The Isle of Gold Page 2

  For the past several weeks the crew had helped themselves to the luxuries of the island while Winters, already a taciturn man, remained disturbingly silent and out of sight. He spoke only to his quartermaster, a loyal and sturdy man by the name of Mister Brandon Dunn, and remained locked away in the former bedchambers of The Goodnight Mermaid’s mistress. The women who attended him, friends of Claudette, gossiped that so taken was the captain with studying the mythical texts of the waters he’d stolen in his raids that he barely seemed to notice them any more now than he had before. He had instead become convinced that no mere mortal was left alive that could be responsible for the vanishing of Mistress Evangeline Dahl. Now, he nursed a determination to take her back from the sea itself. It was, they said, more than an obsession—it was a consumption. Rarely had they waited on Winters and not heard him locked in manic debate with Dunn while names like Poseidon, and Amphitrite, and Calypso passed between them in harsh whispers. The very gods of the seas, Winters insisted, had stolen Evangeline away, and he would sail to the heart of the ocean to bring her back.

  And so with baited breath, the people of Isla Perla—I first among them—waited for Winters to reemerge with his plans to make way. When he finally did, announcing that the Riptide would sail for the fabled Ogygia, the surreptitious Isle of Gold where Calypso had held Odysseus prisoner, to rescue Evangeline, none dared to challenge his sanity or his resolve. Above all else the seafaring lot are a superstitious bunch, yet they are also men of greed, and so the prospect of such fortune—even if it tempted the fury of the gods of the ocean deep—aroused their appetites into frenzy. If Winters were able to lead them to Ogygia, the entirety of the spoils each of them had taken in their short, violent lives could be multiplied by infinity and would still pale in comparison to the mystical island’s incalculable bounty. Were Winters unable to find the island, the crew was satisfied in the knowledge that their gold thirst would be satiated on the high seas, their targets growing ever-larger and more profitable as Winters’ frustration mounted. Their heading set, his men made ready to pour back into the seas, while I had taken immediately to the task of outfitting myself as worthy to join with them.

  And so it was that tonight the crew was making ready to set sail and I found myself at the captain’s table, scratching some shaky bit of penmanship that could have been my name onto a piece of parchment under the studious gaze of Mister Brandon Dunn, the Riptide’s redoubtable quartermaster.

  “Are ye certain you know what you’re doin’, lad?” Dunn asked in a manner that said plainly that I did not, and that I should leave the tavern immediately lest I become next in line for a beating in the skirmish that had broken out behind us. The sound of his voice queued a wave of nausea to roll up from within my stomach, and I wished for Claudette’s steady arms at my back. I tried not to vomit as I felt the man’s eyes wander over me—hard and black and soulless as they were—and by the time he finished his examination I was certain they were able to see all the way to the very core of my soul.

  When he didn’t signal to the pair of men hovering with arms crossed sternly across their chests behind him, I shifted, uncomfortable under the unfamiliar bulk of my new wardrobe. I pulled loose the lock of hair that Claudette had carefully hidden beneath my hat and twisted it around my finger. “A-Aye,” I stammered, unable to return Mister Dunn’s skeptical glare. I swallowed back the bile that had collected in my throat. I had hoped, foolishly, that I could sign the contract and move inconspicuously aboard, existing below deck in the secretive company of the bilge rats until we reached Ogygia. Now I said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t see through my flimsy disguise and reveal my deceit to the throng of rowdy men surrounding us. I was unfit to sail with the Riptide’s crew in more ways than I could count on one hand, and none of them had to do with the fact that I had never set foot aboard a ship, pirate or otherwise. A woman seeking to stowaway on a pirate ship was a punishable offense by the order of the brethren code.

  Mister Dunn adjusted his considerable size on the other end of the table and kept his eyes locked stiffly on me. Up close, he was a larger man than I had expected—thick in the chest and reedy in the limbs in the way that men accustomed to a hard life are. Weathered skin crackled around his eyes and nose. He had a thick shock of greyish-white hair that was clipped wildly and unevenly, as if some drunkard had taken to it with a pair of shears. It flickered about wildly in the air above his head like blowing blades of silver grass, and seemed to move independently of the rest of him. Matching ragged fur the same shade of silver worked its way down his jaw to ring a thin, unfriendly mouth. He wore a necklace around his neck that ended worryingly in what resembled a piece of human bone. Still, there was a sort of smoothness about him that marked him as different than the rest of a generally rough and unpleasant lot. Possibly this was a consequence of his role as diplomat between captain and crew, or perhaps a necessary adaption to survive so intimately in the company of a man like Winters. Or perhaps I imagined it all together. It was so dark in the tavern, and my vision so blurry as much with anxiety as it was still with wine, that it was hard to be sure.

  “What’s yer name, boy?” Dunn bowed his head to the contract before him where I had scratched my name, squinting to make out the sloppy signature.

