Chapter 7
2045 Words
The dawn was grey above a grey sea, and the wind blew cold from France, rustling the grey-brown thatch of the Kingsgate roofs and causing the farm servants to pull their smocks tight over toiling shoulders. Blackwell was already in his house when Smith arrived. The maid looked tired as she opened the door to him.
“Please come in, sir. The master is expecting you.” The maid gave her ubiquitous curtsey as she ushered him inside.
The front room was as Smith remembered, with the long table in the centre, the display cabinet on the left, and the chest of drawers against the opposite wall.
“Brandy, Mr Smith? Port? Or do you prefer rum, as a seafaring man?” Captain Blackwell seemed friendly, almost genial, as he gestured to the array of decanters on top of the cabinet.
Smith chose brandy and supped at his glass while Dymer, Glear, and Skinner stood awkwardly, waiting for Blackwell to lead.
“So, now, Smith, you can tell me who you are, where you come from, and what you are doing in my part of the world.” Blackwell sat at the head of the table, nursing a glass as he looked quizzically at Smith.
“My name is Smith, I’m from Kent, and I came here to join your organisation.”
Blackwell swirled the rum in his glass for a moment before he replied. “You arrived from nowhere and expected to join me?” He shook his head and took a swallow of the rum. “Do you know what I think, Smith? I think that you are trouble.”
“I saved your crew, and I saved your cargo,” Smith reminded, with one hand on his pistol and one eye on the door behind him.
“And what price will you charge for that?” Blackwell asked.
“A fair share in your operation,” Smith replied, holding Blackwell’s gaze.
“The only share you’ll get is six feet of Kentish earth,” Blackwell said, thumping his tumbler on the table and lifting his pistol. “I don’t want any rivals.”
Having expected an ambush, Smith dropped to the floor, drew his pistol, and fired. His move took everybody by surprise so that Dymer was a fraction slower to pull his trigger, with Glear a few seconds later. Skinner stepped back with his mouth open.
Blackwell jerked back, staring at the blood that seeped from the hole in his chest. He coughed out blood, tried to speak, and slumped to his knees, dropping the unfired pistol from his fist.
“Shoot him, Skinner!” Glear said, furiously trying to reload his pistol.
Smith and Dymer saw Blackwell’s discarded weapon simultaneously and dived forward. Smith reached it first, scooped the pistol up and kicked Dymer in the face as he rolled free.
“Skinner!” Glear dropped a ball down the barrel of his pistol and rammed it home. “Shoot the bugger!”
Lying on his back, Smith levelled the pistol. With such a short range, he did not need to aim and pulled the trigger. The g*n barked, with the muzzle flare bright in the room and the cloud of powder smoke grey-white and acrid. Glear yelled as the ball smashed into his breast. The force knocked him two steps backwards into the door, and he slid to the floor, making little mewing noises as his blood spurted down his front.
While Smith had been dealing with Glear, Dymer had lifted the second pistol from Blackwell’s belt.
“Damn your eyes, Smith,” Dymer said and pulled the trigger.
Smith threw himself to the right, felt a searing pain across his left arm, slid across the table, and swung his empty pistol like a club. The barrel crashed into Dymer’s forehead, sending him staggering.
As Smith readied for another blow, the side door opened, and the maid looked in with a heavy pistol in her hand.
“Are you all finished in here?” The maid stepped across the captain’s body and looked around. “Two dead men and two injured. How about you, d**k?”
Skinner remained standing with his mouth and eyes wide open. He had not moved.
“You’re not getting involved,” the maid answered herself, raised her eyebrows as Dymer pushed out of the room, bleeding from a great tear in his scalp, and glanced at Smith’s arm. “Is that bad?”
“I’ll live,” Smith replied.
“Let me see it.” The maid took charge.
“What about the bodies?” Skinner asked.
“They’re dead. They can wait.” The maid stepped over Blackwell’s corpse. “Take your shirt off, Mr Smith.” She came over to help, unbuttoning his shirt and easing it from his injured arm. “It’s not too serious,” she said, twisting her head left and right to examine the wound. “I’ll clean and bandage it.” She reached for the brandy decanter. “This will sting.”
Smith did not flinch when the maid poured raw brandy over the bullet wound.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Bess,” the maid said. She pulled the shirt away from Smith’s shoulder and grunted. “Who flogged you? That’s the claws of the cat.”
“Royal Navy,” Smith said.
“How many?”
“Two dozen,” Smith said, remembering his introduction to the Navy. “Then six dozen.”
Bess pulled a tablecloth from the chest of drawers, borrowed Smith’s knife, and casually sliced off a strip to use as a bandage. “I heard that a flogging made a good man bad and a bad man worse. What had you done for the six?”
“Fighting,” Smith said. “I stabbed a man.”
“Why?”
“He was trying to stab me.”
Marshall had yelled as Smith rejected his advances. “You little bastard! I’ll teach you to respect your betters!”
