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Holmes

Sunday, April 22, 1821 Bay of Naples

O n Sunday evening, aboard the Aquila , Holmes wrote a short letter to Mari informing her of their shift in itinerary and his expedited arrival into Positano. Quinto had just come by, advising all men to have their mail ready by seven o’clock the next morning, for a dispatch boat would be taking any letters, and a few of the captain’s documents, into the city.

Later that night, something woke him: the hiss of ropes, the groan of straining wood. He thought he heard the cry of the pulleys, too, as though a tender had arrived with newcomers.

He lay awake for the better part of an hour, trying to fall back asleep. One of the men near him snored and panted in fits. With a sigh of frustration, Holmes gave up on sleep, lit a candle in his berth, and reached for his diary.

He considered writing down a few thoughts, but his pen was nowhere to be found—it must have slipped between the wall and his thin mattress—so instead, he occupied himself with reading old entries. He turned to an entry from December of last year, during a stopover in Positano, when he’d known Mari for nearly seven months.

It has been weeks since I last saw her , he’d written. I waited for her in the grove, eating a few fat olives I’d plucked from a laden branch.

She knew to look for me there; I’d sent a letter telling her when I’d be back. Finally, I spotted her approaching, a mischievous grin on her face. She carried a basket and a thick blanket in her arms.

As she came close, I opened my mouth to speak, but then she pressed her lips to mine in a way she has never done before. Her breathing was quick, her nails sharp against the back of my neck. She took my hands, put them low on her waist, and whispered a few things I have never in all my life heard a woman say.

We tumbled our way to the ground, our lips interlocked, our hips pressed close.

After two hours, finally we managed to say hello. We shared the figs she’d brought from the house, talking all the while. She told me her father had taken Cleila and Paola to Sorrento but, having received my letter, she feigned an illness in order to stay home.

A short while later, she began to giggle. My hands had left a smudge of tar on the softest, highest part of her inner thigh. I offered her a kerchief at once, but she refused. “I hope it never washes off,” she whispered, before placing my hand there again.

We made love a second time. “Already,” she said afterward, “you are learning me.”

Later, Mari spotted the olive pits I’d spit onto the ground. She collected them one by one, dropping them into her bag. She told me she wanted to keep them, to remind her of this night.

Holmes read through a few more entries as his shipmate’s snoring droned on. Eventually he could stand it no longer, so he heaved himself out of his berth, tucked a cigarette behind his ear, and climbed the ladder to the deck.

As he went, he passed the second mate’s cabin. The padlock hung from the door, unlocked. Was someone inside the room now? Though curious, he didn’t dare approach—he shuddered to think what would happen if he were caught peeking inside.

He continued on his way. It was very dark on the main deck, early as it was. Holmes made straight for the stern, thinking he might tuck himself under the shrouds and have a smoke. Ahead, port side, lay the city of Naples, wrapped in fog.

Midship, Holmes heard whispered voices near one of the hatches leading to the officers’ cabins. Quinto’s unmistakably raspy growl was one of them. Ducking behind a capstan, Holmes then heard another voice: the captain’s.

Holmes paused, not wanting to be caught. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, but he was not in the mood to engage with anyone at this hour, least of all the officers.

Massimo , Quinto was saying over and over. Massimo Mazza , Massimo Mazza. It almost sounded as though he were crying.

And then, Il mio amico è morto .

My friend is dead.

He went on to explain that Matteo Mazza had informed him of it not an hour ago.

“Matteo?” the captain exclaimed.

“Indeed. He boarded a short while ago. He is in the second mate’s cabin, sifting through some of the maps. He does not want to be bothered.”

Holmes had heard the arrival of a tender, then. It had been Matteo with the news of his younger brother’s death. That explained why the cabin’s padlock was undone, too.

“What happened?” the captain asked. “Who killed him?”

“A woman,” Quinto spat. “Nearly a week ago. Matteo was some distance away, but he watched her do it, watched as she drowned him.”

“Massimo could not fight her off?”

“She used the water against him. As if the sea were at her command. And Matteo said her hair was…impossibly red.”

Holmes held his breath. Impossibly red . Mari fit this description.

“Red hair?” the captain repeated. “Why, that’s—”

“Yes,” Quinto interrupted. “Precisely. She was with a young girl, also. Matteo managed to seize the child.”

The two men shuffled their feet, and Holmes prayed they would not come any closer. Stalking the empty deck for a smoke was not a crime, but eavesdropping on officers certainly was.

“Matteo thinks they were mistaken long ago,” Quinto went on. “The village may be full of these redheaded puttane .”

“My God,” the captain said. “Think of it…”

“Indeed.” Holmes heard a thlunk, as though one of the men had just kicked something. “We are under directive to seize them all,” Quinto said. “Every last one.”

At this, Holmes stumbled forward a step, suddenly off balance.

“Where are we to take these captives?” the captain asked.

“Ischia,” Quinto said quickly. “Castello Aragonese. The child—six or seven years old, they think—is already there. According to Matteo, another woman, and two sisters, were delivered to the island only yesterday, via the Lupo .”

“Is one of them the woman who killed Massimo?”

“No,” Quinto said. “They nearly had her on. At the last moment, she threw herself from the tender into the water.”

“Do they believe her dead? Escaped?”

Holmes held his breath, waiting for Quinto’s answer. If this woman was indeed Mari, he was encouraged by the fact that she had jumped into the water. Mari had always been an exceptional swimmer.

“Not dead,” Quinto said. “They think she stayed under and swam back to shore. We are to make our way to Positano even quicker now, if we can. Before they all flee.”

“Damn the winds,” the captain hissed. “Had they not shifted last night, we could be there in a day.”

The winds, yes. Gusts had been strong from the north for the last week, but yesterday evening they had altered, now coming from the west. And the winds were strong.

A storm was on its way, they all suspected.

“And once we arrive in Positano? What then?” the captain asked.

“We seize any woman with red hair. Though we are looking, especially, for the woman who killed Massimo. Matteo heard the other women calling to her the night they almost got her onto the Lupo . It seems her name is Mari.”

Holmes squeezed his eyes shut tight, his suspicions confirmed. Mari had killed a man. And not just any man—one of the most powerful men in the region. She must have been in grave danger if she had resorted to violence. She must have been terrified.

How brave you are, my Mari , he thought.

And what of the letter he’d just written to her? He might as well toss it into the sea. It would not be going to Mari, not in light of all he’d heard. He needed to hurry back down to his berth and pen her a new letter telling her all he knew: Matteo was on this brig, and they were coming straight for her.

She needed to flee.

Quinto and the captain spoke for a few more minutes. The captain asked whether any more thefts had been reported among the men.

“No,” Quinto assured him. “Not to my knowledge.”

Finally, they parted ways. Once all was silent and clear, Holmes made his way back belowdecks.

Fingers trembling, he tore his letter to Mari into tiny pieces and began to write her anew. He could hardly hold his pen steady; his sloppy, shaky handwriting betrayed the turmoil inside of him. Mari would spot it at once; before even reading a word, she would know something was wrong.

He dropped his new letter into the mailbag a short while later, in plenty of time for the dispatch boat to take into town at seven o’clock.

But still, something inside chewed at him. He was not willing to gamble Mari’s life on a race against the postman. He needed to guarantee—not merely hope—that his letter got to her before the Aquila arrived in Positano.

He had a very good idea in mind—but it was a dangerous one. If he were caught, Quinto and Matteo would think nothing of flogging him or tying him to the mast.

Despite this, his mind was made up.

It was what must be done.