The Pirate Captain

CHAPTER 7: Havens

If the sails were a ship’s heart, then the tar was the Morganse’s lifeblood. The black goo coated every inch of the standing rigging, the sun’s heat often causing it to drip in glob-like rain. In combination with oakum, it was tediously packed between every plank, literally keeping the ship afloat. Tarring, consequently, was a never-ending task, the smell of tar stoves, hot pitch, and loggerheads as prevalent as the sea itself. That same lifeblood, however, in swinging bucketfuls on lurching decks was a hazardous combination. Burns were commonplace.

On tarring days, Cate came to keep the stoneware jar of burn ointment and bandages in a basket at the ready. She knew the high-pitched scream unique to burns. Of all the injuries, she found burns to be the most difficult to face. Pirates were a stoic lot, but burns often pushed them beyond the pale. Her patient often gone white with pain, herself feeling a peculiar shade of green, she swallowed down the rising bile as she tweezed the raw, seeping flesh clean, applied salve, and then the wrapping.

One such day, she heard the familiar scream. Rising instantly, she grabbed the basket at her feet and followed the commotion to her next patient. He sat on the forecastle steps, hunched over his arm, rocking in silent agony. The offending tar had been yanked away, leaving an open, oozing blister nearly the size of her palm. With eyes only for the injury, she knelt to inspect, setting the basket next to her.

“I knew eventually I’d have you servin’ me on yer knees.”

She froze at the voice and looked up into Bullock’s scarred face. He saw her surprise and grinned insolently. She ducked her head, intensifying her focus, but could still feel his brooding glare. Resting his arm on his thigh, he didn’t extend it as much as he might, forcing her further between his knees. He groaned and swore, making a large show of his suffering, all the while leaning back, obliging her to come nearer yet. His breath blew hot on her neck. She inched away, but not far enough for comfort’s sake—at the taffrail would have been too close. From the corner of her eye, she saw the grimed fingers pluck a lock of her hair from on his leg.

“Hmm! Be yer quim the same color, darlin’?”

Cate tried to rise, but was stopped by his foot on her skirt. He made no attempt to move it.

Bullock's comment had been uttered loudly enough so that there was no mistake, yet low enough for her ears alone. Glancing around, Cate saw that Bullock had timed the comment well. A burn was nothing new, this one too minor to draw comment. On a deck filled with men, they were alone.

She jerked her hair free of his grasp. Biting back several retorts, she prayed her hands to be steady, determined not to let the bastard think she was afraid of him. Still, she couldn’t meet his gaze and he knew it. Over the smell of tar and burned flesh was his reek, a combination of sweat and animal lust.

Bullock bent, his lips brushing the top of Cate's head. “The Cap’n thinks we’re over here a-exchangin’ love notes.”

She shook with the effort to not flinch, carefully measuring what it would take to land an elbow squarely in his crotch. Loath to cause a scene, she refused to play into his game, although she fancied an accidental slip of the tweezers, gouging the raw flesh.

Keeping her eyes fixed on her work, Cate strained to recall where she had last seen Nathan: on the quarterdeck, virtually the length of the ship away. Of course. Bullock wouldn’t have had the courage, else. It was a small blessing: Bullock was dangerous in more ways than one. A “goddamned, swivel-tongued, son-of-a-double-eyed Dutch whore,” as Pryce had called him, the man was the contagious type. His agitations could spread through a ship faster than wharf fever. Causing a scene, obligating Nathan to take action, could only fan the fires of dissention.

Giving the burn only a perfunctory cleaning—his arm could fester and fall off, for all she cared, the longer and more agonizing the process the better—she fumbled with the jar’s cork. She scooped out the mixture of tallow, wax, and sweet oil, and took great satisfaction at seeing him flinch when she touched the raw flesh, admittedly rougher than might have been required.

Bullock gave a lewd smirk. “A man can’t help but wonder what it would be for those hands to be a-greasin’ his cock.”

Cate lurched backward, ignoring the sound of her skirt giving way as she stumbled to her feet. The jar crashed to the deck. The hands nearest paused, looking interestedly on as she backed away, rigid. She kicked the cork from the shattered crockery and splattered ointment, hitting Bullock in the shin. Smiling, he regarded her with the cold eyes of a shark, his leering chuckle echoing behind her as she stalked away.

Cate's path aft intersected Nathan’s as he came forward. She sought to brush past him, but he seized her by the arm, his countenance dark with concern.

“Did he…?” Nathan eyed her skirt and the section of torn waistband.

“No.” Cate jerked away, continuing to the cabin.

“But I saw—” Nathan said, close on her heels.

“No!” she shot back over her shoulder.

“But you look—”

Cate whirled around, balling her fists. “No!”

She spun away and headed for the cabin. Nathan gave chase, but pulled up short when she ducked through the curtain. The shadow underneath the velvet’s hem revealed that he lingered. He exhaled loudly enough to make his displeasure evident. In her sliver of privacy, she gave way to a mute tantrum, grunting with the effort of pitching the pillow at the bulkhead again and again.

“Are you well?” came Nathan’s voice through the curtain.

“I’m fine,” she said between ragged gasps.

There was a fair pause. “It doesn’t sound like it.”

“I’m fine,” Cate said with far more anger than intended. She took a deep breath, collected herself, and said in careful measure, “I’m…fine.”

She heard Nathan draw breath to say something, and then thought better. Grumbling darkly under his breath, she heard him stalk away. Hodder bellowing, “Swabbers!” blanketed his footsteps.

Once alone, Cate resumed her fit, swearing to herself colorfully enough to make a sailor proud and her mother appalled. Seething, she paced the tiny space. A part of her screamed that she should tell Nathan. An appealing thought, pictures of flogging and keel-hauling coming to mind. Her pride argued it would be too much like running to someone else to solve her problems.

Cate watched Bullock for several days after, unscathed and as brash as ever. With “No secrets on a ship” echoing in her head, she vacillated between hoping Nathan knew of Bullock’s comments and dreading that he did. If Nathan knew, then he might feel compelled to retaliate. That could lead to refueling the mutinous fires, stirring the burning pot called Bullock.

And so, Cate kept her counsel and lived more cautiously, conscious of not allowing herself in compromising situations: never in the company of just one crewman, never going below or to isolated corners of the ship alone. On a ship with over a hundred men, it wasn’t difficult. Living in such close quarters suddenly didn’t seem such a burden after all.



###



Besides care-giving, another responsibility was thrust upon Cate one day.

When the Valor’s stubbed masts had still pricked the line between water and sky, Mr. Cameron, hat in hand, had sidled closer.

He repeatedly cleared his throat. “’Cuse me, mum…sir!” The blunder prompted a more vigorous twisting of his hat.

He cleared his throat again, a tortuous sound. “Compliments, to ye, mum…sir! A word w’ ye?”

“Certainly, Mr. Cameron,” Cate said, mildly curious and a lot wary.

“Well, mum…sir!” Eyes downcast, Cameron's mouth moved in search of words. “I was recallin’, from before, when we wuz marchin’ to Stirling.”

…marchin’ to Stirling… Caught unawares, the memories those few words brought was like a punch in the gut: freezing weather, hundreds of Highlanders, hungry, trudging toward a battle.

She could only manage a wheezing “Yes?”

“Ye can write, sir.” The simple observation was tinged with awe.

Cate blinked at the unexpected turn of subject. “Well, yes, I both read and write.” Aside from landed gentry, few women could. She had been taught only through her mother’s intransigence.

“I knew it!” Cameron beamed, then sobered. “Well, mum…sir, I recollected seein’ ye at the fires, writin’…for yer husband’s men.”

“Yes, I remember,” she said faintly. She wrapped her arms about herself against a sudden chill. Scores of men, facing battle, fearing it to be their last, had desired to send final words to loved ones. Unable to write, they had come to her. Through the night, she had furiously scratched words of love, last wills, and tearful farewells.

“Might ye consider the same…now…perhaps?” Worrying the hat, Cameron looked up with hope and dread.

“You, Mr. Cameron?”

“Aye.” Nodding, his assault on the hat’s brim intensified. “’Tis been…well, you’ll know how long, since…everything…” He left the thought to complete itself. “I’ve not sent word home since the day we marched.”

“Never? Your family hasn’t heard from you at all?”

“Wife, mum,” he corrected politely. “I had a wife and bairns.”

“And you’ve never sent them word.” Cate gleaned as much accusation from that as possible. After all, it had been nearly two decades since she had heard from her own family or vice-versa.

“No, mum, I kent it was terrible bad of me, but I never…” Cameron shrugged and looked to his feet.

There was little basis to rebuke the man. Given distances, the scattering effect of war, the scarcity of paper, and the cost of postage, not to mention the not so small detail of illiteracy, communication was difficult verging on impossible for most.

“I understand, Mr. Cameron.” Now she was the one to look to her feet, in hopes of relieving him of his embarrassment. “Life does have a way of sweeping one off in directions not always anticipated. Will there be someone on the other end that might read?”

Cate politely overlooked the small detail of the cost of receiving a letter. When she had left the Highlands, the widespread poverty had made a spare copper a rare find.

“I’d be pleased to write for you. I’ll ask the Captain if he has paper.” She hoped inwardly the coffers of the Ciara Morganse were rich enough to provide for that.

In Cameron’s wake, she leaned against the scuttlebutt to compose herself. What Cameron hadn’t seen during the war were the wounded and the dying for whom she written. Day and night, crouched in the dirt, she wrote the words dictated through parched lips. Sometimes, the lips ceased moving, and she completed their last thoughts, closing as tenderly as possible, sometimes adding small addendums to inform the family of their loved one’s last moments. She had been the final bridge, a solace not only to the helpless, but the distant families, as well. It had been exhausting work and she wouldn’t have surrendered a single moment. When weariness burned her eyes and stabbed her shoulders, she drove herself with the single thought that, if the tables had been turned, if it had been Brian dying on a nameless battlefield, what a treasure a last letter would have been.

It was with that frame of reference that propelled Cate through hours of writing for the Morgansers. An eyebrow twitching with suspicion, Nathan provided paper without comment and presented her with a small silver traveling case, which contained a tiny inkwell and a place for quills.

Word passed quickly. Over the next many, the pirates came to her one by one, sometimes in the light of day, sometimes in the confessional dark of ’tween decks. They dictated, facing her square on, wide-eyed and earnest, or with their backs turned, embarrassed by the sentiments they desired to be put to paper. The words were often the same: reasons and excuses for long absences, exhortations of remorse, longings and well-wishing. Hunched over a crate or puncheon, lantern at her elbow, she wrote—in small tight lines for some, brief singular words for others—to daughters, mothers, and wives, sweethearts and sisters, grandmothers and aunts, with a heavy smattering of fathers, brothers, uncles, and sons.

One night, after one particularly draining session, Cate returned to the cabin, exhausted. She slumped in a chair and fell into a trance-like stare at the table as she rubbed a hand gone clubbish from gripping a pen for so long. The watch bell had just rung—possibly five times, she thought.

Nathan was at the table already, the golden lamplight crowning his head as he bent over chart and logbook. Drawing his knife from his boot, he sharpened the quill, scrutinizing it several times before it was to his liking. At length, he uncorked the ink, dipped the quill and set to writing against a backdrop of water, wind and the ship’s people. The scratch of the quill, the periodic tinkle of silver or scuff of leather when he shifted his feet: such interludes weren’t uncommon, the two of them in the same space sharing nothing more than each other’s company.

Companionship.

A concept too readily dismissed. It wasn’t necessarily a bad word, unless one was to desire more, so very much more. Still, to a soul drowning in desolation, it was a floating bit of flotsam upon which to cleave. Cate basked in it. In spite of his preoccupation with matters of his ship, it was near enough to having him to herself.

For Nathan, sailing was as compelling as religion. To interrupt his rituals felt a violation of its sanctity. It was a chance to see him in his most natural state, no facades, no pretense. He was pensive and methodical with his log and charts, making entries, checking and rechecking courses. With delicate surety, he walked the brass dividers over the chart in their measured increments. His mouth sometimes screwed aside in deep thought, or moved as if in private conversation as he calculated, his fingers mathematically tapping the surface.

During one such inner dialogue, Nathan looked up from under his brows. They drew together at seeing him flex Cate’s hand. Final notes were scratched in the log, sanded and brushed. Closing it, he rose and pulled his chair around so that they sat knee to knee.

Nathan took Cate's hand and, cradling it as if it was made of glass, began massaging. She twitched at the uncommon breach of the meticulously maintained margin between them. He ducked his head in apology, thinking he had been too rough. They lived in close proximity like a married couple, and yet without the remotest hint of intimacy. Broaching that perimeter happened, but rarely: when they both reached for the coffee pot, pointing to a spot on a chart or during her knot-tying lessons. She tended to start when that happened, drawing back as if burned. While he shied and often bolted, she was left with a tingling sensation, as if touched by St. Elmo’s fire. All in all, it was doubly surprising for him to be so attentive just then.

“What the hell were you doing?” Nathan finally asked, without looking up.

“Writing letters,” she said, wincing.

He made a cross-sounding noise. “You led me to believe ’twas only for one or two, not the whole damned complement.”

“As I thought…at first.”

Nathan rose. With a few adroit flicks, he undid the strip of rag at his wrist which secured the leather palm and tossed both aside. From her blood box, he took the Roman-numeraled Number 37 jar of salve and a stoppered bottle of oil. He scooped a bit of salve, added a few droplets of oil, and then dribbled molten wax from a candle into his palm.

“You’re not the only one with a few cures,” he said to Cate's curious look.

He worked the concoction between his hands as he sat and took her hand once more. Her fingers clawed inward, except the middle one, which stuck out at an odd angle. The sweet, earthy scent of beeswax and sharp, resinous smell of camphor rising between them, he cradled her hand in his and with gentle deftness worked, divining with surprising sensitivity where the soreness lurked in every knuckle and joint.

Nathan's hands were always a fascination, Cate's fatigue rendering them that much more spellbinding. The warm moisture of his breath brushing her forearm suffused her with sensations stirred from a long, deep sleep. It had been years since a man had touched her other than in violence. She flushed with longing and allowed herself to imagine what else those nimble hands might do.

“Let the cack-handed clods write their own,” Nathan grumbled.

Caught so far afield, it took Cate a moment to find her tongue. It wasn’t worth a reply, anyway. He knew full well the men didn’t because they couldn’t. This sudden flush of protectiveness was both surprising and touching.

“Why didn’t they come to me or Pryce?” Nathan said moodily.

“Because you’re men,” she said with the strained patience that came with exhaustion.

“What’s that have to do with it?”

Too tired to argue, Cate shook her head, rubbing her temple with a free hand. “They desire privacy.”

“You know.”

“Because I’m a woman.” She looked up to find Nathan grinning. “What?”

The smug grin broadened. “It would appear you’ve arrived.”

Cate shook a head too fogged by weariness to follow. “Do you ever make any sense?”

Busily massaging, Nathan lifted an unapologetic shoulder and let it fall. “Don’t always have to. Sometimes, ’tis easier not, but I am now. Do you not see? The men, they’ve accepted you; they trust you more than I or Pryce. Bravo, luv. Bravo!”

Blinking, she slogged through senses muddied by long emotional hours: she was no longer a visitor—she belonged. Looking down at the raven crown of his bent head, she wondered in what scheming she had been unwittingly involved, if this turn of events was by plan or hazard.

“You need rum.” Nathan rose, leaving her to stare at the wooden surface before her.

“I need something,” Cate said, over Nathan’s clattering about in the cabinet, “but I don’t think it’s rum.”

“This is a particularly fine brandy.” He presented the squat green bottle as if it was royalty. “If this doesn’t fix what ails, then there’s no fixin.’”

Cate reached for the glass, only to have a spasm seize her, the glass skittering away. With a pained yelp, she clutched her hand, frantically trying to rub the cramp away. Clucking his tongue as if she were a child, Nathan took it and sat again.

“You’re good at this,” she said, wincing.

“Years of practice, luv.” Intent on his task, Nathan's lashes fanned darkly across his cheeks, the sun-bleached tips bright copper in the candlelight. “After hours of sword practice, there were times I couldn't move me fingers to let go. Always had to make me water before, because I couldn’t hold me cock to do it after.”

She sputtered a laugh. “Well, I suppose that would be a problem, wouldn't it?”

The corner of his mouth took a wry tuck. “You’ve no idea. Bloody difficult to attend your business with the wrong hand.”

Cate's gaze fixed on his right hand and the fine lacework of scars that webbed it. The last two fingers were unnaturally flat, as if severed and at an angle acute enough to nick off the outer nail corners. The two middle fingers bore tattoos of small birds, facing each other in flight.

“Are those sparrows?” she asked.

“Nay, swallows. See the tails?” Intent on his ministrations, it was several moments before he added, “’Tis a seafarer’s tradition, a larger one after his first ten thousand miles.”

A jerk of Nathan's arm flipped his sleeve back to display exactly that on his forearm. This one, however, clasped a string in its beak. A heart dangled from the string, impaled by a dagger, the droplets of blood trailing down his arm. The image called to mind his flag, the fallen angel crying those same tears of blood. She glanced up and wondered what laid behind those walnut-colored eyes, what heartbreaks he had suffered, the ones he would never share?

“One gets another for every five thousand miles after,” Nathan said, flipping the shirt back.

“That’s a lot of miles,” she said faintly, mentally adding up the distances in evidence.

