Cinnamon and Gunpowder Read online

As he reached down, I beat at him with the towel. “Don’t touch her,” I wheezed. “She’s done nothing to you!”

  But the giant was after me, not the maid. He yanked me rudely to my feet and held me by the arms while Hannah Mabbot examined me.

  “Is this spirited man the cook?” she shouted. “Are you responsible for this delightful feast? What a piece of luck!… What is it you say, Mr. Apples?”

  “Like shittin’ with the pope.”

  “No, the other thing, less vulgar.”

  “Whistlin’ donkey.”

  “Quite! A surprise and a delight like a whistling … How is it that these phrases make sense when you say them? Anyway, bring him along.”

  2

  THE FLYING ROSE

  In which I am bent to new employment

  Thus was I bound with hemp and shoved along to a boat hidden under the willows in the cove. As Mr. Apples rowed, I sat pressed against the lacquered side by one of the twins. Mabbot, at the prow, rested her feet on a large sack full of house silver and jewelry taken from the guests. She carried a leg of the duck wrapped in a damask napkin and gnawed at it with pleasure. She lounged against the stern, savoring her coup.

  Below us, the water was crystalline, and the fish darted among the tangles of seaweed. Sped along by Mr. Apples’s powerful arms, the boat charged out of the cove, and I thought, These fish neither know nor care that I am being so savagely ripped from my life. The idea of sardines coming to my aid brought from me a burst of crazed giggles that, just as involuntarily, devolved into whimpers. Mr. Apples raised an eyebrow at me as he rowed. I considered toppling over into the brine to make my escape but, bound as I was, hand and foot, I would surely have drowned. There was nothing for me to do but be pulled in lurches across the surf, toward my fate.

  I break now to rest, for the rocking has gotten worse.

  Wednesday, Later

  As sleep eludes me, I have retrieved this log from under my sack of sawdust and continue by the light of the rancid tallow taper.

  Our boat rounded a craggy outcropping, and we were suddenly in the shadow of the Flying Rose, the four-masted barque whose voluptuous ornamentation has been related in The Times by those rare souls who had seen her firsthand and lived.

  She was lurid and terrible to see, the fallen Lucifer on the water, blind to the pelicans moving like gnats across her bow. I was still in shock—my mind had none of its native tone—and I quailed, as we approached, at the crimson curve of her hull, the countless bundles of rigging, and the sails clustered like clouds above me. Since my journey to France as a young man, I had not returned to sea, and boats had been, to me, merely quaint objects moving sleepily against the horizon. Even in my fear, I marveled at the ingenuity of man, at the countless arrangements of ropes threading into the sky. The men moving about the deck could play this massive instrument; they knew which lines to pluck to achieve a subtle shift of course and power.

  I had once seen a fox trot up to a picnic on the grounds of Asford Manor and, despite the crowd of revelers, make off, more or less unnoticed, with a string of sausage. Such are the rewards of brazenness. With the sentinels of the Royal Navy searching for the Flying Rose in the Indian Ocean, here she was, quietly anchored not a mile from English grass.

  Befuddled, I found myself climbing obediently up a rope ladder, crossing, as I went, the strata of barnacle, stout wales, moldings shimmering with gold leaf, and rubicund bulkheads. I had no idea what was in store for me save for the certainty that I would be shortly murdered. At this unhappy thought, I began to tremble. Cracked by the strain, I heard myself mumble as they led me to my cell, “There, there, Wedgwood. You’ll wake up soon enough … Wake! Wake, man!”

  During the two days I spent locked in this narrow cell, my fear and horror bloomed fully in the dark, and I became again the child stifling the sounds of his weeping through the night. Periodically, to soothe myself, I opened the locket around my neck and sniffed its contents.

  When they let me out to wander the deck, whose rails and fixtures had been carved into gargoyles by a deft and perverse hand, the land was already gone. Around us was a glittering wonder of water. The air and light helped quell my vomiting. I return to the cell at night and, locked in, sleep here on a sack of sawdust. By day this ship is my prison; I stumble about the rolling deck, not speaking, not spoken to, and avoiding as best I can the sweaty men who go to and fro with hammers or marlinspikes, bellowing songs and obscenities.

