The Rebels: The Kent Family Chronicles Read online

  “You listen here, Mrs. Kent. That very first day we met, I tabbed you for what you are—a lass who fancies herself stronger than any man she’ll ever meet. And shows it. Well, permit me to tell you something. Captain Rackham is a fellow who doesn’t hold with being put down in such fashion. I don’t like being put down with haughty looks or nasty no-thank-you’s at the doorstep. Still—I’ll admit that’s part of your charm—the fact you think I’m a nobody and don’t bother to hide it. I expect that’s the reason I made up my mind that morning on Hancock’s Wharf that I’d take you—with your agreement or without.”

  “Take—?”

  “Here, here, no silly prudery.” The cocksure smile somehow acquired a malevolent twist. “I’ve been sporting a good twenty years with the gentle sex. Never had one of ’em turn me down. Till you.”

  “You drunken popinjay liar—!”

  He grabbed her wrist again. “You watch your language, woman—”

  Anne raked his face with her free hand, her nails leaving bleeding scratches. Rackham struck her.

  She staggered, crying out. Her mind held one dreadful word—

  Madman.

  She didn’t know what warped memories or conceits made him what he was. But she knew that every rebuff she’d given him must have festered weeks, months in the mazes of his head. She knew he was drunk, and dangerous—

  “Mama?”

  Abraham was calling again, frightened by her outcry. Anne struggled to her feet. But somehow, she couldn’t avoid Rackham’s hands. Big hands; hair-matted; sliding under her arms—

  Rackham’s thumbs pressed the fabric over her breasts. “Even in a temper, you’re a soft, dear sight, Mrs. Kent. I can’t properly explain it, but I’ve never fancied a woman as much as I fancy you. Perhaps it’s because I’m not supposed to, eh?”

  “Damn your eyes—let me go!”

  That only provoked more laughter:

  “Ah, stop, Mrs. Kent. You must want a man so bad you hurt from it. That little fellow you’re wed to—he can’t be much in the cock department, now admit—”

  Writhing away from him, she spat in his face.

  Again Rackham struck her. She tumbled at his feet, stunned. Abraham started to cry loudly. Rackham leaned down, his shadow distorting across the wall as he jerked her head up by a fist in her hair:

  “I want to tell you about your property, Mrs. Kent. Your investment—a man who wants to do that should be treated right, eh? Eh?”

  He yanked her hair. She uttered another hoarse yelp. Rackham laughed:

  “Yes indeed, I want to invite you aboard Gull for a pleasant and diverting evening. As I say—you owe me. You got me roasted by that sanctimonious old bastard Caleb. But I’ll forgive you—if you’ll visit the ship and be nice and agreeable when we get there—”

  Anne screamed deliberately, hoping to attract someone’s attention outside. Abraham’s terrified cries sounded as stridently as her own.

  “Be quiet!” Rackham shouted, letting go of her hair and smashing the side of her head with his fist.

  She lurched sideways, reaching clumsily toward the mantel; toward Philip’s gleaming sword—

  Rackham hit her harder. She fell, struck her temple on the floor, moaned, opened and closed one stretched-out hand, then lay still.

  v

  Anne awoke briefly to the sensation of motion.

  She heard carriage wheels and springs creaking. The clop and splash of hoofs along a rutted road. Rain pattering overhead—

  Through a slot window she glimpsed a distant farmstead, a yellow smear of lamplight in the rain. She realized she was leaning against the curve of a man’s left shoulder.

  She struggled away, only to have a sweaty-smelling hand clamp over her mouth.

  The places where Rackham had hit her and the other place where she’d struck her head all hurt terribly. Rackham inclined his head to slobber a kiss on her face. She tried to wrench the other way.

  That made him burst out with his damnable laugh—and hold her more tightly.

  His left hand still covered her mouth. She bit at the fingers. He jerked them away, freeing his arm so he could squeeze her throat in the vee of his elbow, cutting off her wind:

  “Screaming’s useless, my girl. I told you it’s one of my lads up on the box of this hired rig. Even at the dock in Boston, the. sight of Malachi Rackham knocking some wench about to get her into a dinghy and out to his ship ain’t—isn’t likely to cause any commotion. The tavern trulls, they sometimes say yes, then start a squall on the pier, wanting a higher price. I’ve often been seen roughing ’em up a wee bit. So you won’t get any help by yelling or—bitch!” he howled as she bit hard into the fleshy back of his hand.