“Lifetime at sea, darling. They’re a mariner’s symbol for safe travel, of sorts.”

Cate drained the glass and he refilled it. The brandy was indeed a very good one, deep and mellow, with a tart, berry-like undertone. The skeptical side of her wondered why it had taken him so long to bring it out. It was making its presence known, a fortifying ember blooming in her stomach, burning the fog from her head.

Her gaze settled on a braid at his shoulder. It was adorned with a silver bell, one of the score that decorated his hair and mustache. She heard them at his every step, and yet had never seen one closely. Barely the size of the tip of her little finger, it wasn’t a bell in the classical sense, but a clamshell, a tiny pearl the clapper. The surface was tooled with inscriptions far too fine to decipher.

“What?” he asked.

“Hmm? Oh, your bells.” Flustered at being caught, she forged on before caution stopped her. “I was once told there was one for each virgin.”

“Did you now?” Nathan mused, hooding his eyes. He snorted and shook his head. “Virgins are highly overrated. The ones with a bit more experience are ever so much more agreeable.”

He checked himself, sobered, and resettled to his task.

Dragging her thoughts away from paths that shouldn’t be followed, Cate focused on the swallows and strained to recall lore regarding the little birds. Facing each other, as his fingers moved, their beaks periodically touched, as if kissing.

“Don’t swallows mate for life?” she asked.

Nathan stiffened. His grip tightened, but quickly returned to its soothing ways. Without looking up, he said quietly, “Something like that. Most prefer to think of them as a sign of good luck. To spot one at sea means land is near. Some say when the bearer dies, they swoop down and lift his soul to heaven.”

“In the Highlands, they thought swallows carried the souls of dead children back to their mothers.”

They both fell quiet, a territory neither wished to explore. Her mother had passed when she was 12. Nathan had mentioned his only in passing, but judging by his sudden inwardness, he had lost his at a young age as well.

Watching his fingers continue to work their magic to mesmerizing effect, the birds on his knuckles seeming to flutter, her gaze traveled up his wrists. A woad tattoo ringed both, an intricate chain identical to the one at his throat. His pulse was visible, a surge of life throbbing just under the surface. Hers quickened at the thought, the warm rush in her belly from more than the brandy.

So near and yet so very far.

Sometimes it was almost physically painful.

She fought against the urge to close her fingers around his and hold his hand…just once—

Instead Cate focused on the rhythmic circular strokes of his thumbs over the sore joints and spaces between. Toughened by years of handling ropes, a captain’s life had softened the calluses, leaving them pleasingly abrasive. Her lull was interrupted by an unusually rough spot near the base of his hand, pressing now and again into hers. She watched with mild interest to see what it was…

“You’ve been branded,” Cate blurted at seeing the raised “S.”

“Aye,” Nathan said, half-amused. “What did you think it was?”

“I don’t know: a scar or…something.” She almost said, “You have so many already,” but managed, “May I see?” instead.

“Not much to look at,” he said, but extended his hand, nonetheless.

The back of his hand cradled in her palm, Cate lightly traced the “S.” Old and well-healed, it stood out, pale and sharp. The leather palm protector had covered it enough for her to think it was no more than another scar. Blockish in design, its head sat at the brawn of his thumb. Most notable was the size. It was more akin to what would befit livestock, reaching well down onto his palm. It was a gruesome sight, her hand reflexively curling closed at the thought of the hot iron touching the delicate skin.

“It’s so barbaric,” Cate murmured on a surge of brandy-induced boldness.

“Ancient history.”

She gave Nathan a level look. “Ancient history is what they lock away in books. You carry that with you every day. I’ve seen brandings; they’re horrible.”

Nathan lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “Not the worst.”

“Did you mind?”

“I minded like hell when it was done,” he quipped. Brow furrowing, he sobered. “Smelling me own flesh cooking, hearing it sizzle, ’twas the most bothersome.”

Shuddering, Cate braced to allow a wave of nausea pass.

“It only lasted a few seconds,” he said, unmindful of her reaction. He frowned in vague concentration, slightly surprised by his own recollections. “I don’t remember anything after that.”

“And now?”

Nathan forced a smile. “Don’t think about it much.”

“I’ve seen you rubbing it.”

He stiffened. “No, I don’t. Aye, well, perhaps a bit, now and again,” he added, relenting under her steady gaze.

“How did you come to be branded?” Cate asked, sitting back. In a sense, it was a silly question. Brandings were common for a number of offenses. She mentally ran through the alphabet. A, B, D, F, M, R, T, and V: adulterer, blasphemer, deserter, fraymaker, murderer or malefactor, rogue, thief, and vagabond. It was a puzzle: “S” was usually reserved for slaves and applied to the cheek, not the hand. Two African members of the crew were proof of that.

Nathan took another drink, closing one eye against the brandy, then stared off to the point she thought that he might decline to answer. They sat with their knees touching, and yet he was so very distant. The candlelight gilded the sharp line of his profile and sparked on the beads in his mustache. From outside came the soft rumble of thunder. A press of freshened wind leaned the ship and it began to rain.

“I was arrested,” he said with great measure. “I broke the law. There was a trial and they did this.”

“Somehow, I don’t think it was quite that simple.”

The sable-framed eyes widened with discovery. “Can’t get much past you, can I?”

Nathan shook his head and blew out the long sigh. “I was a merchantman at the time. I’d worked me way up the ranks quickly; I was the youngest to make captain in the Company’s history,” he added with a bit of boast. “One day me employer took a dislike to me; must have irritated him somehow or another.”

Nathan glanced up, and then away. “I was accused of falsifying manifests and smuggling slaves.”

“You’re the last person I would think would deal in slaves.” There were a lot of things she didn’t know about him, but of that she was sure. Someone, who treasured his freedom as greatly as he couldn’t possibly rob another person of theirs, even if that person wasn’t considered a person in many circles.

He snorted. “Not bloody likely. I’d have shot any bastard I caught at it. The thought of being sold, treated like no more than a piece of livestock, shackled and confined…”

His voice shook with sudden vehemence. The knuckles around the bottle whitened, the cords in his wrist popping out. Realizing himself, he glanced up shyly.

“It was all very neatly arranged. There were bills of sale, paid witnesses and a magistrate whose mind was already made up. A man’s word, glowing recommendations from his superiors and years of stellar service were brushed aside. I was found guilty and given this.”

Nathan’s hand curled closed. The corners of his eyes pinched and his mouth tightened in recollection. Luckily, the body doesn’t recall the pain itself, only the memory that it had hurt.

He finally opened his hand to look dispassionately down at it. “Smuggler. I was banished from ever sailing legitimate again. No one would ever trust me with a ship or a cargo, or anything else. I’d be lucky if a captain would take me on as a hand, let alone able-bodied. I had to choose which hell I desired to live: pirate or never sail.”

He tipped the bottle for another drink, the ragged scar at his throat a reminder of the perils with which he lived. His shirt gapped, allowing her a glimpse of the banner and “Freedom” etched over his heart and the odd-shaped patch of corroded skin there. It was a vast understatement. For Nathan, freedom was a credo, a way of life no different than the swallows.

Head bent, Nathan pensively gazed at the bottle as he rolled it in his hands. The creak of his belts and the rain pattering on the boards overhead were the only sounds. His shoulders shifted under his shirt, hunched with humiliation.

He shook himself, as if to rid himself of the memory, and looked up with a smile that was but a shadow of its usual brilliance. “Captain Nathanael Blackthorne was born that day and I've been celebrating his life since. That was nigh on to twenty years ago; a ripe old age for a pirate. Captain Nathanael Jonathan Edward Blackthorne,” he repeated, as if being formally presented at Court.

“Almost sounds like royalty,” Cate mused in an effort to lighten his mood.

Nathan snorted. “King of the Gutters, I was.”

He gazed impassively down at his opened palm. “I thought of cutting the thing away. A snick of the knife and I could have had me life back, except…”

“Except that would have made your employer the victor.”

Her mind shied from the gruesome image, the cold calculation required to take a knife to the tender skin and peel it away. To do so, however, could have meant losing the use of it, rendering him a partial cripple.

Nathan tilted his head to regard her. “Sometimes I think you have a touch of the witch in you,” he said in wonderment. “You’ve the sight, to be sure. It’s those cursed eyes. There’s no hiding from you.”

She gently squeezed his arm. “I’m no one to hide from.”

“So it would seem,” he said, smiling faintly. “So it would seem.”

A delicate cough drew their attention to the door and Mr. Hallchurch. “Cap’n, Mr. Prythe’s complimenths and duty,” he said, knuckling his forehead. “He begth a word with you on the f’c’stle, at yer pleasthure, sir.”

Nathan nodded half-heartedly. “Me compliments to Mr. Pryce. I’ll be there directly.”

Cate demonstrably flexed her hand as he rose. “It feels much better. Thank you.” And in all earnestness, it did, the camphor glowing in every joint.

Nathan took her hand and bent to kiss her knuckles, his mustache a soft bristle on her skin. He smiled, one genuine with warmth and charm, and gave a hint of a wink. “Anytime, luv. Anytime.”

Cate gazed in Nathan’s wake. She was touched that he had lowered the curtain behind which he lived enough to allow her to see his vulnerability. The emotion had been genuine, the story not. It had been told with the ease of the oft-told lie, and yet the anguish and pain had been of a caliber which only reality could spawn. He had allowed her the story, but not the truth. That he couldn’t allow.

Not yet.

Once again, the more she learned, the less she knew about the enigmatic pirate captain.



###



It was several days later that, shoulders aching and fingers cramped, Cate rose from practicing her knots, a failure yet again. Hitches had been added to her expected repertoire. The clove came easily enough, but the rolling and backhanded still gave her fits. The function of a hitch being to secure a line to a fixed object, Nathan had provided her with a piece of handle from a broken gaffing hook. That now suspended on the arms of a chair, she had worked through one set of bells to the next, through the smoke and roar of gun practice and Hodder’s call to mess. Somewhere or another, she was making the same mistake time and again. Squealing in frustration and pitching it across the room had provided no insight as to her error. She told herself the fading light was why she quit, knowing full well it was no excuse by Nathan’s measure.

“Should be able to manage any knot in the dark,” was his evaluation.

Cate went out to find a particular hush had befallen the deck. It was unusual for an hour usually filled with merriment. Like putting a child to bed, the Morganse had been made ready for the night: courses and royals gull-winged, mizzen tops and topsails reefed, course posted on the traversing board and grog dispensed. She looked to the forecastle where the men usually gathered, but it was empty.

Instead of gathering on the forecastle, as was the custom, the men were clustered before the capstan. Seated, crouched and sprawled, their upturned faces were transfixed on the single figure atop it. Legs dangling, a lantern to one side and a bottle on the other, Nathan sat on the hub with a book in his lap. His roughened gravel voice was lowered into the rounded tones of an orator as he read aloud, adding his own subtle inflections to the prose. Hermione looked on as a benignly interested bystander, or rather, bylayer, comfortably ensconced on Cate’s forecastle seat.

The lamp’s molten halo gilded the line of Nathan's profile and glinted on his rings as he reverently turned each page. The contrast of two worlds colliding in this one man was startling: an educated barbarian, cerebral and complex, cocooned in ruthlessness and mayhem, a legend as a means to survive. He caught sight of Cate from the corner of his eye and stumbled over a word. Clearing his throat, he bent his head with renewed focus.

The end of the session was punctuated with a muffled thump of the book closing and scattered groans of disappointment. Cate hung in the shadows, until all had dispersed.

“So,” she said quietly, leaning against the capstan at Nathan’s knee, “the insensate, scurrilous pirate reads…?”

“Defoe.” Nathan held up the volume in exhibition and loudly cleared his throat. “Robinson Crusoe. ’Tis a favorite.”

She took the book and thumbed through the pages. “A man snatched away, marooned, yanked from one world to be rudely thrust into another.” She looked up, arching an inquisitive brow. “Any parallels?”

“It’s a good story,” Nathan said, examining his hands in his lap.

“Survival under adverse conditions, rising to overcome all odds, mastering of a world, is always a good story.”

He considered as Cate turned the pages. “One you have heard often?”

“Only on rare occasions,” she said with a level look. “Usually, it’s of someone of remarkable instincts and a sharp mind. A person of those traits is to be admired.”

The umber eyes searched hers carefully for hidden meaning or innuendo. Finding none, he snatched up the bottle at his elbow and took a drink. “Hardly. All I have done is gotten by, with a little help now and then. What of you? You’ve been abandoned, marooned in the middle of London, surviving the unsurvivable.”

“That was London,” Cate said, declining the proffered bottle. She had been no more than one more maggot in the festering carcass known as London. It had been hell, but nothing compared to what he must have lived, the scar at his throat and the brand on his arm testimony enough.

“’Tis easy to be alone in the middle of a crowd,” he countered. “You’ve been taken from what you know, thrown into what you don’t. You’ve adapted, made a life.”

“I had five brothers; it was easy to fit in here.” Uncomfortable with the subject being on her, Cate waved him away, a gesture alarmingly similar to one she had seen him use a score of times. “I was speaking of you, Nathan. Somewhere you lost your world, didn’t you?”

Now Nathan was the one uncomfortable. Leaning on his hands, he watched his swinging feet with exaggerated interest. “There are no secrets with you about, are there?”

She bent nearer, waiting until several hands passed before continuing. “You’ve lived elbow to elbow with people your whole life, and yet you’ve kept yourself so hidden you don’t even recognize yourself sometimes.”

The corner of Nathan's mouth tucked up wryly. A shoulder lifted and fell in a half-shrug. “There are times I am required to pause and recall how I came to be…like this. ’Tis a shorter trip than you might imagine,” he added judiciously.

“Do you like being a pirate?”

“I’ve learned to,” he said examining his tar-stained fingers.

“That wasn’t my question.”

Nathan looked up and smiled widely—a little too much so—and swept a grand hand. “Why wouldn’t I? Freedom. Me ship. The sea…”

The breeze tugged at the opening of his shirt to reveal the tattoo over his heart: “Freedom,” soaring swallows on his arms and fingers, symbols for the thousands of miles traversed and bare knuckles reserved for milestones to come. Those, plus the intensity which filled his eyes, left little else to be said.

“You could have all that as a merchant,” Cate said.

He sobered quickly. “That would be to exist at someone else’s pleasure.”

“And you aren’t at their bidding?”

Cate inclined her head to indicate the men now gathered on the forecastle, tuning their fiddles. Hermione regarded them balefully from her adopted perch. Apparently preferring solitude to serenade, she rose, paused at the steps to file a verbal complaint, and then clopped down.

Nathan winced, conceding her point. “Allow them a bit of plunder and blood, and they’ll follow nigh anywhere.”

“And you prefer that?”

“I can live with it. I have lived with it,” he added with a note of victory.

“What if someone was to come along and tell you it could be another way?”

“What if someone came along and said you could have your life back?” he shot back with equal evenness.

Now Cate was the once to wince. “I’m not sure I’m that same person anymore,” Cate said, brushing at a non-existent spot on her skirt. There was no advantage in pondering such nonsense, for it was never to come to pass.

“No more than I,” he said complacently.

“Would it be so long of a jump to go back to what you were? I mean, pray don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with what you are—”

“A pirate?” Nathan asked, dryly.

“It’s not necessarily a bad word,” Cate was quick to add. “It’s more a matter of how you see yourself. Do you want to be something else?”

“Would I?” His legs kicked faster while he considered. “The question is more: could I?”

Alighting to the deck, he strolled to the weather main chains. Bracing his elbows on the rail, he lifted his face into the breeze. An updraft lifted the tails of his headscarf and strands of hair, and wafted them about his shoulders. Cate leaned against Widower beside him, the iron cool through her skirt. He stared sightlessly into the night, the wind pressing his shirt to his chest.

“I’ve been at sea a long time.” His graveled voice bore the agedness of Millbridge. “It’s a rough world out here; I’ve seen things and done more. It changes a man.”

Strolling aft, Hermione paused to eye Nathan, and then came to nudge his hand.

“See Mr. Hodder, you seed of Satan,” he said without rancor to the goat. “You’ll not have your tobacco or grog until the First Watch is rung, and you know it well.”

With what might be called a goat’s version of a dirty look, Hermione turned and left in eloquent disappointment.

“Always have a care with that ruddy beast,” Nathan said to the goat’s receding backside. “She takes advantage at every turn. Indulge her too soon, and then she dupes someone else into another. Before you know it, you’ve a drunken goat staggering about. Gives the men cause to think they can take the same advantages.”

“You’re ignoring my point,” Cate said evenly.

The corner of one eye twitched with discovery. Nathan twisted one ring, his brows knitting. “Some say every man is a barbarian, only civilization and the fear of God what keeps it caged. Others claim we’re all good in the beginning, evil being but the result of bad choices.”

He looked up, the dark eyes troubled. “But can one see that bad choice, and then go back?”

Nathan reached into his pocket and pulled out a length of cord. Cate inwardly groaned. It had become a custom—and a very annoying one, by her reckoning—for him at odd times to produce such a piece, announce “You need practice,” and drop it into her lap. He could be as tenacious as a terrier. To her relief, he began to work the piece himself. A good portion of it had already been worked into something like an intricate chain in a pattern very similar to the tattoo that collared his neck. His fingers moved with a sureness that rarely required him to look down, the show-off.