  Never have I seen such a motley assemblage of characters. Except that we are at sea, I would believe that I had been abducted by a traveling circus. There are men here of every hue and size, also men whose race cannot be determined due to the indigo tattoos that cover their faces and arms. There are men with bullrings through their noses, with turbans large enough to hide a samovar, with gold thread braided into their hair, with scimitars lashed to their hips; some with teeth sharpened to points, some with no teeth at all. Many of the men have lost fingers, one has no ears, and not a few of them sport blistered patches upon their faces, necks, and forearms. These scars look very much like the effects I have seen after inept assistants burned themselves with hot oil. Mr. Apples, Joshua the cabin boy, the cooper, and Conrad the cook all bear these marks. I do not know whether it was plague or punishment, and I pray not to be present for a recurrence of either.

  I’ll say here that I do hate ships. What I know about sails, I learned as a young man, when it was necessary for me to hide under a heap of them in the hold of an olive barge for three days. I have never wanted to learn more. When conversations occasionally turn nautical, I have found that there are always herbs that need drying or cheeses to press.

  Three days aboard and I have not seen the captain again save for her silhouette one sunset on the deck above her cabin.

  I eat gruel—swill, really—oats or some other bloated grain seasoned with lard and flaccid onions. There is a king’s ransom of black pepper aboard, which, even with profligate use, helps not at all. I eat little. I have learned to relieve myself, in view of God and all, through a hole in a plank suspended out over the water. I have learned to walk a straight line on the bucking wood. I have learned by exposure the names of the myriad corners of the ship.

  Then, this morning, Mr. Apples unlocked my door and handed me a letter, folded and sealed with the Flying Rose emblem. I opened it and read:

  Dear Mr. Wedgwood,

  Welcome to the Flying Rose. I hope you have settled to sea comfortably. Your lot may improve in direct proportion to your willingness. I do look forward to more of your fare. Let me lay out my proposal: You will, of a Sunday, cook for me, and me alone, the finest supper. You will neither repeat a dish nor serve foods that are in the slightest degree mundane. In return I will continue to keep you alive and well, and we may discuss an improvement of your quarters after a time. Should you balk in any fashion you will find yourself swimming home, whole or in pieces, depending upon the severity of my disappointment.

  How does this strike you?

  In anticipation,

  Capt. Hannah Mabbot

  For the second time since this horrible trial began, I laughed. What else could be done? She was as mad as the legends warned. Upon hearing my laughter, Mr. Apples stated that he would show me the galley.

  Mr. Apples, as I have described, seems to have been built for hand-to-hand combat and serves as Mabbot’s first lieutenant and commander. He, like many here, goes barefoot most of the time. He seems sensitive to drafts, as he always wears knit caps and sometimes a long scarf that he knots thickly about his throat. Hanging from a chain around his neck are a pair of smoked-glass goggles, so thick and dark I’m sure nothing can be seen through them. Perhaps he won them as a trophy in some desert where the sun never sets.

  My smile quite disappeared when we entered the grim, wet-walled box they called the galley. The hearth was just a pile of bricks and not venting properly. The narrow porthole near the ceiling brought no fresh air to cut the smoke. Hanging from an iron bar above the
hearth was a great cauldron full of the awful gruel I had been eating. It was being stirred dejectedly by a man with open sores on his face—a man they call Conrad.

  I laughed again. “Impossible,” I said. “Tell her it’s impossible.”

  Clearing his throat before he spoke, as was his tendency, Mr. Apples said, “Mistakin’ me for a message monkey. Tell ’er yourself.”

  Taking my courage between my teeth, I marched in the direction he pointed me, straight to the stern where the captain’s quarters sat hidden under the poop deck, all the way whispering to myself, “Be a man, Wedgwood. A man!” I let my boots clatter upon the deck and found the small door that was decorated with a tiger’s pelt. I had just turned the latch when I was struck in the face and flew back upon the deck. When I caught my breath, I saw Captain Mabbot looking down on me, flanked by the twins, Bai and Feng.

