AND WE DID SPEAK

I turned and hurried back to the house. It was a two-storeyed building with the upper floor timbered. I returned to the dark passage but all doors there were closed and I could hear no sounds from behind them. I guessed at least some of these rooms would belong to the owner and his family while others were let to travellers such as the captain and Dr Hatch.

There was a narrow stairway from the lobby, as steep as a companionway on a ship, and I climbed these stairs to find another equally dark passage punctuated with another set of doors. These too were firmly closed and a gloomy silence reigned. Perhaps all of the house’s inhabitants were out or perhaps they were taking part in that siesta I understood people took in these hot climes.

There was little to keep me and so I descended the stairs again. Once on the street, it occurred to me that if I hurried to report back to Mr Wicker I might find him still at the house of Jenny Blade and Sophie. I immediately leapt in the sky and climbed high above the little town of the Cove and flew along the curve of the bay towards the large dwelling I had seen Sophie and her mother walking towards earlier.

It was however to be an afternoon of frustrations, for before I reached the house, I saw far below me the unmistakeable figure of Mr Wicker striding from it. I circled down and landed on the pathway before him.

‘Well, little Loblolly Boy, have you found the captain?’

‘I have, sir,’ I said.

‘Well done and where did you find him?’

I related briefly what I had discovered: I told Mr Wicker of how the sailors in the skiff had treated the captain with scant courtesy and this tale made Mr Wicker laugh. I then told him how I had followed the captain to his house of lodging and roughly where it was.

‘I have ascertained his very room,’ I added.

‘Well done, little man,’ he said. ‘You are quite the boon to me.’

‘And you, sir,’ I dared to ask, ‘are you going to be able to retrieve your trunk?’

He smiled at me. ‘Even better,’ he said. ‘For a consideration of some size, I’m bound to add, Mistress Blade will consider allowing me the use of the Perseus and a captain and crew in order to bring me to Cartagena where, as you know, I have certain business I’m anxious to conduct.’

‘Not Captain Lightower?’ I asked.

Again Mr Wicker laughed. ‘I hardly think so,’ he said. ‘Captain Lightower is, shall we say, somewhat unreliable.’

I nodded. Desperate, too, I thought. Mr Wicker’s words chimed somehow and I remembered that unreliable was the very word the sinister Spaniard had used to describe the captain.

‘Have you any other errands for me?’ I asked.

‘I think not,’ said Mr Wicker. ‘I will walk back to the town and to my room. Perhaps, though, early on the morrow there may be some business for you, but until then …’ He raised his hand in dismissive salute, ‘… Adios.’

I said farewell to him then and climbed back into the sky. I was careful, though, to soar high and up and away to make as if I were flying inland and over the jungle intent on exploring the mountain beyond. My real intention was, however, to make my back to Mistress Blade’s house as soon as possible to find Sophie.

As soon as I was sure that Mr Wicker had lost interest in me, I did just that. I turned about, although remaining high in the air, so high the entire island lay below me, again reminding me of an outline on a chart: the etched coastline, the colour bands of blue, gold, green and brown corresponding with sea, shore, forest and mountain. And then there came the thrill of plummeting down, further and faster than I had yet dared until I soared up again from just below the cliffs’ edge and back once more to land beside a small grove of wind-sculpted trees not far from the house.

There was no sign of Sophie outside but then I was not really expecting that. The house was single-storeyed but large and built to command a fine prospect of both the harbour and the sea beyond the narrow entrance channel. Had the island been a Spanish or English stronghold I expect there would have been a fort built on the site as well as one on the opposite point with cannon defending the channel.

I circumnavigated the house without catching sight of Sophie, or indeed of anybody. Finally, though, I threw caution aside and entered the main doorway. From somewhere inside I could hear music. This time it was not Irish Peter’s fiddle, but the sound of a clavier or of some other keyboard instrument. The notes were rippling and very pleasing, something watery, something birdsong.

I passed through a vestibule and into a comfortable sitting room where I found Sophie playing at a small keyboard with her mother sitting not far away listening attentively. There were two others in the room, an older man and a younger woman whom I took to be servants by the manner of their dress.