“Some claim atonement, an ‘I’m sorry’ in some form or fashion, is sufficient to return one’s purity,” Nathan said. “But does that erase the barbarian or just slap him in irons, until next he escapes? And what of the deeds he’s done: the lives taken, the wreck and ruin? Are those undone? Do the dead live? Does a hacked limb return?”

Nathan made a derisive noise. The bells in his hair rustled as he manipulated the cord faster, the swallows on his knuckles fluttering almost to the point of taking flight.

“One would have to be a rather calloused lout to think an ‘I’m sorry’ is going to set any of that aright. It strikes me ’tis a matter for the powers what be, or whose god you die under,” he said.

“You think there’s more than one?”

“I think everyone believes theirs is the only one. Beyond that, we don’t know and no one is sayin’. A well-kept secret, to be sure. I’ve seen more religions than there are lands to count. Hell, there’s probably a score represented right here on this deck. And they all have one thing in common: they think their god is the right and only one.”

Nathan fell broodingly quiet. A fiddle and hornpipe broke into a jig on the forecastle, while others clapped and whirled, their feet pounding the boards in great glee.

“A man draws his sword and sees the Devil within, and the horror what can be wrought by his own hand.” Intent on his hands, he didn’t look up. “The smell of the kill does things, hardens you, makes you unfit for the company of no one other than those who have smelt the same.”

Such soul-searching rarely came easy for anyone. Brian battled much the same. Like Nathan, intelligent and educated, he had been compelled by circumstances to commit violence and mayhem. For Brian, it had been clan wars and French kings, but the effect had been the same: a blooded sword and haunted by the eyes of the dead staring back.

Cate recalled well Nathan’s rant in St. Agua, flaring at her for suggesting he might violate the virginal daughter of the town’s mayor. She understood now that his anger at St. Agua had not been aimed at her, as she had thought, but at himself.

“So, you don’t think you can put the genie back in the bottle?” she asked.

Nathan's head came up at that. The gold of his smile glinted in the lamplight. “Oh, so you’ve heard those tales as well.”

“A few, when I was a child,” she said, determined not to be diverted. “There is more civilized in you than you think.”

Nathan brought his face to the wind. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply. “I’ve killed men, many men; more than I care to list. I’ve hacked and bludgeoned, and shot and beaten...”

He bit his lip, shying from completing the thought.

“There is a hell, you know,” he said conversationally. He glanced from the corner of his eye. “Have you ever thought about what it is?”

The question was posed as one not intended to be answered. He tapped his chest over his heart. “It’s right here. It’s a hell of one’s own making and there is no hell like the one you can provide for yourself. Dante’s Inferno held nothing compared to the tortures a man’s own soul can provide. There were no flames, unless of course, burning is what you fear most.”

“You don’t think of Heaven?”

Nathan smiled grimly. “I’ve seen nothing to prove it to be no more than a pipe dream. Pirate, darling,” he said gesturing toward their general surroundings. “St. Peter has no place for the likes of us. One such as yourself need not worry about Hell, for such a place would never befall one as pure as you.”

“I’m hardly pure,” Cate scoffed under the singing on the foredeck. “I’ve slashed, killed, shot—”

“Aye, and all for the purest of reasons.”

He gazed at her with startling gentleness. “There is no horror in you, darling. You’re not capable. One is not a monster if driven by monstrous deeds. That’s survival and ’tis what we are put on this ol’ Earth for.”

“And you?”

“I’ve a list of wickedness a dozen times over and all for the worst of reasons: I exist because I must. A better man would have found another way.”

“And die in the process?” She pointedly looked toward his hand and the “S” branded there. “You had few choices.”

“Aye, but choices nonetheless.” Nathan looked dispassionately down at his hand. “I could have cut the thing away and be done with it.”

“But you said that would have been a victory for the man who put it there. That kind of resentment and hatred turned inward can be an ugly thing. I’ve seen it,” she added to his skeptical look. “As you said, all that doesn’t make you a beast; it makes you a survivor. How much of that was done because if you didn’t, they were going to do it to you?” she pressed in the face of him attempting to wave her off.

The corner of his mouth tucked up grimly. “Most of it.”

“And how much of it did you do because you enjoyed it?”

He snorted, looking away. “None of it.”

Cate moved closer, ducking her head to catch Nathan's eye. “The savage can’t recall a single face of his victims; the decent is haunted by them all. The truly wicked man wouldn’t give any act a second thought. That you worry is proof you’re not.”

He was a man who could hide every thought, and yet a series of thoughts could be seen crossing his features. There was the flicker of discomfort at having a well-kept secret discovered, and then the wonderment of how she could have known. Next came awe of her insight. And finally acceptance, with a bit of redemption, in knowing he wasn’t alone.

“Pipe down!”

She jumped at Hodder’s bellow, calling the men to their hammocks. There was no pipe per se, but the effect was the same. Those on the forecastle gathered their instruments and filed past. The men on watch were about, but occupied elsewhere. The two of them were alone as could be on a ship of over a hundred.

Nathan stirred from the thoughts into which he had retreated. “Are you saying I should go back…to the real world?” he asked, with a mocking roll of his eyes toward the distant civilized world.

“No,” she said evenly. “In many ways, it’s more treacherous there than here. I’ve seen lying, cheating, betrayal, blackmail, rape, stealing, and treason, and all by civilized people, often with titles. Pirates are more civilized than many back there in their salons and parlors. All I am saying is: if you’re unhappy, there are choices.”

The knotting paused as Nathan leaned an arm on the rail and gazed at the night. At one point, he glanced toward his hand, where the brand laid unseen. His gaze shifted to fingers curved around the knotwork and the images of the swallows across his knuckles, all the while glancing from time to time at her from the corner of his eye. The corner of his mouth tucked wryly and he straightened, decision made.

“If I have to face Hell itself and twice a day to have what I have now,” he said, his gaze intent on her face, “then I’ll keep it the way it is and say ‘Thank you, very much.’”

Nathan held up the cord between his hands, the lantern light bright on his smile. “There.”

The cord had been converted into a delicate necklace. A pendant-like knot anchored the center, the looping sides almost lacy. An identical, but smaller knot made the closure.

“It’s exquisite. Where did you ever learn to do that?” Cate cried.

“Years on a ship, luv, several of which were spent on the spice routes. Here, turn ’round.”

“It’s for me?” Flattered and baffled to near speechlessness, she did so, lifting her hair out of the way.

Passing it around her neck, Nathan worked with the closure for some moments. Finished, his hand lingered at the curve of her neck.

“Let’s see how it answers.” Nathan turned her back to face him and re-arranged the center decoration. “It looks fine. This is a Chinese knot for good luck.

“I notice you’re not wearing one.”

“No need.” He gave his head a quick shake to jangle his bells, and then touched the tattoo at his neck. “I’ve plenty of me own charms.”

“I love it.” Cate anxiously felt for the pendant. It hung just below the notch of her collarbone.

“Wet it a few times to tighten the knot and it will never come off—unless you desire it, of course,” he quickly added.

“Never!” It was her first gift in years.

Cate kissed Nathan on the cheek, the impulsiveness embarrassing them both.

“Thank you, Nathan. You’re a true friend,” she said, her cheeks heating.

Nathan's smile faltered, and then faded. His reply went forgotten as he stiffened. His head came up like a hound on a scent. His hand went to his sword as he stepped before her, pushing her back against the bulwark. The space between the gun carriages was now a small fortress, Nathan poised at its entry.

Cate strained to listen, trying to fathom what it was he had heard. Nothing. Wind, water, block and canvas: only the Morganse spoke. Her humanity, however, had fallen uncommonly mum.

Pryce loomed out of the darkness. “D’ye hear it?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

Nathan nodded, his head still canted. He waved Pryce aft with his sword, a mouthful spoken in a single gesture. Pryce nodded gravely and faded away. Nathan turned for the bow, but stopped, of two minds whether to leave her there or take her with him. Decision made, he took her by the arm, a twitch of his mustache bidding her quiet.

Up to the forecastle and down, then working his way aft, Nathan cruised the deck without so much as a footfall or bell tinkle. Cate pressed her skirt against her legs, the mere rustle of the fabric seeming to shatter the stillness. The people they passed hooded their eyes, fixing their attention on whatever they were doing. They had heard it too—whatever had been—and made every effort to appear otherwise.

Aft of the capstan, they met up with Pryce. Hodder was now with him, a bludgeon in his fist, his multitude of rings as silent as Nathan’s bells. Nathan angled his head ever so slightly in question, the pair’s almost imperceptible shake of the head his answer.

Nothing.

Cate ventured to whisper to Nathan, “What was it?”

The corner of his eye drew down at her ignorance.

“Round shot.” Spoken so lowly, it was more a matter of reading his lips than hearing.

She did recall hearing the hollow rumble of a cannonball rolling.

“’Tis the message of conspiracy,” Nathan added.

“The goddamned, yellow, lurking, lump o’ roguery. A scug of a beast o’ the two-legged, back-biting kind what doesn’t have the balls to show his face.” The starlight caught the hatred that glittered in Pryce’s eyes.

“’Tis meant either as warning or announcement that something’s afoot,” Nathan said with considerable more reserve.

“Something?”

Her puzzlement brought a sharp look from the corner of his eye. Of course, how could she be so dense?

Mutiny.

The shot garlands lining the bulwark between the guns were always full, ready to hand for battle, but also for someone who, under the cover of darkness, wished to set one on its way. The air on her arms raised and her neck prickled. The so very familiar deck suddenly became a forbidding jungle. Shadows she could have earlier named were now possible lairs for predators, every creak impending assault.

“You’ve a knife?” Nathan asked.

Cate nodded, touching the side of her skirt.

“Good. Go find your best,” he said to Pryce and Hodder. “Arm and post them. You’ll find me in me cabin.”

The tone of his voice suggested he wouldn’t be lounging about reading, nor playing draughts.

The three exchanged significant looks. None of this had come as unexpected. Pryce and Hodder sketched a salute and set off. Nathan guided her inside.

“Sleep well,” he said urging her around the curtain and to her bed. “’Tis naught to be worried about.”

It was worth noting his pistol was still in hand. Another, seized from its hiding place inside the urn at the door, was now stuffed in his belt.

Cate stood staring at the curtain, once again in stunned wonderment of Nathan’s ability to understate.

Sleep came…finally, in fitful bursts. Cate jerked awake at every creak of a block or plank, slap of a wave, or heavy tread. Daylight came at last by way of the port overhead distinguishing itself from the bulkhead. Its square of light on the floor progressed from a thin grey to lavender, to pink, to coral, and then finally the glow of full day.

Gray and grave, Pryce and Hodder gave their Captain their morning reports while she and Nathan were at the table. Nothing notable. Nothing remarkable. Nothing to portend. The round shot, however, had not set itself rolling.

The tension was palpable. The hands smiled, but not as readily, their laughter sounding forced. There were no robust hails from the tops or forecastle. Everyone suffered a tendency to jump at routine noises: a rigging knife or marlinspike dropped, a bucket kicked over, or the scuttlebutt dipper hitting the deck. As Nathan, Hodder, and Pryce went about their duties, their voices were louder and more imposing, Hodder’s reaching bone-rattling proportion. The trio moved in an ever-shifting triangulation. If one was aft, the other was forward, another amidship. It couldn’t be missed that this orchestration included one of them always within a few paces of wherever she happened to be.

Feigning interest in anything, Cate found herself examining each face from the corner of her eye, in search of clues as to who the conspirators might be. It was altogether disquieting to think the ones now smiling and knuckling their foreheads as they passed could have been the perpetrators. The ship suddenly became a very small space.

No accusations were made, but neither were there inquiries, for Nathan knew the effort would be wasted. Behind every carefully blank face could lie the truth, but only a lie would be his answer. Nathan was eloquently familiar with the watch lists and duty rosters. He knew who would have been on deck, who would have had the opportunity. She had the impression he strongly suspected who the conspirators were, but was disinclined to act…yet.

Cate watched Nathan go through his paces, the Master of Denial on stage once more. There was a secondary discomposure, however, another burden that Nathan carried. It was most evident when she was in close proximity, but it wasn’t until that night that she was to discover its nature.



###



Cate woke with a start.

After Bullock’s comments, she was prone toward waking at the least noise. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sleeping. It was late enough for the moon to have risen, its icy-blue shaft slicing the cavernous dark.

She heard again what had wakened her: footsteps and rustling in the salon. She rolled on her side to see a thin band of light squeezing underneath the curtain. The noise was perplexing; at that hour, Nathan was usually much more discreet. It could have been Pryce. The Captain’s cabin was public domain on a pirate ship, but it was rare for anyone to avail themselves of the privilege. A swish of bells, nearly obliterated by the commotion, announced it was Nathan, although the cadence of his step was unrecognizable. His boots scuffed to a stop. There was the soft pop! of a cork being dislodged from a bottle, followed by the slosh of liquid and an enthusiastic gulp. Whoever it was needed a drink badly.

The pacing resumed. Growing more animated, it spiraled until its orbit centered before the curtain. Cate wondered if the performance was meant to draw her out or if Nathan was too preoccupied to realize where he was. Finally, the boots stopped, the toes protruding under the velvet.

There was the canvas-like rip of a throat clearing, as if there was a chance she would have slept through the preceding performance.

“Madam, I desire an audience, if you please,” called Nathan in uncommon formality.

Her curiosity dampened by trepidation, Cate rose, shrugged the quilt over her shoulders, and went to meet her summons.

Nathan fell back a step, apparently surprised that she had done as he bid. He ducked a rigid bow and beckoned her to the table to sit. With little reason to decline, she did. The fact that he was disturbed by something, and that something had to do with her was eloquently clear. If he had been a cat, his hair would have been standing on end. As it was, it roiled about his shoulders like a tangle of snakes.

He took another drink from the bottle clutched in his fist, then, as an afterthought, thrust it toward her. “Drink?”

She eyed the proffered bottle warily. “Am I going to need it?”

“Mebbe.” For as expressive as Nathan could be, he also could be maddeningly opaque.

Heeding the less than subtle warning, she took the bottle. Hesitating—God! She hated the stuff—she braced and took a sip. He took pleasure at her ensuing shudder. Jerking a terse nod, he set to pacing once again.

“Madam, there has been a calculated attack on me character, a scurrilous and grievous affront of which I cannot abide.”

Cate had seen magistrates conduct business with less officiousness. His formality was wholly uncharacteristic and not a little disquieting, but she kept her features carefully arranged as unobtrusive and attentive as possible.

“There have been a number of matters that have come to me attention which demand being addressed. Firstly, there was the unfortunate scene with me bunk.”

Now frowning slightly, Cate strained to follow his train of thought. It finally came to her: a few days after her arrival, Nathan had caught her dragging it outside. In her own defense, it had looked suspect and smelled worse; she had only wished to air it. It hadn’t occurred to her at the time, but in retrospect, she could see how he might have taken offense.

Her attempt at an apology was cut off.

“And then, there was the matter of the decks, in me own cabin, I might add.”

She harbored less guilt for washing the cabin floor. It had looked dirty, her intention to be useful.

“I’ll not have you slaving about like some scullery maid!” had been Nathan's comment at the time, and with only a small amount of discussion, she had agreed to resist such impulses in the future.

Nathan pivoted to jab an accusing finger so squarely at Cate's nose she ducked. She didn’t think he would deliberately hurt her, but given his mood, miscalculations came easily.

“And then there was the matter of the hammocks,” he said in a war-like declaration.

“They were stained and they smelled,” she shot back before she could stop herself.

“They are washed every Wednesday, each man being responsible for his own.”

In a rising heat, Cate wondered whether he was upset over the disruption of routine or that she had robbed the men of the opportunity to do it themselves.

“Am I being disciplined?” Cate said, ruffling. “If so, then put me off at the next port. I had no wish to be such a burden.”

“Hold your course and speed. You shan’t slip from under this so easily…and I’ve only begun!” Settling his shoulders, Nathan continued. “And now, out of the blue, without provocation or warning…”

His mouth moved wordlessly, unable to utter the words. Surrendering, he stood over her and glared down his nose. “I demand you explain yourself!”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you mean what you said?”

“I don’t know.” Baffled, Cate pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t…I mean…What are…?”

“You called me a friend. A friend, mind. What the bloody hell did you mean by that?” Vibrating with acrimony, Nathan commenced pacing, the rum geysering from the bottle.

“That was yesterday,” she sputtered

“Ah-ha! Exactly! Thought you could drop that stinkpot and it would go unnoticed?”

Cate's first reaction was to laugh, but thought that unwise; Nathan didn’t seem of a mind to be dallied with. She wished she knew him better, that she might more accurately read his moods and swings.

“If you had called me an ass or a sottish bugger or a Dutch-faced princock, I would know how to respond to that. Or even if you’d slapped me face, at least I’d know what I’d done, but this…this!” Nathan cried as he stormed about, the scarf jouncing at his knees.

He stalked the room, spewing a black tirade in a rapid succession of languages. Cate's neck grew stiff with visually following his circuitous path. Married to a Scot and living in the Highlands had given her a thorough education in dealing with tempers. Unless bodily harm was imminent, riding them out as invisibly as possible was usually best. Eyes down, she folded her hands in her lap.

“A stab to the heart, that’s what it is, and goddamned uncivil to boot. Friend! Tach!”

Nathan took a drink, and then took an angry swipe at the air. His shoulders jerked, elbows working at his sides. “I’m not alone on this, be assured. I’ve conferred with Pryce and he concurs. Blessed unseemly! I’ll have you know, madam, I am a pirate and under no circumstances does that allow—nor come with the expectations—of my being a friend to anyone!”

