He tossed back the rest of his cup of sangria.
“No one comes here,” he said. “The villagers won’t set foot on the hill. They’re afraid of Ermenegilda’s ghost. A damned sinner, buried by a reprobate priest in unhallowed ground—of course she will not lie quiet.”
The sea breeze was cool on the back of my neck. Behind us, even the chickens in the patio had grown quiet with falling twilight. The Hacienda de la Fuente lay still.
“You come,” I said, and he smiled. The scent of oranges rose up from the empty cup in my hands, sweet as bridal flowers.
“Ah, well,” he said. “I am a scientist. I don’t believe in ghosts.” He extended a hand to me, somewhat unsteadily. “Shall we dine, Mrs. Fraser?”
* * *
After breakfast the next morning, Stern was ready to set off for St. Luis. Before leaving, though, I had a question or two about the ship the priest had mentioned; if it were the Porpoise, I wanted to steer clear of it.
“What sort of ship was it?” I asked, pouring a cup of goat’s milk to go with the breakfast of fried plantain.
Father Fogden, apparently little the worse for his excesses of the day before, was stroking his coconut, humming dreamily to himself.
“Ah?” he said, startled out of his reverie by Stern’s poking him in the ribs. I patiently repeated my query.
“Oh.” He squinted in deep thought, then his face relaxed. “A wooden one.”
Lawrence bent his broad face over his plate, hiding a smile. I took a breath and tried again.
“The sailors who killed Arabella—did you see them?”
His narrow brows rose.
“Well, of course I saw them. How else would I know they had done it?”
I seized on this evidence of logical thought.
“Naturally. And did you see what they were wearing? I mean”—I saw him opening his mouth to say “clothes,” and hastily forestalled him—“did they seem to be wearing any sort of uniform?” The crew of the Porpoise commonly wore “slops” when not performing any ceremonial duty, but even these rough clothes bore the semblance of a uniform, being mostly all of a dirty white and similar in cut.
Father Fogden laid down his cup, leaving a milky mustache across his upper lip. He brushed at this with the back of his hand, frowning and shaking his head.
“No, I think not. All I recall of them, though, is that the leader wore a hook—missing a hand, I mean.” He waggled his own long fingers at me in illustration.
I dropped my cup, which exploded on the tabletop. Stern sprang up with an exclamation, but the priest sat still, watching in surprise as a thin white stream ran across the table and into his lap.
“Whatever did you do that for?” he said reproachfully.
“I’m sorry,” I said. My hands were trembling so that I couldn’t even manage to pick up the shards of the shattered cup. I was afraid to ask the next question. “Father—has the ship sailed away?”
“Why no,” he said, looking up in surprise from his damp robe. “How could it? It’s on the beach.”
* * *
Father Fogden led the way, his skinny shanks a gleaming white as he kirtled his cassock about his thighs. I was obliged to do the same, for the hillside above the house was thick with grass and thorny shrubs that caught at the coarse wool skirts of my borrowed robe.
The hill was crisscrossed with sheep paths, but these were narrow and faint, losing themselves under the trees and disappearing abruptly in thick grass. The priest seemed confident about his destination, though, and scampered briskly through the vegetation, never looking back.
I was breathing hard by the time we reached the crest of the hill, even though Lawrence Stern had gallantly assisted me, pushing branches out of my way, and taking my arm to haul me up the steeper slopes.
“Do you think there really is a ship?” I said to him, low-voiced, as we approached the top of the hill. Given our host’s behavior so far, I wasn’t so sure he might not have imagined it, just to be sociable.
Stern shrugged, wiping a trickle of sweat that ran down his bronzed cheek.
“I suppose there will be something there,” he replied. “After all, there is a dead sheep.”
A qualm ran over me in memory of the late departed Arabella. Someone had killed the sheep, and I walked as quietly as I could, as we approached the top of the hill. It couldn’t be the Porpoise; none of her officers or men wore a hook. I tried to tell myself that it likely wasn’t the Artemis, either, but my heart beat still faster as we came to a stand of giant agave on the crest of the hill.
I could see the Caribbean glowing blue through the succulent’s branches, and a narrow strip of white beach. Father Fogden had come to a halt, beckoning us to his side.
“There they are, the wicked creatures,” he muttered. His blue eyes glittered bright with fury, and his scanty hair fairly bristled, like a moth-eaten porcupine. “Butchers!” he said, hushed but vehement, as though talking to himself. “Cannibals!”
I gave him a startled look, but then Lawrence Stern grasped my arm, drawing me to a wider opening between two trees.
“Oy! There is a ship,” he said.
There was. It was lying tilted on its side, drawn up on the beach, its masts unstepped, untidy piles of cargo, sails, rigging, and water casks scattered all about it. Men crawled over the beached carcass like ants. Shouts and hammer blows rang out like gunshots, and the smell of hot pitch was thick on the air. The unloaded cargo gleamed dully in the sun; copper and tin, slightly tarnished by the sea air. Tanned hides had been laid flat on the sand, brown stiff blotches drying in the sun.
“It is them! It’s the Artemis!” The matter was settled by the appearance near the hull of a squat, one-legged figure, head shaded from the sun by a gaudy kerchief of yellow silk.
“Murphy!” I shouted. “Fergus! Jamie!” I broke from Stern’s grasp and ran down the far side of the hill, his cry of caution disregarded in the excitement of seeing the Artemis.
Murphy whirled at my shout, but was unable to get out of my way. Carried by momentum and moving like a runaway freight, I crashed straight into him, knocking him flat.
“Murphy!” I said, and kissed him, caught up in the joy of the moment.
“Hoy!” he said, shocked. He wriggled madly, trying to get out from under me.
“Milady!” Fergus appeared at my side, crumpled and vivid, his beautiful smile dazzling in a sun-dark face. “Milady!” He helped me off the grunting Murphy, then grabbed me to him in a rib-cracking hug. Marsali appeared behind him, a broad smile on her face.
“Merci aux les saints!” he said in my ear. “I was afraid we would never see you again!” He kissed me heartily himself, on both cheeks and the mouth, then released me at last.
I glanced at the Artemis, lying on her side on the beach like a stranded beetle. “What on earth happened?”
Fergus and Marsali exchanged a glance. It was the sort of look in which questions are asked and answered, and it rather startled me to see the depths of intimacy between them. Fergus drew a deep breath and turned to me.
“Captain Raines is dead,” he said.
The storm that had come upon me during my night in the mangrove swamp had also struck the Artemis. Carried far off her path by the howling wind, she had been forced over a reef, tearing a sizable hole in her bottom.