Jenny Blade looked much less like the marauding pirate I knew her to be. Gone were the red bandana, shirt and pantaloons. She was wearing now a long green gown of simple calico and she had brushed down her hair. As she sat listening to Sophie’s music she looked much more like a mother, a proud mother.

The pretty domestic scene all at once made me think of my own mother back in Portsmouth Town and I experienced a deep and painful pang. It occurred to me that until Mr Wicker relented and returned my humanity, my mother would never see me again, that I was now as dead to her as if I had been butchered on the jolly-boat. While it had been a blessing when it saved my life, invisibility was now a curse cutting me off from all, or nearly all, of my fellow creatures.

I stepped further into the room and into Sophie’s line of vision, but carefully so as not to frighten her. Despite this care, she suddenly saw me standing in the room and gave a little start and stopped playing.

‘What is it, Sophia?’ asked Jenny Blade, curious. ‘Is something the matter?’

Sophie gave me a quick smile. ‘No, Mother,’ she replied. ‘I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, a butterfly perhaps, and it distracted me.’

Mistress Blade looked about. ‘I see no butterfly,’ she said. She turned and looked enquiringly at the servants who both shook their heads.

‘A trick of the light, then,’ said Sophie. ‘But, with your leave, Mother, I will stop now. It will be a little cooler outside and I would welcome some fresh air.’

Jenny Blade smiled at her. ‘Of course you may, my dear. Anyway, I really need to talk with Abigail about the arrangements for dinner.’

‘We are having guests?’

‘Good heavens, no. After that time at sea, the last thing I desire is a house full of people. No, we dine alone.’

‘Good,’ said Sophie, gathering her music. ‘Those are my sentiments as well.’

Not long afterwards, Sophie left the room and took the path beyond the house that led to the very tip of the headland. I accompanied her.

‘You have news, Loblolly Boy, or do you merely wish to talk with me?’

‘Both,’ I said, ‘and I also have a question.’

‘Perhaps you should start with the question.’

I told her about Mr Wicker’s meeting with the one-eyed Spaniard in the Rope and Gibbet and how he had frightened me, despite his not being able to see me or knowing I was there.

‘He is called Don Scapino.’

‘I am not surprised you were frightened,’ said Sophie, her face clouding. ‘He frightens me, too.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘I know of him,’ said Sophie, ‘and I have seen him about the Cove. He visits the town regularly.’

‘What can you tell me about him?’

‘My mother would know more,’ said Sophie. ‘There are many stories. He is thought to be a spy. Some say he spies for the Spanish against the English, some say he spies for the English against the Spanish, some say he spies for the French against both. My mother suspects he spies for anybody and would betray anybody. He is known as El Serpiente.’

‘El Serpiente?’

‘The snake,’ said Sophie.

‘And Mr Wicker has dealings with this man,’ I said. ‘I learnt that Don Scapino gave the astrolabe Mr Wicker is seeking to the commandante at Cartagena and now he is plotting with Mr Wicker to get it back.’

‘Mr Wicker would be foolish to trust him.’

‘That is the strange thing,’ I said. ‘Mr Wicker doesn’t. He told him so to his face.’

Sophie shrugged. ‘I imagine Mr Wicker would know what he is doing.’

‘I think he is determined to obtain the astrolabe,’ I said. ‘He says that if the prize is big enough, risks and dangers are nothing.’

‘My mother is thinking of offering him a ship,’ said Sophie.

‘Is she in league with him?’ I asked cautiously.

Sophie laughed. ‘With Mr Wicker? Good heavens, no! I believe that she would see Mr Wicker as another serpiente. No, I think she would simply like him off the island and out of her sight and that giving him a ship and crew is an easy way to do this.’

We were silent for a while and paused as we had almost reached the end of the path and the headland. Sophie leaned back against a rock, studying me.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘I am still not sure that I can really believe you.’

I looked at her crossly. ‘I have told you the truth,’ I said indignantly.

She laughed. ‘No, I don’t mean that. I don’t mean what you’ve said. I mean you, I’m not sure I can believe you exist.’

‘I’m not sure I do exist,’ I said.

‘Don’t be silly, of course you exist.’

