Sailing by Carina's Star, page 21
The unfinished thread of Williams’ story tugs at Danso. He has to ask. He has to.
“What stories, if you don’t mind saying? About René, I mean.”
“Most merchants who are above board don’t know I collude with you and sometimes other pirates, so they blather on to me because I’ve been around a long time.” Williams talks like a longtime sailor, always spinning a yarn. “Captains talk as much as their men. They talk about Abeni because she’s a woman, but I’ve heard a few rumors of a young man with what they called a lightning sword.” He rubs his chin again, thinking. “I can only guess that would be René, just from what I know of him.”
Abeni chuckles. “Lightning sword. My lord. They do like to lay it on thick, don’t they?”
She seems unworried by this development. Her motto is worry about things when they happen, and Danso wishes he could take that on. Though he notices that her fingers do tighten into a loose fist at her side. Neither of them wants to have a run-in with Delacroix and Jerome, but these days, it feels almost inevitable. Abeni certainly thinks so. He isn’t sure. Maybe it can be avoided.
“They seemed scared of him,” Williams continues. “Funny, when I know he’s a sweet lad, but then I suppose I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of his sword, either.”
“No,” Danso says. “I suppose not.”
Williams pays Danso for the cargo and sails off soon after, leaving them alone as they wait for the crew who went to the tavern, who return on time. Marc heard from some of the sailors there—and other workers sympathetic to the pirate cause—that the anti-piracy alliance is more aggressively patrolling the usual shipping lanes on the lookout for any pirates they might come across, especially around the Leeward Islands. All the more reason to stay in Nassau for a bit and work on the yet unnamed new ship.
Clouds smear the dark sky, the sliver of a crescent moon slicing into the black as they set sail. Danso leans against the rail, the glow of the lanterns staining the toes of his black boots deep orange.
Things are changing, aren’t they? He feels it. He watches the crew, paying particular attention to René. Marc is telling a ghost story while sitting back-to-back with Eli. René is enraptured, looking like a young lad from his place tucked between Frantz and Auden. He is young, but he’s grown so much since he arrived bedraggled to Nassau’s shores.
“The Davy part likely derives from the West African name Duffy,” Marc’s saying, “who is apparently a ghost or a devil of some sort in the lore of some tribes there. Frantz, it was you who told me that, I think? And that story spread here to the West Indies as people who originated there were brought here. And Jones is a reference to Jonah. Obviously.”
“It was me,” Frantz adds. “My father told me about it. You would have liked his stories, I think.” He smirks. “You could have terrified Eli together.”
“I told you the very first night we met I didn’t like stories about Davy Jones, Marc,” Eli grumbles, cutting into the conversation. “I don’t need to hear about some devil of the sea coming to get me. We’ve got enough real devils after us as it is.”
“You were the one who wanted to hear a ghost story.” Marc crosses his arms over his chest, his reddish-blond hair done in a tight braid to keep it out of his face. “It is a perfect night.”
“It is a perfect night,” Jahni echoes, coming to stand next to Danso. “Would you like to take a bet on how long before Eli screams?”
“Hmm.” Danso laughs. The tension in his shoulders slides away as it always does when Jahni is nearby. Jahni, who is so good-hearted despite everything he went through. Jahni, whose memory sustained Danso for years.
Some of the crew walk about the ship, tending to small duties against the backdrop of the shanty echoing into the air. “Neptune’s Fury” if Danso’s ears don’t betray him.
All you that will be Sea-men,
Must bear a valiant heart,
For when you come upon the Seas
You must not think to start;
Nor once to be faint-hearted
In Hail, Rain nor Snow;
Nor to shriek, nor to shrink,
When the stormy winds do blow,
The bitter storms and Tempests
Poor Sea-men must endure.
“Are you all right?” Jahni asks. “You looked worried when Williams brought up René.”
