The Pirate Captain

CHAPTER 6: Witch o’ the Moors

A few nights later, Cate came out of the Great Cabin. She came out frustrated and feeling wholly a failure. It was a matter of ropes, or that is to say, knots and her incompetence with them.

The Morgansers were tolerant of Cate’s lack of seaworthiness. After all, she was a woman. When her level of ineptitude with knots was discovered, however, that was intolerable. One’s knotsmanship was one’s status among his peers, promotions often being based on skill with not only functional but decorative work as well. Her education was taken as a personal mission, dooming her to endless hours of coaching. She was an accomplished needleworker, but dealing with threads and ribbons had not prepared her for rope, which turned into recalcitrant snakes in her hands.

“The Cap’n stocks only the finest cordage,” Pryce said severely, the implication being it was she and not the rope that was at fault.

Single diamond, double diamond, clove, or bowline up the bight—not to be confused with the bowline bend—sheet, carrick, and not to be forgotten, the cat’s paw: and that was considered the “absolutely essential to every able hand” list.

A square knot and a basic slipknot, any fool could manage, and the double half-hitch was familiar from her youth.

“Hell, even a half-witted, cack-handed cabin boy can do those,” Nathan declared.

Stubbs, the Morganse’s knotsman extraordinaire was named her “sea daddy”—a mentor, someone to teach and pass on every aspect of ship’s life. Stubbs was relieved of all responsibilities except one: to teach her the way of a rope. Grizzled and weathered, Stubbs was ageless, except for a pair of kind blue eyes, pinched by years and wisdom. The Morgansers openly bragged of commandeering Stubbs from a ship they had raided. An extra portion of shares to him showed their appreciation and insured Stubbs’ faithfulness to the Ciara Morganse.

“Had ’em line up on deck, we did,” Pryce declared, recalling that fortuitous day. “We was a-hopin’ for swag and rum, or mebbe a few to sign the roster. Then I spotted that there fob a-danglin.’”

With a gesture of his chin, he indicated Stubbs’ waistband and the knife handle protruding there. From it hung a rope handle, of sorts, intricately knotted and textured to the point of almost being lace.

“Never seen nothin’ like it, not afore nor since,” Pryce said, shaking his head in wonderment. “’Twere the best treasure ever.”

Aside from his knotsmanship, what separated Stubbs from the rest of the crew was that he was a mute.

“Or nearly so,” Pryce qualified. “Blade caught him in the throat, best as we can tell, crushed his voice box like a nutshell. Poor bastard hasn’t put two words together since.”

The hideous scar at Stubbs’s throat and wet rattle with each breath was sufficient testimony. As it turned out, Stubbs was mute by choice. His speech being such a garbled slur, he chose to spare himself the embarrassment and resorted to a unique sign language.

The greatest surprise, however, was when she discovered he missed three fingers, as well as the joints of several others. Missing digits was not an uncommon feature among sailors or men who lived by the sword, but it was a wonderment to watch him maneuver the ropes. The irony of the name was almost too much to bear, but she forbore inquiring if it was really his name or just an appellation.

Even under Stubbs’ tutelage, Cate’s progress was slow, her fingers growing sore. Squealing in frustration, she would pitch the offending rope across the deck. Stubbs lifted a brow, more reproving than any words. Shame and obstinacy compelled her to retrieve the length and try again. She was maddened further by Stubbs’ ability to do it minus three fingers. Upon reflection, perhaps she had too many, hence they were getting in her way.

As the degree of difficulty increased, her success pitched. Nathan’s distress at her ineptitude soaring, he often stood over her during her lessons, unable to curtail his groans of disappointment and frustration. She practiced, driven not by others, but by an inner need to overcome any shortcoming. Some would call it stubbornness.

Earlier that afternoon, she had surrendered from yet another practice, still a failure. In the face of that, she had found solace in the friendlier and more familiar realms of thread. It was a limited pleasure, however, and so she decided to take a stroll.

Cate had learned if she desired to walk the decks at night, it was best done before the hands had been sent to their hammocks. Hodder’s bellow of “Pipe down!” was a relative term, for many of the men preferred to sleep on deck rather than below, where the heat of the day would still be trapped, especially if wind or seas disallowed the port-lids to be opened. It was a hazardous venture to pick one’s way in the dark through the amorphous mounds littering the deck. Tripping over one meant to be soundly cursed.

Cate could feel the change in the ship. The topsails reefed, the fly-by-nights set, the Morganse had settled in for the night. The grog dispensed, voices and music drifting from the forecastle, the men were enjoying their nightly merriment. Aware that her presence often tended to curtail their spirits, she crept down the deck until she reached her favorite place at the larboard rail. There she sat between the two gun carriages, a small island of seclusion.

Caribbean nights were unique. A blessed refuge from the day’s heat and glare, the night brought velvet air so fresh it made one want to grasp onto something to keep from floating away. The days vibrated with brilliant hues of sky and water. The nights were a palette of blacks, warm and cool: blue, purple, violet, and gunmetal. Leaning against the cool iron of the gun, she tipped back her head to allow the breeze against her throat and lift the hair from her neck.

As the Constancy’s Barnstable had been, Pryce was the reigning king as storyteller on the Ciara Morganse. With his orator’s baritone voice, he could break into a tale, instantly enrapturing his audience, whether one or several score. Judging by the voices on the forecastle, Pryce was off on ship’s business, and others had taken his place, and quite credibly. Cate closed her eyes and visualized the fantastic tales of raucous conquests, demonic ghosts and improbable feats. She slowly slipped off into her own fantasies.

So immersed in her reverie, she lost track of time. She stirred as she grew aware of the story being told.

“Aye, Falkirk ’twas. Cumberland and his troops had caught up with the armies of Bonnie Prince Charlie…”

Cate groaned aloud. One could tell by the brogue: it was Cameron. Voice low and steady, building with drama, there was no mistaking a Highlander caught up in weaving his own fantastic version of the truth.

“Surrounded they were, and so Murdoch McKenzie rallied his men, chargin’ into the gaping maws o’ the redcoat artillery. There was screamin’ and dyin’, and heathers ran red w’ the blood. Murdoch led his men to the flank, whilst Red Brian veered to the right and caught the enemy in a fearsome crossfire. But Cumberland’s power was too great and they pressed forward, until Murdoch and Red Brian were in peril o’ their lives. And then like a banshee, the Witch o’ the Moors swept down across the plains. She flew to Red Brian, thinkin’ him to be her love, Murdoch McKenzie, and struck down four of the British. Then, realizin’ her mistake, leapt over the British cannons to Murdoch’s side o’ the battle, and struck down four more with her staff, burnin’ their bodies to instant ashes with her cursed eyes…”

Frustration and rage jolted through her.

Why can’t the stories ever stop? Why can’t they leave it alone?

For more than a decade she had run from the truth, but for once it was going to be known.

Cate was up and standing at the group’s fringe before she realized it, shaking with fury. “It wasn’t eight men I killed. It was three.”

Unnerved by her unexpected appearance, the men gaped. Hunched like scolded schoolboys, they exchanged furtive glances.

“We had been marching north for weeks, the entire Stuart Army” she began, stepping into the margin of the lamplight. “Hawley’s troops were hard on our trail, close enough for small skirmishes now and again, scouts encountering pickets, mostly. It was only a matter of time before there was a major engagement. It was January. It was cold and had been raining or snowing for days. We were in ice and mud to our knees. The horses were tired and half-starved, as were we all. For weeks we lived on nothing but drammoch—cold water and oats.”

Cate paused, batting her hair from her face. The light of the ship’s lanterns blurred into the flicker of campfires. Those before her merged with another time, when she had lived amid other men: kilted, haggard and grim, marching under cloud-scudded skies. She felt the sharp stab of starvation once more, and began to shiver from the bone-soaking dampness and cold.

“Murdoch, my husband’s uncle, and the other officers decided it would be best to chose the ground, instead of the enemy choosing it for us.”

Cate stopped again, straining to sort out the tumble of memories. As if straining to listen, the Morganse’s chorus of rigging, canvas and water had gone still.

“It wasn’t Falkirk. To be honest, I don’t remember exactly where it was. It had been a matter of just putting one foot in front of the other for so long, it was just another godforsaken stretch of land. It might have been near Bannonchbroch, but I can’t be sure. We came to an open plain of sorts, and decided we would make our stand there. There was a bit of a hill to one side. The camp followers—women and children, laundresses, servants, and whores—were sent up there, to be out of danger and to watch.”

She heard a jingle and thud of boots. Nathan was somewhere behind her, but she paid no heed. She shook now, either from cold or emotion she couldn’t say. The hair on her arms prickled as the wind in the Morganse’s rigging became the sleet-laden wind across the open moor. She saw the dark streaks of rain in Brian’s hair as he had kissed her good-bye, as they had done so many times before. It was war. It had been months of sending him off to another skirmish or battle, knowing that to wish to never have to do it again might mean to wish he wouldn’t return. She clutched her arms tightly about her middle, once again seized by the helplessness and terror of that day.

“The dragoons formed their lines at the far end. Brian and some of the other officers dismounted, preferring to fight afoot, as their men did. They lined up just below the hill, facing the cannons. At the first barrage, they charged.”

The recollections tumbled faster: the acrid sharpness of powder smoke, the icy cut of the wind, and the explosions of cannon.

“We took the advantage; the dragoons fell back. I could make out Brian on the right. He was tall and red-haired; I would have known him amid a thousand. He was doing well, as he always did in battle. He claimed it was luck and Providence. Murdoch was well to the other side; he was nearly the same size and coloring as Brian, but I knew the difference.”

Cate took a quivering breath, gathering the courage to relive it.

“It all happened so quickly, and yet it all seemed in slow-motion. I watched the dragoons advance, pushing closer and closer toward Brian. It was only a matter of time before they would be on top of him. Someone had to do something…someone…me…I had to do something…anything! I screamed to warn him, again and again, but…”

She swallowed, her hand trembling worse as she brushed away the tears tracking her cheeks.

“I couldn’t just watch. I don’t know what happened,” she said, her voice going thin from the rawness of screaming. “All I remember is running down the hill to jump on the first horse, Murdoch’s black gelding. I rode as hard as I could. Somewhere, I picked up a sword. It must have been sticking in the ground; how else I would have come by it? I rode as hard as I could toward Brian. The soldiers were on him by then. I ran one over with the horse. I heard his skull crunch under the hooves. That was the first.”

Her hands closed, once again feeling the bite of the leather reins. The horse was battle-hardened and eager to join the fray. Slogging through the icy mud, it strove to gain speed with every stride.

“It was nearly the other side of the fighting before I could turn the brute. As I came ’round, another was trampled. That was the second.”

Cate’s fingers twitched and two rose. Her breathing was coming faster now, as she felt the heave of the horse’s sides between her legs. The clash of metal—bayonets, sabers and swords—and the screams of the wounded came from all around. The field was a slippery quagmire of churned grass, vomit, and blood. She squinted through the smoke and rain, straining to see.

“I rode hard back to Brian. A dismounted dragoon was charging toward him, his sword raised, ready to hack him in half. I remember seeing the light reflect on the blade and wondering where it came from, because there was no sun. I swung down with the sword as hard as I could...”

As if on its own volition, her arm raised to vaguely mimic a chopping motion.

“I felt the blade hit bone. My arm was twisted and I lost my grip. That was the third.”

Three fingers rose.

Her breath quickened, in tempo with the horse’s wet rattle. Her voice cracked as the words came in halting, broken tumbles.

