Ed Gorman - Cast In Dark Waters

Crimson.

The name was spoken in English, German, Italian, Spanish and the mixed musical tongues of the slaves brought from Africa. The French, as was their way, added a touch of romantic milieu to the killer and called her La Belle Dame a Sanglant Cheveaux-the beautiful woman of bloody hair. It made for some middling poetry and the occasional three-verse song.

She inspired a variety of feelings in rogues of all sorts-at least during the course of the tales told on a heavy night of drinking, or while crouched beside a dying campfire fascination, respect, fear, skepticism, and an angry, bitter lust.

A tiny creature she was, from what they said, but one with a strange hold on most men of the Caribbean Basin, both white and black alike. There was even some talk of a deposed marquis who dueled for her honor although he'd never so much as laid eyes on the lady of sanguine hair. As he thrashed in agony for over an hour, dying from a sword thrust through both lungs, he whispered her name with a beatific smile.

Perhaps it was true.

But one had to be wily-as crafty as she was-for she could be enlisted by anybody who matched her price, and you could never be certain whose employ she was in at any given time. In London, Barcelona, Berlin, and Paris there were such hirelings as this, and they were called confidential agents. Mercenary investigators who would, if paid well enough, help take care of obstacles and quandaries. Perhaps retrieving a jewel stolen from your mistressor finding useful secrets about your enemiesor tracking down a lost son or corrupt business partneror carrying cargo past the navies of foreign governments.

Rumor, gossip, fact and exaggeration all lent to a slowly-evolving myth.

This was Crimson, a dark-eyed corsair. La Belle Dame a Sanglant Cheveaux grinning across a floor of broken men, with the molten sun draping over her shouldersand there were always writhing shadows in the depths of the dark waters she sailed.

He needed air. Maycomb had barely closed the door to his cabin when he heard his wife begin to sob once again within. The plaintive sounds made him champ his teeth and, for a moment, the black rage filled his chest and his vision grew bright at the edges. He had to prop himself against the cold timbers of the inner hull before his eyes cleared. The Virginian felt a relentless sense of guilt burning in him about leaving Eileen behind, but he'd spent the entire night trying to comfort her in their narrow berth and he'd failed for all his efforts. Today was their daughter Daphna's nineteenth birthday and Eileen was inconsolable.

Trevor Maycomb wanted a taste of the Caribbean sea breeze-to fill him with renewed vigor after five days and nights of lying in the small and poorly ventilated cabin, with the loud and drunken carousing of the sailors on board keeping him from any rest at all. As if the lice and rats and stench of bilge water weren't already bad enough on this damnable voyage. By now he was desperate enough for relief that he'd even put up with facing the scamps and pirates who navigated this creaking, leaking vessel.

"This pounding sea is cleaving my skull in two," he muttered before he went up. He wanted his pipe but there was no point in retrieving it. One of the men was a pickpocket who'd cut the strings on Maycomb's tobacco pouch minutes after he'd boarded. The irony was not lost on him that a tobacco farmer couldn't even have a decent smoke on this dreadful voyage.

"Rotters."

He'd come to America from England to raise his crops almost seven years ago. He'd brought Eileen with him though he feared the distance between them and Daphna might prove to be too great a burden. The girl had remained behind in a private school considered to offer the best in education, surrounded by relatives and given a greater sense of freedom than most girls her age. Though the Maycombs stayed in contact with their daughter via correspondence and made an annual trek back to Britain, the separation took its toll on all of them.

But the colonies were no place for Daphna. Virginia was a more primitive land than he'd expected, and the townships were often fierce and uncivilized places. There was little law and he'd been forced to become a much different man than he'd once been. He was accustomed to a life of elegance, and though the profits in Virginia had been worth the pains, life remained filled with fearful uncertainties.

And they became even worse in the Basin.

"I know the scent of my own tobacco, you miscreants." He checked his flintlock, making certain the gunpowder had not gotten too wet in this damp air. Six years ago he'd never even fired a pistol, and now he could reload his shot in fifteen seconds. "If I catch the smell on any of you, you'll be hefted over the side."

With the original buccaneers driven out by the local ruling powers and routed by the Crown, the Caribbean had become a region of chaos. The first freebooters, for all their faults, had brought a certain semblance of order to the area. New Providence, Madagascar, and Johanna Isle all flourished under rule of the pirates. Their decrees had been domineering but fair, especially for the Americas, and their codes of protection had been strictly enforced.

Now, however, there were only armed vessels run by independent smugglers available to take you to sea ports in the West Indies or beyond. Roving bands of corsairs flying under black flags owned the water lanes from Grand Bahama to Bocas Del Toro in Panama. And the stories of these sea wolves robbing and killing their own passengers were legion. Maycomb knew that despite all his precautions he and Eileen would be lucky to survive this venture.

He was about to go up on deck to the foc's'le, which also served as the galley, when he saw two urchins standing at the top of the stairwell. Not even the warm, sun-filled morning improved their ragged and sinister appearance. Indeed, daylight only showed them to look more like the dregs of the London slums than ever: striped short-sleeve shirts, wide leather belts, filthy pants, and their cudgels sloppily concealed. Ugly, faded tattoos adorned their arms and necks, and scar tissue festooned the boys like jewelry.

Neither could have been more than sixteen years old but their faces bore the disfigurement of many battles, fought in the back alleys of the East End as well as upon the turbulent ocean.

"Guvner, suh."

"Lads," Maycomb said.

"Have a bit'a rum here if you'd like to 'ave a sip. Probably not as fine a liquor as you be used to, but it hits the proper spot."

"Thank you, no," Maycomb said softly, knowing where this would soon lead. He primed himself for it, prepared to draw his pistol if necessary.

"Reckon you might extend the invitation to the lady, suh. Ain't seen much'a her above deck since we left port. The shadows aren't good for a woman's complexion, ye know. She could probably do with a bit'a nice weather on her cheeks. You might bid her up."

"No, I think not."

"And here we was thinkin' that the aristocratic folks was an overly genial bunch too."

All the freebooters on this vessel had scrutinized Eileen with open desire, and it was only through his own forceful presence and show of arms-his flintlock and sword-that no one had yet forced himself upon her. Maycomb again cursed himself for being a fool and bringing her on this voyage, and yet he was a fool with little choice in these matters.

"Ah now, suh, no need to be pullin' such a face. We only come seekin' our fortunes to this land, same as you, no different than yeself. We do a respectable service bringin' honorable and decent families across the waters. Why, if we only had us fine wives as you tucked into our berths instead, there'd-"

A stinging salty breeze flowed down to him and he could sense a summer storm in the air. He wreathed his hand around the chain of silver he wore around his neck, grasping hold of both the silver cross and the stone medallion bearing the face of the Celtic deity Anu, mother of the gods. For a moment he almost let himself be swept up in the urge to mount the stairs and beat back the two boys, but it would only serve to cause greater enmity with the others on board. He dreaded there would already be enough blood awaiting him.