Cate turned her head to cover a smile that couldn’t be suppressed. It was endearing—another term she was confident he wouldn’t appreciate—that he was so upset. She was beginning to regret what had only been best intentions, but those often went unrewarded.

Nathan's pace slowed to measured strides. Timed to punctuate each word, he ticked his points off on his fingers. “I’ve been nice. I’ve been cordial. I’ve made polite conversation. Hell, I even gave you me bunk. I haven’t shouted or called you names—”

“Well, there was that one time…”

Nathan's lip took an ugly curl. “You were cleaning, madam. Cleaning, mind you. You had to be stopped. This is a first you know,” he said, narrowing an accusing eye. “I have never had a woman call me anything so vile or the likes of this in me entire life!”

He stopped in mid-stride and rolled his eyes, striving to recall. “Nope. Never!” he said, with a definitive thump of his fist on the table that made her jump. “It defies all logic. Damn perplexing creatures, women. Incomprehensible!”

Nathan continued to storm the room. “If you’ve a complaint, woman, then out with it. We fancy ourselves as running a civil ship. We might be pirates, but we don’t go a-name calling just because it suits our fancy. We’ve a Ship’s Council; file your complaints as any worthy sea rover would.”

He threw himself into his chair and slouched, his outrage fading to resignation. “I’ve known a vast number of people in me life,” he said, as if that fact was of relevance.

Given his acrimony, it seemed unwise to now attempt to discuss the very thing that had set him off. Not everyone appreciated an examination of something so personal. And yet, he was so bereft Cate couldn’t sit in silence. Sensing it safe, she picked up the chance to possibly defend herself, or at least mollify a bit of his pique.

“How many were friends?” she asked carefully.

Nathan slid down further to prop his boots on the table. “What is this ‘friends,’ anyway?”

He posed the question as if it were a condition or disease, certainly not something to be sought.

Cate closed one eye in thought. Her first urge was to mock him: anyone knew what it meant. Considering his life, however, it was possible he had never enjoyed the opportunity. Pirates. Treachery. Bloodshed. Killing. Mutiny. Raid. Kill. Plunder. Hardly fertile ground.

“Umm…trust?” she said.

Nathan made a scorn-laden noise at the back of his throat and rolled his eyes. “Bloody little o’ that…and dwindling each day.” He slid a cutting look at her that quelled any doubts as to what he meant.

He fell quiet, the dry rasp of his thumb brushing back and forth across the brown glass the only sound.

“Two, mebbe three,” Nathan said at length. He seemed a bit surprised by the revelation, but it was unclear if it was because there were so few or that there were that many.

His boyish innocence was heartbreaking, for someone who had lived elbow to elbow virtually his entire life, and yet could count less than a handful as trustworthy.

It was possible that his standard for assigning such status was higher and was affronted by her having assigned it so cavalierly. Cate had assumed it would be taken in the same way as she had intended. She had been without connection for so long—no husband, no family, no home…no friends. She had found a raft in a sea of loneliness and she clung to it, joyous for that small bit of salvation.

“If you like, I’ll take it back,” she said.

“What will that accomplish?” he asked, sulking. “Can’t unring a bell.”

“Dong!” she said brightly in a pitiful mimic of a bell. “There, see: undone.”

The end of his mustache reluctantly lifted, the familiar humor returning to his eyes. “That easy, eh?”

The storm had passed. Like those of the Caribbean, his anger boiled in, raged and crashed, and then departed with nothing more than a faint rumble.

She rose and lightly laid a hand on his shoulder. “Rest assured, the word has been stricken from my vocabulary. You’ll never hear it again. Do we have an accord?”

Nathan smiled with considerable relief and lifted the bottle in salute. “Agreed.”

She bent nearer and said in a loud whisper, “Be assured, however, good Captain, this by no means implies that I shall be changing my opinion.”

Flourishing the quilt as if it were the royal robes, she strolled back to the sleeping quarters. From behind her came the sound of Nathan taking a drink and a rumbling groan.

“Bloody woman!”



###



As members of the Brethren of the Coast, equality for the men of the Ciara Morganse came in many ways: equal voice in affairs of piracy and equal shares in the resulting plunder, as well as equality in choosing who was to lead them through it all. Daily, Cate came to understand the delicate balance Nathan maintained as Captain. The volatility of commanding pirates raised its head with startling abruptness one morning.

The day had started with Cate waking from one of those sleeps so deep it took her several moments to collect where she was. She lay snuggled deep under the quilt. Blinking the drowsiness away, she listened to the ship and her people slowly come to life, as would any household.

The Morganse stirred from her slumber and shed her nightclothes of reefed sails. She stretched her arms with her fresh wardrobe of canvas and leaned into the wind with renewed intent. The water at her sides slipping faster, she picked up her daily song of wind and rigging. The holystones were next, cleaning Mr. Hodder’s sacred deck. Starting at the forecastle, the hollow growl of the great blocks of sandstone gradually increased as their handlers inched their way along on their knees. Directly behind came the thump of the pumps and gush of water. Next, the rhythmic slap of the decks being flogged dry.

Pryce and Hodder could be heard above it all. Pryce’s exact words couldn’t be made out, but there was no mistaking his thrust: some poor soul found slacking. As boatswain, Hodder required a voice that could carry from bowsprit to taffrail, topmast to bilges. What he might have lacked in Pryce’s resonance, he made up admirably for in volume and all around a nearly fist-sized quid of tobacco in his cheek.

From the salon came footsteps, a vehement curse—Kirkland’s, by the sound—followed by a heavy stomp and a simultaneous high-pitched squeal of a rat meeting an inglorious demise. Very soon after, she heard the soft padding and snuffle of His Lordship, considerably more industrious in his task. Whether it was for appearances—lest he appear laggardly in his duties—or spurred by hunger—having been robbed of his most recent meal—Cate couldn’t tell.

The bell clanged—eight times, she thought. Hodder bellowed the men to breakfast with sufficient force to spring Cate from her snuggery. She dressed to the slap of bare feet as the hands hurried to their meal.

Artemis, roosted on the back of the Captain’s chair, looked up from her preening when Cate rounded the curtain. It was an unusual sight, for the hold was customarily the owl’s preferred place.

“I suppose this means the rats have all moved up.”

Cate automatically checked along the walls and corners. She had lived in places far more infested, where one was awakened by feet tracking atop oneself. Still, it didn’t mean she liked having them about.

Artemis regarded her with baleful reserve, and then lifted a wing to continue preening.

Through the expanse of gallery windows, the Caribbean morning stretched before Cate. It was the picture of perfection, so long as one had a great appreciation for blue skies, billowing white clouds, dazzling sun, and vast stretches of indigo water. It was a far cry from the clouds, drizzle and fog of the Highlands. There the only variety was the degree of chill and damp. Far behind her were the round-backed mountains and stretches of pine forests, tumbling burns and sea-like expanses of moors. The smells of peat, heather, and pine, always sharp in the air, had been now replaced by tar, canvas, and salt.

The ship’s wake streamed white against the deep blue sea. Noting clouds on the horizon, impaled by an island’s mountaintops and heavy with rain, she checked for the wind: leeward, downwind, and hence no threat.

“Beginning to feel like an old salt,” she said, smiling to herself.

As always, coffee waited. It was the mystery of the ages as to how Kirkland foresaw her arrival, for the pot was always steaming, to the point of perilous to the unsuspecting. The porcelain cup and creamer might have been chipped, and the silver spoon a bit tarnished, but they were always there, carefully arranged, waiting. Almost at the same time that she noticed the honey pot and extra plates, the smell of scones baking rose up the galley companionway.

Cate settled in for her next routine: steaming cup in hand, leaning back in her chair, and listening to the ship come alive.

At the sound of feathers, Cate cracked one eye open in time to see Beatrice arrive. Alighting on the chair next to Artemis, the parrot set to a raucous outcry of indignation. She considered the Captain’s chair her private domain and voiced a piercing shriek of objection. Artemis looked benignly at Beatrice, and then to Cate. Finding no sympathy or reprieve, she flew away in an almost silent beat of feathers. Beatrice assumed the sacred spot and, puffed with satisfaction, struck a noble pose.

Peace restored, Cate closed her eyes once more. The ship hummed with increasing industry. A skeleton afterguard remained on the quarterdeck, for the Morganse was a lady of high maintenance, a queen always in need of her attendants. Their voices drifted down through the skylight directly overhead. She smiled faintly, the lowest regions of her belly tightening at the sound of Nathan’s voice.

Cate often wondered what Nathan’s voice would have been had it not been so destroyed. Soft, to be sure, for it still held vestiges of that, but never with the richness of Brian’s. His had been deep, and yet so very soft, a warm hug on a winter night. As she and he would lie together at night, reviewing the minutiae of the day, her cheek resting on his chest, its bass would resonate in her bones. Even at a whisper, Nathan’s gravel was like torn velvet, a more-worn woolen blanket on that same winter’s night, rough yet holding the promise of more comforts to come. She had never thought another voice would touch her as Brian’s had. And yet Nathan’s did, but differently, as no other.

“Clap on to that sheet, you ill-begotten son of a double-poxed Dutch whore! What the f*cking hell…?” echoed down through the skylight.

Ah yes, touched her like no other.

“What?”

Startled, Cate opened her eyes to find said angel-voiced soul standing at the door with a puzzled look.

“Hm? Oh, nothing,” she said, sitting up straighter.

His curiosity deepened by worry, Nathan’s brows knitted tighter as he came further in. “You had the look as if you were hearing angels singing. You’re not going to lose your mess number on me, are you?”

The question didn’t seem intended for an answer, and so she didn’t.

A curl of his nose, a scowl, and a flutter of fingers deposed Beatrice from her roost. The bird moved to the edge of the table. Cate could feel the single-eyed stare as she peeled an orange, and eventually held out a section. Beatrice crab-stepped across the table, took the offering in her claw. She immediately sidled away to eat with as birdly manners as one might expect.

The pursuant absence of conversation wasn’t unique. Nathan was often preoccupied with matters of his ship. It was common to see him tapping the glass, pricking a chart, or writing in the log, while balancing his coffee in the other hand. Come to think on it, she had never seen him entering into a personal journal. Many people kept one, especially those seeking a connection. A captain lived elbow to elbow with men, and yet was isolated by the position of command. Pryce was probably Nathan’s nearest thing to a confidant, but even that was quite limited.

No secrets on a ship.

Indeed, that could well be the case, for nothing put to paper could be guaranteed as secret.

The scones arrived. As Cate ate, she tried to decide what it was that struck her so odd, thinking perhaps she was still deep in her earlier daydream. And then, she realized: Nathan was eating. He had plucked a mango from the plate, diced it into chunks with his knife, and was now using it as fork.

She often wondered what kept Nathan going, for it was rare to see him eat. Occasionally, he would walk about with a piece of smoked charqui tucked in the corner of his mouth, like one might a cheroot. She had seen him at times sipping from a cup of something that smelled similar to the hands’ meal, obviously thinned considerably. He had taken the fruit from a plate that had a permanent residence in the middle of the table. Strategically placed out of Hermione’s reach, with a dome of stiffened gauze over it and sprigs of sage around as deterrents to vermin, it held a ever-changing variety: fruit, boiled eggs, wedges of cheese, pickles, kippers, softtack, charqui, anything that could be grabbed and eaten. She suspected Kirkland, distressed by his captain’s apparent lack of appetite, kept it there in hopes of tempting him.

Cate watched with guarded pleasure as he plucked up a scone. She smiled privately at seeing him slather it with honey to the point of drooling over the sides.

There was one secret she knew about Captain Nathanael Blackthorne: he had a sweet-tooth. The honey pot, and its accompanying spoon, was a permanent resident on the table. His coffee was always heavily dosed. Many a time, she had seen him stop to either take spoonful as one would a dose of physick, or swirl his finger inside and pop a golden dollop in his mouth.

Nathan nibbled at the scone’s edge, the bells in his mustache flashing in the morning light as he chewed industriously, licking the dripping sweetness from between his fingers, and dashing the crumbs from his mustache and beard.

He flicked a Bombay bomber from his plate as casually as one would an ant at a picnic, sending it on a long arc out the window.

“Damned geckos have been slouching again. Might feed you to Artemis, if you don’t bear a hand and show a leg,” he directed louder to the general room.

Nathan paused in his chewing to eye Beatrice as she sidled over to Cate for another morsel. “You’re going to spoil her appetite.”

Cate wondered if he was speaking to her or the bird.

With a squawk of protest and a swirl of feathers, Beatrice soared out the gallery window and curved up toward the quarterdeck.

Mr. Kirkland topped the galley steps and came to a dead stop just as Nathan swallowed carefully, followed by a gulp of coffee. Joyousness flushed his florid face at seeing his captain eat. He eagerly rushed forward uttering an effusive list of other temptations—sausages, bacon, soft-boiled eggs, toasted softtack, fried fish, or an omelet—but was waved away as Pryce came in.

“The crew begs yer leave, Cap’n.”

The ominous weight in Pryce’s voice brought Nathan instantly to his feet. Cate rose as well without knowing why. Both men stood poised, an entire conversation in one look.

“What’s…?” Nathan swallowed, straining to maintain his casualness. “What might this be in regard to?”

Jaws flexing, Pryce’s grey eyes narrowed to slits. “They’ve…grievances, sir.”

A sharp rise of voices on deck gave veracity to his statement.

Nathan nodded faintly. “Who?”

“Same as before.” Pryce’s bass dropped to a bare shadow of itself.

“How many?”

“More than the last,” Pryce said, with considerable reticence, and then hissed in burst of hushed vehemence, “God rot their eternal souls and strike them blind!”

Nathan’s throat moved as he gulped. “Very well, I shall attend directly.”

Nathan stared in Pryce’s wake. He closed his eyes and swayed. Hands working at his sides, he emitted a low growl through clenched teeth. He shook himself like a great dog, and then turned to her, his features now carefully arranged.

“It might be best if you were to remain here.” He winced at the increase of impassioned shouts from outside. “It could be dangerous, what with the crossfire and all.”

Crossfire?

Cate stood confused to the point of speechlessness. Nathan came around the table to take her by the arms, his fingers digging her flesh. He threw loathingly glare over his shoulder toward the cabin door and the uproar beyond.

“Things could happen quickly. I might not be able to…” He choked off the thought. “When…if,” he emphatically corrected, “anything should…happen, stay close to Pryce. He should be able to protect you. They know you’re here, so there’s no hiding you. You have your knife?”

Mechanically nodding, Cate touched the side of her skirt and the reassuring weight there. Assured by that, Nathan went to one of the urns near the door and reached in to almost his armpit to draw out a pistol.

“Keep this with you,” Nathan said, checking the primer. He shoved it into her waistband and with a tone that turned her blood to ice said, “Save it for yourself.”

She stiffly nodded, her thoughts refusing to move.

“I’m sorry,” Nathan said haltingly. “I…I meant to do you better.”

Cupping her cheek in his hand, Nathan gazed intently at her, taking in every feature, and then kissed her on the forehead, warm and yet so brief. He turned to survey the room, as if committing it to memory. He drew up at the threshold and swayed. Squaring his shoulders, he stepped into the glare of day and tumult with his customary swagger.

Cate stood transfixed, trying to decide which was more startling: Nathan’s sudden trepidation or his kiss. She started at the sound of footsteps and whirled to find Mr. Kirkland at the top of the companionway, round-eyed and pale.

“I heard rumblings.” He looked toward the increasing mayhem on deck and wrung his hands. “I thought it to be only the usual complaining. I should have warned the Captain.”

“What is it? What’s happening?”

“Mutiny.” Blenching, Kirkland barely whispered the word. “I’m not saying for sure, but…”A cringing shrug completed the thought.

Cate strained to assemble fleeting bits Nathan had told her weeks ago.

Mutiny. Nathan had said it, with his usual insouciance.

“…once…marooned…lost me ship…” Her embarrassment at having inadvertently broached something so delicate had precluded her from probing any deeper. It had invoked visions of anarchy, violent mobs, pistols, and bloodied sabers.

Heart hammering, Cate looked from Kirkland to the door and the invisible mob. “So, what happens?”

He rolled his eyes doubtfully. “If it goes smoothly, marooned…or cast adrift.”

Marooned: left on an island to die.

Cate glanced toward the windows. It was the West Indies; islands were as constant as clouds. At the moment, any that were visible seemed very inaccessible.

Adrift, then. The same, but worst to her mind: cast off in a boat alone, until heat and thirst ended the misery.

She closed her eyes and swallowed her breakfast for a second time. Not Nathan. Not Nathanael Blackthorne. It couldn’t end that way. He had endured before and had lived to tell the tale. It only followed that such would be the case once more.

“And, if not smoothly?” she could barely rasp, her mouth had suddenly gone dry.

“If it’s close, the decks will be red.”

Cate was confident the cook wasn’t referring to the paint drizzled over the ship’s edges.

Drawn by the rowdiness, Cate went to the door, but recoiled at the sight of all hundred and seventy-something pirates gathered, dark, weathered, half-dressed, and barbaric. Weapons, in the way of firearms and blades were in the armory, under lock and key. A ship, however, possessed a vast number of lethal implements. Snarling like a currish pack, they perched on every surface—capstan, rails, ratlines, and yards—brandishing hatchets, poleaxes, harpoons, pikes, hooks, barrel staves, or any other possible weapon ready to hand. A flash of hyacinth blue darted overhead, Beatrice settling on the mizzen masthead.