“It was all so much a blur: I tried to get back to Brian. Someone grabbed the reins and the horse reared. I went off backwards and landed face down in the mud. I pushed up, but all I could see was boots in front of me. I looked up to a dragoon standing over me. His face was spattered with blood, he was half-crazed and blinded by the battle. His sword came down…and…”

She sucked in at the feel the cold of the steel through her flesh and pain of bone shattering underneath. Swaying, she braced against the lurch of her stomach. Forcing her eyes opened, the lantern light flickered on the faces before her.

“I don’t remember anything…much, until I woke up in a house…somewhere. I thought for sure my arm had been cut off,” she said, looking down at the limb as if it belonged to a stranger. “I should have been cleaved in half. His sword must have slipped from the blood on his hands. It hurt. God, it hurt! There was nothing to help. No whiskey. Nothing. I could hear men screaming; they suffered so much more…”

Fists curled, nails gouging her palms, Cate closed her eyes against the agonized wails. The smell of blood and sickness filled her nostrils, of destroyed bodies and broken spirits.

“They held me down and sewed my back. I tried not to scream, not with so many others so much worse off. I was broken up inside, but there was little to be done for it. I was told Brian was out in the yard. He was badly slashed, but he was alive…still…so far…”

She felt once more the pluck of the needle through her skin by the very men for whom she had done the same. There was no describing the hot throb of the ensuing fever, the burning thirst an entire loch couldn’t slake, or lying in the smell of putrefying flesh and wondering through a fever-hazed mind, if it was hers or Brian’s.

Where was the glory of war then?

What she couldn’t tell them was the days of agony during the jolting ride home in the back of a pony cart, of slogging down semi-frozen mud, mountain lanes with nothing more than a bit of straw as a cushion and only Brian’s bloodied plaid to cover them. She lay half-propped in the corner with his head pillowed on her lap, his body even hotter with fever than hers. And all the while, there had been the burden of guilt for rejoicing in his suffering, for it meant he was going home.

Clamping her eyes tighter, she quaked with the effort to rise above the quagmire of memories that threatened to engulf her, drag her down to where she might drown. When she finally reopened them, Cameron and Hughes images wavered in the tears that flowed freely now. Ashamed, they ducked their noses into their drinks and fixed their gazes on the deck or off into the distance.

Cate’s voice now steadied with conviction. “I knew exactly who I was trying to save. It wasn’t Murdoch McKenzie, believe me. I certainly knew the difference between him and my own husband. And I was no ‘witch o’ the moors.’” She choked laugh at the absurdity. “I was just trying to save my husband.”

Then she blinked and was delivered back to the Morganse’s deck, the tropical breeze now drying her damp cheeks. Bewildered, the realization of what she had just done congealed: years of hiding wasted. She had drawn them a map, herself the treasure.

“So there it is, gentlemen, the grand adventure. And I’ll save you the trouble of wondering: yes, there is a reward to the hero who turns me in. His Majesty would be very pleased to have Catherine Mackenzie, the wife of Red Brian.” Tears now rolled freely. “I am at your pleasure.”

Cate turned to find Nathan directly behind her, wide-eyed and solemn. He raised a hand to her, meaning to say something, but she brushed past and ran to the cabin.



###



Nathan drew up before his men amid nervous coughs and throat-clearing. They were mute, most fixing their eyes on the deck. He watched and waited, alert for the first sign of how it was to be, what course they were going to chose in light of what they had just heard, a confession, for all intents and purposes. No sense in tipping his hand just yet. If at all possible, this needed to be their decision, or them thinking as much. If he were too mutton-fisted, it could all go pear-shaped, and quickly. Sometimes it was like trying to drag a dead ox to drink, but as always, pulling was ever so much easier than pushing. If he had his way, he’d rig the grates and let the lot of them taste the nines, but this wasn’t his decision to make. The matter hung in a fine balance; one wrong word could tip the scales, setting a course that could never be reversed. Even if it were to go right, there would always be the chance of betrayal. The coin’s call was ever so much louder than a pledge. Brotherhood could purchase precious little on the streets of Tortuga.

It was Pryce who stepped into their midst, Hodder at his side.

Good men!

“Be there one of you motherless whoresons what fancies the King’s coin might weigh more agreeable in his pockets?” Pryce waited, providing each the benefit of a gimlet eye, one that could dissect a liver without one’s knowing. “Anyone?”

Pryce waited, daring anyone to speak. At length, he nodded in satisfaction. “Very well, then, so be it. And if any of you blessed plagues o’ the sea decide those pounds are a-callin’ a bit too loud, see me and I’ll double it.” He gave that a moment to sink in. “Now, who’s with me?”

A hearty “Aye!” went up.

Pryce turned to Nathan with a reassuring smile. “She’s safe with us, Cap’n.”



###



Cate flung herself across her bunk and sobbed. She kicked her feet and pounded the bulkhead at the unfairness of being forced to drag up and bare what she had strove so valiantly to suppress for so long. She kept the memories locked away, for once loosened, like a pillaging horde of Teutonic ogres, they could seize her and pull her toward the pit from which they rose.

It was her fear of those demons that had always prevented her from seeking the pleasant memories and the benefits found there: the comfort of a familiar face or the reassurance of a smile. Now she cried until exhaustion weakened the demons to the point of losing their grip and were washed away. She was free then to pick through her memories, in search of what she needed: human contact.

Through all the deprivation and squalor of the last years, the lack of the touch of another person—other than in anger or in passing—was what left her the most bereft. Starvation of the belly is nothing compared to the spirit hungering with the need to be touched. Cate knew the inexorable yearning for warmth, to feel the spring of skin and the pulse of life throbbing just below the surface: to be held. Not necessarily of a sexual nature—God knew she missed that, too—but just…held. Finding such an embrace, one of consolation and tenderness, in her memories, she gave herself over, wrapping herself in it like a cloak.

Sometime later, Cate found herself sitting on the stern gallery. How she came to be on there she wasn’t quite sure. She felt drained, empty and hollow, like a glass bubble, and curled deeper those imagined arms for protection.

Her confession before the Morgansers had put a massive “C” for “criminal” on her chest, or perhaps “W” for “wanted,” or more significantly, “R” for reward. Stripped of her anonymity, she felt exposed and naked.

“As if Nathan would notice,” she said ruefully to the night.

The running was over, a five-year cat-and-mouse chase finished. It wasn’t an unpleasant thought. From a certain point of view, it was what she had wished for: no more hiding, no more fear. Imprisonment and death were no longer an amorphous hazard; they were now a fixed feature on the horizon. Her trial would be a brief interlude, and then death. Drawing and quartering was traditionally reserved for men, but the Crown had vowed to make an exception for her. Such executions were carefully orchestrated. She would be hung just enough to fulfill the obligation, then laid out and eviscerated, her still-beating heart displayed before her. Beheading would be next, a welcomed end by then. Her body would be burned, the ashes scattered. The lack of a grave would be of little consequence, however, for there would be no one seeking it in order to grieve.

The first impulse was to wish for more time, but that would mean going back to running. Time suddenly seemed a commodity, each ring of the watch bell slicing away another 30 minutes.

Cate rested her arms on her bent knees and allowed the breeze to cool her face, still hot from tears. The crying was long ended, but her head still felt heavy and tight. Nathan’s step was overhead; his absence from the cabin was glaring. He had no more to say to her either.

She wondered what Nathan's response would be to her deception. It couldn’t in truth be called that, for she had been straightforward about her criminal status from the first. It had been revealed with purpose, in the hopes the prospect of a reward would bring her out of the pirates’ clutches. She had always had the impression that Nathan had been suspicious of her truthfulness, but he was yet to press her on it. The question rose again as to why he kept her aboard. She groaned aloud, too tired and too emotionally spent to explore that, yet again. After such a confession, she held little doubt that he would be forced to either tip his hand or just give her over.

Head propped against the window’s frame, Cate gazed at the silver-lit sea stretching behind the ship, and allowed herself to slip away to another night, a world, an age away.

So lost in thought, she didn’t notice Nathan until he was standing near the mizzenmast, gaping a yawn. With the cabin dark, he would have assumed she had retired and didn’t look for her. He seized his chair and dragged it toward the sill. He pulled up short, startled to find her there.

Recovering quickly, he leaned against Merdering Mary’s carriage. “I thought you to be abed.”

“No.” Her voice was scratchy and thickened from crying.

“So now we know,” Nathan said lightly crossing one ankle over the other. “There are no secrets on a ship. We’d seen your shoulder and the…other bit.” He winced at that admission.

“Have a jolly good gawk did you, ogling the freak?” she asked bitterly.

Most of her first minutes aboard were blurred. There were flashes of being mauled, and the mortification of being exposed, her clothes being torn away. Half-drowned and terrorized, she hadn’t been aware of anything other than escaping.

“That’s not how it was,” he said evenly, “for the most part, at any rate. We saw one who had suffered greatly and lived to tell of it. We saw a comrade, a mate, one christened by the same blade as we.”

“I show them to no one,” Cate said, balling her fist. She had never seen the scar on her back—could never bear to—but it was described in the broadsheets. It might as well have been a brand, for it labeled her, and doomed her if ever caught. She pressed her hand to her stomach, some of the scars there thick enough to be felt through the fabric.

As for those, she couldn’t think about it.

Nathan’s levity faded. “There’s no shame in it, darling. We all bear our marks. Take pride. You can spit in the world’s face, because you’ve lived to tell of them.”

“You think I’m lying, don’t you?”

How could he not? How could anyone believe such a tale: a single woman riding foolishly into battle to save her husband? To her own mind, the entire ordeal possessed a dream-like quality, as if she had watched someone else.

The corner of his mouth quirked. “And what of it, if you were? The effect is the same: the marks would still be there. You suffered no less, regardless the cause. Any fool can see there’s more to it and only a fool would inquire. Hell, no one tells everything,” he said with a mirthless laugh. “Couldn’t get a bloody word in edgewise, what with everyone jabbering.”

Nathan wasn’t being cavalier, nor taking her story lightly. With a body more battered by far, he spoke with the eloquence and weight of experience. He spoke not down to her, but as equals, joining her into a brotherhood of those christened by battle, either on the decks of a ship or fields of war.

Cate rested her chin on her arms and turned her attention to the night once more. Clouds swathed the moon’s hips, its three-quarter brilliance illuminating the night in silver and the purplish-black hunched shapes of islands, which dotted the horizon. The stern lamps gilded the Morganse’s wake. Beyond the glow of the lamps, the ship’s path streamed away in a phosphorescent V-shape.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she sighed.

“Aye, ’tis beautiful.”

She turned to find Nathan’s gaze fixed on her, his profile frosted by the moon.

The space between them was filled with the sounds of the ship and low-voiced hands. Sails reefed, her wings clipped for the night, the Morganse’s voice was but a whisper of her daytime chorus, the water barely rustling as she slipped past.

Stillness, however, was not Nathan’s natural state. He soon began to shift, the creak of his belts and tinkle of bells seeming to shatter the silence. He hazarded further movement only enough to resituate, and then settled. Soon, however, came the drumming his fingers on his belt. He was clearly troubled by something.

Little wonder what, she thought ruefully. He would be glad to be shut of her. Then he could have back his cabin, his bed and what answered for a peaceful world in a pirate’s way of life.

After clearing his throat several times, Nathan said, “You jumped on a horse?”

It took Cate a moment to smoke his meaning. Her shoulders moved in a half-shrug.

“I grew up on a farm with five brothers.”

“Five brothers.” He gave a low whistle. “Your father must have been proud.”