‘I exist to you, perhaps, and Mr Wicker. But I don’t exist to your mother or anybody else in this place.’

‘You do exist, though,’ said Sophie. ‘Look at you, all green and beautiful and those wondrous wings.’

I glanced over my shoulder.

‘May I touch them?’ asked Sophie shyly.

‘If you so desire …’

She reached towards me and tentatively stroked my feathers. Her touch was so light I hardly felt it.

‘Wondrous …’ she repeated.

I looked at her and her eyes were shining. She was now looking beyond me to the cliff’s edge, imagining. ‘How wonderful it would be to run and run and leap from the cliff and into the sky rather than plummet like an ungainly rock. So wonderful, so wonderful …’ she whispered.

‘Don’t, Sophie!’ I said sharply.

‘Would it not be?’ she demanded, sharp herself now.

‘It is,’ I said, ‘but it is not wonderful to pay the price for this wonder: of not feeling the sun’s warmth, or the breeze’s cool, of not having thirst to slake or appetite to satisfy. Your mother is arranging your dinner, but I will never eat again. Can you imagine never more sinking your teeth into a russet apple, an orange or even a spoonful of pease pudding?’

‘It would be a dream,’ insisted Sophie.

‘A dream and a nightmare,’ I said.

She screwed her nose and I knew I had not convinced her.

Needing to change the subject, I suddenly remembered. ‘Sophie,’ I said, ‘Captain Lightower …’

‘He is grown desperate. He has had no success in obtaining passage to Kingston and can see no hope of doing so.’

I told her of the conversation I had overheard and how he saw the only way out was to persuade Sophie’s mother.

‘He will not do so,’ said Sophie.

‘Yes but he intends to threaten you as a means of persuading her.’

‘Then he is a fool,’ said Sophie. ‘I could think of no course of action less likely to persuade my mother.’

She seemed quite unwilling to contemplate the danger. For some time we watched as a barquentine negotiated the narrow channel below us and made for the open sea.

I tried again. ‘You must tell your mother.’

She smiled at me. ‘Tell her what? That there is a plot against me being hatched by Captain Lightower and the foolish doctor and I know all about it because it was relayed to me by an invisible flying loblolly boy who just happened to overhear it, the same who was lost off the jolly-boat?’

‘You could tell her you heard it from a butterfly.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I thought,’ I said quietly, ‘that you believed I existed.’

Sophie looked at me, understanding now her words’ import. Her face fell. ‘I’m sorry, Loblolly Boy. I did not mean it like that. But consider what my mother would say?’

She reached for my wing again and touched it briefly before reaching in turn for my hand, which she grasped softly.

‘I will take care,’ she said. ‘I thank you for the warning.’

I suppose it was as much as I could hope for. I realised that she felt secure at the Cove and discounted any threat from the captain, but she had only seen Mr Lightower as a bedraggled guest on her mother’s ship, she had not seen the steely cruelty of the man who had dismissed me so arrogantly on the quarterdeck of the Firefly. Had she done so, she would not have been so careless about the danger he presented.

Shortly thereafter, we parted; Sophie to wander back to her house, and I to fly back to the town.

The light was sharper now and shadows longer. It would not be long before the sun set into the ocean beyond the harbour. There were fewer people seeking refuge from the heat and more walking about perhaps in search of an inn or a vendor to provide their supper. I had almost begun to think I had only imagined I had seen the inventor, when I caught sight of him again, his short, stocky figure unmistakeable among the passers-by below.

I was determined this time that he should not become aware of my presence. I dropped lightly into a tree and sat there hidden by the foliage high above the street to follow his progress.

He peered into a number of doorways as if looking for somebody or something. I worked out that he was probably after food and that he seemed to be looking for a particular place, for he made a point of studying the inns’ hanging signs.

When he reached the sign that had a clumsy painting of a scaffold with an unnaturally fat noose hanging from it, he nodded to himself and pushed his way inside.

It was the Rope and Gibbet, the same tavern where Mr Wicker had met the Spaniard I had discovered was known as El Serpiente.

