He recollected the day when his father had taken him to watch an execution for the first time. He had put him on his shoulders, so he could see beyond the crowd. Johnny had kept laughing amused, till something had changed. His child excitement for that show had turned into horror, as soon as the rope had been passed around the prisoner’s neck. He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t expected to see him hanging there dead after a few seconds. Tears had suddenly started streaking his face.
“Why are you crying?”, his father had asked him.
“That man over there…”, he had just answered, pointing at the swaying dead body.
“He was a wicked man.” Stephen Underwood had tried to calm him down. “He had to pay for his crimes.”
Johnny had nodded, but he hadn’t perfectly understood what he was talking about. His gesture had been an instinctive one, due mainly to his irrepressible urge to go away as soon as possible.
“Just remember that you are going to meet a lot of people in your life”, Stephen had gone on. “Each of them made some mistakes. Some of them have mended their ways and decided to leave their past behind them. Some others, on the contrary, wear them proudly on their face, like sorts of masks. I’m warning you, don’t trust the latter. They will go on making mistakes and justifying themselves by saying that it’s your fault. And the worst thing is, they really believe what they are saying. Just like the man who has been executed today.”
While he was revising those words, he found himself wondering about how much he missed his father.
***
Judging from the row coming from inside the Pàssaro do Mar, he guessed that the customers had opened the dances. Someone had even started playing, since the shrill notes of a violin had joined the racket.
Johnny stopped under the porch for a moment and looked through the single window, pressing his palms against the glass. A large room made up the central body of the inn, whose walls were covered with cracked boards, reminding a lot the sides of an ancient sail boat. There was a counter at the bottom and, right on its left, the sooty mouth of a chimneypiece. The kitchen door opened on one side.
Dozens of candles were placed along the tables and on the candlesticks. The most pleasant thing in that place was just that: the light. Unlike the other inns scattered around Port Royal, Bartolomeu was proud of having the brightest one.
The boy saw him bustling about among the tables, carrying dishes and jugs to and fro. He had expected to see his mother there too, but there was no sign of her. Anne was usually the one who bustled about serving the customers.
He went back in the street and lifted his eyes to the single window in the room upstairs. The blinders were shut.
Yet he remembered having left them open.
She might have come back and shut them”, he thought. A shrill voice suddenly pierced through his head. Something might have happened to her! That bad cough never lets her alone. It’s getting worse every day.
A painful burning sensation ran through his belly. It was as if a rat had got on fire and kept gnawing his stomach in spite of that.
He ran breathlessly down the lane stretching along the inn, he opened a back door and climbed the stairs.
The sounds downstairs got blurred, muffled. It was like going through a tunnel dug inside a mountain.
And at the bottom of the tunnel, the golden sparkle of the pirate’s teeth was shining.
“Mother?”, he called out, knocking at the flat door. He didn’t get any answer from the other side. “Mother, it’s me. I’m going to come in.”
The room was enveloped in absolute darkness. There was a sharp smell of sweat inside, mixed up to something like rusty iron.
He finally identified it.
Blood.
Panic-stricken, he looked for the oil lamp on a short night table next to the door. He found it at the second attempt. He inspected the surface of that piece of furniture once more. When his fingers brushed against the linchpin, he made it click. The lamp shone with a weak flame and the light trail started to stretch on the floor, till it got to the foot of the bed. He noticed something just then. A very slight movement. Someone was moving in the shadow.
He heard a rattle at that moment, followed by a coughing fit.
That was enough to turn his doubts into certainties.
Anne was lying on the bed, her untied, long dark hair spreading in a mess on the pillow. They reminded him of the carcass of a giant octopus brought to the shore by the streams. Johnny went closer to her and she raised her eyelids a bit. Her face was cerulean, beaded with sweat. The corners of her mouth were stained with red. A blood trickle was running down her cheek, falling on the pillow where it had made a lumpy stain.
“John, is it you?”, she asked, her voice just a bit louder than a whisper. Her breast was dancing at an intermittent rhythm.
“Yes, it’s me”, he answered.
“I can’t see. My eyes are blurred.”
The boy was shocked, he didn’t know exactly what he should say. He feared that anything coming out from his mouth, could sound unconvincing.
“You’ll see, it’s nothing”, he played it down, caressing her forehead. It was icy. “You’ll feel better tomorrow morning.”
“How are you?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
The woman tried to smile. She moaned a second time, so he caught her hand.
“You must rest”, he told her.
“I know”, Anne admitted.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“My throat is dry.”
Johnny went to the water basin and plunged a cup into it. He went back to his mother. He sat next to her softly, placing his hand on the back of her head to help her drink. The woman swallowed the liquid greedily.
“You’ve been working so much these days. You must sleep. Sleeping will help you.”
“I’m scared”, she rattled.
“There is nothing to be scared of.”
Am I trying to convince her…or myself?, he wondered.
“Just relax”, the boy went on, trying to hide his anxiety. “I’ll go downstairs and talk with Bartolomeu now. He must need some help in the kitchen.”
“Don’t go away.”
“I’ll be back soon.” Anne’s eyes turned bright. A tear fell down her face. “I’ve already lost your father. Don’t leave me alone.”
“All right. I’ll stay here with you.”
Johnny kept listening to the woman’s breathing, which was becoming regular again, till she fell asleep. He grasped her hand once more. Only then, he allowed himself to rest.
***
The governor’s carriage took Rogers to the harbour, following the track he had suggested to the coachman along the way. A strange paranoia had started peeping out inside him. The town was swarming with spies and the last thing he wished for was being tailed by one of Morgan’s lackeys. Of course, the postilion was going to get back and he could tell him everything… so he threw a bag full of money to him, when he got down the coach.
“You have understood, haven’t you?”, he warned him.
“As clear as a starless sky, captain”, the man answered.
“So tell me again what you are going to report”.
The postilion looked around. “If someone asks me, I must say I