“Would have been prouder with six, but settled for five.” She was disinclined to elaborate; it hardly seemed worth the effort, at that point.

“So, Witch o’ the Moors, is it?” he asked.

Cate twitched at the raw nerve touched.

“Scary, isn’t it?” She heaved a sigh and ruffled her hair in frustration. “How can they make up such outlandish drabble from something so horrible? Do they think it was some kind of a game?”

Nathan nodded knowingly. “Happens all the time, darling; a fascination with the macabre and the grisly.”

“You never inquired much regarding my past.” Nathan had been keenly interested in her identity when she first arrived, and then seemed to have lost interest, never pressing for further details.

He shrugged. “We all have a past. Backgrounds—where we came from, who we are ’tis many times best left unsaid. If a man desires you to know, he’ll tell you. You might find yourself learning far more than intended, and then you’re obliged to carry that secret, share his burden. Not many shoulders are wide enough to carry all that.”

“How much are you carrying?”

His gaze dropped quickly to the sill between them. “Enough.”

Nathan paused considering, the space between his brows furrowing. “All I care is that the men know a sheet from a shroud and live the by ship’s articles. From there…” A shifting of his shoulders finished the thought.

A wide smile flashed in the moonlight, as he said, “Most believe their former lives were drowned when they crossed the Tropic of Cancer.”

“Drowned?” It was an intriguing thought. If only His Majesty’s Courts would see it the same way.

“’Tis the superstition at any rate,” Nathan said, the grin widening.

Cate made a low growling sound as she rubbed her forehead on her arm. “I never wanted to be famous.”

Nathan pursed his lips, his sprouting beard making a soft rasping sound as he rubbed his jaw. “Fame’s not so bad. It can bring you free rum and your choice of the best whores.”

“Can’t say as I ever pined for either one.”

“People recognize you. They know your name.”

“I’ve rather been striving to avoid that,” Cate said tartly.

He ran a thoughtful hand along the curve of his mustache. “You can control it…mostly. Sometimes it takes on a life of its own, begins to grow with or without you.”

Suddenly Cate felt so very tired. “All I wanted was Brian alive. The rest was only what was necessary to that end.”

“People who do what they must to get what they want are to be admired.”

“Including killing?” She shot Nathan a doubtful look. “Do you find that an admirable trait?”

“Admiration comes in many forms, luv, under many masks,” he said evenly.

Nathan’s eyes found hers and held them. Glittering in the moonlight, the umber depths were laden with wisdom far too advanced for his years, the fruits of hard-earned lessons.

“When you came in, I was thinking about the night before Brian was supposed to be captured,” she said, looking to the night once more.

He looked up, scowling. “Supposed to be captured?”

Cate nodded, ruefully smiling. “Arrangements had been made for one of the tenants to turn him in the next day. We were all starving. It was a way for his family to receive the reward, rather than risk a stranger reporting him.”

“What about you?”

“I left that morning, before he was to be taken. The authorities were too interested in him to notice me.”

“Lord deliver us from noble men,” he grumbled with a barely tolerant roll of the eyes. “You got nothing?”

She smiled weakly. There had been a reward for both she and Brian. Dreading a life without him, she had been willing to sacrifice herself as well. The arguments had been passionate, Brian intransigent, claiming to see her safe away would allow him peace of mind to face what was to come. Her name was stricken from the family Bible; she no longer existed. And then she was spirited away to a series of clansmen and sympathizers, escorting her under the cover of darkness, night after night, until she was far enough south and no longer readily recognized.

“His family sent me a little when they dared through connections. The mail or couriers were too risky,” she said.

Cate looked up at the moon once more, lopsided and waxen. “Our last night was a night like this, except cold. It was Brian’s last opportunity to see stars and breathe fresh air, so we slept outside. We took quilts and found a quiet spot.”

There were no tors or lochs, and the stars didn’t sparkle with the same brilliance as in the crisp mountain air, but she saw that night just the same. She couldn’t tell Nathan everything of that night. There had been no tears; those had been used up. They barely spoke, for there was little more to be said. His was going to be the easiest: imprisonment, trial, and then death, probably all within a moon’s cycle. Hers was the worst: to keep living, alone, half of a whole. She watched the dawn rise from over his bare shoulder as they made love for the last time.

Nathan looked off to the phosphorescent glow of the ship’s wake.

“Your husband was a wise man.” His graveled voice was a tight rasp. “I know what it ’tis to lie in some stinking cell waiting for me final dawn, whilst trying to decide which I fancied more: to see the sky or draw a clean breath. The sword or a noose is preferable to entombment.”

She had managed to delay matters for a bit, but there was no way around it, the inevitable always being exactly that. “So,” Cate said softly. “How’s it to be: the nearest garrison or all the way to Port Royal?”

“For what?”

“Turn me in.” She leaned back against the window frame, drinking in the heady mix of freshness and salt. “I want to enjoy every last moment of freedom I can. In a way, I’m ready to be done with it. It will be a relief to not live in constant fear.”

“’Tis painful to deflate your hopes,” Nathan began carefully, “but you shan’t be turned in anytime soon, not if this lot of oysterheads have anything to do with it.”

Cate swiveled around, curious to see what he was playing at. “How can that be?”

“They voted.” He jerked a thumb toward the cabin door, and then held up his hands in defense. “Upon me word, I had nothing to do with it.”

“But there’s a reward.” Pulse racing, she curbed her soaring hopes, afraid to believe.

“There’s barely a man on this ship what doesn’t carry some kind of a price on his head,” he said, rising to his feet. “Turn in one, and I would be obliged to do them all. Bloody inconvenient, that. I’d have to press a whole new crew.”

Nathan paused at her elbow and bent to peer at her. “You’ll be well tonight, then?”

“I think so,” Cate said unsteadily, bracing her head in her hands. Protection. Safety. Caring. Haven. Home. She now had it all.

Nathan hesitated near the mizzenmast, inclined toward leaving, and yet reticent to do so.

“So, let’s see…” he said, coming back. Rolling his eyes in affected consideration, he sat amid the creak of leather, his knee brushing hers. “We’ve treason—that’s to be admired; I’ve never managed that one—Murder. Conspiracy…” he said, ticking off the charges on his fingers.

“Defamation against the Crown,” she put in. “Mayhem—there was a war, after all. Espionage—an assumption on their part, but it’s impressive on the broadsheets. Lewd conduct—a woman traveling with an army of men couldn’t possibly do otherwise, could she? Sorcery and witchcraft—I suppose my eyes had something to do with that.”

They laughed quietly. He had alluded to the evil-natured color of her eyes many a time.

“You’ve a charge sheet to be proud of,” Nathan declared, with a flash of ivory and gold between his lips.

“And now, I can add piracy, I suppose.”

Her intent had been light, but his expression darkened. “Not if I have aught to do with it. We’ll claim you were a hostage, and if necessary, were used most egregiously.”

“That won’t help the reputation, but then I suppose I have none to defend.”

“It will keep you from the noose,” Nathan said with conviction.

To what end, if you’re gone? The bitter thought swept in without warning. She quickly batted it down. Besides a home, Nathan was offering a future. He and his ship were a godsend and she would take it, be damned the cost.

He leaned to touch her arm and she was suffused with a flush of warmth. She looked up into a walnut-colored gaze, intent with concern.

“You’ll be well tonight?” he asked again.

“Yes.” Cate’s throat tightened, touched by his sincerity. Now she would be, better than ever. “I still think I’ll stay here for a while; I’m enjoying the night too much.”

Nathan laid a hand to her shoulder and frowned. “You’re shivering.”

“Am I? I hadn’t noticed.”

In nearly a single motion, he tossed the baldric from his shoulder, slid off his coat and whirled it over her.

“Better?” he asked, tucking it in.

“Mm, thank you.” Cate snuggled deeper, the place on her arm where he had touched her still glowing. The burgundy-colored folds might have been worn, but they were strong his warmth and scent. She felt a bit voyeuristic for using him thus, but was eager for anything that brought him a bit closer. “Seems impossible for someone to be cold in the Caribbean.”

“I learned long ago, nothing is impossible; improbable, maybe, but never impossible.”



###



The next morning, Nathan stood at the weather mizzen chains. Heeled nearly four strakes, the Morganse raced through the water, the waves curling in a high arc over her nose, soaking the deck in rain-shower thoroughness.

The Morganse was always testy about setting a starboard tack, griping, threatening to fall away. Like any woman, there was more than one way to make her sigh.

Aye, me darling. As you wish.

There was but one soul between them, and she took the share. Justifiably so; she possessed the greater heart, the courage to face the sea every day and the will to make it her own. He was but a means to her ends: to give her enough canvas, a light hand at the wheel, and a fair course.

An imprudent vessel she was, always asking for that bit more canvas than she could carry, not like other ships what cranked and shuddered, with spars that creaked and popped like an old tar’s bones at the adding of so much as a staysail. Her spirits ran high, extending past ration as she fought to kick up her heels like a high-blooded horse, willing to run until her heart burst. He found it best to entice her with what she desired most: a full complement of jibs and staysails, shaking out the reefs in the mizzen top to keep her true. Give her her head, and then creep in the braces, when she wasn’t looking. Let her royals and courses fly, and she was as happy as a fat whore with a full purse.

The chains buried in the foam, he swayed with her motion as she ate the waves, shaking off one while reaching for the next. He closed his eyes and grasped the shroud. Some claimed the wheel was the way to a ship’s heart. Her shrouds were her pulse, a direct line to her lifeblood: the wind. He bent his head to listen to her song, her tempo of water and wind, sough and whistle, thrum, and roil.

No need for log lines. She was making 11 knots if she made a fathom; and the wind a bare four points off her nose.

Damn! How she loved to point!

If it weren’t for that skirt of weeds she carried—Gotta careen her soon—it would be 12 for sure. Still, 11 was sufficient to overrun any vessel to suffer the misfortune of putting across her bow.

She continued to gripe—no need for a hand on the wheel to know it—reminding him the stowage required a bit of a shift aft; she preferred not so heavy on the peak. Nothing to be done, until at anchor. With a full day of the hands sweating it out in the hold, a night of revelry ashore would be the only balm.

Once she hummed, the helm steady, he could relax and attend on other matters, ones that had pressed since before the Midwatch.

He checked over his shoulder toward the quarterdeck. Too wet to sit at the bow, where she preferred, Cate perched in the lee of the afterdeck, working. The woman didn’t know the meaning of rest. A working fool she was, going until she fell over, if saner heads weren’t brought to bear. A few days prior, her scissors had needed sharpening, and a skill for the honing of edges was discovered. When asked how that came to be, she answered: “I had five brothers.”

Knives, swords, broad axes, hatchets, and harpoons—the Morganse bristled with a host of sharp-edged objects. Consequently, she spent a portion of most every day sharpening. Hone stone, oil, leather, and rags became her constant companions, all stowed in a small basket. This day was no exception; she busied with several rigging knives the men brought, anxious for a few minutes of conversation while she worked.

Pryce slipped aft to the quarterdeck as he made his way forward. The odd wave caught him now and again, but he knew the feel of his ship well enough to know when to duck. To his mind, a man who couldn't bear being wet had no business at sea, but by the same token, it was a wretched fool who didn’t have the sense to avoid a wave square to the face.

Mr. Fox, master of the larbolin f’c’stlemen, hovered at seeing his captain approach. The man tended toward being as fastidious as an old schoolmaster about his realm. He waved Fox off, just to set the poor man’s mind to rest. This was not a matter that reflected on his crew, reeving new foretackle blocks, at the moment. Keeping his distance, but with a canny eye, Fox touched his forelock and returned to his duty.

