Free Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key by Kage Baker Page A

white fountain leap up in the
Harmony
’s wake.
    “Damn,” said John. “She’s getting our range.”
    “I expect we’re doomed, then,” said Mr. Tudeley in a dull voice. He still had his eyes screwed tight shut.
    “Maybe not,” said John, “Maybe not. All them guns ain’t half heavy. We’re lighter and God knows we can run.”
    Mr. Tudeley made no reply, but groped for his jug and drank more rum.
    The
Fraternity
ran, and the
Harmony
ran, and the Dutchman pursued them hard, though she seemed unable to close within range for her shots to count for anything. She left off shooting after awhile and just came on, grim and silent as a mastiff. She never tried to hail them; she never ran up any other colors.
    “What do you suppose they want?” asked Mr. Tudeley, finishing his rum.
    “Could be hunting pirates,” said John. “Just to kill us. Could be scavenging for what they can get. No way to tell ’em we haven’t got anything worth taking just now, though, if that’s the case.” He glanced over his shoulder and saw, with a shock, that the discoloration on the sky was now overarching, as though they had sped backward across the curve of the world. The sea was greened copper. The air was hot as a furnace.
    John looked down and saw Mrs. Waverly standing in the companionway, watching Captain Reynald as he paced to and fro. Sejanus was at the rail with three or four others staring back at the Dutchman. John blinked and stared, and rubbed his eyes and stared again. There was another black, or at least a mulatto, standing beside Sejanus. He wore the clothes of a common sailor, and was watching not the Dutchman but Sejanus himself, who seemed to be taking no notice of him.
    Captain Reynald went to the companionway and crouched down, saying something to Mrs. Waverly. She smiled bravely and said something back. He looked over his shoulder and then kissed her. John felt a knot in his heart, but he turned away.
Nothing to me,
he told himself.
    The sea was rising. They could look out on the long swell, mountains of water rolling skyward. The
Fraternity
disappeared and reappeared, behind one mountain and the next. The Dutchman kept on after them like a charging bull, but even she seemed to labor now in the troughs of the waves. White water broke, and ran over the deck; John looked down again and saw Sejanus standing alone at the rail.
    Mr. Tudeley said something, lifting a feeble arm to point to larboard, and John realized he had gone quite deaf for the shrieking of the wind. He looked where Mr. Tudeley was pointing and saw a dark coastline. He filled his lungs and bawled “Land ho! Land to starboard! Lee shore!”
    He could hear his own voice at least, and it carried to the deck below. Captain Reynald’s head went up; he glanced to larboard and began screaming orders out, just as the first hot rain hit John in the face like a pailful of shot. He gasped and wiped his face, but the rain kept coming, in sheets, and all was gleaming-wet on board the
Harmony
now. Fearful he’d slip, John got down beside Mr. Tudeley and grabbed hold of the shrouds.
    “Oughtn’t we to put into land?” cried Mr. Tudeley.
    “No!” John yelled back. “We’d run aground and wreck!”
    “Well, at least we’d be on dry land—”
    “In little pieces!” John looked around for the
Fraternity
, but couldn’t make her out anywhere. Color had been drained away: the sea was white, the sky and driving water were white, beaten foam flying and spattering. He glanced behind then, shielding his face with one hand, and thought he saw the Dutchman ploughing nose-down into a wave. Then he was blinded, as the world erupted in a blast of purple-white light, and deafened as thunder clapped down on them like a physical blow.
    When he raised his face, black rain-glistening figures were swarming all around, topmen leaving the rigging, seeming to flow like snakes down the sheets and shrouds. Dazedly he pulled at Mr. Tudeley’s shoulder.
    “We got to get