DOGS. Legacy Saga II

44

Castillano came home to the house where he lived with Luis and Alma on the skirts of Santiago, after spending the day at the shipyard, supervising the New Lion's maintenance, and found his friend and his old nanny at the parlor with a small luggage chest, waiting for a coach to take them to the port.

"You're leaving?" he asked, surprised.

"We're going to La Hispaniola," Alonso replied cautiously.

"We're going to Tortuga," Alma corrected.

"Didn't you go for Christmas?"

"We've been invited to the celebration of Doña Dolores' and Morris Van Dort's vows. The pearl is picking us up at Port-de-Paix to take us to Cayona."

Castillano needed a moment to digest Alma's blunt answer, then he forced a smile. "Well, have fun then," he said, spun around and hurried up the stairs.

Alonso grimaced.

"Let him chew it over, Luis Alberto," Alma said. "Maybe we get lucky and he finds the guts to go for her."

The coach arrived and they resumed their conversation on the way to the port.

"Go for her?" Alonso repeated. "Do you think the pearl will have him?"

"No, but that's the first wall he needs to slam into. And maybe one day he'll dare to admit that now he's willing to leave it all behind for her sake."

Alonso chuckled under his breath. "Hernan already had that chance, and he refused."

"It's easy to refuse what you think is in your hold," Alma replied. "But over the year we've been living in Santiago, he's had time to learn what Marina's absence feels like."

By sunset the next day, a cargo ship on course to Monte Christi left them at Port-de-Paix, in La Hispaniola, only a stone-throw away from Tortuga across a narrow strait. Over the last decade, French settlers had built small towns on the west side of La Hispaniola, laughing in the face of the Spanish governor trying to kick them out, while the documents stating the island belonged to the Spanish Crown dusted up in the royal archives across the ocean.

The Phantom was already there, and Alonso and Alma hardly set foot on the dock before boarding the boat waiting to take them to the pirate ship. Marina welcomed them on the weather deck. Just like she'd done when they'd met for Christmas, she hugged Alma and shook Alonso's hand with a bright grin.

The girl was radiant. Her hair had grown in curled locks and already fell below her shoulders, half-collected in a bun. At first sight she was the same that had taken them to Santiago a year earlier. But Alonso sensed in her something like Laventry's irreverent, daring ways, more evident at this meeting that it'd been for Christmas. Turning seventeen, Marina had left any trace of her childhood behind for good. She was an outstanding beauty, and as far as Alonso knew, she had Spanish sailors lighting candles to every saint, praying for a chance to have a closer look at her, even if it meant losing a fortune.

Once more Cecilia welcomed Alonso like a prodigal son, and Alma like an old friend. Both of them stayed at their hosts' home, and that night they all lingered up late, talking.

The next day was a crazy rush of last-minute fixes, and on Sunday morning everybody met at the Velazquez' garden, where Fray Bernard stood with his breviary under a wicker arch covered in flowers.

Women agreed to include Morris in the island's chronicles as the best-looking and more-fidgeting groom in history as he stood by the priest. He wore a fine black suit, his fair hair neatly clubbed, beard and mustache carefully shaved by Cecilia herself, because she wasn't about to leave such an important detail in the hands of Cayona's dubious barbers. By his side, as their braid of honor, Marina wore a gorgeous dress in pearl-gray, and she fought back her giggles as she tugged at her friend's sleeves to keep him put. An unusually neat Laventry, in serious danger of looking classy and handsome, led Dolores from the fig tree toward the arch of flowers, under the crossed swords of the most-renown corsairs of the island. And Alonso.