Chapter 28: The Ruse
Author's Acknowledgements: Thank you to Anna who proofread this (on the last day of 2019 in an exceptionally busy cafe, kudos to you!) and offered her suggestion that the chapter needed to be pacier/less wordy etc. Thanks as well to Blu and Piratesangel who constantly offer their unconditional support and encouragement!
The officers around us started to move out, as per Lieutenant Lesaro's orders: but not without a lot of murmuring. I honestly didn't know what to make of the fact that another woman had been seen aboard, one who apparently looked just like me. And whoever they were, they had something to do with the broken lock that had been found - but how, I didn't know. It made no sense, but then it wasn't the first thing that had happened to me since waking up here that made no sense, and I had more important things to worry about right now.
Moss sent me a small smile as he passed by on his way to meet Santos at the door. I think he meant it to be reassuring, but he only succeeded in looking grim.
I saw Magda threading his way through the departing men, apparently needing to speak with Cortez. Many of the other officers still continued talking in low voices with one another as they left the cabin, and for the moment no one else was paying any attention to me.
I turned and looked again at Capitán Salazar, lying unconscious on the bed.
He was so lifeless. With his eyes closed, his eyelids were an awful grey-bruised colour. With his face devoid of his usual animated expressions, there was nothing to alleviate the shock of those black cracks webbing through his pale skin. The furious determination that I'd been so used to seeing, the fire that'd burned within him, that desired freedom for his men and glory for Spain and a future he could look forward to...
I hadn't realised how much a part of him it was. Until it was gone.
That's what the Curse does, I realised. It buries you. It sucks the literal life out of you, until there is nothing left.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered to him.
Wryly, I remembered how he'd told me to stop saying 'sorry', but how could I be anything else? He'd been trying to break their Curse - by himself. I shouldn't have been surprised to hear Lesaro tell me he'd been standing by himself at the edge of the quarterdeck, holding out his hand towards the seas. Trying to conjure out the power of the Trident. Of course he was going to try to do it by himself, the stubborn man! And this is where it had got him. But if it was a choice between the advice of the pirate responsible for it all, and trying to solve it myself, I would probably have risked doing the same.
I glanced behind me again, and saw that no one else was looking.
I turned back to him, before brushing my fingers quickly against his still hand. Scorching heat shot directly up the bones of my arm, the shock of it making me gasp and whip my hand back, clutching it to my chest. It had been like hot electricity. But as I gingerly rubbed the tips of my fingers, I couldn't help feeling a simultaneous wave of euphoric relief.
He was still there! He may not have looked it, but he was still there!
"I'll wake you up," I whispered to him. "I promise, I'll wake you up. Just hold on."
"If I am to make a sleeping draught," a cool voice said behind me, "I will require your assistance, Señorita."
I turned, irrationally hiding my hands behind my back, as if Magda might be able to see the evidence of the heat Capitán Salazar and I shared, visible on my fingertips.
Magda moved to my side. "I need you to tell me what medicines you have taken before, and I will need a second set of arms to carry some of the items back here."
"Um - I - I don't think Lieutenant Lesaro would like me to leave -"
"Who is going to watch you?" He looked pointedly around the now empty cabin. "I am still your guard, Señorita."
"Well - if it's - if it's alright with you, I can - I can probably try to lie down next to him and sleep now..."
Magda's brows shot up at the suggestion.
A woman, wanting to sleep alongside the Capitán of the ship, in his bed, was not usual behaviour for a lady of this century - if Magda's expression was anything to go by.
"I mean, um." I quickly tried to amend. "I'm... I need to sleep - to help him..."
He continued looking down at me as I trailed off.
"Señorita Athena," he said after a pregnant pause. "The storm that's coming will be bad. Trust me when I say, that if you intend to - 'sleep' - here, in el Capitán's cabin, then you will be glad for a sleeping draught. And since I cannot do what Lieutenant Lesaro ordered without leaving the cabin, you will come with me."
I sighed but nodded. "Alright."
He looked at me once more, his gaze dropping to where I still had my hands behind my back, and I thought he was about to ask me something, but then he seemed to think the better of it, and gestured me instead to follow him.
I glanced once more at the Capitán; sending him a last silent promise that I would help him, before I followed Magda out the door.
Wind lashed at us the moment we left the cabin, tangling my hair around my face and tugging at my cloak; the storm was definitely coming, and it was going to be a bad one. I saw a bolt of lightning split through a black cloud in the distance. We were too far away to hear the thunder, but it was close enough for me to see its jagged forks.