“You, sailor,” Nathan called, tapping one on the shoulder. “Name’s Cameron, am I right?”

“Aye, Cap'n!” The man knuckled a hasty salute, disconcerted to find his commander so unexpectedly close, and addressing him directly, at that.

“Pray a word with you and your…mate.” Nathan urged the man aside, beckoning his comrade to follow. “To your duties, mates,” he barked to the remainder who stood gaping.

Snapped from their torpor, they bent to their tasks with exaggerated fervor.

“You spoke of the Rising last night?” he asked of Cameron, once out of earshot of the others.

What the bloody hell was the other’s name?

Cate’s scene on deck the night since had been grist for the rumor mills as it was. The captain in private conference with these two would only fan the fires, but the need to know outweighed all caution. Stiff orders could be given, but that would only serve to drive the talk further underground.

“Aye, sir,” came the response, still cautious of where this audience might lead.

“Then you knew of Mr. Cate’s man?” Nathan asked, lowering his voice.

“Captain Mackenzie?” Relieved, Cameron grinned, bobbing his head enthusiastically. “Aye, sir! Me ’n’ Hughes, we served under ’im.”

Hughes! Why couldn’t I remember the blighter’s name?

“Can you tell me of him? What sort of man he was?”

It wasn’t a comfortable matter to broach, but his curiosity vexed him all night. Any dullard could tell by the look in her eyes when she spoke of him that the woman was still thoroughly in love with the man. But it did defy all reason what manner of man would drag her through a war, and then leave her alone. To his mind, a kiss o’ the gunner’s daughter would be too good.

“The best, sir,” Hughes replied adamantly. “A man among men he was.”

“Aye, sir, we’d follow him anywhere, to hell and back.”

“And Culloden was hell, sir.”

Both nodded gravely.

“Brave?” Nathan was keenly alert for those first unguarded reactions.

A slight hesitance in the ship’s forward motion was all the warning need. They ducked as another wave broke over them.

“To a fault, sir,” Cameron answered eagerly, water dripping from his chin. “Never led a charge mounted; always afoot as the rest of us. And never left a wounded man on the field; retrieved every one hisself, if the need arose.”

“Aye, I saw him carry many a man off the field,” Hughes put in, sputtering seawater.

“Fought like the Dev’l possessed him himself,” Cameron said. “Saw ’im near cleave a man in half, once’t.”

“Aye, could swing a claymore like a child swings its rattle,” Hughes went on, both nodding earnestly.

“Then he was a big man?” Nathan asked, frowning slightly.

Cameron closed one eye in estimation. “A good head taller than yerself, sir. Had to duck his head at near every door he passed.”

“And near twenty stone, with hands near twice as wide as most,” Hughes said, fanning his fingers out in example.

Nathan looked to the deck. This wasn’t going as he had expected, at all. He had been thoroughly prepared to despise the man.

How the hell could such a bastard suddenly become a bloody hero?

“And handsome, too,” Cameron continued, clearly eager to please, dodging the tails of another wave. “’Tweren’t narry a lass what didn’t swoon at his passing.”

Sobering, Cameron paused, carefully choosing his words. “And he loved the leddy, sir. They loved each other; any fool could see it.”

“Yes, you’d have to be a doddering fool not to see it,” Nathan echoed under his breath.

Yes, a blind man could see it, indeed! Any fool could hear it in her voice, or see it in those cursed blue…green…whatever eyes!

“Took her everywhere w’ him; they were inseparable. Heaven help the man whatever gave her an off look!” Cameron finished, shaking his head dolefully.

Having heard enough accolades for one day, he waved them off, back to their duties and their mates. He stood absent-mindedly thumping the rail with his fist. So lost in thought, he was grateful for the occasional wave in the face to bring him into focus.

Smite and burn me!

She’d had a good man, and loved him well. No man could ask for more.

His worst fears had been proven correct. He had been ready to despise this Mackenzie, and deserving of it he was, judging by what he had heard…until then. How the hell did he go from shiftless bastard to saint? It was unimaginable that Cate would give herself over to anything less than a paragon, but then he knew well enough that ration and judgment were rarely matters for the heart. He’d seen many a great woman put her hearts in lesser men.

Pirate, soldier, peon, king, or otherwise, to his mind there was an order to the world: women bore children and men protected them both. It was a simple axiom, and there would be a damned sight less trouble in the world if there were more to honor it. He bore little tolerance for a man—a bloody goddamned hero or no—who failed to do so. It was only a shiftless lout what would put a woman through a war just to leave her alone to starve.

On that basis alone, he was ready to skewer the bastard on first sight…if and when he was ever found…and he would find him. God strike him blind, by all that was holy on this earth and sea, he would find him!



###



As the days grew into a fortnight, Cate gradually became inured to the pirate ways and their “wee bit o’ pirating,” as Pryce called it. “Cap’n’s on the prowl!” the hands declared, with an anticipatory gleam in the eye and knowing nods.

The Morganse stalked like a large black cat. Once the unwitting prey was spotted, a small cat-and-mouse would ensue, probing to discern who and what the prey might be. The meeting was usually a quiet affair, anticipation and preparation—making ready the guns, hauling up cartridges, wads and shot, clearing the decks, laying the splinter netting, dispersing weapons, wetting the sails, and sanding the decks—requiring more than the taking itself. If the sight of the blood-dripped sails weren’t sufficient, the sight of the massive black-and-white banner bearing the haloed skull framed with wings caused the hapless prey to douse its topsails. When she did give chase, it rarely lasted more than a watch. On rare occasion, a shot from the bow-chasers was necessary, with great caution lest the hull be breached, the precious prize destroyed. Within hours the ship was stripped of everything deemed valuable, and the Morganse was again on the hunt.

Cate sat on the forecastle—or “f’c’stle” as a true mariner would say—one afternoon. She loved it there. The wind whipping her hair, the spindrift touching her face, whatever sailing was, it was that much more on the forecastle. The deck and ship were more alive; the rush and power of wind and water that much more stirring; the sails overhead that much more immediate. Up there, if she was to close her eyes, it was the nearest thing to be free of the Earth as any human could wish. Noticing her joy, the jacks had made an arrangement of boxes and crates into a seat, which she used whenever conditions allowed.

There were drawbacks. It meant she was obliged to discreetly look away when any of the hands were on the head, for the bows were their only convenience, just as she did whenever someone stepped up to a pissdale. Having had five brothers and a husband, the call of nature was unremarkable. It was of mortal consequence to the men, however, and so she made a great show of pretending not to notice.

From the corner of her eye Cate saw the lad Jensen sidling near. When she was first arrived, he had been painfully shy. Then he stumbled into a loggerhead, a heated iron used to melt tar. Stinking of slushing the masts—an odious job of lubricating with galley fat—he stood like a deer ready to bolt while she treated the burn.

Now blushing brilliant, Jensen knuckled his forehead. “G’day, mistress…sir!” he corrected quickly.

His hand shot out to present Cate with a small box. Barely the length of her little finger and only slightly larger in circumference, it bore an intricate knotted rope detail carved at each end.

“It’s a needle case,” Jensen beamed. He took it from her to demonstrate how the top pivoted to reveal a hollowed-out groove. Going near purple with embarrassment, he gave it back and clutched his hands behind his back.

“It’s beautiful, Jensen.” And it was. The polished surface glowed, its grain a deep reddish color. “Is it mahogany?”

The joy from Jensen’s face faded. “No, ’tis salt horse, ma’am.”

“Beef?”

Cate gaped at the box. She had heard the men laughingly allude to carving it, but had thought it as jest.

Jensen’s young brow furrowed with the intensity of a craftsman discussing his trade. “I picked through a week’s ration just to find the right piece.”

Cate bit her lip. How does one ever go about giving a proper “Thank you” for something so thoughtful as that?

“Wanna come help?”

She looked up at Nathan’s voice. He stood poised at the top of the forward companionway, lantern in one hand and ring of keys in the other, looking expectant.

Cate glanced around. Sailing free with the wind two points aft, this according to Pryce. A cloud of snowy sail was on display overhead. Practicality must have prevailed, for the ivory of those flying off the forestays was unadulterated red. The expanse of sail was fashioned to catch the wind, for precious little was to be had. The Morganse moved at a crawl. Only with generosity did the log lines read four knots. It was making for a long day. Tucking Jensen’s gift in her pocket, she rose to follow.

Nathan trundled down the steps, pausing there to snag a horn lamp from a post. Once lit, he handed it off to Cate and, with the same lightness of foot, ascended to the hold. It was a marvel how his feet never seemed to touch the wood. Years of living on a ship bore its rewards.

She groped her way down, lurching with jarring effect at the bottom when she expected another step, but there was none. Nathan forged ahead, the darkness immediately swallowing him. She had been in the hold twice before. It was no less foreboding now.

The lanterns were a weak defense against the pressing gloom. Fearing that to lose sight of Nathan meant to be doomed to an eternity of roaming in the dank netherworld, Cate doggedly kept on his heels. Struggling to maintain her footing on the treacherously slippery boards, she followed Nathan’s bobbing glow appearing and disappearing as he wound through the cargo. Through the creak and rumble of the ship’s working came the scuttle and scamper of tiny feet. She preferred to believe it was His Lordship hunting. The lantern cast grotesquely distorted shadows, and she scolded herself for allowing her imagination to run too freely. Still, she still couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on her. Fearful of something jumping out to grab her by the leg, she kept tight in Nathan’s wake.

Cate felt it before she saw it, a whoosh of air overhead, something—a shadow—coming straight at her. A part of her knew it was only a shadow, and yet there was no denying the press of flapping wings. She shrieked and dove, throwing her hands over her head. Looking up, she found Nathan wearing a look somewhere between perturbed and amused.

“What was that?” She risked a peek upward, afraid to see her imaginings hadn’t strayed far.

Nathan stood there smiling, the bastard!

“Our dear Artemis.” He raised his lantern a higher and gestured with his head.

Cate cautiously straightened. It was her worst fears: two eyes stared back. Her vision finally adjusting, she could make out the low hunched shape of…

“An owl?”

“Artemis.” The lamp flashed on his widening grin. “Goddess of hunting, wild things, and the moon. Appropriate, don’t you think?”

Biting back a few rude remarks, Cate peered closer. Perched atop a platform wedged between the ship’s knees, the bird was not unlike those she had seen before: moon-faced with a buff-colored body.

“A barn owl?”

Nathan shrugged, regarding the creature with pride. “I suppose so. No one’s asked and to my knowledge, she’s not said.”

“She?” Her suspicion grew as to why every animal on board—and a menagerie it was growing to be—was always female.

“She just appeared one day, off Portland Point…Jamaica; blown in on a storm, more than like. She sat in the ratlines for the day, and then—after a bit of a commotion on the part of several men—we found her ’tween decks. Hung about there for a while she did, and then came down here. She moves about, especially at night, but seems to fancy here best.”

Nathan grinned again at that. “Shortly after she arrived, we noticed a marked drop in the rat population, no reflection on His Lordship, of course.”

“Of course,” she muttered, still not fully recovered.

“Earns her salt, does our dear Artemis,” he said almost lovingly. Cate felt a pang of jealousy for anything that could elicit just pride and admiration. “But don’t go trying to pet her. She’s a bit ill-mannered when it comes to that. Beatrice’s influence, I expect.”