“I don’t want to put him or Frantz or Auden in the clutches of the people they left behind in Kingston,” Danso explains. He glances at his nephew, who looks more like him by the day, though that shy but confident smile belongs to Danso’s sister. “Has René said anything? About putting his name in for the consort?”
“Flora’s sure he will, though he hasn’t said anything openly yet,” Jahni answers. “But if you’re wondering what I think, well, I think he wants your approval before he does. He already knows I want the boatswain job, and that Abeni wants to stay on the Misericorde.”
Danso stares off into the night, wishing the absent stars would speak to him, wishing Ebele was here to tell him what to do. But Ebele isn’t here. Astra Delacroix isn’t here to offer any advice on what he should do about her son. No, it’s up to him to decide what to do with the souls of these children he’s been entrusted with. They aren’t children anymore, of course.
But they will forever remain his children.
“The safe answer would be to keep René hidden,” Jahni says in answer to Danso’s unspoken question. “But that doesn’t mean I think it’s the right answer.”
As if summoned by the mention of her name, Flora comes up a moment later, pressing a kiss to Danso’s cheek and stealing Jahni away for something or the other. Abeni takes Jahni’s place, crossing her ankles when she leans against the rail.
“Thinking about something?” she asks, wiping her brow with her yellow kerchief, and knowing, without a doubt, exactly what he’s thinking of.
He elbows her ribs gently in answer. She smiles, and he feels, for the thousandth time, how lucky he is to have earned her love.
“What did Jahni say?” She prods further. No surprise.
Danso looks at René again, thinking of the promise he made Astra Delacroix so long ago. He didn’t know, then, that the promise would mean taking three more children into his life, and even when he did, he didn’t know the three of them as he does now. Their talents. Their hopes and fears. Does he let them fly, or does he keep them safely tucked under his wing? What are the consequences of both?
“Just something”—a star shoots overhead, streaking silver through the clouds—“just something I needed to hear.”
Chapter 17
Nassau, The Bahamas. November 1713.
René takes a deep breath when he spots Danso.
He can do this. He can ask this.
Danso has a vegetable patch about a mile away from Nassau Town proper, which he first started work on about a year ago. Tiena, an avid gardener herself, helps him with it.
The soil here isn’t worn out yet, Danso said when he started. Probably because the empires have been so busy fighting over this little slip of land that they haven’t had the chance to destroy it.
René, of course, is reminded of his mother and her garden. The beautiful flowers she grew. The way she was more at home there.
Out in the bay, their yet-unnamed consort ship sits newly refurbished and repaired. She’s a frigate with twenty-two guns that’s just slightly smaller than the Misericorde. She’s speedy. Beautiful. There’s been much discussion over what they’ll name her, leading to a rather intense debate between Eli, Marc, and Flora in the tavern last night.
That ship is what brought René to Danso today. He wants to be her captain, but first, he must ask the man who has done so much for him if it’s the right thing to do.
René felt a bond with the ship when he helped do the repairs, but she sang when she was finally complete, the new coat of paint slick beneath his fingers. That storm in the spring, that conversation with Frantz, that moment where he said yes, I do, to Frantz’s question, knocked the dream back into him. His grandfather’s voice still haunts him, but if Frantz and their friends believe he can do it, maybe he can believe it too. He is a good sailor. He is a good swordsman.
He belongs here. He belongs here.
He doesn’t know if he’s ready to face his father. Jerome. His grandfather. But he does know his mother sent him to Nassau with an eye on the dreams that Kingston crushed. She didn’t just tell him to go. She told him to come here—to Danso and Abeni.
Danso’s alone, crouched down next to one of the yucca plants. He looks completely at ease while he works, his locs tied back with a black ribbon, his sleeves rolled up, and his hands sunk into the dirt. The famous green coat lays on a bench Danso built at the edge of the patch.