Things could happen quickly…

Cate once more checked the pistol at her waist.

As she looked from face to face, she was stricken by betrayal, much the same as Nathan had to have been feeling, if not more so. These were the very faces that had smiled as she had chatted, treated their wounds, and listened as they told of families and loved ones. Now they were no more than ravaging dogs snapping at the very hand that fed them. To see their violence turned outward on their enemies was one thing; to see it inward itself was far more fearsome.

Nathan stood unflinching before the crowd. Any sniff of weakness would be a cue for this rabble of sea wolves to attack. On any other ship, the captain could have sent the troublemakers scattering with a single bark, but these were pirates, exercising their rights as given by the ship’s articles. Liberty suddenly seemed a double-edged sword, the gain of one coming at the expense of another.

The plaintiffs, judging by their belligerent stance, loosely formed around Nathan, Pryce barely an arm’s length away. His contorted countenance could be an open book, or he could be as inscrutable as the sphinx. His disapproval was eloquent in the stony glare and rigid stance, but it was unclear if it was provoked by the complainants themselves or his Captain being challenged.

“Who be spokesman?” Pryce’s booming voice brought the proceedings to quick order.

“Y’er Quartermaster,” came a sneering shout from the crowd.

“Aye,” Pryce said evenly. “But a man’s grievances best come from his own damned mouth. If ye’ve complaints enough to bear arms against yer Cap’n, then ye’s can jolly well haul yer asses up and voice them like a man, instead o’ cowerin’ about like Spaniard-lovin’, spineless curs!”

Like a bucket of sea water, Pryce doused the riotous enthusiasm. He pointedly ignored those before him, until the leader was singled out by virtue of the others falling back. All attention swiveled to one individual. Cate shied.

Bullock.

She fished deep into the pool of names which she had learned over the last weeks, but could only snag a few for his cohorts: Clark—even more sour than Bullock, if that was at all possible—Hibbett—gullibility written all over him—and Reed—his arm still wrapped by the bandage she had put there but a few days ago.

Hanging at the cabin door, Cate strained to hear.

“Ye’ve gone soft, Cap’n,” Bullock was saying, his companions enthusiastically nodding. It seemed a good sign he still showed Nathan proper respect. “We should o’ taken that ship as prize…”

“Which? The Nightingale?” Nathan cut in.

“Aye! Instead, ye allowed ’em to pass—”

“With a dead captain, I might point out.” Nathan’s interjection came in a conversational tone, obliging the crowd to hush further in order to hear him.

“She was listing to near scuppers, masts sheared and hull breached. You were below. How fast was the water rising in the well? Were you and your…cohorts,” said Nathan, with a distasteful swipe, “willing to sweat it out on the pumps for the days required to put her to rights?”

Bullock blinked a bit dully at his point being so readily dismissed. “Shoulda took the Valor, then.”

Nathan stood impassively in the face of the inflamed cheers, fists and weapons waving in Bullock’s support.

“She was hard aground. How many hours on a capstan and hawse were you and your merry band willing to put in so that we might achieve that glorious goal?”

Nathan crossed his arms and planted his feet. By zeroing his sights on Bullock, he effectively narrowed the confrontation from a small gang to only the two of them.

“We took everything what needed taking, or did you forget something? How long did you fancy we should have stood off? Would you have preferred we took her in tow? That would have cut our speed—and our escape—by at least half.”

Bullock was only slightly set back. “We shoulda took ’er.”

“With nigh on to a hundred naked men? Is there something about a hairy ass that appeals to you? Does the sight of gooseflesh give you a cockstand?”

Uproarious laughter broke from all of those around.

“There might o’ been women.” Bullock said over the crowd.

Nathan nodded agreeably, waiting for the cheering to die down. “Ah, so you do know the difference. Not unheard of for the Navy to carry trollops. What with your fascination with naked men, I hesitated to assume you were familiar with what to do with one.”

“Four ships in a month: they’re huntin’ us.” Bullock’s conjecture brought another cheer. His chest swelled, encouraged.

“And since when is that a concern?” Nathan demanded, when they finally quieted. “We’re pirates. The whole world is ‘huntin’’ us. You fancy that burning them would quench their desire to do the same to us?”

Bullock slid a sullen look toward Cate that turned her cold. She knew the look of a predator, he the pack leader. “By our reckonin’ not everything’s been divvied.”

Cate was some distance behind Nathan, but he still had a sense of where she stood, and sidestepped to block Bullock’s view. His voice fell low and with a menace that caused several to inch away. “She’s naught to you and you know it well.”

Bullock’s jaw thrust out. “She’s part o’ the prize.”

“She’s part o’ the crew, as does all of you know.”

“Not by my vote, nor any of us,” Bullock shot back.

His men nodded with a hungry eagerness that propelled Cate back several steps. She was sickened and horrified to think Nathan might lose his ship—his life!—all because of her.

“One over half is all ’tis required,” Nathan said with cold evenness. “The matter is settled.”

“We should vote…” insisted Bullock, pugnaciously.

“Again?” Nathan’s brows arched in ridicule. “Do you desire us to keep voting until you get the result what suits you? Strikes me everyone has better things to do than to stand out here in the sun re-deciding what’s already been decided.”

Cheers shifted to jeers at Bullock’s suggestion of such inconvenience.

Nathan waited until it was quiet. “Very well, what else? Put a name to what’s on your mind.”

His resolve faltering, Bullock looked to his companions, who urged him on with nods and gestures. “We shoulda raided that town.”

“St. Agua? Why? Is there a chicken we missed? They brought us everything, whilst you cooled your heels in a cantina, swilling the local fare.”

Bullock looked over his shoulder to exchange glances with his cohorts, and then back. “We’ll be a-wantin’ our shares.”

“Certainly. Anytime. There’s never been a word to the contrary. Might I inquire, however—just on a small point of curiosity, you understand—as to where you fancy to spend it?”

Nathan finished with a grand gesture to the surrounding emptiness of water and sky.

Bullock’s brow narrowed. “We want our shares.”

Nathan narrowed an eye judiciously. “You’ve the sound of a man who feels cheated.”

Bullock nodded. He bore the look of a bereaved person who was finally having his concerns acknowledged.

“Ergo,” Nathan went on, “you believe a cheat among us. Very well, name your man. Mr. Pryce? Mr. Hodder? Mr. MacQuarrie?”

Bullock’s face dropped at the unexpected conclusion. The thought of their honesty being questioned didn’t settle well with anyone present. A restive, currish growl rose from the crowd.

“Come, come, now. Don’t go faint of heart on us now!” Nathan’s tone grew more derisive. “You’ve the courage to speak your mind. Name your cheat. We’ll give ’im a fair trial, and he’ll be dead before the evening grog.”

The gulf between Bullock, his conspirators, and the crew widened. Bullock didn’t give the impression of being overly bright, craftiness being more in the line of his strength. Given his due credit, however, he was perceptive enough to realize he’d just been bested. He was, however, exceptional in tenacity—loyalty to his conviction, as some might call it—and he exercised that now, determined to salvage what credibility might be managed.

“We’re gonna have to stand extra watches, now.” Bullock’s point elicited a flare of freshened emotion from all.

Cate’s heart pounded so loudly it was difficult to hear. She had crept outside without knowing, and now stood at the crowd’s fringe. A number of the company stood in reserve, watching and waiting as to which way this would fall. “Had their oars in several boats,” as Pryce would say, and none wanted to be caught in the one sinking.

She scanned the grimed and grizzled faces, making a mental list of those who would stand with their captain. Pryce’s allegiance was unquestioned.

Two against over a hundred; thin odds, at best.

She wondered what Millbridge’s aged eyes might see. What direction would he go? His venerable position as the ship’s eldest could be a swaying force; many would follow his lead.

Hodder, Hughes, Cameron, Stubbs, Chin, Jensen: it was a heart-sinking blessed few who could be counted on fully.

Things could happen quickly.

She made a mental note of their whereabouts, just in case.

“Ambitions, Mr. Bullock?” Nathan was saying with measured contempt. “Did you fancy yourself as her master, were the Nightingale to sail as consort?”

“Yes,” bubbled to Bullock’s lips, but discretion prevailed. With the entire company looking on, he knew better than to put himself forward.

“Of course,” Nathan went on, “that would mean dividing the crew. Instead of three-watches, we’d be obliged to go watch-on-watch. But pray, I beg your indulgences! When you complained last time of too much work, I wasn’t under the impression you sought a second ship to mind for.”

Nervous twitters came from several corners. The blood-lust was ebbing; reason and cooler heads were prevailing. Sympathies had swayed, but not entirely. It would take only a small victory on Bullock’s part to bring a freshened wave of enthusiasm that could crush Nathan and anyone who stood with him.

“We weren’t allowed our say.” Sweat gleaming on the bridge of his nose, Bullock’s hands worked at his weapons.

Nathan snorted. “Don’t play me, nor anyone the fool. It’s not ‘your say’ you desire, and you damned well know it. Leave us to plan ahead, for just a moment.”

A thoughtful finger to his chin, Nathan began circling. At first his path seemed random, stopping before this man or that. Slowly, however, a pattern formed, working like a shepherd dog, picking away at the fringes, until the errant members of the flock were isolated.

“The awkward bit of ridding oneself of one captain is that you’re obliged to find another,” Nathan was saying. “And right soon by me reckoning, if as you say, the Company is dogging our trail. Who among you are you willing to follow as captain?”

The question was posed broadly. Heads dropped or looked away, nervously coughing and shuffling feet. Many eyes swung in the direction of Pryce. As First Mate, he would be the likely choice, yet he gave the impression of a man who was unburdened by ambition. Cate stood afraid to look, afraid any movement on her part might tip the delicate balance. The Morganse went quiet, her song of sail and tackle dropping as if she held her breath, her future hanging in the balance, as well.

It was Nathan who finally broke the silence. “Those of you who sailed with Captain Maubrick can shed some light on the perils of the unwise choice.”

“Let’s see,” he began, turning to the crowd. “When was the last time you gents were required to live on ship’s biscuit, sea water, and rats? Ah, yes! That would have been when Maubrick was captain.”

Nervous twitters and grudging nods of affirmation.

“And then, there was that unfortunate business of the Tenerife crossing: you missed South America. But wait! Leave us not forget: that was Maubrick’s navigating.”

Snickers rippled through the hands. Faces softened, the hackles lowered. Hands didn’t hover so readily over weapons and attention began to drift.

“And then,” Nathan said, “there was that nasty business of running aground. How many times was that? But no, wait! That was Maubrick’s captaining.”

A rumbling murmur rolled across the deck at that unpleasant recollection.

“And then, you were ambushed, the ship raked, until she listed so badly you couldn’t pull the guns off the bulkheads. Can’t imagine how Ol’ Henry managed that,” he finished, shaking his head.

“I’ll credit, it must have been an easy life with Ol’ Henry,” Nathan went on. “Wise choice that: no raids, which meant no money for whores, but you gents have suffered before. No work. No worries. No cares. Just at your leisure on a beach… starving, tossing yourselves off, and better yet, no rum.”

He paused to thoughtfully tap his chin. “Alas no one took the time; I could have explained how I never allow me crew to go dry.”

Nathan continued to circle the insurrectionists.

“Pray, might I point out, just in case the obvious has been overlooked, that the hold is burstin’ with swag. Apart from the Nightingale affair, not a one for the sailmaker’s palm there’s been. How many did Maubrick commend to Jones’ Locker?”

Heads hanging like scolded pups, Bullock’s dwindling flock looked thoroughly wretched.

“A caution to whomever is your newly-appointed: luckily, the swag abounds, because the stores are thin. You’ll be needing canvas—that’s Leith canvas up there, you know.” Nathan ticked off each item on his fingers. “Cordage, nigh every size, at least five hundred yards each by me humble estimation. Add to that tar, pitch, shot, gunpowder, wadding, candles, beef, sugar, salt, flour, pea meal, salt cod, molasses, tea, coffee…and rum, of course, lots of rum.”

Nathan pulled up before Bullock. “Of course, you can always raid and pilfer for what you need, but you’d best show a leg.” He gestured larboard, where there was currently a view of nothing but blue sky and water. “Otherwise, those rats start looking real tasty-like. So, who’s ready to be captain?”

He finished with a spread of arms in open invitation.

It was as graceful exit as could be afforded. The neck of Bullock’s shirt was a darkened circle with sweat. If there was such a thing as being wretched and at the same time belligerent, Bullock was it, virtually the last man standing.

“Any more complaints?” Nathan called out over the low hum of dispersal.

The entertainment value gone, the need to vote passed, the crowd melted, gone either to their duties or their hammocks. The Morganse hummed once again.

Nathan swiveled a glare of unfiltered disgust at Bullock, and said in a menacing low voice, “I thought not.”

Pryce slipped between Nathan and Bullock. “To yer duties, mates!”

There are those who claim there is universal pre-determination: nothing ever happens unexpectedly; in everything there is an order and reason. The timing was too perfect to be credited to anything else: there was a squawk, a rustle of feathers, a blur of intense blue and a soft splop! of bird droppings landing on Bullock’s shoulder.

It was over.

Cate took a long overdue breath. She flexed her hands, working out the ache from being clenched for so long. She waited until Nathan was near enough that no one else would hear before she asked quietly, “So, what happens now?”

“We all go back to our duties,” he said with a queer look.

“Just like that?” The men nearby jerked at her incredulous shrillness. “Surely there’s some kind of retribution or, or punishment for…” she said, in low urgency.

“Exercising their rights?” Nathan asked blandly. He laughed, amused by the thought. “Not bloody likely. That would be sure grounds for…actions.” It was worth noting that he couldn’t bring himself to utter the word “mutiny.”

“So everyone goes on as if nothing happened?” The sequence of events was mind-reeling. First, everything seemed calm. The next minute the men were waving weapons, looking to throw Nathan off the ship, and then everyone went back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened. She thoroughly expected to see the malcontents clapped in irons and hauled away, hauled up…something!

Nathan beckoned a passing Pryce. “See to it that the rations are doled out early tonight,” he instructed under his breath, and then added, winking, “With extra. And break up Sir Roguery, the sea lawyer, and his band of puling miscreants.”

Nathan stabbed a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of Bullock, now seeking to rally his allies. “Every time a raindrop hits him, he’ll swear I arranged it in retribution. Yet, if I treat the bastard with care, he’ll swear ’tis because I’m afraid of him.” A sly smile grew as he considered. “The former is ever so much more gratifying, don’t you think? Make the bastard’s life miserable.”

Pryce nodded, one beetling brow lifting. “This isn’t over.”

A look of a different meaning flickered between them, briefly landing on her, and then back.

“One day at a time, Master Pryce,” Nathan sighed, tiredly. “One day at a time.”

Nathan headed for the cabin, Cate close at his side.

“I thought…you led me to believe my being here wasn’t a problem,” she hissed.

“It’s not,” he said, coldly.

“But, if the men don’t—”

Nathan whirled around on her at the door. “But they do! You saw when they voted to call you ‘Mister.’”

“No, I didn’t. I left, remember?” Cate argued, trailing behind as he went in. “But Bullock and the others—”

“Are a handful of swivel-tongued, gallowsy louts that will be dealt with, you can mark me on that.”

Nathan snatched the rum bottle from the top of a trunk as he passed and drew up at the table. Dropping his hat, he ran a tired hand down his face.

“But…I never thought…” Cate began.

One eye peered at her over the edge of his hand. “This is rule by majority, darling. If we were compelled to wait until everyone agreed on everything, we’d never leave port. As it is, there’s always going to be the unhappy…with anything.”

The rationalization didn’t make Cate feel any better and considerably less secure. Nathan's insistence for her to sleep in his berth took on a new meaning. She was excessively grateful for his stubbornness.

Nathan saw as much and chuckled. “I promise, you will be safe. You’ve a knife, over half the crew, a First Mate, a Captain…” A bleat came from the galley companionway. “…and a goat on your side. Now what more could any soul ask for?” he finished brightly.

In the face of over a hundred, Cate was hardly assured.

“This one went well,” she said with careful hesitance. “What about the next? There’s always a next, isn’t there?”

Nathan conceded reluctantly. He took a drink, thoughtfully rubbing the glass with his thumb. “Most of the time, if you keep their bellies and pockets full, and plenty of rum to ease their aches, there’s naught to be concerning.”

“But there’s always a Bullock.”

“Aye.” He sighed, shoulders slumping as he set down the glass with delicate precision. “There’s always a Bullock.”

The sound of footsteps quickly approaching the door caused Nathan to spin around, reaching for his sword and shoving Cate behind him at the same time. He relaxed at seeing it was only Sombers.

The boatswain’s mate touched a knuckle to his forehead. “Mr. Hodder’s compliments and duty, sir. Sail.”

Nathan raced outside and called, “Where away?” up to Hodder, now on the quarterdeck.

The boatswain gestured with his head. “Point ’er so off the starboard bow, sir. Hull up.”

Nathan winced at seeing the white of sails and dark dash of a hull bridging the line where sky and water met. “Had we not been so frivoulsy distracted…” The thought was left to finish itself.

Spyglass slung over his shoulder, he shot up the weather ratlines, spurred not by alarm, but avid interest. Lounging in a stowed staysail, he studied the ship. Several flips of the glass later, he swung down a backstay to alight next to Cate, startling her.

