I was wrong. It hurt just as much.
No matter. Tommy was out there and needed our help. I followed Jack, slowly, up the steps and across the deck. Before we were even on shore, I could hear him.
“Prince of the Rats! Where ye be, I say?”
I let Jack help me down the rope ladder as I tried to watch over my shoulder. The deckhands of The Black Otter lined the beach, while Tommy stumbled about with his sword drawn at the mouth of the Malagasy jungle. Funny looking little animals, gray with long black and white tails, stared at him with bemused, catlike expressions.
“Jack, do you think Tommy’s been drunk this entire trip?”
My husband helped me to the shore and shrugged. “I don’t know. He found his way here and faster than us. But he’s certainly drunk now.”
Tommy’s voice grew to a hysterical shriek. “Prince of the Rats! I, your half-brother Tommy Tew, challenge you to a duel! To the death, it be!”
The cat-like creatures scattered as a man stepped out of the jungle understory. I gasped.
Decked in shimmering gold and threads I’d never seen colors of before, he wore an air of regality over everything else. A throng of shirtless women followed behind him, their eyes downcast. “You come to my kingdom and threaten me with death? This is not how brothers behave.”
“Prince of the Rats,” Tommy seethed, then stopped. “We have the same nose, for God’s sake, we do!”
“Why have you come, Brother?”
Tommy’s face turned from white to red to purple. “Brother! You cannot call yourself my brother!”
The women knelt so quickly that Tommy jumped. When they rose, each held a spear. Still, their eyes were downcast, but their message was clear.
“Why,” Tommy began. “Why did Father love you and not me? Why did he give you all this, and me? I just got his name and nothing more, I did.”
Prince Ratsimilaho started to speak, but someone stepped up behind him. The women dropped their spears.
“What’s all this talk of blood and death and noses?”
Tommy’s face transformed from furious to shocked. “Father!”
My eyes widened. I leaned closer to Jack. “I thought his father was killed?”
“So did I.”
Tommy dropped his sword and hitched up his britches. He started toward his father, but one of the women picked up a spear. He stopped short, a confused look on his rotund face. “Father?”
A white man by all accounts and dressed in pirate garb from yesteryear, the elder Thomas Tew spoke with a regal tone. “Tommy, it’s time you knew the truth.”
A black woman, slender and tall and shirtless, stepped from the jungle with a cat-like creature riding on her shoulder. The long, striped tail curled down around her breast. “This is my wife, the Queen of Madagascar. With her, I had the prince.”
I half expected the prince to smirk. Instead, his downcast face mirrored Tommy’s.
Thomas continued. “Your mother was a whore, Tommy. She insisted that I was your father and went so far as to give you my name. I never claimed you as my own, and if I could, I’d take my name from you now, lest you disgrace is more than you already have.”
Thomas, the apparent King of Madagascar, bowed. “As for the rest of you. Restock your water, enjoy our food, and please, be gone by morning.”
With that, he turned on his heel and disappeared back into the jungle, his woman only a step behind him.
Tommy turned his toe in the dirt. His hunger for the truth had outweighed his humiliation. Within the span of a few minutes, he’d gone from killing mad to—
Prince Rats waved a hand and dismissed his throng of women. “Brother, I—”
Tommy shook his head. His pants had slid back to their normal position, revealing his paunchy belly. “I thought he was dead, having died a hero’s death on the high seas, he did,” Tommy whispered.
The prince started toward him, but Tommy backed up.
“He recognized you as his blood, he did. I guess I should have come to kill Father—or love him.”
Prince took another step forward, his hand outstretched. I saw a tear drip down Tommy’s cheek, followed by another.
“Brother, please stop. Let us talk. You’ve come a long way. Come into my hut and rest. Please.”
“Would you kill me, Prince of the Rats,” Tommy managed. He swiped at his damp cheek and sniffled. “Death would be better than being the unwanted son of a whore and a pirate, it would.”
I saw his shoulders start to shake.
“Jack, I can’t let this go on.” With my hands on my back, I waddled forward and nodded in greeting to the Prince before putting my arm around Tommy’s shoulders.
To my surprise and probably everyone else’s, Tommy melted into my embrace, crying like he’d no doubt cried for his father all his life.
“Come on Tommy,” I cooed. “Let’s go back to our ships. To your real family.”
Tommy nodded but didn’t look up.
“I’m so sorry for telling you that your father would be proud of you. I didn’t know what a fool he was, or I never would have said such a thing.”
