The Pirate's Revenge (7 page)

We could see nothing, but a low growling noise rippled through the crowd towards us. Ricardo and Francesco ran off to see what was going on, then came back full-pelt, faces brimming with excitement.

‘It's a bloodbath!' Ricardo's exhilaration made his voice crack. ‘A Frenchman tried to disperse the crowd, but they have turned on him.'

‘Rally the villages!' someone shouted. ‘Call the menfolk.'

‘I will go,' Ricardo volunteered.

‘We will run like the wind,' said Francesco.

‘We must send a nobleman,' said the Duke. ‘They will rally to a knight on horseback.'

There was an unexpected quiet. The men around us were uneasy. Bonaparte had abolished the nobility and there were no knights left. The world was a different place. Who now knew what to do? They gripped their weapons and shuffled.

‘I will do it,' said Carlo in the silence.

‘Don't be silly, boy,' his father snapped.

But Carlo was already gone, darting through the crowd.

‘Come back!' shouted the Duke. ‘You are too young. They will not listen to you.'

‘I don't think he's going to talk,' I said.

I watched as Carlo ran across the
piazza
, dragged open one of the cathedral doors, and slipped inside. ‘He's sounding the alarm.'

I raced after him, weaving my way between the people in the crowd. It was hard going. I couldn't believe Carlo had made it seem so easy, but I wasn't used to being in a city. Someone's elbow caught me in the ribs, and I had to stop to catch my breath. I leaped over some children playing on the ground, and then collided hard with a man brandishing a rusty halberd.

‘Look out,' he growled.

I apologised and ran up to the massive door of the cathedral. It was still open a crack. I squeezed into the darkness beyond, and closed the door behind me. There were no candles alight, no priests at prayer, only the sound of my bare feet slapping on the flagstones. Everyone had fled. I ran along the side chapels and dodged around a stack of pews. A massive carved door stood ajar. Beyond the door, a stone staircase circled up the bell-tower. I could hear Carlo's feet pounding up the stairs, could even hear him panting as he struggled for the breath to keep going up to the top of the tower.

That's Carlo for you: he can't just pull on the bell-rope like a normal person; he has to run all the way up to the belfry.

I drew my scimitar. Nobody would pass this doorway until Carlo's mission was finished.

From high above me, almost in the sky, came the first tentative clang. Perhaps he wasn't strong enough to ring the great bronze bell. There was a howl from the crowd outside in the
piazza
. They had heard him, and they were urging him on.

Carlo must have heard them, too, because in an instant the noise from the square was shattered by a peal of bells so tremendous, so clear, and so urgent, that for years afterwards the people of Malta would ask each other: ‘Where were you when the bells called us?'

The voices of the people soared, a choir's crescendo woven into each note of the bell. Then, faintly at first, but louder by the second, came the sounds of other bells in other towers all through the Old City, and in other towns all across the islands.

Under my feet, the floor trembled and vibrated. All of Malta was in flight, all of Malta was in uproar, and above me in the tower Carlo wrapped his sweaty hands even tighter around the bell-ropes and pulled until his skinny arms could take no more.

The cathedral door slammed wide open. Four armed men stood in silhouette against the glare from outside. I took a few steps back, up onto the narrow staircase that snaked up the tower. There wasn't much room to move here, but that would be better for me, facing down the stairs, than for anyone attacking from below. The bells were still ringing. Nobody could stop them now.

My hand tightened on the grip of my sword. ‘Here we go, friend,' I whispered, ‘our first test.'

I watched as the four French guards let their eyes
adapt to the gloom, spotted the open door, and ran towards me, drawing their swords. Four short-swords to one mighty scimitar.

‘Nobody will pass this place,' I said aloud.

The soldiers clattered to a halt, crowding in the doorway below me, just out of reach. My stomach seemed to flip upside down, but my sword arm did not tremble or falter.

‘A girl,' one of the men snorted. ‘This island is guarded by girls and old men.'

They all laughed.

‘France's greatest warrior was a girl,' I said, and pointed my silver sword at their faces. ‘In the name of Saint Jeanne D'Arc, I call on you to put down your weapons.'

They laughed again. I hate it when they laugh.

