Pirate Latitudes. Michael Crichton

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       CHAPTER 3

      DRESSED IN LIGHTER clothing, Governor Almont breakfasted alone in the dining hall of the mansion. As was his custom, he ate a light meal of poached fish and a little wine, followed by another of the minor pleasures of his posting, a cup of rich, dark coffee. During his tenure as governor, he had become increasingly fond of coffee, and he delighted in the fact that he had virtually unlimited quantities of this delicacy, so scarce at home.

      While he was finishing his coffee, his aide, John Cruikshank, entered. John was a Puritan, forced to leave Cambridge in some haste when Charles II was restored to the throne. He was a sallow-faced, serious, tedious man, but dutiful enough.

      “The convict women are here, Your Excellency.”

      Almont grimaced at the thought. He wiped his lips. “Send them along. Are they clean, John?”

      “Reasonably clean, sir.”

      “Then send them along.”

      The women entered the dining room noisily. They chattered and stared and pointed to this article and that. An unruly lot, dressed in identical gray fustian, and barefooted. His aide lined them along one wall and Almont pushed away from the table.

      The women fell silent as he walked past them. In fact, the only sound in the room was the scraping of the governor’s painful left foot over the floor, as he walked down the line, looking at each.

      They were as ugly, tangled, and scurrilous a collection as he’d ever seen. He paused before one woman, who was taller than he, a nasty creature with a pocked face and missing teeth. “What’s your name?”

      “Charlotte Bixby, my lord.” She attempted a clumsy sort of curtsey.

      “And your crime?”

      “Faith, my lord, I did no crime, it was all a falsehood that they put to me and—”

      “Murder of her husband, John Bixby,” his aide intoned, reading from a list.

      The woman fell silent. Almont moved on. Each new face was uglier than the last. He stopped at a woman with tangled black hair and a yellow scar running down the side of her neck. Her expression was sullen.

      “Your name?”

      “Laura Peale.”

      “What is your crime?”

      “They said I stole a gentleman’s purse.”

      “Suffocation of her children ages four and seven,” John intoned in a monotonous voice, never raising his eyes from the list.

      Almont scowled at the woman. These females would be quite at home in Port Royal; they were as tough and hard as the hardest privateer. But wives? They would not be wives. He continued down the line of faces, and then stopped before one unusually young.

      The girl could hardly have been more than fourteen or fifteen, with fair hair and a naturally pale complexion. Her eyes were blue and clear, with a certain odd, innocent amiability. She seemed entirely out of place in this churlish group. His voice was soft as he spoke to her. “And your name, child?”

      “Anne Sharpe, my lord.” Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper. Her eyes fell demurely.

      “What is your crime?”

      “Theft, my lord.”

      Almont glanced at John; the aide nodded. “Theft of a gentleman’s lodging, Gardiner’s Lane, London.”

      “I see,” Almont said, turning back to the girl. But he could not bring himself to be severe with her. She remained with eyes downcast. “I have need of a womanservant in my household, Mistress Sharpe. I shall employ you here.”

      “Your Excellency,” John interrupted, leaning toward Almont. “A word, if you please.”

      They stepped a short distance back from the women. The aide appeared agitated. He pointed to the list. “Your Excellency,” he whispered, “it says here that she was accused of witchcraft at her trial.”

      Almont chuckled good-naturedly. “No doubt, no doubt.” Pretty young women were often accused of witchcraft.

      “Your Excellency,” John said, full of tremulous Puritan spirit, “it says here that she bears the stigmata of the devil.”

      Almont looked at the demure, blond young woman. He was not inclined to believe she was a witch. Sir James knew a thing or two about witchcraft. Witches had eyes of strange color. Witches were surrounded by cold draughts. Their flesh was cold as that of a reptile, and they had an extra tit.

      This woman, he was certain, was no witch. “See that she is dressed and bathed,” he said.

      “Your Excellency, may I remind you, the stigmata—”

      “I shall search for the stigmata myself later.”

      John bowed. “As you wish, Your Excellency.”

      For the first time, Anne Sharpe looked up from the floor to face Governor Almont, and she smiled the slightest of smiles.