  “W-Westley,” I stuttered, forcing out the name I had carefully practiced. “Westley Rivers, sir.” It rolled off the tongue believably enough, even if I did swallow heavily afterward. Having only read the name in a book I’d found in Mrs. Emery’s office, I had never heard it spoken out loud, and so I said it as I’d imagined it, breaking syllables at the t.

  The quartermaster appeared suspicious. “An’ how old are yeh, Mister Rivers?”

  “Nineteen, or close enough to it.” An orphan without papers could never exactly be sure.

  Dunn considered me. “I think you ’ad best be off, Mister Rivers, before you fin’ yourself in more trouble ’an is worth,” he decided, widening his eyes meaningfully. “We don’ be havin’ room on the ship for any man who ’an’t carry ’is own weight. If you’re lookin’ to learn to fish join the Royal Navy. Now go on an’ get out of here.” He picked up the piece of parchment decisively and made to rip it in half.

  “If you please, sir, Mister Br— Mister Quartermaster, sir.” The words gushed out of my mouth more quickly than I had intended. I wasn’t sure of the proper protocol in addressing his position onboard a crew I was not a part of, particularly not after being rebuked. I did not dare look to the men waiting at his back. “I can carry my own, sir, I swear it. I’m not much of a sailor yet, that much is true enough. But I’m a right good deckhand, sir.” The last was only half a lie. Working with my hands scrubbing and cooking in the kitchens was how I had earned my keep at the House of Sparrows, although I was certain it was a slightly dissimilar skillset than what would be required of me onboard. This had been something of a joke between Claudette and I, an attempt to inject humor into a situation that filled us both with unease, and she had often teased that perhaps my attempts to join a throng of men at sea would have been better aided by her skillset than mine.

  “I’m good with a sword, too,” I added, truthfully, and hoped it might make a difference. Holding my breath, I silently prayed that he wouldn’t inquire further as to how I’d earned that ability or suggest a demonstration. I would fail at both.

  Dunn’s beady black eyes had resumed their comfortable squint in the dim light of the tavern. He slowly lifted his cup and took a swig of ale, his eyes meeting mine through the glass bottom of the mug. Beads of sweat begin to prickle on the nape of my neck. I did not care for the manner in which he studied me, as if he were privy to some knowledge that I was not. It made me so uncomfortable that I could feel my insides itching.

  “What makes you so keen on sailin’ with Captain Winters?” he asked now, his eyes narrowed to a fine thinness that rivaled the set of his lips so that they gave the distinct impression that my answer may very well determine my fate. The men behind him took a step forwa
rd into the light, and the grim sets of their mouths in the harsh landscape of their salt-weathered faces did nothing to assure me otherwise. Neither did their hands on their belts and their eyes, as dead as a shark’s, as they leveled with destructive precision on my throat. One of them was wearing a handkerchief of sorts over half his face; the other was so dark-skinned that buried in the shadows he appeared to have no face at all, only muscles and steel. My bladder threatened to alleviate itself, and I clenched my legs together as tightly as I could without swaying.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, reciting from memory the short speech I had practiced in the little mirror of Claudette’s chamber. “He’s making for the Isle of Gold,” I said as flatly as I could and without elaboration. The roar of the tavern instantly shrank—by my own estimation—to a low hum, and I could feel the eyes of every soul in the room boring into the back of my head. A new wave of nausea washed over me. The oddest thought swam through my head. I accepted that I may never make it home again alive, but never had I considered that I wouldn’t even make it out to sea.

  “Ain’t no man on the sea who’s been able to fin’ the Isle of Gold,” Dunn countered, his tone sardonic. His voice lowered and I had to lean in to hear him, a movement that seemed to unsettle his pair of pet sharks because they wavered about uneasily, unsure of whether to move or not, hands tightening on their weapons. I heard the distinct zing of a blade sliding free of its sheath, a soft rush of metal against leather, and tried not to look for its origin. “Most don’t believe such a place even exists,” he continued, conspiratorially. “And even if it does there be nary a chance you be makin’ it there alive to tell abou’ it. What makes ye think such a thing as th’ Isle of Gold, assuming it be real, can be found?”

  “Well …” I hesitated, swallowing down yet another lump of bitter vomit. I tried to recall the rest of my rehearsed little speech, but couldn’t remember a single sentence. “If you’ll pardon me, sir,” I said, struggling to string together a few convincing words. “Someone must have found it at least once, for anyone to have told the tale. And—”

  “What is it you be hopin’ to find out at sea, boy?” Dunn interrupted, so harsh this time that I was taken aback and nearly tripped over my own feet in shock.

  Her, I thought immediately. Evangeline. There were others, too, but she came into my thoughts first, as she always did. Instead I listed off, “Gold. Freedom,” as I suspected these were more appropriate responses.

  Dunn’s eyes restricted in concert with the rest of his features, making him look as if he might simply squeeze himself into nothingness, and he opened his mouth to say something—presumably, I expected, for me to get the hell out of his sight. I imagined I could feel the cold steel of one of his shark’s knives inching nearer to my flesh. And then, just when I felt the last shreds of hope start to fray, Mister Brandon Dunn abruptly freed me of his penetrating gaze. He leaned back in his chair, hammering his fist heavily atop the tabletop as if it were a judge’s gavel, and let out a heavy, defeated breath. The men behind him, as if on cue, retreated back into the shadow, their blades slipping silently into their sheaths.