I darted forward, like a kingfisher, a cormorant. They weren't expecting it. I slashed one man's wrist and his sword clanged on the floor. The other three stood and gawped at him stupidly.

‘What is it, Capitaine?' one asked.

The captain was staring at his arm, clutching at it with his other hand. His eyes lifted to meet mine. We were both panting in fury. I raised my sword again.

‘Next?' I shouted defiantly.

The others leaped forward with a roar. Blades flashed and carved the air, but I filled the space between us with parries so wide and fast their swords were knocked into each other and away. One man pushed the others aside so he could get a clear swipe at me, but the others grabbed him and pushed him into the wall.

So they all wanted a piece of me. Fair enough, I thought. You're only making things harder for yourselves.

The noise was a thunder. Metal smashed on metal, and they were all shouting at once. The wounded captain crouched at the back and screeched orders. The other three swore and cursed me and each other.

I kept quiet. I knew my sword arm would give out soon enough. I had to conserve my strength. I didn't try to attack, just kept those darting blades away from me. I just needed to keep them occupied long enough for Carlo to do his work. Parry left,
quarte
, further than normal but there was another blade coming at me wide. Block high. Now low.

The man on my left faltered. He was tiring. I slashed at his hand and his sword flew high in the air. He slumped on the stairs at my feet. There was blood on his sleeve.

Blood on my sleeve too. Someone had struck home, but I felt nothing, just a blind, urgent need to keep moving, keep my distance, and keep Carlo safe. Breathe. Focus on those flashing points scratching at the air like cats' claws. Stay on your feet. Breathe.

But I couldn't hold out much longer. The bells in the tower had fallen silent. Carlo would be here soon. Then we would be equal in number. I gripped my sword with both hands now, slicing fast and furiously. There was no skill in it. I was all movement and instinct, feeling the rush of air as a blade flew too close, listening, anticipating their intentions as they crouched low, then jumped up to thrust at me.

The man in the corner was howling, ‘Strike her down, damn you, strike her down!'

Out of the corner of one eye, I noticed a flash of blue, and suddenly the narrow stairwell was filled with more men — my men. Hussein grabbed the captain and threw him sprawling out of the door. Jem and Moggia leaped on the two remaining swordsmen, and they all fell onto the stairs in a heaving, shouting heap.

I stopped. I should have done something more to help, but my whole body simply halted as if a sea witch had cast a spell. My arms sagged, one hand still loosely holding my sword. I leaned against the cool wall. I was shivering, but not with cold. I could only watch as Hussein wrestled two men at once, while the others tangled and writhed and spat all over the floor like an octopus out of water.

At last Carlo's footsteps sounded behind me.

‘Cygno,' he cried as he rushed past, drawing his sword, ‘get out of the way, this is no place for a girl.'

He threw himself on top of the mass of twisting limbs and bloodied bodies. My legs gave out, and I sat down slowly on the stairs to watch and wait.

By the time Jem and the boys had subdued the Frenchmen, my arm was stinging as if I'd swum into a cloud of jellyfish. If it had been someone else's arm, I would have said it was a light slash that would mend just fine. But it was my blood oozing between the fingers of my other hand, clasped tight over the wound, and the sight of it made me dizzy.

‘Come quickly, everyone!' Ricardo was at the door, shouting and waving his cutlass. ‘More soldiers have arrived.'

I stood up, a little shakily, and leaned against the wall with my uninjured hand. Ricardo ran out again, with Carlo hot on his heels. Jem and Moggia started dragging the four unconscious soldiers into a clumsy pile.

Hussein scrambled across the slumped soldiers and kneeled below me on the stairs. ‘Let me see,' he said urgently.

I tried to say, ‘I'm all right,' but it was only a feeble whisper, and I sat back down on the stairs with a thump. He prised off my grip. There was blood everywhere.

‘Never seen such a thing,' he said.

‘It's not as bad as that hole in your ribs,' I told him.

‘I didn't mean the wound,' he said, tearing a long strip from his robe. ‘I meant you, standing on these stairs, fighting off four men.' I winced as he started to wrap the cloth tightly around my arm.