It would figure that Nathan would blame Beatrice. Other than His Lordship, he didn’t seem inclined toward an amenable relationship with any of the animals, but apparently an owl had won him over.

“You’ll have heard the ship is haunted?” he asked with an odd combination of shyness and pride, pleased when she nodded. “That would be our dear Artemis. Makes quite the mournful noise when she’s of a mind.”

The back of Cate’s neck prickled. She had been wakened her first night aboard by just such a sound. The ship being haunted seemed quite possible at that point.

“So, she just…stays?” she asked.

“Aye, well, unless we’re in port,” Nathan said judiciously. “More often than not, she goes skulking about. Out cutting about I suspect,” he said with a scolding glower at the bird. “Floozy!”

Artemis returned an unblinking, broken-necked glower.

“But, she always comes back, catches up if we’ve weighed without her. We put in for careening once. Gone for a couple of weeks, she was; we began to think she’d found a better home. But then, she came back with a mate just as we cleared the reef. Set up housekeeping. You know how women are when they have that nesting urge,” he said as an aside, suggestively rolling his eyes. “Been a wretched nursery down here every since.”

Now that he mentioned it, she could see bits of twig, straw and feathers sticking from underneath the owl. Artemis seemed to know that she was the object of conversation, striking several noble poses.

“I don’t see any little ones,” Cate said.

“Oh, once they’ve grown, she runs them off. Sort of the natural way of things, don’t you think?” There was an odd glint in his eye and he chuckled. “Thoughtful she is, always making sure land is near.”

“Where’s her mate now?” Cate asked, peering cautiously around.

“Open-minded sort, she is. He goes gallivanting off, but she always takes him back.”

“Lucky man.”

Nathan caught the lilt in her voice, but opted to ignore it. He gestured toward the floor directly below the roost and the pile of small, dark, pellet-like things.

“There are three or four rats apiece in those. Not bad, eh?” he said, proudly. “The men sell them and the feathers for charms and such, mostly to the conjure women in these parts. One hand feeding the other, or whatever.”

Artemis’ attention swung around, her head making circular movements like the speeding hands of a clock.

“Ah, see there. She’s on to something, now,” cried Nathan.

Cate looked warily over her shoulder into the darkness, wondering what the owl saw.

“Just mind your hair.” He straightened with a meaningful look. “Don’t want any unfortunate incidents and have to cut Artemis free.”

Cate’s reflexively hand went up to smooth it, just in case. “What about His Lordship? I thought he was for the rats.”

“Oh, aye,” Nathan said, unfazed. “Had a bit of a falling out there at first. There were a couple of nasty rows in the middle of the night.”

He frowned at the memory, and then waved it away as he did with so many other things. “Beatrice had a few things to say on the matter, but an accord was met. Parrots don’t to cotton to hunting rats and Artemis didn’t care about the masthead, during the day, at any rate, so…” He shrugged. “There’s enough for everyone, and each unto his…or her territory.”

The bobbing light signaled he had moved on.

“Don’t owls eat lizards, too?” she asked, thinking of the ship’s geckos as she followed close behind.

Nathan’s chuckle came from out of the darkness ahead of her. “That’s why only the fast ’tis aboard. Once in a while, snakes and the like stumble their way aboard, what with the cargo and all. Between dear Artemis down here and His Lordship up there, the little slimmers don’t stand a chance,” he said without sympathy.

Cate's mind reeled at the staggering amounts of philosophies and commentaries in that and so much categorically askew, she had no way of knowing where to begin to respond. What went on in that mind of his was a marvel.

“A few men complained—bad luck and all that—but once they found the rats no longer were chewing their digits, they were agreeable.”

Sometimes his pragmatism could be staggering, she thought as they pressed on.

Over the slosh of water and ship’s rumbling, she heard the rattle of keys, and then the raspy squeak of hinges on a heavy door. Nathan stood aside to beckon her through. The door slammed shut behind them with a crypt-like thud that felt as if she had just been entombed. Judging by the duller echoes, it was a smaller room that Nathan now picked his way through, lantern on high. Then he stopped and turned.

“Here we are,” he announced, the lamplight flashing on his grin.

Cate gaped as the light fell on a long pile, well over shoulder high. “What is all that?”

“Swag.”

Nathan was already making his way around the perimeter and disappeared behind it. Cate stood awestruck. Gleaming bright in the lamplight, she had heard of piles of pirate treasure, but seeing it was entirely different. It was a dazzling array of everything anyone, in the wildest corner of their imagination, could consider valuable. If it had ever been made of gold or silver, it was there. If it had ever been used in any way, shape, form, or fashion by those of privilege, it was there.

In any circle, it would have been considered a king’s treasure trove. One could have easily set up housekeeping from what spilled from the cargo nets, crates, and hogsheads, and an elegant place it would have been: chairs, paintings, fire screens, porcelain, and clocks. A sequined, silk lizard with jeweled eyes stared out from a knot of plumes and brocades. Next to it was a statue of a naked woman reclined in a chaise, flung against a crate of what looked to be champagne bottles, amid a tumble of royal-looking staffs, orbs, and chalices.

Cate moved the lamp, its light catching additional stacks along the bulkhead of the more mundane: bags of rice, tea chests, sugar, salt, cocoa, coffee, spices, bolts of fabric, and bricks of indigo.

“Where did all this come from?” It was a fairly stupid question, but the only one she could conjure.

Nathan popped up beside her, waggling his eyebrows. “Pirate!”

He pushed past and ducked out of sight.

“What are you looking for?” she asked when astonishment finally gave way to curiosity.

“A looking glass; I thought I saw one down here. Thought you might fancy one.”

Coming from the far side of the pile, his voice was somewhat muffled. She followed his progress by the glow of his lantern, a warm pool of light amid the darkness, reflecting off the pile.

“I thought those were bad luck.”

He straightened to peer at her over the pile. “Whatever put that in your head?”

“I don’t know. It seems like everything else is.”

Nathan grunted and muttered something that sounded like one of his favorite oaths, including a vaguely derogatory reference to women. There was a loud rattle, and then a cascading, metallic crash, resembling a tinker’s cart overturning.

“Damn!”

Holding the lantern higher, she squinted into the surrounding tomb-like darkness. “Are you all right?”

“Fine. Pinched me finger, is all.” Nathan's voice echoed dully over the clatter of his rummaging.

The bone-soaking blackness aside, Cate was struck by something far more overpowering than the muggishness of things gone wet far too long, a revolting odor that assaulted her nose to eye-watering effect.

“What’s that smell?”

The racket stopped and Nathan’s head appeared. Tilting it, he sniffed and frowned. “Bilges, I expect.” He disappeared once more.

“Haven’t you ever considered cleaning them?” she asked through her hand pressed over her mouth and nose.

He stood with a barely tolerant look. “Darling, not everything in this bloody world has to be cleaned.” Shaking his head in dismayed wonderment, he bent back to his quest.

“It smells like someone died down here.”

Halting again, he looked around, considering. “I think someone did.” Eyes rolling in thought, he gave a definitive nod. “Aye! About twelve years ago.”

Nearly gagging, she cleared her throat, trying not to cough lest she stir the thickened air further. “It smells like he’s still down here.”

“Only those froggish French bury their dead in the ballasts. Although it has been a while since the sweet cocks were opened,” he said as an afterthought. “Damned lot o’ pumping, what with all that water pouring in, but if it will abate your delicate sensibilities…” A lift of the shoulders finished his thought.

He returned to his search, his chuckling drowned by the noise of his rootling about. Blinking her watering eyes, Cate surveyed the chaotic collection.

“Has anyone ever considered organizing all this?” she asked, idly kicking at a silver epergne with her toe.

“Organize?”

“Yes, pile things up; put things away. Put the silver with the silver, the crystal with the crystal…At the least then, you would know what you have down here. Some of this is going to be ruined,” she warned, eyeing the water splashing up between the planks with each roll of the ship.

“Plenty more of where it came from,” he said through a suppressed amusement. “We’ve a book. We know everything what’s here.”

“Why haven’t you taken more of this for yourself?” Lantern on high, she surveyed trunks of every size, boiling over with velvets, tapestries, and silks. She had thought Nathan’s quarters to be modest in its appointments, but now in light of all this lavishness so near to hand, it was positively Spartan. The light reflected off the shiny surfaces, shooting apparition-like glows on the walls.

“With all this, you could be living like a king.”

“Naa!” It was a throaty sound from somewhere in the gloom. “I’ve the clothes on me back and me ship.” Nathan popped up next to her, startling her. “There’s nothing I lack of.”

And then he moved away.

“What are you going to do with all this?”

“Sell it,” he replied, barely audible above the clamor.

“And then what?”

“Spend it.” He straightened again, now far down the pile and scowled. “What else would I do with it?”

“Save it?”

He gave her a wary look, as if strongly suspecting a trick question was involved somewhere. “And to what purpose would that be?”

Cate shrugged, scanning the pile. She was beginning to get the feel of this rummaging. “I don’t know; your old age?”

Nathan's hearty laugh echoed dully, a skeptical snort ending it. “Blessed little sense to be found in that: I’ll be long dead.”

It gave her a bit of a chill to think about the possibilities of such a prediction. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I’ve been a pirate long enough to know that pirating will be the death of me, luv,” he said, still fizzing. “Damn!”

“Now what?” she called, squinting toward the glow of his lantern.

“Nothing. Stubbed me toe.”

“You’ve never considered the possibility of growing old?”

“Got it!” came a victorious cry.

With a metallic crescendo, he came around with a gold-filigree mirror so large it barely fitted under his arm.

“You mean grow old and gray on the porch rocking, with me grandchildren on me knee? No, never considered it, because it’s never going to happen.”

Nathan cast a loving look toward the beams and bulkheads. “There’ll come a day when time will be up for me and this ol’ girl, and down we’ll go together. Did you find anything you fancy? If there’s something you like, ’tis at your pleasure.”

She stood back, hesitant. “Is it all yours?”

“Strike me buttons, no. Shares, remember?”

Even once divided among the six score of men, there was still enough in any single share to provide one to live out their days in more-than-modest comfort. And yet few did; not even the ancient Millbridge or the impaired Billings or Stubbs.

“No worries, luv. You’re part of the crew now. You’ve a share coming.”

Bent looking, Cate abruptly straightened. “Since when am I a part of the crew?”

“Since the night you told your story on deck.” He hunched one shoulder. “They voted; it's settled.”

A share of all of that was overwhelming. Jewelry, silks, china, and lace were hardly the stuff of her existence. She balked at the prospect of selecting something. Possessions had been limited for so long to the small meal bag, lost on the Constancy. And before that, she had never been one to indulge in privilege, let alone such riches.

“I could use a footstool, for while I’m stitching.” Picking up the search, she swung the lantern about trying to cast a broader light.

“Wouldn’t you like something else?” Nathan said, following at her elbow. “Something a little more…nice? I just thought maybe you might desire…Well, it just strikes me you should have something nice, that’s all.”

Cate looked back at him through the dim and smiled. “No, it’s very well, Nathan. I already have what I want.”

She did indeed, standing right there before her and all around, for that matter: being needed and belonging, a home. All that, plus a knight in shining armor, albeit slightly tarnished.

Cate’s foot struck something and she looked down to a small trunk half-buried in the riches.

“Here it is.” She tugged the trunk free and tipped it into the light to inspect more closely. Ornate but simple, it had tooled leather straps and detailed silver corner pieces. “Perfect.”

Nathan came around to take a closer look. “Doesn’t look like much.”

“It’s perfect,” she beamed in the face of his patent disapproval. “It’s just the right height for my feet, and has space to store my threads and such.”