René takes a moment to study his hero, his teacher, the man who became a father when his own betrayed him. When he was younger, it was easy to see Danso as larger than life. Sometimes he still does. Here in the light of day—maybe for the first time—he sees how truly human Danso is. The worry lines in his forehead. The bags under his eyes. The silver hair at his temples. It only makes René respect him, love him, more, because Danso has never quit in the face of a world that tries to bury him.
And here, today, René is taking another step to say that he, too, refuses to be buried, not by the people hunting him, and not by the demons haunting him, either. None of his darkness denies the presence of light.
He’s only not sure what Danso will say.
He can’t—no, won’t—put his name in for captain without Danso’s approval. Frantz agreed.
Danso would have every right to say no.
“René,” Danso says when he gets up, dusting the dirt from his trousers. Soil is trapped beneath his fingernails, but there’s a bright smile on his face. “How long have you been standing there, lad?”
René swallows. Various emotions build, a tangled mix of contradictions. Love. Fear. A touch of grief. His father broke a promise about this very thing and refused to mend it. Having a real conversation was impossible. Whatever Danso says, René knows the two of them will communicate openly. The captaincy matters, yes, but even more the idea that he can be who he wishes. Most of all, he wants to help Danso as much as Danso has helped him. He wants to take on some of the burden.
“René?” Danso says again
“Sorry, I was thinking. I’ve only been here a minute.” René steps closer, touching the sword-shaped leaves and white flowers of the yucca plant. “I didn’t want to disturb you. This looks like it’s going well.”
Danso takes a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping the sweat from his brow. “It is. I’m pleased.”
“Are you going to sell what you grow?” René asks.
“Maybe one day.” Danso surveys the small patch, seeming at peace. “I’ve long wanted us to grow things here on Nassau, to make some of our food. We’ll need to do more than steal if we want to make this island home permanently.”
Something swells in René’s chest. Nassau is always just one successful attack, one slip away from being lost, but Danso is dreaming of a future here anyway.
“I like that idea.” René tightens the ribbon holding his hair back—not the old red one Jerome gave him, which is tucked away now, but a new one. After the spying incident, he cannot bear to look at the old, tattered thing, but nor could he throw it into the sea.
“Besides,” Danso continues, idly examining one of the leaves, “I think remembering my farming skills is useful, whether we stay here on Nassau or migrate somewhere else, if need be. My old bones ache more than they used to, so someday you might find me out here more often than on the Misericorde.” Danso puts one hand on René’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “They say being a sailor adds ten years. I’d believe it.” He raises his eyebrows with a slight smirk. “Can you picture me as a farmer? I used to be one.”
“I can,” René says, the mention of Danso’s age making something twist in his chest. Danso’s not more than fifty, but his life has been a hard one, and pirating isn’t easy. “Do you want to grow more here so we need less from the outside?”
“Something like that,” Danso answers. “We’ll always need some things, but if we grow and make more ourselves, we could even use it to trade with people like Captain Williams and the merchants in the Charles Town market. I want to take care of our people, if we find it gets too dangerous to go out as often. Maybe one day we could have some of the men work the land if they liked, and others do the pirating. It’s a distant thing but I do think on it.”
“I think I’ll always be the one wanting to do the pirating,” René jokes. “But I like that idea, growing more of our own food. We could keep more livestock too.”
“We could indeed.” Danso slides the green coat back on, gesturing René over to the bench. “So, what brings you out here aside from kindly listening to my musings? Nothing wrong, I hope?”
René rubs at his fingers when he sits down, drawing a circle in the dirt with the toe of his boot.
Danso looks at him pointedly.
“Not wrong,” René clarifies. “Just ... I have something I want to ask you.”
“All right,” Danso says, grasping the fabric of his coat. “You may ask me anything you like.”
René is determined to do this right. He is determined to be brave. The bench creaks as he sits up straight, folds his hands in his lap, and looks right at Danso.
“I want to put my name in for consort captain.”
Danso frowns, but he doesn’t interrupt, so René goes on.
