Pirate Latitudes. Michael Crichton
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Anne. But it was said that you bear the stigmata of a pact with the devil.”
“I swear, sir,” she said, feeling agitation for the first time. “I have nothing to do with the devil, sir.”
“I believe you, Anne,” he said, smiling at her. “But it is my duty to verify the absence of stigmata.”
“I swear to you, sir.”
“I believe you,” he said. “But you must take off your clothes.”
“Now, sir?”
“Yes, now.”
She looked around the room a little doubtfully.
“You can put your clothes on the bed, Anne.”
“Yes, sir.”
He watched her as she undressed. She noticed what happened to his eyes. She was no longer afraid. The air was warm; she was comfortable without her clothing.
“You are a beautiful child, Anne.”
“Thank you, sir.”
She stood, naked, and he moved closer to her. He paused to put his spectacles on, and then he looked at her shoulders.
“Turn around slowly.”
She turned for him. He peered at her flesh. “Raise your arms over your head.”
She raised her arms. He peered at each armpit.
“The stigmata is normally under the arms or on the breast,” he said. “Or on the pudenda.” He smiled at her. “You don’t know what I am talking about, do you?”
She shook her head.
“Lie on the bed, Anne.”
She lay on the bed.
“We will now complete the examination,” he said seriously, and then his fingers were in her hair, and he was peering at her skin with his nose just a few inches from her quim, and even though she feared insulting him she found it funny—it tickled—and she began to laugh.
He stared angrily at her for a moment, and then he laughed, too, and then he began throwing off his nightshirt. He took her with his spectacles still on his face; she felt the wire frames pressing against her ear. She allowed him to have his way with her. It did not last long, and afterward, he seemed pleased, and so she was also pleased.
AS THEY LAY together in the bed, he asked her about her life, and her experiences in London, and the voyage to Jamaica. She described for him how most of the women amused themselves with each other, or with members of the crew, but she said that she did not—which wasn’t exactly true, but she had only been with Captain Morton, so it was very nearly true. And then she told about the storm that had happened, just as they sighted land in the Indies. And how the storm had buffeted them for two days.
She could tell that Governor Almont was not paying much attention to her story. His eyes had that funny look in them again. She continued to talk, anyway. She told about how the day after the storm had been clear, and they had sighted land with a harbor and a fortress, and a large Spanish ship in the harbor. And how Captain Morton was very worried about being attacked by the Spanish warship, which had certainly seen the merchantman. But the Spanish ship never came out of the harbor.
“What?” Governor Almont said, almost shrieking. He leapt out of bed.
“What’s wrong?”
“A Spanish warship saw you and didn’t attack?”
“No, sir,” she said. “We were much relieved, sir.”
“Relieved?” Almont cried. He could not believe his ears. “You were relieved? God in Heaven: how long ago did this happen?”
She shrugged. “Three or four days past.”
“And it was a harbor with a fortress, you say?”
“Yes.”
“On which side was the fortress?”
She was confused. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Well,” Almont said, throwing on his clothes in haste, “as you looked at the island and the harbor, was this fortress to the right of the harbor, or the left?”
“To this side,” she said, pointing with her right arm.
“And the island had a tall peak? A very green island, very small?”
“Yes, that’s the very one, sir.”
“God’s blood,” Almont said. “Richards! Richards! Get Hunter!”
And the governor dashed from the room, leaving her lying there, naked on the bed. Certain that she had displeased him, Anne began to cry.
THERE WAS A knock at the door. Hunter rolled over in the bed; he saw the open window, and sunlight pouring through. “Go away,” he muttered. Alongside him, the girl shifted her position restlessly but did not awake.
The knock came again.
“Go away, damn your eyes.”
The door opened, and Mrs. Denby poked her head around. “Begging your pardon, Captain Hunter, but there’s a messenger here from the Governor’s Mansion. The governor requests your presence at dinner, Captain Hunter. What shall I say?”
Hunter rubbed his eyes. He blinked sleepily in the daylight. “What is the hour?”
“Five o’clock, Captain.”
“Tell the governor I will be there.”
“Yes, Captain Hunter. And Captain?”
“What is it?”
“That Frenchman with the scar is downstairs looking for you.”
Hunter grunted. “All right, Mrs. Denby.”
The door closed. Hunter got out of bed. The girl still slept, snoring loudly. He looked around his room, which was small and cramped—a bed, a sea chest with his belongings in one corner, a chamber pot under the bed, a basin of water nearby. He coughed, started to dress, and paused to urinate out of the window onto the street below. A shouted curse drifted up to him. Hunter smiled, and continued to dress, selecting his only good doublet from the sea chest, and his remaining pair of hose that had only a few snags. He finished by putting on his gold belt with the short dagger, and then, as a kind of afterthought, took one pistol, primed it, rammed home the ball with the wadding to hold it in the barrel, and slipped it under his belt.
This was Captain Charles Hunter’s normal toilet, performed each evening when he arose at sunset. It took only a few minutes, for Hunter was not a fastidious man. Nor, he reflected, was he much of a Puritan; he looked again at the girl in the bed, then closed the door behind her and went down the narrow creaking wood stairs to the main room of Mrs. Denby’s Inn.
The main room was a broad, low-ceilinged space with a dirt floor and several heavy wooden tables in long rows. Hunter paused. As Mrs. Denby had said, Levasseur was there, sitting in a corner, hunched over a tankard of grog.
Hunter crossed to the door.
“Hunter!” Levasseur croaked, in a thick drunken voice.
Hunter turned, showing apparent surprise. “Why, Levasseur. I didn’t see you.”
“Hunter, you son of an English mongrel bitch.”
“Levasseur,” he replied, stepping out of the light, “you son of a French farmer and his favorite sheep, what brings you here?”
Levasseur stood behind the table. He had picked a dark spot; Hunter could not see him well. But the two men were separated by a distance of perhaps