  He flung her to the floor of the rocking carriage, kicked her twice in the ribs, bashed her eye with his knuckles, bringing new, nauseous darkness swirling over her.

  vi

  A pinpoint of light; dull orange.

  And motion again. But of a different order this time. Gentler—

  She recognized sounds. The lap of water against hull planks. The creak of a ship’s upper and lower capstans being turned in tandem. Chain being pulled up by the messenger cables—

  Anchor chain?

  Anne Kent opened her eyes; saw her skirt and petticoat hiked around her knees. She was lying in a ship’s bunk.

  She shifted her throbbing head to the left, saw Malachi Rackham—and a cabin where a single glass-paneled lantern swayed overhead on a beam hook. The two large oval stern windows showed a spatter of lamp-gilded raindrops.

  Rackham lounged in a chair beside an oak table. Both chair and table were bolted to the decking. Rackham lolled a drinking cup back and forth in one hand as he watched Anne with an amused expression. His showy coat and breeches hung on a peg near his wall-mounted drop-front desk. He wore drawers of soiled gray linen, nothing else.

  “Hallo, Mrs. Kent,” he said, scratching the curled hair on his chest. It was as dark as that on his head. “Wondered how long it’d take you to liven up. Been an hour since I brought you aboard.”

  He held out the cup. “Little rum?”

  “The—” She was so dazed, she could barely speak. “The ship’s under way—”

  “Oh, not quite as yet. But getting there, getting there. My pilot’ll take us through the island channels as soon as the tide’s fair. We may meet some foul weather, but I decided to risk it. I thought it’d be advisable not to tell Captain Caleb how we disposed of the prize we took with Gull. Caleb and me—I—we’re only temporary bedfellows. As he’ll find out shortly after he sails Fidelity back to Boston. The British prize I mentioned did bring a handsome sum at the sell-off. But not in American waters, I’m sorry to say.”

  Rackham feigned sorrow. “We encountered unfavorable winds, don’t you see. Had to beat south to Saint Eustatius in the Leewards. Only safe harbor available—”

  He was amused at his own reporting of the lie. He clucked his tongue:

  “Yes, truly unfortunate. But the Dutchmen were accommodating, damned accommodating. We had the trial—the auction—the only problem being, as Caleb explained, that under the terms of our Articles, a prize disposed of in a foreign port means all the proceeds go to captain and crew. The owners, God pity ’em, miss out. We’ve already divided the share belonging to you and your husband. Understand now why I’ve such a loyal bunch of lads? They’ll help me abduct a lady anytime.”

  Grinning, Rackham slopped down more rum.

  Anne had to struggle to form a coherent sentence:

  “You—you cheated Caleb—”

  “Oh, no, Mrs. Kent! We couldn’t help what happened. Unfavorable winds!”

  “Liar. You—you planned something like that—all along—”

  Rackham shrugged. “Well—it’s possible. But it’s done. Now there’s an even more profitable prospect ahead. We’ll be setting a coasting course for New York.”

  “The—British—the British hold—”

  “New York? Indeed they do. Why do you thin
k I’m heading there? The privateersmen are taking a lot of prizes, you see. I’m sure I can find a buyer for a spanking new beauty like Gull. A little work and she’ll serve nicely as a transport to replace one of the captured ones. I wager plenty of Tory merchants in New York’ll be glad to bid on her.”

  “The ship isn’t yours to sell!” Anne cried hoarsely.

  “Why, who’s here to dispute my right—except you? And we’ve other matters to attend to, yes we do—”

  Still grinning, he ran a hand down between his thighs and squeezed his crotch.

  Anne felt gagging sourness in her mouth; felt an urge to scream and keep screaming and overcame it only with maximum effort.

  “Right here—” Rackham was still fingering his groin. “—right here I’ve the machinery to keep your thoughts diverted to subjects more pleasant than ships and who owns ’em. Soon as I strike a good bargain for Gull, we’ll have a grand holiday together in New York town. Live elegantly, I’ll guarantee it.”