“I used to dream about being a captain when I was a little boy. After I got to Nassau, I put the dream away for ... so many reasons. Believing I wasn’t good enough because my grandfather told me I wasn’t. Fearing he’d find me if I did risk it. Worrying I’d put the crew in danger. Until a few months ago, I wouldn’t even let myself even consider it.” A smile slides across his lips. “Frantz talked me down from my stubbornness that night we got caught in that storm, not long after you made the deal for the new ship.”
“I thought I noticed something different,” Danso finally says, his expression inscrutable.
René bites his lip. “I know asking this is a risk. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to face my father and Jerome and my grandfather should they come to our doorstep. I only know that I am ready for this responsibility if the men will have me. I want to help, Danso, and I think I can. Help you and Abeni, that is, take on some things so you don’t have to. Maybe the new ship can go out on its own sometimes and leave you more time here. But I won’t do it without your permission. If you say no, I won’t argue. You would have good reason.”
For a moment Danso says nothing, merely looking out in the direction of the harbor.
“Abeni and I started speaking about this a while back,” Danso finally answers. “I admit to you that I was wary of the idea at first.”
René tenses, an old but familiar sinking sensation weighing his stomach down.
Oh no.
Whether he ends up captain or not, he wants Danso to think he could do it.
“Not because I don’t find you supremely qualified, even as young as you are.” Danso holds up a hand, indicating he means no insult. “You have all the qualities of a captain. I do worry about the exposure. There are already stories about you as it is, even if your name is not attached to them. It may serve to put you in the sights of your father and Jerome and your grandfather. But you know that. On the other hand, they’re after us already and nothing in the world will change that. If they ever catch us, they’d catch you anyway. Maybe it’s foolish of me to think otherwise. I just always want to keep you safe where I can.”
René’s been hiding for so long, and at first, that was all he wanted—the safety of obscurity on Danso’s crew. He longed to be René, and not René Delacroix, to sail with Frantz and Auden and just exist. Lately, he hasn’t been able to banish the thought of what he could do alongside his friends on a new ship under Danso’s colors, of what they could all accomplish together, and the people they could help. His mother sacrificed so much to get him out of Kingston, and Danso took him in without a moment’s hesitation. He can do something with that. He can grab onto his dream and honor what’s been done for him.
He lets Danso finish.
“I would like to avoid them discovering the truth.” Danso gazes out at the horizon as if searching for unfamiliar white sails. “Abeni wonders if it’s inevitable. I’m sure she’s not wrong.”
Sometimes René has nightmares about ships arriving in Nassau, of gunfire shooting through the night and soaking the island in blood, their infant republic destroyed, of hands pulling him from his bed and dragging him back to Kingston before throwing him at the feet of his grandfather. The dreams come much less now than in years past, but they come.
“I understand where you’re both coming from,” René answers. “And I don’t know if it’s inevitable. I do know, now, that I don’t want to live my life based on whether or not my father and Jerome find out. When I came here instead of running off to Europe, I made a choice. Giving everything to this crew matters more to me than avoiding my past. I am scared, Danso. But I want to do this anyway.”
These last few words seem to strike Danso more than anything René’s said. He reaches for René’s hand, grasping it tight.
“I know your father always told you and Frantz that you couldn’t be captain and sailing master.” Danso runs a thumb across the scar over René’s eyebrow, and the affection in his touch settles René’s heart. “I won’t take that away. You should put your names in. You and Frantz, and I assume Auden as well, for quartermaster. I want it for you, and for the good of our crew. You are ready. And no matter what your grandfather said, I can’t think of anyone better suited.”
René’s soul breathes. For the first time since he left Kingston, the knots running up his spine loosen and lessen. He is good enough. He is good enough. Even if the men decide against him for captain, Danso thinks he can do it. Danso is willing to let him try despite the fear they both hold in their hearts, and that means the world. That’s all he needed.
