone-white and with a large smile, brought home from the boucan frames of Tortuga.

James planted the effigy among the citrus tubs, removed his hat, and bowed with courtesy.

"Good afternoon to you, braw weather for it, is it not? And how’s the family keepin’?"

The skull grinned on. James nodded slowly, as a man does when a neighbor has said profound words.

"Aye... aye, I’d say so myself, friend. I’d say so myself."

From the shade, Zephy’s voice drifted over, dry as a fan snapping shut.

"Such fine manners, chéri, and for a pig... the sibyl approves."

From behind the gallery door came the clink of a pot lid, a girl’s voice, and the jangle of keys. Zephy gave her shells one last tug, ready to make her entrance.

Between them and the door, the shimmer began to gather.

I have taken the liberty of preparing a household overview. Your displays outgrew a single list some time ago, and now the house on the ridge has followed suit. It might be worthwhile to have everyone under your care in one place.

Even then, I confess, I expected a short list.