"Come, Señorita!" Magda said.
I tried my best to keep up with his quick strides.
The deck was almost deserted. Cortez and the other officer were beginning their patrol from the opposite end of the ship, and only a handful of La María's crewmen remained, carefully furling the new sail safely to keep it from being damaged. I guessed they had a bare half hour before the storm broke. Maybe less.
Just as we passed the main mast, a freak wave hit the hull, sending me stumbling sideways against it; before La María lifted herself to allow the bulk of the wave to roll underneath her.
Magda stopped when he saw I wasn't following him.
"Come," he said. "It will be better once we are below decks."
Then Magda directed me towards the open hatch beyond the mast. It was the same hatch that Scarfield and the two pirates had been led out of. As I reached it, a waft of foul air blew upwards, stinking of rotted wood and stale brine. I hesitated at the top of the steps, looking down into the darkness below. Where exactly were they keeping the 'ingredients' for this draught? I frowned. And what exactly would Magda put into it anyway? As I peered down, I realised I had no idea what counted for 'medicine' in this century. For all I knew, Magda might give me cocaine. Or opium. Maybe both mixed together. And no, that wasn't my idea of a party.
"Go down," Magda said in my ear, and I jumped. "Or stay and be soaked through in the storm, Señorita. It is your choice."
"You'll show me, won't you." I turned abruptly to face him. "What goes into this draught?"
"That is the other reason why I needed you to come with me." Magda's expression was just as impassive as ever, his tone almost bored. "You will tell me what kind of medicines a lady needs."
I stared at him.
"Surely, you have had medicines before?" He regarded me with another quizzical lift of his brow. "To help with headaches and - monthly troubles?"
"Y-yes." Just not any medicines you would have heard of. "Of course."
But there at the top of those stairs leading down to the lower deck, I still couldn't help feeling uneasy. I couldn't see any light at the bottom; everything was shrouded in shadow.
Magda sighed and brushed past me, went down three steps, then turned back and extended a hand to me in a derisive flourish.
"Do you require assistance?"
He couldn't have been more sarcastic - but underneath it was an edge of curiosity. As if hoping I'd take his offer and reach for his hand. As if curious to know for himself, that the same cool sensation that had occurred when we'd touched in the cabin would happen again.
I stuffed my fears away at once.
"No." I answered.
"Are you certain?"
"I'm fine!"
He raised both his eyebrows at my bluntness, but dropped his hand at once, and stood to the side.
I started down, not looking at him as I went past.
The relief from the harsh wind as I descended was almost immediate, but just as immediate was the increased stink - and getting stronger with each step down. I pressed the back of my hand to my nose, ducked my head into my chest, and tried to breathe lightly. At the bottom of the steps, it wasn't as dark as I'd feared. There was enough light to see a large cage on this deck, some yards from where I stood. Inside the cage there were pirates crammed inside; a few of them noticed me, and began to nudge one another, grinning.
They weren't friendly grins.
"Oooh, would yer look at that!" Cooed one.
"Where y'puttin' that one then, Spaniard?" Said another.
"Do not tarry." Magda nodded towards a set of steps on the other side of the cage, leading down to yet another deck below. "We must continue down. The medicines are in the hold."
Down again? My heart sank.
"Follow me, Señorita." Magda went ahead of me.
I tried to pretend not to see the pirates. I tried just to follow after Magda. But they took me walking past their cage as an open invitation; they started to whistle and call out.
"Where ye going, darlin'?" Grimy hands started to reach out through the bars, trying to grab at my cloak. "Why don't ye come in 'ere with us?"
I skirted silently out of their reach, and didn't even look at them, hoping they'd eventually stop, but they didn't.
"What they got y'doin' f'them?"
"Wanna do somethin' with us?"
A gruff, burly pirate called out, "There's room enough for a little thing like ye in 'ere, sweetheart, if ye want. I can keep ye warm!"
A few of the others chortled.
"Come on, Spaniard, put 'er with us! We'll take care of 'er!"
"She won't be needing t'wear those clothes neither," the gruff one sneered. "I'll work her hard enough! She'll be too busy screaming to worry about anything else!"
I felt sick, and walked even faster; only to nearly run into the tall frame of the man in front of me.
Magda slowly turned to look at the last pirate who had spoken.
The pirate stared back, a scavenger who recognised the threat of a larger predator. He started to back away from the Spaniard.
"Pray to whatever gods you believe in," Magda held the pirate's wide eyes in a cold stare, "That I forget the specific intentions your filthy head has just so vividly painted."