‘They weren't very smart,' I said, but now a strange, giddy feeling was spreading up my body and into my face. ‘And I have the best sword. It once belonged to Saladin, you know.'

He smiled up at me, his blue eyes bright as forget-me-nots in a sand-dune.

That's all I remember.

Jem told me later how Hussein had carried me all the way to the Duke de Santiago's
palazzo
. Carlo came home eventually, in hope of a hero's welcome: all he got was a clip across the ear from Jem for running off. The Duke summoned a surgeon, but they were all too frightened to leave their houses in the midst of such a tumult. The Duchessa, Madame de Santiago, bound my wound herself.

I do remember waking up to see their faces gazing down at me, Carlo standing close by his mother, mouthing silent prayers, while all the boys crowded around. I remember a woman's soft voice, and someone stroking my hair. I'm sure I murmured her name: ‘Mama'. I swear she answered. But it was someone else's Mama, and I was leagues from home, swimming alone through a sea of dizziness and nausea.

I woke to silence and sunlight the next day, and lay still for a long time, staring up at the painted ceiling, trying not to move my throbbing arm. For the next week, I hardly moved from that room, but nobody seemed to mind. I slept in a proper bed with white
sheets and pillows. Maids in long black gowns brought eggs on a breakfast tray, or bowls of fruit. Every morning, I lay in a vast marble bathtub for hours, my bandaged arm sticking up out of the hot water. Then I would slowly walk around the room, gaining strength by the day, feeling the stiffness in my arm loosen and the searing pain drop to a low thrum.

Every afternoon, Carlo would rush in with news from the countryside. The French had retreated behind the stone walls of Valletta and the Three Cities on the harbour. A new National Assembly had been called. The people of Malta would rule their own islands at last, he said. The King of Naples would come to their aid. The English would protect them. The whole of Europe would send food and gunpowder. The French would be pushed out of the fortress city on the harbour and into the sea.

Carlo had no news of the
Mermaid
. Hussein had vanished after the uprising, gone to Gozo to rally the villages. Jem and the boys had gone back to the ship. Nobody knew where they were now.

In the evenings, the family dined in the great gallery downstairs. I ate, left-handed and clumsy, from a tray in my room, relishing the quiet and the glory of someone else's cooking. Every night there was a different dish: flatfish in lemon and butter; rabbit stew with black olives; thick soup, crusty white bread and bright red tomatoes. I had never before eaten a meal without being surrounded by people. I would smile to myself, raise a glass of wine to my hosts downstairs, and tuck in.

After dinner, the Duchessa would visit briefly to touch my forehead and wish me goodnight. Then I would sleep in a cloud of fluffy white pillows, and dream of princesses and grand parties and a fisherman's widow living in a tiny stone cottage on a hill above a harbour.

I spent the days in a crisp white nightgown, a clean one every morning, with a dressing-gown slung over my shoulders. On the Friday morning I looked around for my proper clothes. Nowhere to be found. When Carmella, the upstairs maid, brought my breakfast, I asked if she had seen them. She glanced up at my face quickly, and then looked down at the floor.

‘Madame told us to burn them.'

‘What?' I couldn't believe it. ‘Why?'

‘They were unsuitable for a young lady, she said, and also, if you don't mind me saying, Miss, they were pretty dirty.'

I pulled the dressing-gown closer around me. Those clothes were all I had.

‘Well, it's hard doing your washing in salt water,' I complained. ‘The clothes never get quite clean and they're always sticky and horrible.'

‘I'm sure, Miss, but I meant there was blood all over them, after your fight.'

‘You could have just washed them,' I said.

‘I'm sorry, Miss.' She bobbed in a quick curtsy.

‘But what am I going to wear? I can't sew anything with my arm all bandaged.'

‘I couldn't say, Miss.'

She left the room, blushing. I sat down on the bed. Those clothes that Cookie and I had sewn were way
too small for me now, the breeches almost reaching my knees, and the shirt a little too tight. I didn't mind getting new clobber. But how? It didn't look like there would be anyone in this house who would have decent sailing gear. Even the maids wore frilly pinafores. I'd look a fine sight at the helm of the
Mermaid
in my nightgown.