Nathan ran his eyes once again over the pile. Ultimately he came back around to the trunk and gave it a scornful glare.

“Very well,” he grumbled in barely contained disappointment.

Stalking off toward the door, he muttered another oath, this one definitely involving females and several other creatures.



###



Cate stood before the new looking glass, admiring it. The addition was an improvement, its reflection already brightening the cabin.

With the gilt frame under his arm, Nathan had carried it with purpose up to the Great Cabin, but had shied just short of the curtain.

“I’ll pass the word for Chips,” he declared and ducked away.

With a few raps from the carpenter’s mate’s hammer, the new glass was affixed on the wall above the washstand. The old one, dim and crackled, had been barely the size of a dinner plate. This one was considerably larger, but still only reached to mid-chest. To see herself entirely would have meant to shove the curtain aside and back out into the salon.

Cate was touched by Nathan’s thoughtfulness, although at the same time was a bit befuddled. He had dismissed her thanks with a casual wave, but she was sure she had seen a deepening of color about his collar. To see the reflection of another being made her feel not so alone, but at the same time, it gave her the disconcerting sensation of being watched.

It had been a long time since she had seen herself to such an extent. Among her possessions had been a piece of glass, so small no more than one feature at a time could be seen. It, along with everything else in that small bag, had been lost when the Constancy had sailed away. It took her a few moments to garner the courage to take an honest look.

The last time she had seen herself—in the mantua-maker’s shop where she had worked in London—she had looked like something for the knacker’s. She had gained enough weight that her collarbone to no longer jutted under her skin and the hollows under her eyes were gone. With the added weight, a bit of softness to her face had returned to her face, but her jaw was still bold, too much so by her mother’s judgment. Her mother had often bemoaned her shoulders, as well, too wide and square to be considered either feminine or fashionable. The corners of her mouth still curved on their own volition. The trait had been often assumed to be impertinence and had brought many a rebuke from her seniors. Her father’s brows and nose were still there, the brow a softer, her nose not quite so turned up at the end.

Her skin was now tanned, not as deeply as Nathan’s and ruddier than his bronze. She was accustomed to the color of her eyes, but they were a bit of a shock then. Her darkened skin intensified them, the jade—their current color—almost glowing. Nathan’s reference to an idol that had sought to curse him was understandable. Her eyes could change, as he and many before him had noted. With no rhyme or reason that she could discern, they shift into colors similar to those seen in the local shallows and reefs.

It was a surprise to see how much her natural mahogany had lightened. She had been able to see the ends enough to know that they had gone almost tawny. But now she could see she looked as if she wore a copper crown.

Cate picked her brush from the top of the stand and began brushing the “maddening tangle” as Nathan referred to it. A lifetime of wrestling with it had been fruitless: braids, tails, pins, and ribbons were flung off with equality. While living in the Highlands, a haven to the concept of proper, she had been urged to wear a cap, as did all gentlewomen. After failing time and again to keep it in place, Brian had ceremoniously flung it out the window. On the Constancy, she had tried a headscarf, which seemed to serve everyone else well. After several furtive tries, securing it so tightly as to cause her head to ache, the cloth had been last seen floating in the ship’s wake.

She had come to envy the pigtails of Hodder, Heap, and many of the crew, most particularly the forecastlemen. Their hair had been secured in the time-honored mariner’s way of a pigtail—most well down the length of the backs—and then tarred, head, tail and all. There had been one day, as she had eyed one such seaman, when Nathan had divined her thoughts.

“Wretched waste of tar.” Nathan cast a skeptical look at her billowing mass and scowled. “Not sure there’s enough aboard.”

A few steps away, he paused at a slush bucket. Tugging the paddle free, he considered the tallow-based, malodorous ooze used to lubricate the masts, and then directed a speculative look toward Cate’s hair. For the briefest of moments, she had harbored a sinking sensation he mightn’t be jesting.

Shaking his head in a jangle of bells, he had shoved the paddle back in place. “It would appear mankind has not yet made the discovery.”

Given sufficient attention, her hair could be coaxed into orderliness, hanging in smooth coils about her shoulders. The first touch of breeze, however, and it would be back to the “maddening tangle.”

Sighing—for there was little to be gained—Cate put the brush away and left.

She had become enough of a mariner to notice the moment she stepped outside that the wind had shifted. More astern now, it meant the Morganse was “running free,” moving with the wind. It rendered the decks quite airless. The forecastle would be the only hope of any relief. Cate arrived there to find Hermione had taken up residence on her seat. It required being more stubborn than the goat, but eventually Cate shooed her away, Hermione casting a complaining bleat cast over her shoulder as she clopped down the steps.

Cate was barely situated before the cry of “On deck there!” came from the lookout straight overhead on the foremast.

Pryce and Nathan, glasses in hand, met at Cate’s either side.

“Where away?” Nathan threw to the foretop.

“Hull up ’n one point free to larboard.”

The men peered with great interest at the speck of white pricking the horizon, dead ahead, visible only on the rise of the swell.

“Do you see what I see, Mr. Pryce?” asked Nathan over her head. A piece of jerked meat was tucked into the corner of his mouth.

“Aye! A fowl fittin’ to be plucked.”

“Something about this one not to my liking,” Nathan said after some moments.

Nathan arranged Cate at a kevel and handed her the spyglass. “Hold this and watch that.”

“What should I watch it do?”

The corner of his mouth quivered. “Just watch.”

Several rounds of bell, changing of the watch and aching arms later, Nathan came up behind Cate. He peered interestedly over her shoulder, the ship now hull up regardless of the swell.

“Well?”

“Nothing,” she sighed. Her hopes had soared at the prospect of having something of significance to report, so that she might appear seaworthy just once.

“Nothing, eh?” Nathan said with something between surprise and doubt.

“Nothing except a bunch of men saluting each other on that deck back there.”

“Poop deck, darling,” he said taking the glass and gazing through it. “That is a poop deck and a glorious one, indeed.”

Pryce came alongside, pulled out a pocket glass, and together the men considered the not-so-distant ship, coming on like a charging ram.

“Nothing more entrancing than the shine of midshipmen’s buttons, unless it’s the captain’s, eh Mr. Pryce? And pray look at all those shining brass buttons,” Nathan said.

“Shining and glorious indeed,” Pryce said, his grin looking almost skeletal. “Looks like she’s usin’ yer trick o’ paintin’ canvas so as to conceal her guns.”

“Aye, well, they do claim imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Nathan lowered the glass to glare at the triple fleur-de-lis flying from the mizzen stay. He made a caustic noise. “French my aged aunt’s ass. Well done,” he declared, patting Cate on the shoulder.

She beamed under his praise, in spite of not having the faintest idea as to what she had done.

“A wolf in sheep’s clothing ’tis what we have here,” Nathan explained to her confusion. “A Royal Navy frigate she is, looking to entertain us with her innocence.”

“’Pears to be the Valor,” Pryce said after further examination. “A sixth rate twenty-four and none so grand as our sixteens.”

Cate nodded, trying to appear to take the meaning of that bit of information—the Valor carried twenty-four guns, none larger than what the Morganse sported—with the significance intended.

“Commanded by Captain Eldridge Prichard, and a worthy foe he is, when he’s sober enough to find the poop. A slave to the Demon Gin he is,” Nathan added.

“The waters are fair stirred up these days,” Pryce said with significance.

Nathan batted his lashes affectedly. “Can’t begin to put me mind as to why.”

Pryce seemed inclined to make further comment but resisted.

Redirecting his attention to the Valor again, Nathan made a sarcastic noise. “Anyone with half o’ brain would wear ’round, and tear off like smoke and oakum at the sight of our sails. He desires us to believe he doesn’t know who we are and that we are too cod-headed to have smoked who he is.”

Nathan scanned the water and cast an eye skyward. “On to it, then.”

He stepped to the break of the forecastle to shout, “Mr. Hodder. Mr. MacQuarrie. Pass the word to your men. You know what’s to be done.”

It was a fascination to witness the next while: a delicate operation executed with the precision and ease gained only through practice. MacQuarrie readied his crews and guns, the port lids still closed, as did the Valor, as observed and reported by the eagle-eyed Damerell at the crosstrees. In the meantime, Hodder readied men and ship.

Closer…closer…The vessels bore down on each other.

The Valor was now close enough that her individual faces could be made out, peering over her rail. The next bit happened so fast, Cate wasn’t sure if she had imagined it. The painted canvas fell away from the Valor’s side and her foremost guns fired, but too soon for effect. The Morganse’s port lids flew open, the guns rammed home and the bow-chaser fired. The smoke had yet to clear the forecastle, before the Morganse had pirouetted—with a great deal of bellowing by those hauling on the braces, tacks, and sheets—and sped away into her own wake. The Union Jack and a commodore’s streamer broke out from the Valor’s peak, and the race was on.

The Morganse settled in like a steeplechaser, the water rushing past her sides at an ever-increasing rate. Leaning far out over the windward rail, Cate could see the Valor’s new press of sails and the increase of white foam at her cutwater.

“You have something in mind?” she asked Nathan.

He stood leaned against the binnacle, his arms casually crossed. His cheeks rounded with a square-toothed grin. “A man without a plan is a man what plans to fail, or die as the case would likely be. We got their attention; now let’s see what Ol’ Prichard is made of. All I require is a few hours of staying ahead—not too far, mind—the night’s new moon and a steady glass, which shows every sign of being so.”

It was a steady glass, but the seas cut up rough, with a heavy swell. The Morganse leaned into the waves—“close-hauled on a larboard tack, ’n the wind five points off ’er nose”—flinging a steady curl of water to leeward. She ducked her head to take an occasional wave over her bow, the spindrift flying nearly to the afterdeck.

No log line was necessary. That Morganse outdistanced Valor was clear enough, so much so an old jib was rigged over the side—to leeward, hence out of the Valor’s sight—as a sea anchor, intentionally slowing her. It meant it would appear to the Valor that the Morganse was sailing her heart out to escape. Cate wondered what Nathan was playing at, but he seemed disinclined to elaborate. The hands exchanged knowing looks and nods. They knew, and so would she, in time.

Their course led down a near mile-wide channel between two strings of islands. Those to leeward varied, from steep-sided and sizeable, to barely more than a dry spot in the water. Those to windward, considerably further away, were no more than monotonous low strips of white beach, fringed with palms.

A joyous whoop drew Cate’s attention to the bow. The decks were at a shocking pitch. In spite of the manropes rigged from fore to aft, every step needed to be planned. A couple of times, she was snagged by the nearest seaman to keep from taking a hazardous tumble. Reaching the forecastle finally, she looked further forward to see Nathan nearly to the tip of the jib-boom, nearly half the ship’s length out over the water, standing as casually as he had next to the binnacle. He braced an arm against a stay as he rode the rise and fall of the boom like a Roman rider. He threw his head back and let out another whoop, similar to what that same rider might have given.

“Won’t he fall?” she heard herself say.

Mr. Fox, the captain of the forecastle jacks, looked from supervising his men to Nathan with mild interest. “Nay, the Morganse would never allow it. Wet as Neptune he’ll be and never notice.”

He shook his head in wonderment. “’Tis the likes ain’t never seen.”

“Him standing out there?”

“Nay. Him ’n this ship. ’Tis but one soul a’tween them. Best step aft, sir, or you’ll be as wet as a whale yerself.”

A wave breaking high just then, its plumes sheeting across the deck, made his point.

