скачать книгу бесплатно
When he stopped in the middle of the street, Johnny felt again the burning sensation of liquid warmth he had had soon after the cut. He touched his scar, starting from the cheekbone and going down to his lips. He could hear his mother then: This place is dangerous, that’s why I keep worrying about you! And are you fighting against people of your age, now?
“Shut up”, he muttered to himself.
“Who are you talking to, amigo?” Alejandro was waiting for him a few steps behind. He hadn’t entered the area yet and the boy had already found him.
“Let me go, gordo”, Johnny replied. He knew that calling Alejandro a fat boy wasn’t a good idea.
Yet just meeting him made his blood boil into his veins. “This is not your neighbourhood yet. I can come back from where I came from and take another way.”
“Of course.” The Spanish boy didn’t seem to react to the offense. “But you were always getting through this area.”
“Are you looking for a pretext to quarrel?”
“Maybe.”
Johnny moved forward cautiously. “That’s just what I dislike about you. Don’t provoke me.”
Alejandro’s smile widened into a much deeper line, parting his fatty face in two.
“How is your father?”, he asked.
Johnny’s feet refused to go on. He clenched his fists. That bastard knew exactly where to hit.
“Have they searched into any shark’s stomach?”, he went on. “Or he might have run away with a bitch he met anywhere. He had perhaps got bored of your mother. And of you. What do you think about it, pendejo?”
He wished he could jump on him and settle the question all at once. But he forced every nerve of his body to let go.
“I’ll tell you again for the last time”, he cut it short. “I don’t feel like…”
He could hardly finish the sentence. Something flew next to him. It was a stone. He turned his eyes behind his shoulders, even if his brain answered faster. Taking him by surprise had been just an excuse to let the other members of the gang catch him on the wrong foot. Johnny saw three guys running to him.
“I’m ready this time.” His voice revealed a certain amount of confidence, as Alejandro changed his expression. His smile had turned into a grimace of gloomy hesitation. He then took out a flat-top knife, reminding a bit a barber’s razor.
One of the boys tried to hit him with a stick. Johnny heard it hissing near his ears. The boy tried to come close to him, wanting to make a lunge. He couldn’t. His rival was punching faster and faster. Suddenly Alejandro pushed him from behind, making him hit the boy who had attacked him first.
“ Hijo de puta!”, the boy shouted and hit him with his elbow on the face.
Johnny wasn’t surprised. He instinctively plunged the sword into the thigh. The boy fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Alejandro on his side started attacking him again: he took out the knife and tried to hurt him. He was aware of that and could move away just in time. The stroke hit the boy who had thrown the stone, hurting his shoulder. The two guys started to insult each other at once, giving up the fight. The last member of the gang kept looking at them apart, as if stupefied.
And then Johnny suddenly understood.
The time of revenge had come.
“I’ll return the favour, gordo”, he sentenced and hurt the Spanish boy in his eyebrow. He saw a stream of blood dripping from his eye, dimming his sight. He decided to take advantage of it and beat a retreat.
He turned on his heels and rushed to the direction he had come from, leaving behind him the very rancorous shouts of his aggressors.
***
“I’m late”, he apologized, opening the shop door suddenly. He was panting, his chest was dancing under his clothes. The elbow stroke he had got gave him a strange nose accent.
“I know”, Avery agreed. He was sitting on a stool, in a shadowy corner. Puffs of light blue smoke where coming out of the pipe sloping three quarters from his lips. They whirled sleepily to the ceiling planks, where they lay stagnant in a dim cloud. The wrinkled face didn’t show any kind of feeling. He got up slowly and passed by the stone arch dividing the shop into two separate areas. He got to the forge. He started observing the anvil absent-mindedly.
It looked as if he hadn’t seen it before.
“Let me explain…”, Johnny tried to say.
Avery moved with an incredible dart for a man of his age. He stretched his wrinkled hand and caught the boy’s forearm, grasping him tight. “I don’t know what to do with you!” Splashes of saliva were spurting from his toothless mouth. “You are always late and you go home when you like. You’re an irresponsible! I wouldn’t have hired you if Bartolomeu hadn’t asked me.” He then changed expression. “What happened to you?”
Johnny hesitated. He saw an indefinite sense of bewilderment into his interlocutor’s blazing eyes. Or was it mercy? He would rather get his usual scolding than discuss about his meeting with Alejandro.
“It’s not your business, old man”, he addressed him.
Avery’s wrinkled face seemed to relax. He let him go and scratched his bald head, crossed by just two wisps of grey hair on his ears.
“It was the fat Spanish, wasn’t it?”, he asked.
The boy turned his eyes away.
“Ok”, Avery went on. “Do as you like. You don’t need adding anything else. Let’s try to understand whether your nose is broken. Then we’ll find an excuse for your mother. We could tell her you got hurt here. That woman is always worrying too much about you. You’ll break her heart one day.”