Magda broke his gaze away from the pirate, who seemed to have stopped breathing, and said, "Come, Señorita, we must go further down, to the hold."
He turned his back on the pirate, smoothly gesturing me to continue forward with him.
Though I was more than glad to be leaving the pirates behind, I felt really uneasy about going down further. But I had no choice.
At the bottom of the second set of stairs, I suddenly realised we were near Barbossa's cell. I recognised the same door I'd had to stand on tiptoe to look through, when Scarfield and I had been trying to escape. Inside, I heard the sound of someone clumsily trying to move, no doubt alerted by the sound of our steps.
For a second, I saw Barbossa's sharp blue eyes at the small barred window, but he said nothing to me once he saw I was not alone.
Magda ushered me forward, and I managed to steal a quick look back at Captain Barbossa. He was watching us both shrewdly. I wished I could talk to him, but I knew he wouldn't risk saying anything to me with Magda present.
We walked together through the dark deck, past the carcasses of rotting sharks, underneath the broken boards I'd jumped through in the escape from the brig. Faint light showed through the hole, and I heard Magda mutter to himself under his breath, making me feel sorry all over again for the damage I'd done to La María.
The ship herself was, however, silent. She'd been so vocal, so present when it had just been Bracero and me in the cabin, but now – nothing. I wondered if she really was aware of everything onboard, or if she could pick and choose what she paid attention to.
The further we went, the darker the hold got. I was being brought to what seemed like the very end of the ship. Magda seemed to have far better eyesight than me, because when he finally stopped I kept going, and my boots hit a hard ridge in the deck. I stumbled to a halt, my arms flailing out to try and catch my balance, not sure where I was anymore. I couldn't see more than a step or two in front of me.
This seemed like a really unusual place for the medicines to be in.
But then, the men of La María apparently didn't need light to see; so maybe for them, it didn't matter.
"So... where is it?" My voice reverberated oddly in the dark space.
"Continue forward, Señorita." Magda's voice told me he was now on my left, and closer than before. "You will find them, three steps in front of you. Once you have them, let me know.
"I can't see a thing."
"Go on. I will find a lantern for you."
I took a step forward, feeling my way in the dark. "Three steps ahead?"
"Perhaps four, or five." Magda said.
It was still just light enough for me to look back and see the pale movement of his hand as he gestured in the direction I was to go in. I did, hesitantly sliding my boots forward on the floor, feeling the wooden deck change beneath me, the sound of my steps changing as the grid of a metal grate creaked under the weight of my body.
I had only taken about four steps when I heard metal hinges whining behind me.
I turned, instinctively reaching my arms out to feel my way back, trying not to trip on the grating under my feet, but it was too late.
My hands smacked painfully against the thick solid bars of a prison door.
I gasped out loud, snatching my fingers back and holding them to my chest. There was a smaller sound, like the sound of metal striking a rock, and then a short fizz. A second later, Magda held a piece of burning twine up, a small flame reflecting in his eyes. He opened the glass door of a lantern in his other hand, and touched the burning twine to the wick.
The flame caught, and Magda crushed the burning twine between his fingers as the lantern started to emit a faint yellow light.
In the growing lantern-light, I began to see that I was in a long and wide cage. I saw the metal grating that covered the floorboards, that I'd run into with my boots, and the thick bars of a wide door – thicker and stronger-looking than the ones in the brig – soldered into the top of a metal roof.
It was like the cage you'd use to hold a wild animal. Or a very dangerous prisoner.
"Lo siento. Forgive me for the deception," Magda carefully closed the glass lantern door. "But unfortunately, you will have to wait for that sleeping draught..." He smiled in satisfaction. "I imagine Gui is going to be busy again for a little while, and I would very much like to take advantage of this opportunity."
I stared at him.
He'd tricked me.
He'd tricked me, and I'd fallen for it.
"You - absolute - liar." I whispered.
"Of course," Magda said softly. "I told you I wanted answers." He hung the lantern on a hook jutting out of a low beam, before turning to face me, the light casting shadows around his mouth as he added, "And I will have them, Señorita."
SPANISH TRANSLATIONS:
Lo siento - I'm sorry
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The other officer patrolling the deck with Cortez is one who I have created the original name of Valdés for: this poor gentleman is the officer whose face has been rendered invisible above his mouth. He said he likes his name, even if it's not his real one, and he is eager to talk to me about his old life more - as soon as certain other Spaniards allow me some free time, of course.