When after some minutes Mr Flynn had not re-emerged I dropped to the street and hurried to the entrance. I peered into the gloom and, after my eyes had adjusted to the light, I found him. He had chosen the very same long table we had sat at earlier when Mr Wicker was negotiating with Don Scapino. In fact, I half-expected to see the bony Spaniard still hunched in his corner, but thankfully he was nowhere to be seen.

I made my way carefully to the rear of the room and my quarry, keeping myself hidden behind other customers as much as possible. As before, there were no other patrons sitting at Mr Flynn’s bench so I was able to slip down beside him before he was even aware of my presence.

‘Hello,’ I said.

He turned around, startled to see me.

‘Loblolly Boy!’ he said. ‘You gave me such a turn.’

‘You did not know I was at the Cove?’

He peered at me through his round spectacles. ‘Did I? I hardly think I would. Would I?’

‘I thought you did see me earlier this morning, when you stepped out of your lodging.’

‘Did I? I hardly know what I saw then, my mind is full of so many things.’ He stared at me urgently, ‘Buzzing things!’

‘I thought you saw me because you stepped back inside as if you didn’t want me to see you,’ I persisted.

‘Did I? I really don’t think so. I must have mistaken you for somebody else.’

This seemed to me so ridiculous I nearly burst out laughing. Who or what could he have mistaken me for? Some tall familiar chicken with bright green wings?

‘Mr Flynn,’ I asked him. ‘Why are you at the Cove?’

I also wanted to ask him how he managed to get to the Cove, given that the last time I’d seen him he was on the spectre barque, the Astrolabe, being tossed about in an impossible sea.

He gave me an apprehensive look. ‘It is very difficult my being here, Loblolly Boy,’ he said. ‘You see, there is somebody here I very much need to see, and equally there is somebody here I very much do not wish to see.’

‘Mr Wicker?’

‘You have named the man,’ whispered Mr Flynn. ‘I hope to avoid him. I very much hope to avoid him.’

It suddenly occurred to me, given that we were in the Rope and Gibbet and sitting at this bench in a dark corner of the tavern, just who the man Mr Flynn very much wanted to see was.

‘And the man you want to see …’ I began.

‘Don Scapino,’ cried Mr Flynn, rising to his feet, and staring past me. ‘It is very good to see you, very good indeed, and my compliments, sir. Won’t you sit down?’

I glanced up. Standing directly beside me was the shadowy figure of Don Scapino, his head cocked in that bird-like way peculiar to one-eyed people, although in Don Scapino’s case the bird was probably a vulture or carrion crow.

‘My very good Señor Flynn!’

He reached and took Mr Flynn’s hand and then slithered to the other side of the bench and sat himself down.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘as I approached you, you looked for all the world to be engaged in deep conversation, but now that I am with you, I see that you are truly all alone.’

Mr Flynn flushed and looked a little embarrassed. ‘I do sometimes talk to myself,’ he said. ‘It is a bad habit.’

‘Do not be ashamed,’ said the Spaniard easily. ‘You are always in good company when you talk to yourself, are you not?’

‘I suppose I am,’ said Mr Flynn.

‘And less likely to be lied to, or deceived?’ suggested Don Scapino.

‘I hope so,’ said Mr Flynn, ‘although not necessarily. We are capable of deceiving ourselves.’

‘Sadly true, señor,’ said Don Scapino, ‘sadly true.’

Mr Flynn stared hopelessly at the Spaniard who regarded him, I thought, with mild amusement.

‘Don Scapino …’

‘Señor Flynn?’

‘It is about the astrolabe.’

‘The astrolabe, Señor Flynn?’

‘You know … the one … the one …’

‘You sold me in Portobelo?’

‘Yes, that one.’

‘I would like, if possible, to buy it back.’

Don Scapino stared at Mr Flynn speculatively. Then he said, ‘I am glad you used the word possible Mr Flynn for it makes it easier for me to tell you that what you ask is impossible.’

‘I feared as much,’ said Mr Flynn miserably. ‘There is no way, then?’

‘You are quite correct, Señor Flynn. There is absolutely no way.’

There was a silence thereafter. Finally, Mr Flynn looked up and said, ‘I have heard that the astrolabe is in Cartagena?’