“How do you know?”, Johnny replied.
“There are lots of things you don’t know about me.”
And that was true.
He knew almost nothing about Bennet Avery.
Some rumours depicted him as the protagonist of raids made on board the Queen Anne’s Revenge, pirate Blackbeard’s vessel. Obviously, according to the old man that was only nonsense spread to give him problems. But Johnny had still some doubts. He had often wondered if it was his fancy speaking: maybe he had better not let it so free. However, the uncertainties about the old man past had stirred his curiosity. He had heard him talk on different occasions about pieces of his life, accompanied very often by a couple of glasses of rum. Being Bartolomeu’s friend, he was constantly present at the Pàssaro do Mar. Nevertheless, his stories had always something which didn’t fit. He even seemed to avoid some details willingly.
“Come closer”, Avery called him, handing a bucket of water to him, “and wash yourself, to begin with”.
Johnny obeyed, without uttering any single word. He placed the basin on a barrel and put his head inside. The fresh water gave him a light thrill. He held his breath for a short while. He then came out, breathing the fresh air deeply. His fingers went up unintentionally to touch the top of his nose.
“So?”, the old man spurred him.
“The pain has decreased”, Johnny answered. He could hardly believe it.
“If it was broken, you would cry as the snotty kid you are. You were lucky.”
“Luckier than them”, he replied, showing the flat-top knife. He turned it in his hands. The blade was stained with coagulated blood.
Avery stared at him with a satisfied smile. “Stop boasting, boy. Try to tidy yourself up. Work is waiting for you.”
***
At the very moment when Johnny was wrestling with Alejandro, captain Woodes Rogers was thoughtfully scanning the horizon from one of the windows of the governor’s villa. His blurred shape was reflecting on the glass like a ghost’s one, his short, brown hair and his large forehead were giving him a look of solemn austerity, softened by his short height. His mouth, reduced to an almost invisible cut, showed up a feeling of uncertainty. But maybe the feature which made him look more strict was the thick cobweb of scars disfiguring the left part of his face.
He wished heartily that his meeting with Henry Morgan would be as short as possible. He had never accepted his political success willingly, especially after his lucky attack to Panama. He was jealous of him, at least. He had always said there was nothing trustworthy in a pirate who had been chasing his fellow men, just to please the royal family. Ceremonies and banquets were part of a lifestyle he wished he could have too, even if the most important thing for him was to find out why Morgan had summoned him again.
“Your task is simple”, he had told him during a previous meeting. “You have to catch monsieur Wynne. He’s a pirate, so any other reason is useless. He won’t be able to escape being hanged forever. As governor of Jamaica and spokesman of king George’s will, we are morally obliged to give this order to you. We wish you will understand.”
Of course, he had thought. Damned pompous idiot.
And he was still thinking the same, when a soldier walked into the room. He stopped at the door and stood at attention.
“Captain Rogers”, he addressed him. “His Excellency sir Henry Morgan is waiting for you.”
He waved absent-mindedly to him and let himself be driven into the narrow corridor taking to the anteroom, made even narrower by the host of works of art crowding there, a clear sign of the wealth the governor liked to be surrounded with.
“The execution will be held tomorrow morning, captain.” The soldier had stopped in front of a door strengthened by iron bars. “The governor wishes to curb piracy strongly. He hopes you will be there too.”
Your hypocrisy is astonishing, Henry, Rogers wondered. You found a more decent mask to put on. You would have ended up hanged too, if your friend hadn’t helped you.
Meanwhile the soldier was knocking on the planks with a resolute air. Morgan’s voice echoed on the other side, inviting them to come in and followed by a baritone voice which made Roger feel a new wave of scorn.
“He still laughs as a pirate”, he muttered to himself. He grasped the door handle and close it behind his back, leaving the soldier alone. He was immediately assailed by an intense smell of burning incense, a penetrating fragrance of dried herbs. The light was filtering through the windows and the velvet curtains were trembling in a breath of sea wind. Yet there was no sign of the governor. Neither of him nor of anyone else. He went on suspiciously till he got to a big table covered with maps.
“Is there anything wrong?”, Morgan suddenly asked him.
Woodes Rogers turned on his heels and feared to stumble on his feet. He was feeling terribly vulnerable. And slow. When his bewilderment vanished, he found himself facing a well-built man with a prominent belly. He had come out from a private room, wearing a showy light blue dress with large lace lapels. He was wearing on his head a long powdered wig, matching very badly with his red and bushy moustache.
“You’re too nervous, captain”, Morgan laughed again. “In our opinion you should learn to enjoy the pleasures of life better.”
“Pleasures are a luxury I can’t afford”, Rogers replied.
“It’s a real pity, then.”
“Why have you sent for me, Your Excellency?”