  Mabbot herself is like something from Shakespeare’s imagination. While those around her knot their beards and blow their noses into their vests, she appears to be cleanly prepared, at all times, to greet nobility. Her boots, long-coat, and belt are of supple leather and creak as she moves about. Her hat is wide and stylish. She was now wearing, instead of her olive coat, a cloak made from another tiger pelt. She has, it seems, a need for fashion, yet out here among heathens and savages, her taste has become fevered. If one could ignore for a moment her monstrosity, he would note that she is indeed as lovely as they say. She appears to me to be mulatto of some thin percentage. Her hair is thick and eddying. Up close, as I have had the misfortune to be, one sees her face is misted with freckles, as if she had walked through a miasma of blood. Her lips are full. Her eyes are flecked with the unholy green of fox fire.

  She was laughing. “Did you receive my correspondence, then? Was my handwriting legible? I haven’t used the post for quite some time.” Her hair moved in the wind like the flame of a guttering torch.

  I rose, brushed myself off, and stated as bravely as I could, “You’re insane.”

  No sooner had I uttered the truth than Feng flew to my side and folded me in half like a clean towel. So swiftly did it happen that I could not tell if I had been hit with a foot or a fist.

  Mabbot asked, “Are you quite all right? Another bout of seasickness? It will get better with time.”

  From the ground, where I had resigned myself, I said, “I won’t play your game.” A blow rolled me over. Vomit pooled under my cheek before I recognized it as mine.

  Mabbot said, “A terrible misunderstanding, but I’m sure it’s nothing. Do tell me you’re all right.”

  “Impossible in that dank box. No utensils, no ingredients—”

  Another kick made me quiet. I became fascinated with and strangely grateful for the cool grain of the deck where my forehead rested.

  Then Mabbot was crouching next to me. “A terrible misunderstanding,” she whispered in my ear. “But I’m so glad we’ve sorted it out.”

  The Chinaman looked to give me another beating, but Mabbot calmed him with a few words in his own tongue. The pyre of indignation within me had been reduced to wet ash. I wanted only to be allowed to crawl back to my sack of sawdust and lie still until the aching stopped.

  “Sundays…” I groaned.

  “Yes?”

  “I cook for you only on Sundays?”

  “I am a human being; I eat every day. Mostly I eat what my crew eats—it’s good for morale. But there are certain expectations of a leader.” She was close enough for me to feel her breath on my cheek, and behind the leather and sweat, I smelled tea and lilac. “Occasional extravagance demonstrates authority,” she continued. “If I were just another deckhand, they couldn’t take orders from me—their pride would not allow it. So I sleep on down and silk. I drink the rarest Barolo and Médoc. And now, once a week, I will dine as well as any emperor. Don’t think you’re on vacation; if you enjoy this side of the water, you’ll work hard. Some of the crew have heard of you. The Caesar of Sauces—did you invent that title? You will spend your entire week preparing for these meals: simmering, sharpening your knives, whatever it is you do.”

  “I have no knife—”

  “Yes, a knife. I’ll arrange it. Shall we start, then, next week? That should give you plenty of time to settle in.”

  “And fresh meat, eggs, butter—”

  “Yes, yes.” She was bored now, and I listened to her boots clop back to her quarters.

  With care, I picked myself up and saw that our encounter had been watched, from a distance, by much of the crew. Mabbot flicked her wrist and the cabin boy, a twelve-year-old with lively black eyes, took me by the elbow and helped me gently below deck, studying my face as we went.

  Before I could retire, though, Mr. Apples was demanding again that I follow him. He led me to a room full of sacks and barrels, littered with what I hoped were currants but turned out to be rat droppings.

  “The provisions,” Mr. Apples said. Strands of yarn hung from his pocket.

  “Sir,” I said, “there are things I need, paper for notes, a proper stove and oven…”

  “Conrad manages.”

  “Mr. Apples, this request from the captain, it is something altogether different from what Conrad does.” I felt blood trickling from my split lip and wiped it away. “You’ve had Conrad’s cooking. It tastes like, well—”

  “Like a fart boiled in a shoe,” he volunteered.

  “That is it. The very thing. You’re a poet.”

  Mr. Apples fiddled distractedly with the yarn, then said, “I’ll find you some paper.”