“It’s the Sybilla. There’s no mistaking those red ’n white checks,” he announced.

Pryce and the afterguard mouthed oaths in several languages. Low growls rode the air as the word passed forward.

“One of Creswicke’s puppets,” rumbled Hodder.

“With strings attached tight as no others,” added Pryce. “Marauding wolf.”

“Slush-handed Samuels, at command,” Nathan declared. “Unless Creswicke finally replaced that double-Dutch-handed princock. Highly unlikely,” he added as a judicious afterthought. “Worms do tend to knot together.”

“Slush-handed?” Cate asked, looking between the trio.

“Aye, slush: what’s used to grease the mast?” Nathan prompted as one would a dull student.

Cate nodded, straining to follow. Slush was the fat produced in cooking. It was collected by the ship’s cook to either be sold ashore—for candle- or soap-making, and such—or to the ship for greasing the masts, the resulting monies constituting his slush fund.

Nathan threw a scorn-laden glare toward the ship, now closing in at an alarming rate. “A sufficient greasing could prompt the man to sell his own mother, after pulling the gold from her teeth.”

“The worm tends to overvalue himself of late,” said Pryce.

His gaze still fixed on the ship, Nathan nodded distractedly. “Then our aim will be to render him a mite humbler.”

“She’s fast,” warned Pryce.

“Not so fast, nor more determined than we. She’s working for the wind already. Let’s get there first.”

“And if we don’t ‘get there first?’” Cate asked after Hodder and Pryce had taken their leave.

Nathan smiled tolerantly. “She’ll do everything she can to steal our wind, leave us dead in the water, and then blast the bejeezus out of us with her eighteens, until we’re naught but flotsam on the water.”

She recalled all too well the Morganse using that same tactic against the Constancy, minus the “blasting the bejeezus” part, of course. The dread of such helplessness visiting again prickled her neck.

The space between the two ships narrowed as they angled for the advantage. Once seen, the Sybilla proved to be a smaller ship, with flush decks and more triangular sails. A red flag broke from her mizzenmast, the sight bringing a currish growl from the Morganse’s afterdeck’s complement.

“It means they intend to give no quarter, take no prisoners,” said Pryce, glaring.

Cate turned into Nathan’s intent gaze at her, his expression pinched by an odd combination of self-recrimination and worry. Before she could inquire as to what concerned him so, he reeled away to the quarterdeck rail.

“Mates,” he called below. “That’s the Sybilla out there.”

It was a point needlessly made, for the ship had long been recognized, judging by their displeasure. Still, a roar of protest and derision was stirred by their captain.

“Yon ship doubts our heart,” he shouted. “Leave us serve them theirs on a platter.”

A savage cheer worthy of the Roman coliseum went up. The men shed their shirts, bound their heads with sweatbands and spit on their palms, ready to lay into their action stations.

The two ships’ paths converged. They veered and swerved, vying for the precious weather gauge, which would be the chaser, and which would be the chased. Running close to the wind, it was a tacking duel, something between a slow dance and a high-speed chess match. It was a race for that small edge that would steal the other’s wind. The deck pitched at a treacherous angle as the Morganse leaned, her bow as tight into the wind as she could sail, for there lay the advantage. It was a contest of which captain knew his ship best: too much sail could press her down, too taught could spill the wind, not enough sail or too flown loose could cost precious speed. It was a contest between crews; which one could execute hauling the sails, pirouette the most seamless, and bring the wind to their vessel’s other shoulder.

The white wakes zigzagged across the indigo sea in perfect unison as the racing vessels reposted and parried. Anytime the Morganse prepared for that fateful move, the Sybilla countered, ducking and pivoting, denying the opportunity. Pryce’s “Ready about!” was warning to brace for another turn. The rigging and blocks shrieked over the bellows of men heaving to bring the Morganse’s nose around, the decks pitching in the opposite angle as her sails caught the wind on her other side.

The bowlines twanging, the water raced down the Morganse’s sides, arching like a reversed waterfall at her cutwater. Log lines were unnecessary. Her exact speed was of little consequence, only that she outdistanced her rival. Those conning the helm were alert for a ripple on the water marking a puff of wind, timing the swell for that scant bit more speed, or slithering past a rogue wave that might slap her hull and slow her a fraction.

The decks were a teeming mass of men either manning the sails, preparing the guns, or readying the boarding party. Suddenly over six score pairs of hands weren’t enough for all that needed doing. Many doubled and even tripled their duties. Cate delivered baskets of arms from the armory and put final edges on blades, between tending the injured, for sailing with such ferocity came with a price. As Master Gunner, MacQuarrie was torn between preparing the larboard and starboard batteries, and overseeing the bow-chasers. Low brass creatures crouched on the forecastle, they poised at the ready for the first opportunity.

Nathan was everywhere: on the quarterdeck, at the helm, on the forecastle or laying aloft, sometimes idling in the stowed staysails. He was often shouting, but only in the natural way of a mariner: elevated to be heard over the chorus of ship, wind, and water. Torn by the wind, his graveled voice could never equal Pryce’s or Hodder’s in volume. Its weight came through authority. As he worked his way up and down the deck, a nod or an encouraging clap on the shoulder did more in the way of encouragement than any bellow or start.

Nathan’s greatest communion, however, was with his ship. More than once she saw him touch a finger to her wheel or backstay, or clasp a shroud—the arm-thick ropes which supported the masts—close his eyes and bend his head, as if in benediction. At one point, Cate saw him standing on the weather chain-plates. Braids streaming behind him, he grasped a shroud and leaned far out over the racing foam, whooping with joy.

An agonized cry drew Cate’s attention away. A man shuffled half-bent down the deck clasping his abdomen: another busted gut. After seeing him to his hammock and grog administered—not much else to be done—she found Nathan standing atop Beelzebub, the forwardmost gun. The wind pressed his shirt against his body and plucked at his sleeves and tails of his headscarf. Swaying with the rhythmic rise and fall of his ship, he was a creature of the sea, likely to perish if taken from his realm.

“Are we winning?” Cate asked. At the moment, the tip of the Morganse’s bowsprit seemed no more than a biscuit toss from the Sybilla’s stern windows. Keenly aware of her peril, the Sybilla swept her stern from side to side like a lady lifting her skirts from a mud puddle.

Nathan smiled, a crooked one of ivory and gold. The spindrift spangled his lashes and mustache. “We’re not losing. She hates to lose, especially to that slab-sided, iron-sick hulk,” he added, lovingly patting the rail at his knee.

With no idea as to what “iron-sick” meant, Cate took his meaning from his scornful tone. Hardly what she would call a hulk, compared to the Morganse, the Sybilla was quite gay. A row of red-and-white checks trimmed her sides. The roundhouse, bowsprit, and fretwork were gilded, and anything made of metal that could possibly be induced to shine, did so with a brilliance visible from a good distance.

The glass turned. The bell clanged.

“I weary of this game, Mr. MacQuarrie,” Nathan called at length. “Bow-chasers, if you please. Double-shot and on the down roll.”

Nathan seized Cate by the arm, and had propelled her to the cabin before MacQuarrie cried, “Fire!”

“The foredecks should take the brunt, so you’re to remain here,” Nathan said as he drew up just inside the door. “You’ve your knife?”

Cate saw then that at some point, Nathan had armed himself the same as before departing for the Valor. No strip of cloth bound his arm, but two extra pistols were stuck in his belts and a wicked-looking knife protruded from his boottop. Her heart lurched at the thought of him taking part in another boarding. He had escaped unscathed before; it was too much to hope for such luck to revisit.

Stiff with fear for him, Cate nodded, touching her pocket.

“Now use this,” Nathan said solemnly. He pulled one of the pistols from his belt and stuffed it into her waistband. “Do not hesitate: the bigger the smile, the more reason to put a ball between the bastard’s eyes. Your word?”

Cate blinked. It had never occurred to her to be afraid for herself.

Nathan patted her shoulder at seeing her woodenly nod again. “There’s a good lass.”

“Her rudder’s gone!” came a cry from forward. A joyous cheer erupted.

Nathan glanced anxiously over his shoulder.

Cate fought the urge to throw her arms around his neck. “Please don’t—”

Her plea was silenced by his finger to her lips. “Hist, now. This is what I do, and child’s play it is,” he added a bit dryly. “Now hold fast.”

He flashed a smile that was presumably intended to reassure her. She wasn’t.

And then, he was gone.

As Cate stood there, she noticed Hughes, Cameron, Mute Maori, and Chin bracketed the Great Cabin’s door like intransigent watchdogs, arms at the ready. The scuff of feet, a cough, and low voices at the bottom of the galley steps revealed that access was guarded as well. No one seemed to anticipate they would be boarded, but precautions had been taken, nonetheless.

Over Nathan’s shoulder, Cate could see that the Sybilla’s bow had swung around. There was an advantage, however, in being sideways to the Morganse’sbow and she took it. She fired. The six-gunned broadside was meant to rake, but had limited effect. Three balls splashed into the sea. Two landed on the deck spent and rolled about like 18-pound marbles. One dashed from bow to aft, its path marked by trail of spurting shards of wood. Nathan spun in round-eyed horror as it streaked for the Great Cabin’s door. Cate stood in an odd fascination, as if entranced by the ball as it hurtled toward her. Her mind screamed for her to duck—she thought she heard Nathan shout—but her feet refused to move, as if stuck in tar. She had the impression of it aiming squarely at her nose and felt her eyes wanting to cross. Then the ball careened off the mainmast and shot over the rail with a heavy whirring sound, the splinters tugging at her skirts.

Nathan glared and swiped a gesture bidding her to get down, back…anything! He wheeled around and cried, “Full aback! Lay ’er in irons!” Pryce and Hodder echoed the command fore and aft.

The Morganse’s bow-chasers fired again. The guns must have been elevated and on the rise, for this time the Sybilla’s sails took the worst. The Sybilla’s own gunsmoke clogged her decks; the Morganse’s filling the space between the ships. The Morganse seized the moment and swept in. A shrieking grind and a lurch, which sent Cate scrambling for a handhold, marked the two hulls meeting. Grapnels were flung and the Morgansers poured over the bow. Strips of red flapping, brandishing pistols, cutlasses, boarding axes, and the like, they shrieked like Tartars as they charged and disappeared onto the Sybilla’s smoke-choked deck.

The clash of battle drifted from the Sybilla: the roar and cry of men, the scrape of metal against metal, the sporadic pop of a pistol. The deeper cough of muskets came from high above, the sharpshooters hanging like murderous monkeys in the rigging of both ships. The breeze pushed away the lingering great gun smoke, leaving only the thinner curls from the small arms remained. Cate stood on tiptoe straining to see forward through the tumult, and by some miracle, onto the Sybilla’s deck, hoping for a glimpse of Nathan. She thought she caught snatches of his voice. It would have required the force of a great gun, if it was to be heard over her heart hammering in her ears.

Damn him! Damn him!

Damn him for putting himself in danger, for being who he was.

“I’ll never forgive the bastard, if he gets himself killed.” Cate spoke aloud without meaning to, and apparently louder than she thought, for Chin, Hughes, and Cameron gave her a startled look.

Cate looked down at her shaking hands—when did that start?—and worried that in this condition she might not be able to do what was necessary if Nathan came back injured. She buried her hands deep in the folds of her apron, not only to stop the shaking, but to prevent her nails from digging so deeply into her palms.

And then it was quiet, with no more than the clank! and thunk! of weapons dropped.

It was over.

Cate gasped a choking sob of relief at seeing Nathan’s head bobbing among his cheering crew. Then he stepped clear of the crowd and into a band of sun breaking through the smoke. Shirt darkened with circles of sweat, sword in one hand, pistol in the other, the whites of his eyes gleamed against his smoke-blackened face. The eyes narrowed as Nathan peered toward her. A flash of white and gold broke the soot when he smiled at seeing that she was well. A tap to his forehead in salute and he disappeared into the jubilant throng of men.

The ships were shifted and secured, the yards triced up lest they tangle. Gangplanks, derrick yards, and whips were rigged, so that the prize might be ridded of her valuables. Judging by the net-load after net-load, passed down through the hatches next to where Cate had set up the makeshift sick berth, most of it was stores: spars, yards, canvas, cordage, blocks, and tar, or victuals.

Tradition held that the defeated captain was to pay his respects to the victor straightaway. After some time and no captain, word was passed. Still no one showed. Incensed by the slight, Pryce was on the verge of apoplexy, threatening to send a detail to drag the “double-poxed, worm-boweled, ill-beseen prick” aboard.

Cate had finished with the wounded. The maindeck being in such chaos, she returned by way of the ’tween deck to the Great Cabin. Nathan was there at the table. She had seen him safe at the end of the battle, but hadn’t seen him since. Seeing him now, unbloodied, was better than any tonic.

His face lit at seeing her top the galley steps. “A Butcher’s Bill?”

She had hoped for a remark a bit more personal, but after all, this was Nathan.

“The Sybillas must be better sailors than warriors,” Cate sighed. “A good number are bashed or broken, but barring something festering, all should survive.” She touched wood at the same time. Festering wounds was nothing to take lightly.

The air was pierced by a coxswain’s whistle, the Sibylla’s, for the Morganse had none. With the pomp befitting visiting royalty, Captain Samuels was piped aboard. The forewarning still did not forearm Cate for the visage which appeared at the door.

Cate had assumed pirates to all be of much the same cloth. Roughly the same age and height as Nathan, Samuels was diametrically opposed to him in more ways than he was alike. He was pale of eye and skin, the latter remarkably so for one who presumably spent the bulk of his life out-of-doors. Thick of nose and lips, his skin, no amount of squinting could have rendered him good-looking. He sported the paunch and jowl that came with good living, puffy and soft. He wore a curled wig, brocade coat, gold embroidered weskit, velvet cape, and breeches with jeweled buckles at the knee. Gleaming Hessian boots, a massive, ornate silver belt buckle, gilt-and-jeweled sword and a pair of carved, ivory-handled pistols completed his ensemble. His crowning glory was a vast-brimmed cocked hat, its purple plume curling nearly to his waist, and a gold-orbed walking staff. Any of those appointments taken individually could have made the man.

Samuels and his contingency filed into the cabin. Hodder, Pryce, MacQuarrie, and the Morganse’s equivalence to officers were present, the impressive figures of Chin and Mute Maori at the forefront. No introductions were made. Judging by the mood, all present were familiar, too familiar. Pryce’s glare froze his features. His disapproval must have been contagious, for it had infected all Morgansers present.

With a flare of cape, Samuels posed in his seat as if at court. Nathan slouched in his chair, one leg slung over the arm. The two bristled like two terriers, circling and sniffing, the table between them more a barrier than a formality. The air snapped with a charge. St. Elmo’s fire leaping about the room wouldn’t have come as a surprise.

“It would appear roguery agrees with you,” Samuels said, regarding Nathan imperiously.

“It would appear selling your soul to the Devil agrees with you.”

“Few clouds fail to produce silver linings.” Samuels wore a fixed smile. If it was meant to assure, it didn’t. If it was to ingratiate, it didn’t. If it was meant to obfuscate, it didn’t.

Nathan angled his head toward the rum and two glasses, squarely before Samuels. “The bottle stands by you.”

Samuels winced. Clearly, he would have preferred to have been paid the honor of having someone pour for him. He filled one and shoved the rest across. A lift of the glass and a nod was the only toast offered.

Rolling the drink in his mouth, Samuels nodded in reluctant approval. “Jamaican.”

“Only the best for our guests,” Nathan said without a hint of hospitality.

“His Lordship begs I inform you that he doesn’t appreciate your little escapades: burning his flag, defacing his ships,” Samuels began. He fondled a lace-edged sleeve. “He takes it personal.”

“Good, because it ’tis.”

Samuels looked up from under his brow. “You can’t escape him. His influence reaches around the world.”

“Pray tell him I aim to take that sacred influence, stretch it ’round his little empire and strangle him with it.”

They locked stares.

“I’ll give him the message,” Samuels said in a low tone.

“I know you will,” Nathan replied evenly.

Cate wasn’t quite sure how Nathan managed it: a barely perceptible slide of his eye propelled her around the table, until she was behind and off to the side of Samuels. It was unclear if it was to move her out of Samuels’ sight or where Nathan could see her.

Samuels took another drink. “Do you plan to take my ship?”

“Do you plan to give me cause?” Nathan asked, examining his fingernails.

The corner of the privateer’s mouth quirked. “I’ve always come prepared to barter when you’re involved, Nathan.”

“Ah, the tar pot calling the loggerhead black. Very well, on the table with it.”

Samuels gestured to his men, bidding them outside. Once they had filed out, Nathan drew out a leather pouch and tossed it on the table. It landed with the heavy clank of coins.

“Not entering this on the prize book, I’ll wager,” Nathan mused.

Samuels smile was unwavering.

Nathan tilted his head and squinted one eye. “I knew once of a captain found guilty of that: his crew fed him his balls…roasted.”

Samuels smile faltered, and then tightened. “My price has gone up.”

“How is it that the man with the noose around his neck is always the one to desire to bargain? And now, he demands to be paid.”

“Double.”

His drink spewed across the table was Nathan’s answer.

“Then triple,” Samuels said, his ire rising.

“I could have sworn those were sharks I saw lurking under the counter,” Nathan said, with a roll of the eyes.

Samuels’ eyes were in constant motion, like a pickpocket darting through a crowd seeking his next victim, taking notice of every aspect of the room, looking for his next means of manipulation, an edge, information to sell next.