Morgan looked him up and down. He then stretched his face muscles, with a clearly amused air. “We wish to discuss a very important matter with you. We know your inclination very well. We know you aren’t a man who likes wasting his time.”
“So we can get to the point at once”, the pirate cut it short. “More than twenty days ago you sent me in search for Emanuel Wynne, a cheap pirate who…”
“Rather by chance”, the governor interrupted him. He kept smiling. “Finding him floating off, not far from Nassau was really providential. It turned your hunt into a rescue mission.”
“That was just good luck, in fact.”
“And is that what you’re worrying about?”
“Absolutely”, Rogers lied. He had to strive to stay easy. Henry Morgan had hit the point. He had left on board the Delicia to go hunting a pirate, but he had found him just a few miles from the port. “I’m trying to get the positive side of the situation. I avoided useless days of sailing. But you haven’t answered my question yet. Why did you send for me?”
Morgan approached. He put both his hands on his shoulders and grasped them with a slight pressure. Rogers considered the possibility of being strangled. As if he had read into his thoughts, the other man let him go and moved a few steps away from him. He took one of the maps from the table and started studying it.
“I think you’re a careful man”, he said sharply. “So you’re deceiving us, captain. The answer is just under your eyes.”
Rogers raised his brows. He didn’t seem to understand. Then a memory flashed suddenly in his mind, cold and merciless like lightning. He turned his eyes to the object Morgan was keeping in his hands.
“It’s just a map, your Excellency”, he commented.
“You’re right”, the other one agreed and handed the roll to the pirate. “I suggest you to observe it better, by the way. It’s the only thing Wynne had with him when he was rescued. He didn’t care about it. He should have. Why should a dying man worry about protecting a map?”
He unfolded it in front of himself. He could feel the mouldy cracking of the paper under his fingertips.
Straight and curving lines were crossing each other, making definite and linear signs. They became then more and more indefinite, chaotic. Besides, there was no course to follow, as if Wynne had got lost.
“He was heading to this island”, Rogers claimed, plunging into the drawing. “But I can’t understand which sea he was sailing.” He turned his eyes to the lower corner of the map. Then he raised his brows. A series of words had been written on that side. He read them and his eyes opened wide in surprise. Anger came later.
“Do you think I’m a fool?”, he burst out. “Was it all just a joke?”
Henry Morgan held his glance with a harshness which didn’t let any emotion come out.
“No joke”, he replied.
“That’s impossible! Wynne can’t have drawn this map. He was completely out of his mind when we found him. He hadn’t eaten and drunk for days. He kept muttering meaningless words.”
“And he’s still muttering them at the moment.”
Rogers didn’t gave up. He studied the map once more, his eyes flashing frantically into their orbs. “I’ll tell you again: he can’t have drawn it, simply because this place doesn’t exist!”
“The Devil’s Triangle exists, really!”, Morgan exclaimed. He looked breathless. “Wynne has been there, no doubts. And not only the piece of paper you’re holding shows it, but also the fact we knew he was preparing to sail those seas.”
***
When they came out of the villa, some soldiers approached them, ready to escort them to the coach. Roger had wanted Morgan to let him meet the prisoner. He still couldn’t believe the story he had told him.
“Please, Excellency”, one of the guards suddenly said, opening the door of the coach which would drive them to the jail.
The coach turned into a strip of land bordering the beach. Morgan caught the opportunity of greeting the colons. Many of them bowed. A bit farther the coast made a small inlet, which was considered the real heart of the bay. There were a dozen ships at anchor there.
“Here we are, Excellency”, the coachman shouted after a while.
The road they were driving through was scattered with stones everywhere, becoming closer and closer till they formed a pavement ending in front of the fortress entrance. The access was composed of a brick arch obtained in the main wall. The grey mouths of the cannons came out of the upper cornice, surmounted by imposing battlements.
Once inside Fort Charles, they got off the coach in the middle of an octagonal square. Afterwards, they were led to the jails through a stone corridor, on whose walls some torches were flaring. A well-built man with a scornful air came through the dim light. He was panting and his face was wet with sweat. He was wearing a plain dress with dirty spots everywhere. Rogers could see blood trails both on his sleeves and on his collar. He then had the unpleasant feeling of facing the hangman.
“Excellency”, the last one greeted Morgan respectfully.
“Best greetings, master Kane”, Morgan replied. “This is captain Woodes Rogers, a corsair at His Majesty’s service.”
“How can I help you?”
“We’re here to meet Emanuel Wynne.”
The hangman nodded decidedly, he caught one of the torches hanging on the walls and took them to another corridor, where some cells were alternating. When they got to the end, they walked down a flight of stairs. The slope became steeper halfway so they had to bend, as the ceiling was gradually stooping. They would find themselves underground soon.
“Before we go in, I wish to ask you a question”, Rogers told the governor. “You’ve prepared the execution for tomorrow. Why such a hurry?”