Don Scapino looked at him with mild surprise. ‘I do not know how you discovered this, señor, but yes it is.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘I do know where,’ said Don Scapino. ‘It is in the possession of el commandante himself and I know this because I presented it to him with these hands.’

As if to prove the point, Don Scapino proffered his hands, fingers outstretched like centipedes.

‘Then it is safe?’

‘Señor, have you seen the fortifications at Cartagena?’

Mr Flynn shook his head.

‘At least you know that Admiral Vernon and the entire English fleet could not as much as dent them! Of course your astrolabe, forgive me, el commandante’s astrolabe, is utterly secure.’

Mr Flynn should have looked relieved, but didn’t. ‘It is just that we — I mean I — do not want it to fall into the wrong hands.’

‘Please be assured, Señor Flynn, there is absolutely no chance of that whatsoever.’

Mr Flynn nodded, but remained miserable.

Seeing his misery, Don Scapino smiled wolfishly and added, ‘Of course, Señor Flynn, should you wish to go to Cartagena to negotiate with el commandante yourself, I understand a vessel may be travelling that way in the next few days …’

I stared at the Spaniard, admiring his gall.

Mr Flynn appeared to be considering the proposal.

‘Thank you, Don Scapino,’ he said. ‘I will think on this and may pursue the matter further.’

‘Then, señor,’ said Don Scapino, ‘I believe there is little more to discuss, so as your ever faithful servant, I will take my leave.’

He rose to his feet and leaned over Mr Flynn, extending his hand once more. ‘Good day to you, señor.’

‘Good day to you, sir,’ said Daniel Flynn. ‘Your servant …’

But Don Scapino had not waited upon these pleasantries. He was already striding through the more crowded section of the tavern towards the door.

‘I wonder,’ murmured Mr Flynn.

‘You wonder?’ I said.

‘I wonder whether I should take up his offer of a passage to Cartagena?’

‘He wasn’t offering you a passage to Cartagena, sir,’ I said dryly. ‘He was only informing you that a ship might be leaving for the port in a few days.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said Mr Flynn, ‘but nevertheless …’

‘And you do know who’s chartering that vessel, don’t you?’ I asked.

‘Do I? Do I? I don’t think I do,’ said Daniel Flynn.

‘Why, Mr Wicker,’ I said, ‘the very man you did not want to meet.’

‘He has? He is?’ said Mr Flynn. ‘Oh, dear.’

‘And I must with him,’ I added.

He stared at me. ‘You must?’

It would not have been difficult to become exasperated with Mr Flynn, as clever as I understood him to be.

‘You do remember?’ I asked him. ‘That I was bound to Mr Wicker and that Captain Bass wishes me somehow to steal the astrolabe after Mr Wicker retrieves it …’

I had to admit that the way Don Scapino had described the stronghold, I no longer shared Mr Wicker’s confidence that retrieving the astrolabe would be easy, or even possible.

‘That is right, that is quite right,’ said Mr Flynn, apparently remembering.

‘And your wands have removed the bonds tying me to Mr Wicker?’

‘Have they?’

I looked at him in alarm. So much depended on Mr Flynn’s lightning blades.

He looked at me again, still doleful.

‘Captain Bass must not know of this,’ he whispered, looking about him nervously.

‘Know of what?’

‘My meeting with Don Scapino.’

‘He would be most unhappy. He believes I lost the astrolabe in Portobelo. I had almost persuaded myself.’

‘But you didn’t lose it.’

‘I did not, Loblolly Boy. I sold it to that dastardly man and I can never forgive myself.’

‘I hinted at its powers and he told me how it could be used to stop this mad fighting. Admiral Vernon had attacked Portobelo, you know, and it was a famous victory but it had encouraged him and the English to carry on, attacking, fighting …’

‘But Captain Bass said only special people could use the astrolabe.’ I tried to remember what he had said … That was it, those who lived in the netherworld. Whatever that was.

‘I know,’ said Mr Flynn unhappily, ‘but Don Scapino was so eloquent, so persuasive that I was carried away and I all but pressed it on him. I was a fool!’

I looked at his miserable face, his sad eyes magnified by his round glasses, and I could not disagree.