Samuels rolled the glass between his hands as he said, “I would have thought you would have had your fill of women aboard.”

It was miniscule, but there was a slight crack in Nathan’s façade, clearly preferring she hadn’t been there. He made a reproving noise, and then darkened. “I would have though you would have a stronger appreciation for your tongue. Another word and I’ll cut it out.”

“Parlay.” Samuels’ reminder came as a sneer befitting a play yard.

Nathan was unabashed. “Very well. I’ll put it in your lapel and you can take it with you.”

Samuels’ first impulse was to dismiss the warning. He sobered and eyed Nathan, second thoughts prevailing.

Samuels scoffed. “Empty threats.”

Nathan went so very solemn, hardening to a deadly coldness that had been alluded to, but Cate had never witnessed. If it didn’t make Samuels nervous, it certainly did her.

“Try me. Name one thing I would have to lose,” Nathan said.

Samuels posed with smugness. “What I know.”

“Information then is the name of the game,” Nathan mused, settling back in his chair.

Samuels winced at having tipped his hand so readily. “Triple.”

“Do the words ‘hock and heave’ carry significance for you?” Nathan fixed him with a stare. “Same as before.”

The shoulders under the velvet cape slumped. “Agreed.”

Samuels had incrementally sunk lower in his chair with each foray. The exchanges had been a fencing match: lunge, parry, ripost. He now tended to flinch and start at any sudden move on Nathan’s part. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by Nathan, and he now taunted the man. An overt jerk of his shoulders and Samuels nearly dropped his glass. Cate had the impression that, if Nathan were to go a bit more forceful, the man would launch from the room.

Beads of sweat shone on the bridge of Samuels’ nose, when Cate’s was met with the sharp smell of fresh paint. A great deal of it would have to have been employed somewhere to account for the strength which wafted through the cabin just then. Merriment of the scheming, mischievous sort could be heard outside, and snickering, like lads tipping privies.

A lizard tongue flicked at a droplet of either rum or sweat on Samuels’ upper lip. “This is a parlay. I’m under the flag of truce.”

Nathan tented his fingers and shrugged. “Very well. How long do you desire to be aboard under said flag? An hour? A week? I could throw you in the bilges and put you out of mind until the body began to stink.”

Another flick of his fingers and Samuels flinched.

“That’s against the Code,” said Samuels, more dogged.

“So is going back on your word, which is exactly what you plan to do at the first opportunity what presents itself,” Nathan said coldly.

A murmur of appreciation came from the heretofore silent audience.

Nathan flashed a smile equal to Samuels’ in falseness. “’Tis all a matter of interpretation, and since ‘tis my ship, ‘tis my pleasure. The same price as before.”

Nathan picked up the coin purse and began to casually toss it from one hand to the other, the coins making a tempting clink at every pass. “On to it, then.”

Samuels went as alert as a hound on a scent. Nathan’s foot came down under the table with a force that brought Samuels an inch or to up from his chair.

“A drink. Information makes me thirsty.” Samuels seized the bottle.

Samuels’ hand tremored slightly as he poured. He swirled the glass’s contents, taking great relish in making Nathan wait. “There’s to be a grand celebration,” he finally said.

Nathan benignly stared.

“A wedding.”

A brow twitched in interest.

“Creswicke’s wedding.”

Each piece of information came in measured drams.

“To marry Creswicke, a woman would have to be either crazed, soulless or…sold,” Nathan said.

Samuels winced. Nathan’s acuity was leverage lost.

“Business deal, in the cold light of day,” Samuels sniffed disinterestedly. “A rich father, a very rich father.”

“Where is this virginous saint now?”

“On her way from Boston.”

“When?”

Samuels ducked his head defensively. “No one has all the answers.” He took another drink. “She’s coming and soon; on her way already, for all I know.”

A polite clearing of the throat drew everyone’s attention to the door and Mr. Towers standing there. He knuckled his forehead in a particularly seaman-like fashion before the visitors.

“Mr. Sombers’ compliments and duty, sir. He desires me to tell you…” He rolled his eyes with the effort of recalling the exact words: “All squared away.”

“Very well.” Nathan sprang up with the eagerness of someone who had just heard long-awaited news.

“C’mon, c’mon! Show a leg there,” he said, urging Samuels up. “I desire you to bless me with your opinion of our handiwork.”

Nathan pressed Samuels outside, and then stood back in anticipation. Samuels hesitated, raced several steps forward, and then slowed as he gaped at his ship. The Sybilla’sdeck and every soul present was now bright pink—red and white did indeed make a very festive color. The paint dripped from her scuppers like frosting on a French confection. The giggling from the Morgansers grew louder, amid the muffled thuds as they elbowed each other into silence.

Samuels whirled around. “You gallowsy, false-tongued bastard. We had a deal.”

“Which would have only held water until the next person slushed your palm. Don’t play righteous indignation with me. Mr. Towers?”

“Aye, sir! Solvents and paints taken n’ tossed, as desired, sir. ’Twill be hell to pay a-gettin’ it off,” he added, unable to curtail his smile.

A paint bucket, pink drooling from its lip, and a brush was delivered to Nathan’s outstretched hand. A piece of old canvas was used as a doormat for those pink-footed men, giddy as school children, returning from the Sibylla. Samuels was guided to it. With great care not to spatter, Nathan smeared the rigid Samuels with pink, from the brim of his cocked hat to his Hessian-booted toes. After a few flourishing strokes across the chest for a finish, Nathan dropped the brush into the bucket with two-fingered delicacy.

Grinning, he tossed the money bag to the sputtering Samuels. “Worth every farthing.”

Nathan took a step back, cautious of the wet paint. “I deserve a great thanks for saving your ass. How else are to return with credibility without some show of defeat? You’re the one what declared no quarter; wanted to blow me out of the water and take me head for the reward.”

His hands useless, Samuels strained blinked the paint from his eyes. Cate felt a wave of sympathy—albeit a small one—for it must have stung like hell.

“It’s not your head he desires,” Samuels sneered. “The prize is triple if you’re alive.”

Nathan doffed his hat and executed a sweeping bow. “Pray give me regards. Away with you now. Ta ta!” he called as Samuels stalked back to his ship.

A heavy thunk! of the boarding axes and the Sibylla was set free of her bonds. Uproarious laughter broke out from up and down the Morganse’s deck as the ship drifted away.

“You tormented the poor man,” Cate said to Nathan under the levity.

Nathan shrugged. “I gave him enough rope to hang himself. ’Twas not my fault that he took off running, figuratively speaking.”

“Setting fire to his britches wouldn’t have been your fault either, figuratively, that is.”

“Can’t help it if the man is oversensitive to heat.” Grinning, he strolled off.

Pryce came up next to her at the rail. He peered up at the red “No Quarter” flag at the Sibylla’s mainmast. “After havin’ that flashed in their face, many a captain woulda took their water and boats, an’ let ’em die a-drinkin’ their own piss. Others woulda unmanned ’em, cut out their tongues, or slit their eyelids and let the sun bake their eyeballs.”

Pryce ducked his head between his arms on the rail. The wide back convulsed under his shirt, and for the first time, she saw Pryce openly laugh.

“I’ll warrant this is a damned sight better,” he wheezed.



###



It came one night that the Morganse’s decks barely pitched, with only the faintest trace of foam streaming from her bow as it cut the water, “Bearing well on a port tack on a tops’l breeze,” as reported by Pryce.

There was a joyous mood aboard. Still in tearing spirits following their victory over the Sibylla—pink-tinged feet now a badge of honor—it had been another fortuitous day. The Morganse had come upon a sloop, riding low in the water, alone, “beggin’ fer the takin,’” declared Pryce.

“Flyin’ a Spanish flag,” Nathan had snorted, peering at it through his glass. “You’d have to be as stupid as a French fuddler to believe it.”

Surrendering at the mere sight of the famed pirate ship and her blood-crowned sails, the ship proved to be Dutch, according to her papers handed over by a profusely sweating master.

“Her guns had been tampioned so long, it would have required a bloody beaver to chew them out,” Nathan sniffed in disdain after.

“Aye, a pitiful example of seafarin’ she were,” Pryce nodded. “Near ancient, with twice-laid rigging and furry-bottomed . The guns were honeycombed and fit to blow up in the face of the first hen-hearted swab stupid enough to touch a match. Held together with nothin’ but paint, they wuz.”

As it turned out, someone had banked on the ship’s innocuous appearance allowing her to pass unencumbered, because she had been filled to near foundering with pastillas—bricks that is—of cochineal, a dye treasured by royals, merchants, and more importantly, the Captain of the Ciara Morganse. There had been enough lifted from the hold to keep the crowns of the Morganse’s sails red for time out of mind and provide a retirement-sized sum for every share.

Cate enjoyed the merriment from her seat, for on the forecastle was the heart of the celebration. Tapping her foot, she joined in the singing when able to pick up the words, throwing in the strength of her voice when the starbolins challenged the larbolins in competitive rounds. In the midst of one such competition, a crewman came up beside her. He bent and in a loud whisper, gave his compliments and represented that she was required below: an injury, the exact nature of which she couldn’t quite make out. It wasn’t an uncommon request. At times, it seemed to come as regularly as the watch bells. She rose and followed, weaving virtually unnoticed through the festive throng to the companionway below.

Barely halfway down, her senses pricked and her step slowed at the sight of the deserted ’tween decks. After Bullock’s remarks, she had made it a practice not to be alone. As her eyes became more accustomed to the dimness, her qualms were eased by the cocoon-like forms of hammocks, swinging heavily further aft, and two men nearer, hunched over a game of draughts.

Her messenger stood expectantly at the top of the steps leading to the hold and her spirits sank. Cate loathed the cavernous belly of the ship. She teetered on inquiring if there were some way the injured soul might be brought up, but immediately quashed the thought. If someone was hurt, the least she could do was suffer a little personal discomfort to give help.

Cate was near halfway down the companionway when a movement at the bottom of the steps caught her eye. She looked up to find Bullock standing there, a predator looming out of its lair. Cold fear pricked the back of her neck at hearing footfalls coming down the steps behind her, the two draughts players.

It was her experience that time often stalled in moments of danger, allowing every intricate detail to be observed: the thud of her heart against her ribs, hot breath on her neck of the one behind, the smell of Bullock’s sweat, the clatter of the bones in the pigtail at the side of his head, the throbbing vein at his temple. The seconds preternaturally ticked as she measured her options.

Run!

Cate hitched her skirts and spun, directly into a hand clamping over her mouth. She was hit at the back of her head and the world faded. Internal voices screamed as she was half-carried, half-drug away. She flailed and took a neck-snapping cuff to the face. She screamed, but to no effect, the hand at her mouth jamming it back down her throat. The sound of the crew’s merriment on deck echoing down the hatchway, the dank void of the hold closed in as she was taken deeper.

Not again! Not again!

Reality merged with nightmares, melding into a new horror, too nightmarish to be real.

Cate was thrown down on a hard surface that she dimly registered as coils of chain. The cable tier then, nearly to the forepeak. For some reason, knowing where she had been taken was important. The smell of sweat, bilges, and sea bottom rendered the air nearly too thick to breathe. Bodies pressed into the small space and hands snatched at her.

The hand at her mouth blocked her screams. They sounded maniacal in her own ears. Panic seized her, blotting out all other thoughts but one: escape. She clawed, bit, and gouged, a demon possessed by that single notion. Rank breath blew hot in her ear. She jabbed an elbow in its direction. She hit something soft and fleshy, resulting in a strangled, agonized yelp. The grip on her mouth loosened and she bit down. She heard a crunch! and tasted blood and grime. An enraged growl filled the small space. A fist clouted her in the face, and then the stomach, driving her breath driven out in a violent whoosh. A low dull tone rang in her ears.

Wild with desperation, Cate fought, and was beaten harder. Her arm was savagely twisted behind her back, the bones of her wrist ground together to the point she thought it might be broken. Hands fumbled roughly at her front. The lantern light bobbed wildly. In the erratic light, she saw no more than a blur of faceless heads on a mass of bodies. A fist rose from the mass and she turned her head in time to take the blow in the temple. Fingers gouged the skin of her chest as her bodice was ripped open. She kicked. There was an animal growl and her breast was given a cruel twist. Her screams into the palm at her mouth went from panic to pain. A body came down on top of her. She bucked and kicked, but to no avail, her arms and legs pinned. She felt the moist heat of a mouth at her breast. She gave a high thin shriek of shattering agony at being bitten, so hard she thought her nipple to be gone.

Fingers dug at her thighs, seeking to wrench them apart. Cate fought to curl into a defensive ball. Her arm, twisted under her, felt as if it had been torn from its socket. The grasp at her middle tightened and she was hit again, in the jaw and stomach. A coppery taste filled her mouth and she began to choke.

This couldn’t be happening. Not on a ship filled with men! Where are they? Where are they!

The desperation spurred Cate into a greater frenzy. Better to die than to live through this again.

Not again! Not again!

She struck out with her feet. Just one good kick: throat, gut, or balls, whatever luck would provide. Something hard, either a fist or a knee, drove into her gut, again and again. She slumped, too dazed to move as her legs were yanked apart. A weight came down on top of her, the thick ropes underneath grinding into her spine. His breath panted hot and ragged in her ear as his hips worked between her thighs, eagerly thrusting, but to little avail.

An incensed bellow vibrated the small space. The man on top of her lunged to his feet, jerking her with him. Cate was barely clear of the floor when she was dropped, coming down hard on the cables. Her gut convulsed, black spots swirled behind her lids. She was snatched up again. Whoever held her was knocked from behind and they shot forward together to land in a tangled heap. Her head slammed the floor again. The ringing in her ears reached a higher pitch. Bursts of red pricked the edges of her vision and her grip on the world began to slip.

The small space became a tumult of heaving bodies, filled with curses and grunts, the meaty slap of fists hitting flesh. Cate curled on the floor as they fought over her, beyond caring when she was trampled or kicked. A pleasant numbness settled over her. It promised an end to the nightmare; all she need do was surrender to the looming oblivion. She gave over to the spiraling flashes, allowing them to draw her down further and further…

Amid the voices, there was one, graveled and gruff, so familiar and very near.

“Cap’n. Nathan, yer killin’ ’im!”

Pryce. It was Pryce!

Arms roughly scooped Cate up; she shrieked and kicked. The grasp around her tightened and she heard an urgent shush in her ear, the sound thickened by ragged breathing. She opened her eyes into another pair. Bare inches from hers, they were black and wild with rage. Seeing her look up, Nathan swore in relief and clutched her to his chest with a gasping sob. She surrendered into his haven of warmth and safety, and the turmoil faded behind them.

Nathan’s heart hammered against her cheek. She was vaguely aware of shifting patterns of light through her lids as he carried her, and then the jostle of climbing steps. Amid urgent voices and pounding feet, she cracked her eyes to see worried faces trust at her, inquiries and orders colliding. There was another jolt of hastily mounted steps again and they were back in the cabin. The clatter of curtain rings as Nathan barged through told her they were back in the sleeping quarters. There, with exaggerated care, he lowered her to her feet.

“Are you all right?” Still caught up in the rush of combat, he set to frantically patting her over.

“I’m fine.” The lie came too easily, and yet Cate lacked the faculties to say aught else.

That simple acknowledgment, however, appeased him. He backed away, holding his hands out as if he feared she might topple over. Satisfied she would remain upright, he retreated another few steps to snatch what served for a towel from the washstand. Wadding it up, he pressed it under her nose. A wooden arm moved to assume the task, the cloth instantly bright red. Someone was bleeding. From all indications, it was her.

Emotions washed over her, like surf on a rock. There were so many, so fast, she felt as if she might drown. Unable to choose which one first, she responded to none. She should be crying, hysterical, screaming, shaking…laughing…something. Instead, she stood much like that rock, holding the towel to her nose and mouth.

As emotionless as she might have been, Nathan pulsed with enough for both of them. His blood still up from fighting, emotions coursed through him like lightning bolts, looking for a place to strike. He drew back and with several deep breaths in an effort to achieve a façade of calm.

Nathan’s sleeve brushed against her; she looked down to see she was exposed nearly to the waist, the full curve of both breasts taught against the tattered edges of her shift. She thought to do something, but her arms refused to move. Seeing as much, with exaggerated daintiness, Nathan tugged the torn edges together to a modicum of decency. The muscles in his jaw, however, where white.

“Thank you.” The voice was so foreign Cate thought perhaps someone else had spoken. It seemed important that be said.

He smiled, a weak attempt, but one necessary for the benefit of both of them. “No worries, luv. ’Twas naught more than what any gent would do.”

“How did you find me?” Cate asked from under the wadded towel. Her head throbbed horribly, everything still a jumble of disjointed events.

The smile grew, more honest this time, but soon faltered. “Beatrice. The bloody beast set to caterwauling; wouldn’t belay until we followed.”

A commotion rose from the ship’s caverns, the voices and scuffling of one group roughly herding another.

“What will happen…to them…?” Cate couldn’t bring herself to utter a name. The mere hearing of their muffled voices made the ship suddenly feel too small.

“Any number of things,” Nathan said distractedly. “Anything short of a slow, agonizing death being too lenient by my estimation.”

Clucking his tongue in admonishment, Nathan took the towel from her and dabbed the blood from her chin. “I’ll be called up as well.” He smiled grimly. “I’ve drawn blood, killed an unarmed man. On that offense, I’ll be meeting me own judgment.”