The ship’s people went about their routine as they would any other day. There was no worry, no furtive glances aft to see what the Valor was doing. That task was all reserved for Cate and she performed it admirably. She paced, until the day faded and the Valor was reduced to no more than a ghostly blur of sails and lamp glows. The sea suddenly seemed overcrowded. She could still feel ship’s presence, like someone breathing over her shoulder, pressing, looming, so very…there.

Unable to bear it, Cate went into the cabin, hoping to find something to occupy her mind. She found Hermione meticulously flicking the last bits with her tongue from Cate’s dinner plate, left by Mr. Kirkland. It was just as well; her stomach was closed. She was too distracted to read, and couldn’t concentrate sufficiently to stitch. She gravitated to the length of cord lying on the gallery sill. Eager for the opportunity to practice her knotting without prying eyes, she sat and began, and began…and began, swearing under her breath each time. Somehow, somewhere, she was making the same mistake time and again.

Nathan came into the cabin and her heart sank. It would be an understatement to say he was distressed by her ineptitude so far as knotting was concerned. He seemed to have taken it as his personal mission and a dogged instructor he was.

His eyes lit at seeing the rope in her hand. “No, the shank’s too long,” he said, perching next to her. “Start again.”

They sat heads bent, shoulder-to-shoulder. It wasn’t a complete accident when Cate shifted for a better view when Nathan demonstrated, bringing the length of her thigh against his. His fingers moving like moth-wings over hers, she frequently became lost in watching his hands, the bones and tendons flexing under the bronzed skin, burnished to golden in the light. The fine web of scars across his knuckles was a constant reminder of how closely he had come to being no different than Stubbs.

A clearing of his throat and “Mind your task, lass,” set her back to the lesson.

“Now, this is the tree,” Nathan said grasping the section of cord. “The loop is the hole. And this other end is the rabbit.”

Cate checked her urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she fixed them with affected interest. The chant of a rabbit capering about, rounding trees, and popping in and out it of holes was not novel. Stubbs had repeated it seemingly time out of mind. And yet, in Nathan’s throaty rasp, his breath warm on her arm, it sent a tingling rush through her. His sleeve brushed her arm, and her fingers went thick and clubbish.

At one point, he paused, his attention veering to her. “You’re worried.”

Cate flushed, not realizing she had been staring over her shoulder at the Valor. Nathan’s observation came with a slight quivering at the corner of his mouth, as if he was holding back from laughing at her.

“I’m not made for cat-and-mouse.” Truth be told, she had been in desperate need of a distraction, the practicing but a means to keep her hands busy.

“I see you—everyone, for that matter—go into this, like you already know you’re going to prevail,” she said, her frustration bubbling to the surface.

“No, the shank’s too long. Start again.” Nathan smiled faintly. “I’m still alive, aren’t I? Aye, there is an advantage to be reaped from being the most feared ship in the Caribbean.”

“Blood dripping from the sails and deck have to help,” she said, working the rope.

“Aye, that and thirty-eight guns, deadly accurate, and sharpshooters what can lay nigh on to three barrages a minute. We out-gun and out-man most and the rest are too near pissing their britches at the thought of confrontation.”

“Even the Royal Navy?” she asked.

Nathan gave a tight-lipped smile. “They attack only when ordered, and with great trepidation at that. The loop goes this way. Start again.”

“Ordered by their commander?”

“One Commodore Roger Harte,” he announced grandly. Then he cut a sharp look, noticing her twitching reaction. “You’re familiar with him?”

“Only by mention on the Constancy, and here a few times.”

Cate felt his gaze on her for some time, as one might look for deception or hidden meanings. His lashes, copper-tipped by the sun, were almost golden in the candlelight.

“I get the impression there is a history between the two of you,” she prompted.

“Hmm? Oh, aye. History could be a word,” he mused. Rubbing the side of his nose, his smile grew more lopsided as he considered. “Running spurt. Difference of opinion…”

“Rivalry?”

Nathan sobered and shrugged. “That too. One does have to admire a dedicated enemy.”

“Can he do the same?”

A deep calm befell him and his lids lowered. “Oh, aye.”

Cate looked back over her shoulder. The Valor’s lights were like a pestilent hovering of fireflies. The Morganse’s stern lamps illuminated her own wake with a molten golden glow.

“It’s not you they seek,” Nathan said evenly.

She glanced at him, and then away. “Are you sure?”

He smiled with the patience of a parent with a child afraid of thunder. “As sure as the tides.”

Cate shifted, toying with the cord. He frowned at seeing that she wasn’t convinced. “Darling, there’s no worry. You shan’t ever be turned over to him.”

She had spent nearly a fortnight formulating a list of possibilities of what his plans might be for her, but so far, nothing. If she wasn’t to be turned over for the reward, then what?

Nathan saw her doubt and winced. “In the midst of all this barbarity, luv, a pirate has but one thing upon which to rely: his word. And I give you mine: you shall never be handed over to Harte, nor anyone else. You can mark me on that.”

So touched by his sincerity, Cate reached for his hand where it rested on his leg next to hers. He jerked away as if seared and launched to his feet. He was nearly to the mizzenmast when Somers, the boatswain’s third mate, appeared at the door.

“Mr. Hodder’s compliments and duty, sir. We’re standing by.”

“On to it, then,” Nathan declared and darted away.

Cate sat staring in his wake, confused and doubly defeated. It wasn’t the first time she had seen him recoil and scamper away for no more reason than her nearness. She might be a widow, but she preferred to think she might still have a little allure left.

“Don’t flatter yourself, my dear,” she muttered.

No, it wasn’t the first time she had seen him race away, but would be the last, at least with reference to anything she had to do with.

She settled to the knot once more, but the cord blurred. Squealing, she pitched into a dark corner. In pure honesty, her frustration had nothing to do with the rope. Discontent gave way to curiosity at voices coming outside, low and urgent. She went out to find a sizable cluster of men around a number of empty casks lashed together. Two staffs had been rigged at one end, a lantern swinging from each.

“Silence fore and aft!” It was a wonder how commanding Hodder’s voice could be even in no more than a loud whisper.

The makeshift barge was lowered in the ship’s lee. A line was fed out, until the breeze caught and it drifted away.

“Douse the lamps,” murmured Nathan.

The Morganse veered from the barge’s path. The sea anchor at her side was cut free and she shot off on her new course, like a horse given its head.

“Won’t they figure out that was just a bunch of barrels?” she asked of Hodder, watching the Valor follow what must have looked like the Morganse’s stern lights.

Hodder smiled faintly, his multitude of ivory rings glinting in the starlight. “Oh, aye. Even if ’tis but an hour, ’twill be too late.”

He directed her attention to the topsails and jibs, now charcoaled to obscurity. On the moonless night, the black ship would be nothing more than a dark blot on the water’s oily satin.

Cate stood amidships. Venus, a diamond low in the sky, was soon blotted out by the jagged edge of land looming near. Uneasiness prickled between her shoulder blades as the islands, the ones they had paralleled all day, came closer. Obviously, Nathan had something in mind, but it was still a worry.

The watch bells were reduced to no more than the rap of Hodder’s knuckles on the binnacle. The lead lines were flung, the depths passed aft to the afterdeck by word of mouth. Men stood at the ready at the tacks and braces, should a change be necessary in a moment’s notice. A complex system of flashes and waves of watch lamps were employed to direct the helm as the ship tiptoed her way through.

The black spine of land before them eventually split, a passage between two islands showing itself. The land on both sides closed in as they slipped through, the air becoming heavy with the smell of damp earth and rotting vegetation. The breeze brought the howls and cries of night creatures. A hunch-shouldered blur swept overhead; Artemis, taking her leave. The land eventually fell away and the smell of jungle gave way to salt air. The lead lines were stowed as the Morganse came hard about and flashed out her sails, their ivory glowing in the starlight.

Cate might not have been much of a seaman, but she had sense of direction enough to know that they had made a U-turn and were now backtracking. The Morganse was heading north, judging by Polaris over the forestays, while the Valor was assumed to be still on her southerly heading, the string of islands now between the two vessels.

Time. It wasn’t always one’s friend. Late into the night, Cate laid across the bunk. She didn’t bother to undress, for sleep was an unlikely prospect. An ever-so-slight disturbance in the ship’s easy motion brought her up from her bed. On deck, she was met with the sight of sentinels of rock on either side. Jagged with palm trees, they towered over the masts. She glanced up to see Artemis roosted on a foreyard.

“Barely a biscuit toss,” murmured Mr. Pickford in awed admiration as land slid past. “The Cap’n knows his waters.”

“Calypso’s hand is in this,” said Ogden over his shoulder. The snake tattooed on his head glared down as he canted it toward the bow. “There she is now, a-leadin’ us.”

Cate looked forward. Indeed, there was a flash of silver, but it appeared more like a cavorting sea hog.

There was another hesitation in the Morganse’s motion, as her keel brushed the sandy bottom. A bit later, there was a vibration, felt only through a hand on the rail, as she skimmed a reef. Then she shot out into open waters.

“The wind holds,” Nathan declared, lifting his face. “Master Pryce, let’s fly all she will bear.”

“Now what?” Cate asked, feeling quite bleary-eyed. Impending dawn was a lavender blush at the line where water and sky met. She had no idea when Nathan had last slept, but his spirits and voice were buoyant.

“The good Captain Prichard awakes to his Officer of the Watch bidding him joy of the morning and informing of a ship larboard astern. There will be no doubts as to the who,” he said with a smug glance toward the red-crowned sails overhead.

“After a certain amount of arguing over coffee as to how we managed to achieve such a commanding advantage, he’ll commence to maneuvering for the weather gauge—to windward, to put us in his lee,” he explained to her confused scowl. “Toward those islands over there,” he added with significance.

Islands had a staggering tendency to all look the same, but those to windward were easily recognized, for they were the same strand she had stared at all day. In the pre-dawn, when the world became one-dimensional, only the gleam of white sand defined their shape. The Morganse was where she had been earlier that day, except the Valor was now ahead of them.

The mouse had just become the cat.

Nathan rocked on his heels in expectation of her next query. “And then?” she finally asked.

The first rays of the sun broke on his face as he waggled his brows. “All good things come to he what waits.”

The Morganse flattened and ran like a horse with the bit in its teeth. The song of canvas and rigging was lost in the rush of the water down her sides, her cutwater slicing the deep blue. Her decks took a severe pitch once more. Readings from the log lines were called out from the leeward chains. Ten. Ten and two fathoms. Eleven. Eleven and four. Twelve and three.

Nathan laid aloft on a topgallant yard and there remained. To Cate’s mind, there was a grand difference between chase and being chased. Nathan’s half-smile and gleeful spark suggested he took a greater joy in the latter, outwitting his enemy as opposed to besting. Some hours later, he slid down a backstay, landing as a fairy might on a toadstool, and said “Sail ho!” with a beaming flash of gold and ivory.

Cate felt pity—only a modicum, but pity nonetheless—for the faceless, hapless Prichard. The Valor had to be suffering a certain amount of confusion, if not outright concern, as to how she had kept pace with the Morganse earlier, but now was being so handily outpaced. Eventually the Morganse was obliged to spill her sails, ever so slightly so that never a shiver nor flogging sail was seen, sure signs of a ship deliberately slowing. Cate was put to mind of that cat having now caught the mouse desired to play with it.

Nathan was in the mizzentop. His attention fixed well ahead of the Valor, he called directions down to the helm. The Morganse pressed the vessel like a shepherd dog goading an unwitting sheep, the Valor slipping further and further to windward, in order to gain the favored position.