  That is how I came to be writing these pages. It is, if I’m not mistaken, Wednesday, and I am looking forward to the week as eagerly as one looks into the gullet of a bear. I do not know how I will manage, but I suppose I must try. My head, I’ve been assured, remains attached to my neck only as long as I do not bore the fiend. I will feed her until I can devise a way to liberate myself. My first task will be to take a true inventory of the pantry. This I will do as soon as my aches recede enough for me to rise.

  The cabin boy, Joshua, appears occasionally to refill my jug with “panch,” a foul mixture of wine, tea, lime juice, ground cloves, and water. The word itself means “five,” owing to the number of its ingredients, and panch serves here as clean water serves on dry land. I’ve had, in the course of my life, occasion to imbibe the most eccentric juices and cordials and have never parted my lips for such a treasonous potion. True temperance is impossible on this ship, but, I’m sure, the heavens will forgive me inasmuch as I am not enjoying the spirits and have, anyway, little choice.

  Perhaps because I am not afraid of him, I find myself wishing Joshua would linger. I gather he is cripplingly shy or mute. Aside from the burns on his neck, he seems healthy and serves the officers with a smile. He is also the lamp trimmer, and he leaves greasy soot on everything he touches. If you have seen a cat inflate itself when cornered by a dog, you can imagine what this boy’s hair looks like. Even so, he is the most calming presence on the ship.

  On the rare occasion that these barbarians haul a bucket of seawater up to bathe, they use a paste that is more cinder than soap. As the ingredients are plentiful, there is no excuse for this, and I have undertaken, in these last days, the production of lye and proper soap. When I was an apprentice, my Jesuit master smacked me with a ladle for daring to cook with unwashed hands, and now I cannot even think of cooking unless my hands are clean. I separated, as best I could, the white ash from Conrad’s hearth and bundled it into several layers of burlap. Drop by drop I let water fall into this bundle until a few cups of cloudy lye accumulated in the pan below. This drip method can be done by hand only if one is a pirate captive and has plenty of time, though the rolling of the ship made handling the stuff an exercise in concentration. I came close to scalding myself badly as I mixed the lye with lard and added a bit of honey from the provision room for perfume. The soap is thin and must be kept in a bottle, but it is smooth and produces a healthy lather. I have taken to scrubbing myself raw in the pri
vacy of my cell. I find it restores a bit of my sanity.

  I have tried to lubricate the latch of my cell with the soap, but the gap between the door and the frame is too narrow for my thick fingers. For now I am obliged to wait for Mr. Apples, who lets me roam during the day and confines me at sunset.

  Why, after so many years gone, is the spirit of my late wife so restless? There is no pit less worthy of Elizabeth than this ship, and yet, in the thump and hiss of the sea, I hear her call my name. Or, for a brief moment, amid the fetid and grunting odors, I think I smell her orange-blossom perfume.

  Dearest Elizabeth, if you are looking over my shoulder now, I beg you: Go and rest. I will find my way to you at last, but I would not have you watch my bloody journey. Elizabeth, my blueberry, I kiss the page now—go.

  Saturday, August 21

  I have received a message from another prisoner! At least I suppose it is from a prisoner, though it may be from a mutineer or other like-minded soul. It reads simply:

  YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

  I found it slipped under the door when I returned to my chamber this evening.

  Whence it comes and what may come of it, I do not know, yet I find myself reading it over and over like a note from a lover.

  I have hidden it along with all of these entries in a growing manuscript of impromptu kitchen lists, recipes, prayers, and other scrawled jottings. This pretense will be enough, I hope, to fool a casual glance.

  3

  USE OF A SPOON

  In which I receive valuable advice from a mysterious friend and witness an execution

  Saturday, Later

  This evening just before sunset I rose, still aching, to take inventory of the larder. On my way across the deck, I passed a dozen or so men taking their ease. They smoked, scratched scrimshaw, threw knives at rats, and one of them played a maniacal tune on a gourd instrument with keys made of hammered metal. Even as they lounged, they scanned the horizon for a corsair ship named La Colette, which, it seemed, had made a considerable impression upon them. It was clear they did not wish to encounter the ship again.