Cutthroats of the Coast

Chapter 22 - The Seething Pot Boils Over

“Maria!” Jack shouted again for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Maria! Let us out, darlin'!  We're dying in here!”

We had left Tangier far behind us. If we had left by the right road then we were on the way to Ksar-es-Seghir. How long had we been travelling I could not say. All time had merged into one never-ending searing, stinking, suffocating agony. Our clothing was soaked and had rubbed us raw against the boards of the cart because of the continuous jolting on the rocky, dusty road.

Though the landscape could not be described as verdant, it was not arid either. The countryside around Tangier was studded with small farms where peasants laboured under the blazing sun. From my meagre view, I could perceive fields of wheat and other crops that I did not recognise. Many groves of palm trees hinted at the exotic location beyond the cart but I was struck by the presence of many tracts of dense woodland. I had thought that Morocco was a land of camels and desert. I had not considered a landscape rather like a drier version of Dorsetshire.

That sparked an unpleasant memory. Nathaniel and I had travelled in that county, whilst his father and mine had been among the entourage of a Justice of the King's Bench conducting one of the assizes. We had drunk and whored our way through Dorchester – a mean little town from my experience. Drink and fornication were all that was available to us to stave off the boredom of attending on the judge during the day, or waiting on our fathers in the evening. It was also the most efficacious way to purge the mind of the scenes of royal “justice” that we observed. We had seen many gibbets hung about with their strange fruit that year. After my experiences in Tangier, I was most uncommon alarmed about how close I was to the noose and I had no desire to try the strength of a hempen rope with my neck.

Nathaniel had been quiet for a while and I did wonder whether he remained this side of the River Jordan. There was little I could do to provoke a response from him; I could barely speak so dry was my throat. I had tried pinching him earlier but all he had uttered was a meagre groan. Since then, there had been nothing. Would I grieve over his corpse should it prove that he had succumbed? No. As we are told in Corinthians, now that I had become a man, I should put away childish things. If that meant burying an inconstant old school friend, then so be it.

“Mar...”

“Shut up in there!” Maria's face appeared on my side of the cart. Her eyes blazed with fury as she peered into our hiding place. “You want to die? Soldados ingleses bastardos follow, yes? Silêncio!”

Just as quickly as she had appeared at our side, so she stalked away to the rear of the cart, out of sight.

“What's she doing, Jack? If I have to stay in here another minute I'm going to die!” I managed to croak out through my parched mouth..

“I don't know but something's not right. I've been thinking that Mandrake seemed awful keen to get rid of us.”

I thought back to the old sodomite, sitting in that high backed chair by the fire, leaning forward eagerly, his eyes a-glitter when Jack took his knife to Nathaniel. There was also the alacrity to which he agreed to Maria's plans to consider too.

“He did not ask Maria how we were to leave and by which gate.” My gorge rose within my throat. For once on this hellish trip it was not due to the torrent of liquid shit that rained upon me.

“It was as if he knew already!”

“How could he? I was with Maria all that day when you were in Da Silva's cellar. She could not have made her arrangements.” Jack became coy at this point. Why I don't know but perhaps he mistook a scholar for a choirboy and sought to avoid offending me. He truly had not met many scholars, who are a crew given over to as much bawdy and licentious behaviour as a parcel of actors or whores. “She was ...about...er...other business.”