By then, the Valor was near enough that the faces of her people could be seen as they scrambled, her port lids opening. The Morganse was astir, too: her boarding party making ready, dispensing weapons, affixing strips of red cloth around heads or arms to mark them as Morgansers, and preparing the boats—which had been stowed aboard at the first sighting of the frigate—to be roused over the side the instant word was given.

Nathan shot down a backstay. “Bow-chasers, if you please, Mr. MacQuarrie. Let’s kick ’er in the ass and see if she might be encouraged a little faster.”

Nathan stood with his eyes fixed on the chase with a half-smile of anticipation. Something was about to happen, and soon. Cate had no sooner stepped up next to him than she saw the Valor stop with a suddenness that sent her wake roiling up her sides nearly to her bow. The breeze brought the grind and howl of wood against a hard surface, and then the crackle of shattered rigging. Her topmasts came down on the heads of her people, draping her bow in canvas. One is never aware of the constant motion of a ship, until one is seen entirely motionless. An unnatural and eerie sight it was. The Valor was hard aground, up by the bow, her deck slightly angled toward the Morganse.

In the midst of the hands’ rollicking cheer, Nathan was already down the steps and at the waist, shouting orders along the way.

From behind, Cate heard Pryce make a caustic noise. “Ain’t no chart on the earth what shows that shallows, I kin warrant ye that.”

The Morganse luffed up near enough for an easy pull across to her prey. The Valor had no topsail to douse, but a white flag—more like a tablecloth—showed at the aft cabin.

“Away all boats,” called Nathan. A resulting splash could be heard from all four corners.

The deck was a mob of men, wild-eyed for battle, surging for the rail. Cate gaped in horror at seeing Nathan tuck a pair of extra pistols into his belt and a wicked-looking knife in his boot. He meant to go with the boarding party!

“You’re the captain. You don’t need—” she pleaded, grabbing him by the arm.

“Aye, but I do.” And he was gone.

In the melee of men pouring over the side and down the nets, Cate didn’t see which boat Nathan was in. As they rowed toward the Valor, She strained to find him in the scores of heads. And then, she saw him, the bastard! He stood like a damned figurehead at the bow of the lead boat, urging his men on.

The boats drew up at the Valor’s side and were nearly hooked on, when the Valor’s muskets opened fire on the unsuspecting pirates. It was a gross violation of a white flag. At the same time, the Valor muskets opened fire the Morganse. Someone knocked Cate to the deck and flung himself over her as musket balls and wood splinters shot past.

After the first barrage, the Morgansers raised their heads to glare over the rail. A roar of protests and obscenities dissolved into the furor of response. MacQuarrie and his gun crews stood in red-faced fury. They didn’t dare employ his great guns, not with their mates in the line of fire. They were handcuffed and livid for it. Muskets, already to hand from arming the boarding party, were snatched up, the sharpshooters scurrying aloft.

Cate wound up half-crouched behind the bulwark, wedged between Squidge and Widower, as etched near her shoulder on the carriage. Squidge paused in his firing to toss her a cartridge box and kicked a musket to her, for her to begin reloading. She fell quickly into the rhythm of tearing the cartridge’s paper with her teeth, pouring the contents down the hot barrel, ramming, priming and cocking. Squidge held out the empty weapon, ready to grab the next, grumbling, “Bear a hand! Bear a hand!” when she fumbled. With the steady resupply of cartridges and powder delivered, the barrels soon became so hot, she had to use her apron.

There were none of the rolling gun barrages. This was a battle of marksmen, meticulous picking off, a cry of victory going up at seeing a target fall. The air grew thick and acrid with smoke. Balls whirred overhead like a swarm of enraged bees. Spent balls bounced and rolled about the deck. Amid the continuous splat and crack of lead hitting wood, Cate felt splinters brush her body and tug at her clothing.

Underneath the gunfire, she could hear the clash of hand-to-hand fighting on the Valor. Through the disembodied voices bouncing between ships and the cries of the wounded, she strained to hear the one in particular: Nathan’s. She felt herself slip back into another time, during the Uprising. It had been Brian she had worried for then. The anguish, smoke, sweat, and blood, however, were all the same.

“Hold fire!” It was Hodder, from somewhere further amidships.

And then, it was quiet, eerily so. A cheer went up at seeing that the Valors had surrendered, their raised hands visible as Cate stood.

The breeze stirred and the deck cleared. The smoke still hung in grey whorls in protected nooks. The jubilation of victory was brief. The Morgansers set immediately to seeing about their ship and mates. Cate set to seeking the injured and tending the worst. Only a few had been hit, most just grazed. Mute Maori had dug a ball out of the flesh of his massive leg with his rigging knife, before she could reach him. Scripps bemoaned the disfigurement of one of his precious tattoos. Several of his fellow topsmen had already offered good-natured suggestions as to how the scar might be incorporated in a new one.

Overall, the mood was relaxed victory. A job done and done well.

Sombers glared at the Valor as Cate wrapped his arm. “Praise God that goddamned hulk was straked. The sodding bastard woulda opened his guns else.”

Cate glanced toward the Valor. Running up on the reef had left the ship leaning at least a strake, nearer to two. The gun ports allowed only a few degrees of variation in their elevation, which meant, if the Valor had fired, the result would have only been a great deal of dead fish.

“The spineless f*cker was willing to kill himself and take every jack with him, all for the glory of King and Country,” came Hodder’s voice from somewhere behind her.

“Or endear ’imself,” put in Pryce grimly. His waistlong pigtail was queued up at the back of his head for battle. “Aye, a-coming back dead could be a damn sight better ’n comin’ back empty handed, where the Commodore is concerned.”

Cate worked to treat the wounded, but her mind was with Nathan. She snatched glimpses over the rail toward the Valor, but saw nothing of what was happening over there. She cursed herself for over-reacting. She had sent Brian off to battle with far more aplomb, and he had always come back unscathed…for the most part.

At length, she paused in her labors at seeing the Valor’s boats being loaded. Piles of plundered clothing, she judged, including flashes of the unmistakable Marine red. Once loaded to the point of near swamping, instead of being brought across, each boat was cast adrift, a torch tossed atop when the wind caught. They trailed away like a column of Viking funerals, their progress marked by curls of smoke.

Another lick of flame appeared, the Valor’s Union Jack and commodore’s banner set afire. The Morgansers jeered and hooted, baring their arses over the rail. The blazing fabric dropped from the Valor’s poop deck and floated down, a small hiss marking the flames’ death in the water.

Still no sign of Nathan.

Cate snatched a glass from the binnacle and focused on the Valor’s decks. Its downward angle allowed her a full view. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing: an entire frigate of men all naked as Adam. Standing so closely packed together, their white bodies looked like maggots wriggling in the sun. She thought she should look away, but their eloquence in indignation was too delicious. Some were almost purple with outrage; they had to be the officers.

Cate scanned the wreck and ruin. It was rather shocking the damage that could be wrought by no more than musket and blade. The dead scattered about was testimony enough. A thin crimson stream poured from a scupper amidships, several triangular fins thrashing in the water directly below.

She flinched.

There it was again, that same stab, like an onset of the gripes. It was like a great fist seizing her gut and twisting.

The great hand of guilt.

It struck after every engagement, at realizing what she was a part of.

Pirates.

She couldn’t reproach the Morgansers. To blame them would be to blame the hound for howling. She could see them on the Valor—easily, for they were the only ones clothed—and their familiar faces, the ones she lived among, the ones she laughed with and mended their bodies, now taunting the defenseless and naked Valors. The bitter taste of revulsion rose in her mouth at seeing the injured and dead had been stripped. The sight called to mind the aftermath of several battlefields. The scavengers picked through the bodies, going so far as to cut off fingers for rings and bashing out teeth for the gold.

And so, regret for what? At what point do you think you could have caused a different outcome?

“What a cold-hearted bitch you’ve become,” Cate said under her breath.

Too late, my dear. That happened the day Brian left.

There had been no massacre, nor atrocities here, and there well could have been after such a gross deception. She was no neophyte; she knew what was done in the heat of battle, in war or when fighting for one’s life. And fighting for their lives was exactly what the pirates were doing; their blood smeared her apron and crusted her nails. If anything, the pirates had been the ones to fight by the rules.

It was kill or be killed…wasn’t it?

The glass grew slippery. She wiped her palms and peered again.

Still no Nathan.

Cate choked down the fear that tightened her throat at thought of him lying somewhere, that it was his blood draining to the sea.

She cursed Nathan for this damned feud of his. In a moment of honesty, she knew what troubled her: all of this destruction was because of it. This drive to best Harte and Creswicke went far beyond anything she had witnessed, including the Highlander clan wars, which could span generations over a mere patch of land.

Nathan’s was a blood vengeance, to be sure. Over what would probably never be hers to know.

“Tut, tut. Ogling, are we? What would your mother say?”

Cate spun around to find Nathan standing behind her, grinning, still flushed with the exultancy of battle. Blood spattered his sleeves and he had a scrape on his chest, but he was whole…blessedly whole. Her heart warmed at the sight of him. She was caught between throwing her arms around his neck with joy and giving him a piece of her mind.

“Where did you…? How did…?” she cried. Then anger won out. “Damn you, you bastard. How dare you go running off like that. You could have been shot…or killed…or…” Her mouth moved like a fish gasping for for air as she searched for words.

Nathan shook his head, jangling his bells, and flipped a braid. “Charmed.”

This exchange was made while he spun her about and patted her down, seeking to assure that she was well. He held up the side of her skirt to exhibit a hole, much like that which might have been made by a musket ball. The corner of his mouth tucked up and he gave her a paternal glare. His displeasure at her failure to find safety deepened at finding another.

“What happened?” she asked, interrupting the berating that was in the offing.

Nathan shrugged and dabbed the sweat from the side of his face. “Everything and nothing. Opened fire on our heads, the dung-souled maggot. Sharks what had been following the ship got those what fell in the water.” A bit shaken at that recollection, a disgusted noise related the pursuant carnage.

“I can’t believe they fired on you, not after a white flag.”

“Pirate.” Under his mustache, his mouth took a grim curve. “Nothing so low should reap the benefits of anything so gentlemanly.”

“But you…”

He waved her away. “We did no different than every pirate from Bartholomew to Teach: took every shred of clothing. Clothes, tarpaulins, blankets, right down to the hammocks, the table napkins and the cook’s apron: we took anything and everything what could be possibly shifted to cover one’s ass.”

Nathan looked judiciously to the Valor’s shattered rigging. “’Course the sails remain, but that Number One duck will be blessedly rough on one’s bum.”

Cate recalled seeing the boats being loaded. “But you—?”

“Burned every stitch.” He proudly rocked on his heels. “Allowing the men their pick, of course.”

“Of course,” she muttered to herself.

“Unlike the aforementioned sea rogues, we left them a boat, dinghy, truth be told. They shan’t die of hunger or thirst, although sunburn will be a definite hazard,” he said, curbing a smile.

“Won’t they wash that off?”

Nathan looked with little remorse at the haloed skull and wings that had been painted on the Valor’s side, shockingly white against the deep blue hull. “I pity the poor sod what will have to hang his bare ass between the Devil and the deep blue sea to do so.”

Nathan shrugged as he turned away. “A week or so, and someone will come looking.”

“And Commodore Harte?”

He stopped and turned, his smile broadening. “Will be oh, so very annoyed.”

Whoops and hoots of celebration broke out as more men topped the gunwale, returning from the raid.

The celebration was on.

The Ciara Morganse was on the prowl again.