That evening, the Duchessa lingered a little longer than usual, sitting in the tapestry-covered chair by the window.

‘Child,' she said at last, in her lovely lisping voice. ‘What will become of you when you leave us?'

‘I'll go back to my ship,' I said. ‘They'll come for me, soon enough.'

She shook her head, ever so slightly. ‘It doesn't seem right for a young girl to be in such company.'

‘They're good men. They look after me.'

‘You will soon be a woman,' she said. ‘I fear you cannot keep living this life.'

‘Why on earth not?'

She sighed. ‘Because it is not safe.'

‘I can look after myself,' I said.

‘It is God's will that men go to sea or off to war, and women keep the hearth warm for their return.'

I could feel my anger rising. ‘I watched my mother keep the hearth warm for years, and it never brought my father home. All it did was wear her out.'

‘That's the way the current runs, Lily, you cannot swim against it.'

I glowered at her. ‘I can so.'

She smiled again, this time, ruefully. ‘You may not believe it, but when I was your age, I thought the
same thing. If I had been able to choose my own way, my life would be very different. But if everyone had their own way, what would become of us?'

There was a long silence. I gazed at her face, her perfect skin, the necklace falling just so against her throat, the silk shawl smooth around her shoulders. I couldn't really see her as a navigator on a pirate ship.

‘What would you have done instead?' I asked, softly.

‘I would have done nothing all day but sing. Imagine. I dreamed I would be a great singer, giving concerts all over the world.' She laughed. ‘I even asked my father to send me to London to study music.'

‘What did he say?'

The laughter vanished from her face. ‘He told me I was a stupid girl. Three weeks later, he announced I was to marry. So here I am.' She pulled the shawl tightly around her, although the night was still warm. ‘I suppose he feared I might run away.'

‘Would you?'

She took an awfully long time to answer. ‘I might have dreamed of it, but how could I?' She stared straight at me. ‘I had no money, no friends outside the islands, no way of travelling anywhere at all, let alone somewhere as far as London. I don't think I even knew where London was.'

‘I'm different to you,' I said. ‘I could sail there if I wished.'

‘I suppose you could. But if I had done so, if I had not married the Duke, there would have been
no Carlo, and that would be a dreadful loss for the world.' She smiled.

‘I can do what I want,' I said.

‘Perhaps you have been able to, until now,' the Duchessa agreed. ‘That's a remarkable thing. In some ways I envy you. But you are still a part of the world, and one day it will catch up with you.'

‘Is that why you told them to burn my clothes?' I asked, accusingly.

‘You have grown out of those clothes. It is time you began to dress and act like a woman.' Her forehead creased into a furrow of unease.

‘Is that what you really think?' I said.

The Duchessa was quiet for a moment, her hands in her lap, twisting a great ruby ring on her left hand.

‘No,' she whispered. ‘It is not what I think. It is what my husband orders. He does not want you seen on the streets in sailor's clothes, to have people talk about us. It is bad enough that you fought like a man.'

‘I fought to defend your son!' I cried. ‘If I had been in a fancy gown, I would never have been able to do that. If I were a lady, I would never have even known how.'

‘You'd be surprised,' she said. ‘I have fenced all my life. When I was young, I practised every day. But I also practised my dancing and singing and harpsichord.'

‘But you were born to be a duchess,' I argued. ‘Girls like me never do that stuff anyway. We feed chickens and bake bread and wash clothes and cook endless meals. In my case, I have to do all those
things, and navigate and help sail the ship, and then I get to practise my swordplay every day.'

‘Perhaps one day I will challenge you to a bout.'

‘I hope you're better than Carlo,' I teased.

‘Poor boy. I think sometimes his feet are too big for his body. They trip him up. One day he will grow into them. His fencing needs a little more concentration and a little less enthusiasm. But he will learn. One day he may be able to fence as well as you. Or me. One day very soon you will both be grown up.'

‘If that means,' I said, ‘that I have to wear gowns and … stop sailing with the boys, and act like some defenceless fool, then I don't want to grow up. Next you'll be making me take dancing lessons.'

‘Sshh!' she said, coming close and kneeling down to face me. In the lamplight, I could see she was still very young, many years younger than her husband. She took my hand in hers.