  “You—you’d sell out Caleb when he hired and trusted you—?”

  Rackham’s face wrenched. “Caleb’s a fool who thinks as ill of me as you do. We only did business with each other out of necessity. Captains—good captains—they’re mighty scarce. I was down on my luck, so I took the first arrangement offered. But every time that bastard looked down his nose at me, I remembered. Every time he ordered me this way or every which, I remembered—”

  Slowly, like a muscular animal rousing from its den, Rackham laid the drinking cup aside. He stood up, unfastened the tie-knot of his drawers and let them fall.

  “Just like I remembered every time you gave me the cool stare or the turn-down. Aye—”

  Rackham started for the bunk, his immense engorged maleness swaying on a level with Anne’s eyes.

  “—we’ll have a fine and lively time in New York. We will provided you learn one lesson. I mean who is giving orders and who is taking ’em—”

  “Traitor.”

  “You be quiet, you bitch.”

  “A traitor to the country that—”

  Rackham chuckled, terrifying her to silence.

  “Ah, you’re a delicious one, Mrs. Kent. And why should I be at all angry with you? You’ve already called me more names than I can remember. Sure you have! It’ll take me a month to punish you for each—”

  He moved a step closer.

  “A dollop of punishment, a dollop of pleasure—all at the same time, what d’you say—?”

  He reached down, crooked his hand around his own reddened flesh. From beside the bunk, he crooned to her:

  “Come on, now. Come on. Be good. Give us a kiss—”

  This time Anne Kent screamed the wild wail of hysteria. But Rackham only laughed as he climbed on top of her.

  vii

  She awoke in the fouled bunk sometime near dawn.

  She had never hurt so terribly in all her life. Not even at the height of her labor when she bore Abraham. She felt almost destroyed by the repeated punishings Rackham had inflicted on her all night long, beating her and forcing her legs apart each time, tearing and plunging in her until the pain became so intense that it turned to a perverted blessing; a sort of drug to deaden some of the anguish.

  Disconnected thoughts flickered through Anne’s mind as she tried to climb from the bunk, fell when Gull rolled sharply. She groped for the captain’s table. It took her almost two minutes to pull herself to her feet.

  Through the oval stern windows she saw the steep-sided hills and valleys of the ocean.

  And no land anywhere.

  She brushed hair from one eye, leaned on the table, stared down at the blood that had dried along the inside of her left thigh. On her breasts three vivid blue-yellow bruises showed.

  She grew aware of intermittent sounds. The rush of water against the hull; the stamp of sailors’ feet overhead; a muffled yell—

  In a weak voice she repeated her husband’s name. Her child’s. Her husband’s again, as if the litany would somehow rescue her; waken her from this unbelievable nightmare of captivity and pain—

  She hammered on the door. Tugged. Wrenched—

  Bolted. On the outside.

  She opened one of the oval windows, smelled the salt tang and watched the wake foaming white. Gull was running through a moderately heavy sea.

  After staring at the water for a moment or so in a forlorn way, she latched the window, slipping and falling once more as she negotiated her way back to the table. She sank into the bolted-down chair, on the brink of another fit of uncontrollable weeping. She hurt; she hurt so terribly—

  Then, out of her pain emerged a different sort of emotion.

  Rage.

  Rage at the vile way in which she’d been used.

  Rage—and a determination not to surrender to despair while one breath was left.

  All right, she said to herself. Think, now. Hard as it is, if you want to see Philip again—see Abraham again, ever—think!—

  Rackham would return to the cabin eventually. But how could she get out of the cabin?

  Only by eluding him. Disabling him, even.

  If she managed to gain the deck, she might—might be able to convince a few of the crew to side with her; possibly put back to Boston. Rackham’s boasts about the loyalty of his men might not apply to every single one—

  A slim, almost impossible chance.

  But what else was there?

