The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [70]
“What do ye want?” David asked.
“Are you the captain of this ship?”
David stared.
“Are you the captain of this ship?” the governor repeated.
The other two men began to walk toward David, and he held out his arms so they were unable to pass.
“We have serious business with your captain.”
“Let me fetch him for you,” David offered, but the men pushed past him and walked toward the ship.
Emer was dragged out of her cabin, up the ladder, and out to the deck. She’d managed to dress herself in a long-sleeved nightdress, and David was relieved.
As the two men pushed her down the plank, the governor leaned down toward Emer’s ear. “What’s your name, woman?” he whispered. Emer told him, feeling defeated. All that killing, and still nameless! Surely a man guilty of the same horrors would have his name in history books already!
The governor spoke loudly so that the entire crew could hear him. “Emer Morrisey, you are under arrest on this tenth day of March, 1663, for piracy and murder! You shall be tried, and then you will hang from our gallows where many other scoundrels have suffered the same fate. To these accusations how do you plead?”
Emer wrestled with the two men. One tied her hands behind her back with thick hemp rope while the other tried to keep her from jumping off the gangplank.
“Woman! How do you plead?”
The two men pushed her to the base of the plank and onto the dock. The governor asked again, “How do you plead?”
When she didn’t answer, the man with the black bushy hair leaned toward her. He whispered something in her ear and she spat at him. He turned to the governor and said something, softly, and they started back toward the town, Emer stumbling behind, tugged by her bound hands. David followed, all the while looking at Emer’s face and trying to gain some sort of idea, any idea, of what to do. She looked genuinely terrified, and said only one thing he could understand before the three men put her onto the back of a cart and took off.
She said, “French bastard!”
The small prison smelled like death—a mix of shit and sweat, gangrene, vomit and fear. Emer was locked in a cell by herself, the only light a reflection from above where one small window, too skinny for escape, graced the stone wall. She could hear nothing but the muffled sounds of the village outside and the few other prisoners moaning.
When David came to see the governor to plead for her freedom, at the risk of his own, he was sent away before he had a chance to speak.
“Do I look like a stupid man to you?” the governor asked. “I know who that is down there.”
“But—”
David was ushered out by the Frenchman, who smiled at him the whole way and spoke only when he reached the door. “She’s mine,” he said. “Forget about her.”
Two days passed before anyone came to see Emer. She’d been given no food or water, and had lapsed into a determined trance. She sat cross-legged with her arms folded in her lap, refusing to lie down in the filth. She prayed a little, but knew that no matter how hard she prayed, the Frenchman would return and she would have to endure him. When she heard footsteps outside her cell door, she tensed and readied her body for what was about to happen.
But he only reached in and grabbed her by the hair, pulling until she finally regained enough balance in her numb legs to walk behind him. Before they came to the prison exit, the Frenchman pulled two wrist cuffs from his pocket, twirled them on his fingers, and fastened them tightly around her. He straightened her hair with his greasy hand and caressed her left cheek.
“We meet again, my little Irish girl. This time you will not run away, I assure you.”
He walked her upstairs to the governor’s small office and stood her in front of him. She shivered in her own sweat, looking pathetic and felt a louse crawl in her hairline.
The governor was a slender man, too skinny (Connacht skinny in Emer’s eyes), with a pointed face and large ears. He wore an excessive amount of jewelry for a man, and a ruffled blouse with an enormous collar.