‘Lily, you must understand that everyone in this family owes you a great debt. We all feel it.'

‘It's not a debt,' I said. ‘It's just the way things happened. Carlo would have done the same for me.'

‘I hope so. But it is a man's role to fight to protect the woman. You must admit it doesn't normally happen the other way around.'

Exasperation and exhaustion were straining my voice. ‘You don't understand,' I said.

She squeezed my hand warmly. ‘Actually, I understand more than you know. But it doesn't matter what I understand. What matters in this family is
what angers my husband or affects the honour of his sons. My husband is a very traditional man, and although he will always feel in your debt, he also feels ashamed that a girl fought four men alone to protect his son.'

Tears tingled in my eyes. I felt trapped by a code of honour that had nothing to do with me, but one that I had somehow breached.

‘You must rest,' said the Duchessa. ‘You are still weak.'

I grabbed her hand before she could leave.

‘Listen to me,' I said urgently. ‘Any of the crew of the
Mermaid
would have fought as I fought. We had given our word to protect Carlo, and we would fight just the same to protect each other. That is the way of my world. To be honest, I like it better than your world.'

‘I fear your world will not last, Lily, and your place in it will change as you grow up.'

‘Perhaps. But by then I'll be home in Santa Lucia, I will be rich, and I will be able to live as I choose. I will wear whatever I want and have my own ship.'

She smiled. ‘I hope that your dreams come true.'

‘I will make them come true. Then your world will have to change to suit me.'

She put her hand to my forehead, as she did every evening, to make sure the fever had gone.

‘Sweet dreams, then, Lily. Good night.'

She stood in a soft swish of silk, but as she neared the door, I had to say one last thing.

‘In years to come, everyone will remember the boy who rang the bell to begin the uprising. His family should honour him for it.'

The Duchessa paused for a moment by the door, her eyes filled with tears. ‘I will tell him. Even if his father doesn't believe it, Carlo will know that you and I believe him to be the bravest boy in Malta.'

The door closed quietly behind her, and I was left with the faint scent of gardenia and the sense that here in the Old City I had found another friend.

The next evening, after my bath, I stared at my reflection in the looking glass for a very long time, trying to imagine what I would look like when I was as old as Mama and the Duchessa. My hair had grown longer in the time I'd been away from home, and now it was pulled back into a plait like every English sailor. Miller and Max, both old Navy tars, spent hours weaving their long locks into tight braids, and had showed me how to get it ship-shape. Just like splicing rope, Max had told me. Jem never cared as much, but wore his lank hair tied back with string, like a fancy carriage-horse's tail. Even Brasher, who had virtually no hair at all on top, wove a few grey wisps at the back of his head into a rat-tail that hung below his collar. Moggia and the Vella brothers had hair so wild and curly that no splicing in the world could have tamed it.

My hair was unruly too, though after my days in the
palazzo
it was so well-washed and groomed it seemed to belong to someone else. Perhaps one day it would sit in perfect little ringlets on my forehead, then curl into an immaculate braid to hang down my back, like the Duchessa's hair. Or perhaps it would be like Mama's, which flew off in all directions on hot days, getting into her eyes and driving her crazy. But
I had my father's Irish hair, and I couldn't remember exactly what his was like.

I climbed into bed, pulled up the covers, and sighed. Even if I wanted to be a lady like the Duchessa or my aunt Lily, it would never work. I just didn't know how. I didn't know how to sit or stand or sing or be. My hair would always be ruby red and unruly, my hands would always be calloused, and I would always fidget and wish I was out sailing. But maybe that was how Mama had felt her whole life.

Next morning, Carmella was standing ready with my breakfast. As she put the tray on the side table, she murmured, ‘I don't know what you said to her, but it worked.'

On the chair by the fireplace was a pile of clothes. I jumped out of bed and tried them on, one by one: fine woollen breeches and a pair of canvas trousers, just the right length; two white linen shirts, laced at the throat; an officer's long boat-cloak; a brown leather baldric that looped across my chest to hold my sword, and a pair of fishermen's sandals. Very bloody fancy, as Jem would say.