  She began to turn her head slowly, searching for a weapon; any weapon to hold Rackham at bay—

  All at once she realized that she’d failed to see the one serious flaw in the scheme. Rackham would never allow her on deck more than a moment if he could follow her. If he—

  Hair hanging down into her eyes, Anne Kent shivered. She wiped her mouth. She literally forced the completion of the thought:

  If he were alive.

  Remembering something, she raised her head. She stared at the lantern swaying from the beam hook. The lantern was paned with pebbled glass.

  Rackham would notice a broken stern window instantly. But he might not notice a broken lantern pane—

  Whimpering a little because the effort hurt so much, she knelt on the table. Groped upward—

  The pitch of Gull nearly toppled her off. She managed to seize the lantern, twist it slightly. She bit down on her lower lip and struck her knuckles against the pebbled pane on the side away from the door.

  She inhaled sharply. Someone was coming along the companionway!

  She started to scramble off the table. The footsteps came closer—

  Then passed by, and faded.

  Panting, she waited a few moments. Then she hit the pane again.

  And once more, harder—

  Soon after, she lay in the bunk, her naked back to the door, her body curled not only to feign sleep but to hide her left hand that held the shard of glass. Her right hand bled steadily onto the stained bedclothing.

  She lay as still as possible, thinking of Philip’s face, and Abraham’s. She tried not to dwell on how much she hurt. Or on how the pain might slow her; ruin her sole chance—

  She lay with her eyes closed and her heart beating in a fast, irregular way and her ears straining for a sound of Rackham returning.

  viii

  The bolt rattled. Anne tensed.

  Her right hand hurt horribly. She’d gashed it breaking the glass and carrying the shards to Rackham’s desk, closing its drop front to conceal all but the piece she gripped in her left hand.

  She heard hard breathing as the door opened. Heard Rackham’s heavy tread.

  “Having a spot of rest, my girl?”

  Philip, she thought, pray for me. I’ve just one chance at him—

  “Come along, wake up, let’s see how you came through the evening—”

  Rackham’s hand closed on her left shoulder, pulling her over. He groped past her forearm to pluck at a nipple—

  And went white as Anne shot out her left hand with all her remaining strength, tearing the sharp edge
of the glass across his face once, twice—

  “Goddamn you for a deceiving whore!” he screamed, knees buckling. He slapped hands over his face. The glass had pierced his left eyeball.

  Pink fluid leaked between Rackham’s fingers. His slitted right eye began to quiver in involuntary spasm.

  Anne started to crawl from the bunk. Rackham was teetering back and forth, cursing and pushing at his ruined eyesocket as if he could somehow stop the leak and bleeding. She ducked as he flailed at her with one arm. She dodged by him, ran—

  She almost made it to the unbolted door. The deck tilted sharply. She lurched backwards against Rackham.

  The lower half of his face was drenched red. His lips spewed unintelligible words. He grappled her around the waist, his spittle and blood running down her arm, her breasts, her belly—

  Making wheezy sounds, Rackham hauled her around the table. Shreds of tissue hung from the hole in the left side of his face. His pulled-down right eye glared with beast’s pain as he lifted Anne bodily, started to hurl her away from him toward the stern—

  She dug fingers into his face, felt one slip into the pulpy socket. Gull’s bow rose, coming out of the trough of a wave. Rackham’s thrust carried him along, stumbling, screaming as Anne kept her clawing hold on his face.

  Too late, Rackham tried to release her. They fell together, against the glass of an oval window that burst outward at the impact.

  She let go then, both of them plunging toward the boiling white of the wake. She heard Rackham’s dreadful shriek of fear but she had no time for fear; no time for anything save a last strident cry of the soul:

  Philip, I love—

  The water smashed her and took her down.

  Book Three

  Death and Resurrection

  CHAPTER I

  The Wolves

  A CLOCK TICKED IN his mind. Ticked ceaselessly, hurrying him another mile, then another.

  The clock drove him on when his exhausted body almost refused. It woke him early every day, false dawn or sooner, the time when the spring air was piercingly cool and cardinals were just beginning to swoop through the waving meadowgrass. A mouthful of dried corn from the haversack—a twist or two of jerked beef bitten off and washed down with canteen water taken from a bubbling creek—then he was off again, mounted on the big bay he’d purchased at the Will’s Creek trading station.