Marshall had yelled as Smith rejected his advances. “You little bastard! I’ll teach you to respect your betters!”Marshall drew the knife from his belt and slashed at Smith, drawing blood from his chest. In return, Smith pulled thrust, catching his attacker in the arm. Marshall screamed, falling to the deck as Perkins and Sinclair had rushed to help Smith.
Marshall drew the knife from his belt and slashed at Smith, drawing blood from his chest. In return, Smith pulled thrust, catching his attacker in the arm. Marshall screamed, falling to the deck as Perkins and Sinclair had rushed to help Smith.“I see,” Bess nodded to the dead bodies. She looked up as Skinner dived from the room. “d**k won’t say anything. He’ll go to his wife and keep his mouth shut.”
Smith nodded. “I didn’t think he was a fighting man.”
Bess touched Blackwell’s body with her foot. “What will we do with these two?” She did not seem upset that her employer and another man were lying dead in the room.
“They’ll be unrecognisable after the fire,” Smith told her.
“The fire?” Bess looked around. The grate safely contained smouldering coals within its embrace.
“It’s an unfortunate waste of a fine house,” Smith said, “but an excellent method of concealing the evidence. I’ve already been hanged, and I’ve no desire to repeat the experience.” Smith’s fingers touched the near-invisible mark around his throat and eyed Bess up and down. “You are remarkably calm.”
Bess tied the bandage neatly and replaced Smith’s shirt. “Your arm will ache for a while, and it’ll be stiff for a few days.”
“Thank you. If you have any valuables in the house, grab them now.”
“I haven’t a farthing to scratch myself with, but my late master, Captain Blackwell,” Bess glanced at his corpse, “might have money in his study.”
Smith nearly smiled, recognising a fellow spirit. “Then we’d better have a look at Captain Blackwell’s study, Bess, hadn’t we?”
They stepped over the bodies as Bess grabbed a candle and led the way upstairs. Smith had to boot open the locked door and found a neat room with a small, delicately carved walnut writing bureau.
“I’ve never been in here,” Bess confessed. “This was the Captain’s private domain.”
“Are you the only servant?” Smith asked.
“Yes,” Bess said. “The Captain didn’t like people to know his business.”
Smith opened the bureau. “See what you can find in the room.”
“Yes, sir,” Bess strode to the bureau.
They found seventy guineas in Blackwell’s bureau, with a fine gold watch. Smith glanced at Bess. “Thirty-five guineas each, Bess, and then you’ll walk away and start a new life.”
Bess counted her money into a small leather bag. “What will you do?”
“I’ll take Blackwell’s place as a free trader.”
Bess weighed her bag of gold. “Was that your plan all along?”
Smith weighed the watch in his hand before he replied. “I have things to do. Take whatever you can carry and a horse from the stable if you wish to ride to London or elsewhere.”
“I don’t wish,” Bess said. “I belong in this parish.”
Smith nodded. “Stay then.” He lifted a brace of pistols and thrust them through his belt.
“You’ll need help,” Bess said.
Smith eyed her for a long minute. “If you betray me, I’ll blow your brains out.”
Bess held his gaze, “And if you treat me bad, I’ll stab you while you sleep.” She scanned Captain Blackwell’s glass-fronted bookcase and removed a heavy, leather-bound journal. “Captain Blackwell’s records,” she explained. “Who his customers were, how much they got, and what they paid.”
“I thought you hadn’t been in here,” Smith accused, half-smiling.
“I haven’t. I helped the captain with his figuring.”
Smith nodded. “How much of the profit did he give you?”
“Not as much as you will.”
“How much did he give you?”
“As much as would fill a mouse’s ear,” Bess said. “None. I got board and lodgings and the odd few shillings when he was in the mood.”
“As captain of a smuggling craft, I will get five shares of the profit,” Smith said. “The mate gets two, quartermaster one and a half, full seamen and carriers one share, and all the others half a share.”
Bess nodded. “And me?”
“One and a half.”
“Two.” Bess held up the book.
“You drive a hard bargain, Bess.”
“Two, or I walk, and the accounts go with me.”
“Bring them.” Smith held up the watch. “We’ll scrape off Blackwell’s name and pawn this whenever we can.” He eyed Bess up and down, wondering if he could trust her.
* * *
They stood under the ancient wind-tortured apple tree as the smoke coiled skyward, silver-blue against the dark.
“Dymar may be a problem,” Bess said. “He’s a man to keep a grudge.”
Smith tapped the butt of one of his pistols. “I can solve that sort of problem.” He sniffed the smoke as Bess pulled her cloak tight around her.
“Seahaven burns well,” Bess observed.
“It does.”
“What next?” Bess fingered the coins in her purse.
“Life. Where will you stay tonight?”
“In your bed,” Bess stated.
Smith nodded. “Then we’ll discuss tomorrow later. “I need a ship, and I need men I can trust.”
Bess raised her eyebrows. “Neither are easy things to find.”
“Then I might need help,” Smith stated.
Bess hooked her arm with his as they walked to Kingsgate, with the acrid stench of smoke wrapping around them.
- Writer
