“That was very long ago, love, when much was different, but I’ve not changed and my island remains.”
“Foolish and arrogant was I to be sailing among those islands alone,” he said.
“But then you would not have found me.”
Amberhill chuckled. “No, then I would not have crashed upon your shore. I remember Tolmarth was always fond of saying to me . . .” Who was Tolmarth? Had he known a Tolmarth? And if so, what had he been fond of saying?
Amberhill blinked in confusion. He’d been recovering well from the injuries suffered when the gig broke up during the storm, but he still tended to have these lapses. Sometimes he forgot himself and recalled memories he could not have possibly experienced. His head must have got a worse rattling than any of them thought.
Yolandhe did not push or request him to complete his sentence. What had he been speaking of, anyway? It did not matter, as Yolandhe now pressed herself against him and kissed him. Memories did not matter, only the present.
Yap paused at the cave entrance only to hear the familiar sounds of Yolandhe and his master rutting. His master had recovered—that much was abundantly clear as a lusty cry issued from the cave’s mouth. When rare opportunities came for Yap to address their situation with him, he put him off, promising to think on it and then returning to Yolandhe’s arms. There were times, Yap suspected, that his master forgot he existed.
So Yap continued to catch fish, collect clams and mussels, and steal seabird eggs from rocky nests. He built himself a rickety lean-to along the tree line using driftwood, timbers, sails, and rope from the wreck of their gig. He soon investigated farther afield, the bottoms of his bare feet as tough as they had ever been during his pirate days. He even explored into the interior of the island, overcoming his fear of ferocious beasts, but only startled birds from brush to branch. If there were any other animals, he was sure his clumsy stumbling about scared them off. But maybe, he thought, there weren’t any because it was a long swim from the mainland.
It took Yap one day to cross the island, and even when he paused somewhere in its middle he could hear the incessant heave of waves, smell the brine. Rather than grating on his nerves, it was reassuring as his feet sank into deep moss and trod across the knuckled roots of evergreens.
He found a stream trickling down from a rise, and after scooping some handfuls of water to his mouth, he decided to climb up the rise to see what he could see. There were a few such small mounts on the island. He vaguely remembered seeing bumps on the island from sea, aboard the Mermaid.
For years, Captain Bonnet had followed a trail of rumors of sea king treasure. Mounds of gold and jewels, it was said, and the captain’s persistence paid off. They’d found an unbelievable cache of treasure entombed on the island, much to their woe. It had been hidden beneath one of the mounts. This one? He could not remember, it had been so long ago. But he was no longer seeking tombs. He must not.
Ferns and brush snagged his legs as he approached the base of the mount. He started to circle it, looking for a way to climb to the top. He stumbled out of a prickly patch of brambles onto soft moss, hissing at the bloody scratches on his legs and ankles. It took him a moment to realize he’d come to a path. A lightly traversed path, but a path all the same. It was overgrown and narrow, but it led up the hill, which was his goal.
The path wound up, at first gently, then over a boulder field, where his bare feet grasped at granite. Yolandhe had probably made it. If not her, who? He hadn’t encountered anyone else on the island. At one point he had to scrabble up a ledge, and when he succeeded, he sat on it panting and rubbing sweat out of his eyes. He had risen enough that he could see the ocean through the tops of trees that sloped away below him.
When he caught his breath, he pushed himself up to resume his climb. To his surprise and trepidation, the path led through a cleft of rock and into a large cavern. A shaft of sunlight poured in from behind him, and he groaned when he realized what he had found: the tomb of the sea king.
His first impulse was to run away. He and his crewmates had been severely punished for disturbing this tomb once before, and he was not anxious to raise Yolandhe’s ire again. Yet, he could not help but stare. The light that streamed past him sketched out the mid-section of the intact ship, but the stern and bow fell into darkness. He remembered the bow particularly, with its dragon’s head and red painted eyes. Chests and barrels and pots gleamed with treasure. Across the chamber, other fainter shafts of sunlight poked through the earth, revealing yet more offerings to the dead king. One of the holes must have been the one Eardog fell through, the one they had used to haul out all the treasure.
Stairs of carved stone plunged into the cavern gloom below. Their natural appearance must have camouflaged them from pirate eyes the last time.
Before he even realized it, he was descending down, down, down the stairs, drawn instinctively to treasure. Either his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, or ghost light now limned the shapes of chests and barrels and precious cargo. And of course, the ship of the dead one.
When he reached the bottom step, he marveled, as he had the first time, that a ship had been either magically brought into the cavern, or brought in piece by piece by hand to be reassembled. To his mind, either method was an impressive feat.
He was pulled to a nearby chest overflowing with coins and jewels and strings of pearls. A giddy feeling burbled in his throat as he sorted through the booty. He was overcome by a sense of madness he hadn’t felt in many a year, and he laughed. He laughed until a gold dagger with a ruby on its pommel came into his hand. One he recognized. One he had drawn out of his mouth on Yolandhe’s beach. He shuddered and allowed the dagger to clatter upon the other treasure. He wiped cold sweat from his brow and blew out a rattled breath. “No, no, this stuff’s not for old Yap,” he told himself.