  A deep, rasping voice crashed over my shoulder. “You’ll get one share,” it boomed with a quality of finality that put an immediate end to any further discussion. “Ask for more and I’ll throw you into the sea myself.”

  Dunn wiped the back of his hand across his brow and relaxed his grip on the paper bearing my false name as I slowly turned on my heel to find myself staring directly into the cold, grey eyes of the only man who could have given such an order. Captain Erik Winters himself.

  I had never seen the captain closer than from my view at the balcony at the House of Sparrows where I’d watched as he moved about the dusty quayside of Isla Perla and along the long stretch of shimmering blue water at her harbor.

  Even from afar, I had noticed many things about the man in those secret observations. Most evident among these was that he did not so much walk about the uneven streets as he did stalk through them. He roamed the island in a manner of a feral jungle cat surveying its territory—with shrewd eyes and tense, calculated movements. He went about the island as if constantly on the defense, slinking through the taverns and the merchants’ shops and stepping nimbly through the high sands along the beach. He never stayed in one place very long but stirred like water, constantly and purposefully, his eyes always sharp and alert. In all my study of his wanderings I had never once caught him unaware or at rest, and it was hard to imagine that he was ever either. If someone had told me the man never slept, I would have believed them.

  Before her disappearance, when he’d been in port, Winters had often accompanied Mistress Dahl as she moved about the island conducting her business. Sometimes he walked at her side but more often he followed a step or two behind her. On these occasions he’d never shown any affection to her beyond the briefest touches that would have been imperceptible to an eye not as studious as mine. These gestures weren’t needed, however, to interpret their meaning. Even a blind mind could have felt the weight of the possessive jealousy in which he watched her—a look that said definitively that he was hers, and she his. Evangeline herself had played coy at these glances, casually ignoring him, her head held high as if she wasn’t even aware of his presence. The ruse fooled no one, but they never seemed to care. It was part of the allure.

  As unsettling and unpredictable as his jaunts about the island were, the sudden secession of the Captain into isolation following Evangeline’s disappearance had been even more unnerving—as if a looming threat had withdrawn into hibernation until it was strong enough to carry out some nefarious, unknown plan.

  Now, as I found myself standing face-to-face with him, separated by little more than one square foot of ground, it was clear that it was not merely his movements that made him seem more animal than man. In fact, everything about him was predatory, from steely grey eyes as cold and distant as his name, to the lithe, almost feline manner in which he slid around me to perch atop the table, my nervous form a helpless prey snared within his gaze. The expression on his face was impassive, as if he barely noticed me at all, and simultaneously intense, as if he noticed nothing else but me. The effect was part terrifying and part intoxicating, and—unlike Dunn’s bottomless, unfeeling gaze—completely consuming. I feared I might lose myself if I did not break away. Nevertheless, I had been waiting a lifetime to see Captain Winters up close, and so I stuffed my fear as deep within myself as was possible and raised my eyes just enough to hold him in full view beneath the brim of my hat.

  His hair was the copper color of a ripe cattail flower spike; it was wavy and hung past his shoulders, the front lengths pulled back tightly and tied by a length of string behind his ears. This accentuated the sharp angle of cheekbones that were so steep they appeared to slice straight down to his chin, creating precipices of tan skin edged with unshaven stubble. He had a small, hook-shaped scar that formed an open triangle above his left eyebrow, the tip of which was white, and a tight, angry set to his mouth that suggested it had never bowed into a smile. Small creases had set into the sun-weathered skin surrounding his eyes, a byproduct, I supposed, of years of excessive brooding. He wasn’t a terribly large man, but was solid and imposing in stature in the same way that a bull was—had the beast been carved from stone and then only superficially draped in tough, impenetrable flesh. He was dressed in simple layers of wool and leather, but what his captain’s wardrobe lacked in flourish was made up for in weapons. His body was strung about with more of these than one could see in a glance, never mind count on both hands. Among them were several guns and blades of various lengths, and something that looked like a short-handled battle-ax tucked in a loop on his belt. An odd-shaped sliver of a glistening white stone stone dangled from a thin black cord on his neck, and on the forefinger of his right hand he wore an iron ring with a compass stamped on its face.

  Winters did not need his reputation to immediately incite fear into those who found themselves caug
ht in his company—the presence of him was quite enough. Still, it was easy to tell that behind his unwavering glower was an undeniably handsome man, though it could only have been a woman as brave and beautiful as Evangeline Dahl to tame him, assuming such a thing were even possible.

  When he finally spoke his voice was deep and gruff from disuse; it rumbled with a thunderous quality like the roar of a storm at sea. He held the nub of a cigarette pinned between his lips, and a thin tendril of smoke curled into the air in front of his face. “You want to sail to the Isle of Gold.”