Kill a fourteen-year-old boy? No, that is wrong. Let us simply lock him in a room and ensure he cannot escape. Let nature take her course.
Just like Lord Norrington attempted with us, setting theTemerityout to sea.
Back to Andrés. After the galley was destroyed, the ship was towed to the cove. That may have been the impetus for the move. She was rotting and falling apart—or so it appeared—and the court case seemed unlikely to be resolved soon.
Did Andrés’s killer have a hand in the decision to move the ship? It is a very good question. Either way, theTemeritywas moved, and by the time Nicolas got aboard, Andrés would have been long dead.
“I have asked whether he saw his killer,” I say. “He did not. He was too busy fleeing, and they never said a word, so he cannot tell us anything about them. I asked about those he heard talking. Again, he could not identify them. He thinks he may have heard Lord Norrington. The man had been onboard before, during the day, and he recognized him just now in the boat. He thinks he heard his voice that day, but he cannot say with certainty.”
“They thought he overheard something,” Nicolas says. “They came onboard in the night for some nefarious purpose. Someone spotted Andrés. They thought he had seen or heard their plotting.”
“He did not.”
“Yet they killed him anyway. Lord Norrington would not have nailed up the door himself. He’d have given the order. Can we still name Norrington as Andrés’s killer?”
“We could if we were absolutely certain that is what happened.”
“We need proof. Confirm it was Lord Norrington. Confirm he ordered Andrés’s death. I am certain of it, but we cannot chance erring. We must—”
The ship lurches. Nicolas grabs for me as I stumble. A howl, as if from the heavens themselves, and the sails snap.
“The wind,” Nicolas says. “She is picking up.”
He starts to run when another lurch knocks him to his knees. I hurry to him and help him to his feet, and we get to the sails, trying to lower them, but the wind catches, and the ship changes direction. It is a small change. One that would be unnoticeable on the high seas. Here, though, this close to the rocky shore, it is catastrophic.
“We cannot bring her around.” Nicolas shouts to be heard as the wind whistles. “We do not have enough room!”
I peer over the side. The craggy shore is less than a hundred yards away, and we are headed straight for it.
“Can we swim?” I say. “Or prepare to?”
“Prepare to, oui.” He turns. “Andrés?”
I point. “He is here.”
“I am not abandoning you,” Nicolas says to the ghost. “I am leaving the ship, for obvious reasons, but I will return. Whatever happens, I will return and free you.”
“He is waving for you to stop talking and go.”
Nicolas gives a short laugh. “He is wise. Yes, I am going. I will find who did this to you and return. I promise you that.”
16
We debate leaving our swords on the ship. Mine is small enough to pose no encumbrance, so I will take it. Nicolas’s is longer and heavier, and it may impede swimming, but he is loath to be weaponless when we reach the shore. In the end, we keep both.
We lower ourselves on the rope we used to climb onto the ship. I am quite an avid swimmer, being fonder of physical activity than is good for any woman of childbearing years. Or that is conventional wisdom, which my father considered utter nonsense. As children, we were encouraged to be as active as we wished. My childhood veered between the extremes. Days spent running wild at a holiday house on the coast, gone from sunup to sundown, along with days spent never leaving my room, my mind traveling to the worlds I discovered in books. Yet there is a great difference between leaping twenty feet from a cliffside and plunging from a vessel the size of theTemerity.
The first problem is the wake. The ship is careening for the coast, and we risk being caught in her wake and sucked underneath. The second problem is my unfamiliarity with the water. My mother taught me to dive, and the cardinal rule there is to always understand the water into which you are diving. Know the depth. Know the conditions—rocks or kelp or any other hazards. That is impossible here. It is dark, and we are leaping into murky water, and we must jump from high enough to avoid the wake yet low enough that we do not dash ourselves on rocks.
Nicolas goes first. Please note that I do not agree to let him go first. He wisely doesn’t ask. He jumps while I am positioning myself to do so, and thus he takes the risk, and I will refrain from chiding him about that later, just as I will refrain from letting him know I find his chivalry unexpectedly charming.
He jumps into the water and lands easily, but the wake begins to pull him under. Every impulse in me screams to jump in and help. I know better. This, too, is a lesson from my mother. If someone is caught in an undertow, you cannot save them by jumping in after them—you’ll both drown. You need to stay on firm ground and throw something to pull them out.
I scramble onto the ledge over the railing and prepare to throw the climbing rope, but Nicolas has already freed himself. A few strong strokes, and he’s safe.
Now it is my turn. Nicolas gestures for me to jump farther than he did, which I am already calculating. He swims alongside the ship as I crouch, check my trajectory and then throw myself from the side of the ship with as much force as I can.
I hit the water. It is not a dive—that would be unsafe—but rather an awkward jump, and I plunge under the surface. The ship’s wake yanks at me, firm and insistent, but I focus on getting my head above water. Fingers touch mine. I take two long strokes in that direction, until I am certain I am free of the wake. Then I let Nicolas take my hand in a quick squeeze.