“Because of me?” Panic surged at the thought of another mutiny.

“No,” he said with measured patience, “because four miscreants took a crack-brained notion.”

Like learning to walk, putting one thought in front of the other, she strove to comprehend. Nathan stood before her, disheveled and blood-smeared. He had killed a man, his own crewman, because of her. The nightmare she thought to be over was just beginning, the hellishness spreading to everyone near. She could lose him, and would have only herself to blame.

“He couldn’t have been unarmed. Everyone carries a knife,” Cate said.

Nathan smiled tolerantly. “Aye, like coppers to a cook, they are, but that will be a matter for them.” He canted his head toward the unseen deck.

Cate felt rather than heard the ship come alive with a rising tide of agitation, the air charged like St. Elmo’s fire. The voices of eight score of men rose to a feverish pitch, demands colliding with explanations. Pryce’s bass cracked out and they fell quiet.

“What will they say?” she asked.

“Anything they want and nothing that will stick. Justifiable, plain and simple,” he added, more for his own benefit than hers.

Nathan’s fist closed around the sponge with a force that whitened his knuckles, the water dribbling on the bed between them. “I killed what needed killing. If only God can take a life, then call me Jehovah, for I’ll do it if it needs doing and with a clear conscience on me judgment day.”

“Cap’n?”

Startled by the voice at the curtain, Nathan whirled, seizing his pistol with one hand and shoving her behind him with the other. He made a guttural noise of both relief and frustration, and lowered his weapon.

“Aye, Mr. Pryce?”

“A word, sir, if ye please,” came a voice through the cloth.

“Come.”

Barely stirring the velvet, Pryce slipped in. Cate cringed, the space suddenly too crowded. More aware of her dishabille than she, Nathan moved to block her from Pryce’s view. Pryce averted his eyes, nonetheless.

“She’s the right to accuse,” Pryce said without preamble.

“Do you think that’s entirely necessary, Mr. Pryce?” Nathan shot back testily.

“She’s a right to declare and witness her justice.” The proclamation came evenly, without prejudice.

Nathan barely glanced over his shoulder at her. “The lady declines. You know me wishes.” His voice dropped to a rumbling vehemence. “I want them dead, the worst way possible. If that means a slow-match to their balls, allow me to be the one to light it.”

An arch of his brows indicated Pryce didn’t disagree. “One didn’t live to face his crime.”

“A knife to the liver is known to do that,” Nathan said laconically. “You be the Quartermaster, Pryce. Dispensing of justice is at your pleasure. You’ve always proven to be most imaginative.”

Pryce’s composure faltered. Cate’s fogged mind was able to grasp his surprise: Nathan had just absolved him of any hesitancy or guilt, freeing him to deal with Nathan’s fate the same as anyone else. If Nathan were to fall under the hammer of ship’s justice, Pryce’s likelihood of assuming command would hinge on his lack of prejudice or allegiances. He would also be the only barrier between her and the rowdy mass outside.

“Carry on, Master Pryce,” Nathan said, cutting off Pryce’s attempts to object. “I’ll attend directly.”

Puffed with displeasure, Pryce touched his forelock and left.

Nathan’s braids fell in a curtain about his face as he studied his blood-caked hands. Would the men the blood as hers, or that of the man he killed? Surely, if they saw the one, they would realize the other, or would pirates only see the blood of a fallen comrade and want more in the name of revenge?

“I’ll be fine. Go.” It was surprising how effectively she was able to lie again.

Nathan looked up and curved a wry smile. “Do you ever say that and mean it?”

His smile broadened in gratitude. “This shan’t take long.”

It was unclear if he spoke for his benefit or hers.

Cate glassily watched him leave, straining to fully appreciate what he was about to face: a court of his peers passing judgment on the slaying of a mate, a member of the Brotherhood. Murder or justifiable? It was reasonable to believe justice would come swiftly and wouldn’t be gentle. Beyond that, her concussed mind was unable to fathom.

Icy talons of shock and numbness sunk deeper into her gut. A part of her argued she should move, do something. No decision came, however, the task of standing consuming every shred of will. Her gaze drifted, eventually coming to rest on a corner of the rug upon which she stood. Not necessarily fascinating, but with no motivation to do else, there she remained.

A rap on the doorframe stirred her sufficiently to murmur a response. Jensen shyly pushed his way in bearing a ewer of steaming water. His brilliant flush stirred her self-consciousness and she tugged at the fragments of her bodice to something more decent. Frowning, Jensen’s mouth moved as he filled the basin. The words thudded in her ears, as if heard underwater. He turned with an expectant look. She nodded, only because she thought she ought. With that, he left.

Cate was dimly aware of the rising turmoil of the crew assembling on deck. Still muzzy-headed, the words were lost, but the mood was readily judged. Tension? Yes. Blood-thirst? Not yet. Her senses pricked at the sound of Nathan’s voice, loud and gruff above the rest. Commanding? Yes. Defensive? Not in the least. She tried to concentrate, wanting to know—needing to know more—but that battle had been lost before it had begun.

Wash.

The directive, simplistic enough to be grasped, came from somewhere within. Cate fumbled, the ties of skirt and the laces of her stays being maddeningly elusive. With a shrug of the shoulders, her shift fell away, landing at her feet. With arms that seemed to be someone else’s, she wet the sponge and began to mechanically dab. The room was warm, yet her skin was icy to the touch. She looked at the blood-smeared limb. Sickness rose at the back of her throat at wondering whose blood it might be. Slowly turning a hand before her face, she examined the scraped knuckles and broken nails. The sight stirred recollections, but nothing tangible enough to be grasped. The light glinted on the hairs snagged under one nail and revulsion seized her: they weren’t hers. Her gaze drifted down to her naked body. She swayed at seeing the patches of blood, oozing scrapes and welling bruises. Her thoughts moved like rusted gears as she strained to piece it back together.

From outside came cheers, raucous and angry. They quieted just as quickly, while one rang out, defensive and heated: Bullock.

Cate quailed and gasped, the sponge landing in a wet splat at her feet. Drawing a shaky breath—Breathing. Yes, breathing was important—she bent to retrieve it. She straightened to look squarely into the glass above the washstand. A wretched creature stared back, battered and bloodied, features swollen to the point of grotesque. The circular pattern of a bite marked her breast, bright red where the dark rose center met the milky pale.

Another inch, and…

She carved a slow spiral and crumpled to the floor. Curling into a ball, she wished for a shell in which to crawl. If she could make herself small enough, it…she might go away.

Cate felt more than heard Nathan’s hurried approach. Cracking an eye open, she searched the planked floor for a hole into which she could dissolve. There were none.

“I know you don’t fancy—”

Nathan's words died in his throat. Swearing, he set a bottle on the nightstand and snatched the quilt from the bunk as he knelt. He murmured little nothings as he brought her to her feet, discretely snugging the quilt about her as she rose.

“Have to bear an eye on you every minute, don’t I?” Nathan gently chided, as if she were a helpless child. A backward kick sent the discarded clothing to the corner as he guided her to sit on the bed.

Frowning worriedly, he uncorked the bottle and, over Cate's feeble objections, pressed it to her lips, not satisfied until she had taken several sips. The sting of the rum on her lacerated mouth brought tears to her eyes. The liquor burned her raw throat—had she screamed that much?—when she swallowed. It landed in a hot ball in her stomach, sending instant fortifying jolts through her.

Nathan scooped up the sponge, pulled up the stool and sat, the basin now at his feet. He dabbed with the sponge, mopping the blood from Cate's nose and mouth, being particularly cautious of the split lip. She tended to twitch and start at his every move, and so he signaled in advance, extracting one limb, and then another. As he cleansed, the basin’s contents became a brackish pink.

The washing stung, but not as badly as the fact that Nathan couldn’t bring his gaze to meet hers. Several times he tried but failed. His responses to the few times she spoke were curt. He didn’t say as much, but she knew he blamed her for having been so foolish as to fall into such a trap, his ship now in an uproar. Cate wanted to tell him he needn’t be concerned with telling her: she already knew. She stared at the top of his head, listening to him mutter darkly under his breath and slowly came to realize his anger was turned inward. He wasn’t blaming her; he was blaming himself and self-flagellation always wielded the sharpest barbs.

“What happened?” she asked stupidly.

“Nothing.” It was one of Nathan's poorer lies. Still distracted by the shouting outside, Nathan was now markedly calmer. “Justifiable, they said. Bloody too goddamned right,” he huffed, jerking his shoulders. “I’d like to see any of those cod-fisted bastards do any different.”

The increased pitch of voices forced him to raise his at the end. So stirred and angry they were, so reminiscent of the attempted mutiny.

“What’s going on out there?” Cate asked, shying at the increased shouting.

“The Court’s still convened,” said Nathan matter-of-factly, and then shot a loathing look over his shoulder. “This shan’t go unpunished. The sods are lucky all they did was lay hands on you.”

His vehemence came out in his application of the sponge, growing more vigorous by the moment. Seeing her wince, he sat back, idly fondling the sponge.

The near-mob’s shouts pitched another octave higher, snarling at the smell of blood. They were shouted down by Pryce, so that two quavering, defensive voices might be heard.

“Punishment will be brought.” Nathan spoke ostensibly for her benefit, but he seemed to glean considerable satisfaction from it. “And before all. Every man shall bear witness, lest there be a misunderstanding of how it was and to see what will happen to the next one.”

“How…? I mean who decides what…?”

Nathan blinked, surprised by Cate’s ignorance. “A jury’s selected.”

He seized on the small diversion. Considerably calmer now, he resumed washing in easier strokes. “Half of their own choosing, and half not. If they’re found guilty—no time to be wasted there—Pryce can announce punishment or a jury can choose.”

…a court of peers is always more harsh than the captain might…

Now more than ever, she saw the wisdom in Nathan staying above the proceedings, no matter how badly he wanted to be the one to pass sentence.

In times of extreme hazard, the mind has a way of barring all thoughts other than those required for survival, and thankfully so. Later, once safety was assured, the barriers would drop, as they did now. She was safe. The realization gradually settled over her. The warm water and the gentle friction of the sponge stirred her senses and delivered her back to reality. The tremors started from deep within, building like a tidal wave. When they broke to the surface, she shook with teeth-clattering violence. Alarmed, Nathan seized the bottle and tipped it to her mouth. She coughed and sputtered, only to have it pressed to her lips again, leaving her no option but to swallow or drown.

Earlier, Cate had wondered where they were, but now the tears arrived. Knotting her already throbbing eyes, they spilled over and she slowly fell apart. Nathan crouched on the edge of the bed and held her. Making little shushing sounds, he clutched her tightly enough to prevent her from hurting herself as she squealed and pounded his chest. At times shaking as hard as she, his strength and solid warmth kept her buoyant above a yawing pit of misery.

With the breakdown came a sharpening of her senses, the world coming back in brutal clarity. She could hear Pryce now, like Caesar before the Romans, listing the possible punishments: By the board. Hock and heave. Hoisting. Strappado. Rosary. Fuses.

Cate had no idea of the meaning; the imagination was sufficient. She put her hands over her ears, unable to listen as sentences were handed down, chanting this was Bullock’s fault, not hers. But it was impossible to deny that she had put herself into their hands and allowed it to happen.

A bottle of brandy arrived and was liberally applied. Kirkland came with a pot of chamomile tea from a tin found in Mrs. Littleton’s trunk.

“For the love of Christ, man,” Nathan cried, watching him pour. “She’s not just been told the damned cat spilt the milk!”

Elbowing him away, Nathan poured a generous dollop of brandy into the cup, and then demonstrably dumped an even larger amount into the pot, his glower staving any complaints.

High, thin screams of torture carried on the air. Nathan looked to see Cate’s reaction, daring her to object. If only the most barbaric could take satisfaction in suffering, then a Tartar she was, for a part of her took deep pleasure at justice being served—pirate justice, but justice, nonetheless. Revenge did have its place. She had entertained serious doubts when hearing it said, but it was manna for a starved soul.

As she sat on the edge of the bed, Nathan on the stool at her knee, Cate realized what an intimate scene it was. Blood, tears, and snot: God, she was a wreck! The times she had allowed herself to imagine him coming to her bedside, it had hardly been like this. Out of gentlemanly forbearance or brotherly lack of interest, he appeared not to see as he dabbed her face with the sponge once more and smoothed back her rampaging hair. A jar of salve was brought, sworn to cure everything from palsy to pox. Nathan discreetly held up the quilt and averted his eyes, allowing her to apply it to the raked skin and bite on her breast.

Sometime later, she heard Nathan outside the curtain giving Hughes and Cameron stern orders loudly enough for her to know the two Highlanders, possibly the most devoted to her, would be on guard. The knife, a permanent resident in the corner of the bed, was checked. A pistol was deposited at the bed’s foot, after Nathan made a great show of priming and checking it in front of her. A small bell was set on the nightstand, within easy reach. A second oil lamp was hung and the candles restocked. She wondered how she was to sleep in such brilliance, but the thought of a dark room was even more disquieting.

Tucked well up, a cool cloth on her head, the camphorous vapors of salve curling in her nose, a steadying furnace of rum and brandy in her stomach, sleep loomed.

“The Fates have spoken. You shan’t be worried again,” Nathan told her solemnly.

And yet, she did.



###



Waking wasn’t necessarily a thing she wanted to do. Oblivion was ever so much more appealing. Still, forces drove Cate toward that very thing. Foremost was the desire to rejoin the living, a strong second being the need to know she wasn’t alone. She cracked open one eye. The feat came with difficulty and regret. The sliver of light stabbed her head. She winced. That small movement proved a grave mistake. She gasped. The battered muscles of her stomach knotted and refused to move for her next breath.

The curtain stirred, followed by the tinkling of bells and creak of leather.

“Hist, now. Hist. Quiet, luv. Be still.” Nathan’s gruff voice was a mere whisper.

Cate flinched at his touch. The sudden movement set off a series of protests throughout her body. She opened her eyes into a pair staring back, a nose but inches from hers. The corners of the eyes crinkled as he smiled, though a bit forced.

“There you are.” Nathan’s graveled voice was suede. “Kirkland insisted you weren’t in there, but I bet him a guinea to the contrary. Are you in need of anything? Kirkland thought he heard you stir.”

Cate recognized much of that as a lie, but made no comment, touched that Nathan would make such effort. The port was closed. She had no reference as to the time except for the dull glow of the deck prism. The air was heavy with the stillness of hours that neither day nor night would claim. She risked moving her head ever so slightly in negation, and then grimaced against the agony that shot through her from that small gesture.

“No.” The word came in a bare croak. “I’m fine…” That gross distortion of the truth stopped her. “I…I could…I am thirsty.” The taste of blood was still thick in her mouth and cloyed in the back of her throat.

While Nathan filled a cup at the ewer, Cate struggled to sit up, biting back the oaths that came with it. As he pressed the cup to her lips, she heard the groans of tortured men once more. The sounds had rose and fell on the night air, rendering them unearthly and inhuman. Their moaning and pleas for mercy had haunted her in her sleep, leaving her to wonder if it had been theirs or her own which had wakened her. She looked to Nathan, but his expression was unchanged. If anything, he bore an air of satisfaction. Another cry was heard and Nathan’s gazed fixed on hers, daring her to object.

Half-sickened by the voices, Cate nearly choked on the sip of water. Clucking his tongue, Nathan dabbed her mouth. He fell quiet. His brows knotted as he pensively fondled the cup.

“Perhaps you should come see,” he suggested delicately. “Witness your justice, know that none of them will ever do you harm again.”

“Vengeance doesn’t make it go away,” she said dully, resettling her head carefully on the pillow. “What happened, happened.”

“Aye, but you’d be knowing you don’t suffer alone.” Nathan gave her a level look. “Now more than ever, you’ll be safe. Every man aboard knows the price.”

“It doesn’t change men.”

He winced. “True enough. An aching cock can speak louder than the cat o’ nines.”

“Thank you.” It occurred to her she had said it already—several times—and yet, it seemed important to continue to do so.

“No worries, luv. I should have had Bullock flogged just for the way he looked at you. Crew and mutiny be damned, at least he would have thought again about…” Nathan choked off the thought, clamping his lower lip between his teeth.

Seeing Cate settled, he made to leave, but stopped at the curtain.

“This isn’t the first, is it?” he asked, slowly turning back. His lips whitened under his mustache. The corners of his eyes pinched with the apprehension of what he already knew to be true.

A cold rush took her, a crawling sensation prickling the nape of her neck. Cate imperceptibly nodded. There was nothing else to be said.

Nathan closed his eyes and swayed. Then he left.

Cate slept fitfully. When sleep could no longer protect her, she could hear moaning of the condemned. If any thoughts of sympathy for them rose, she need only move; the resulting aches and throbs erased them all. Still, hearing them was agonizing. She pulled the quilt higher and buried her head deeper into to pillow.

“Good God, man! Swab those decks!” cried a graveled voice from on deck. “She can’t be seeing that!” was the last she heard.



###



The next morning, Cate woke with the elevation of spirit that comes with having survived the night, not unlike when one suffers the ardors of fever, nightmares or terrors, which could only be dissolved by the pink of dawn. She woke, however, when the aforementioned pink was still in its infantile stages of grey.

Awake? Yes. Alive? Yes. Willing to move? Not quite. Enduring the discomfort brought on by the simple act of breathing, she took inventory, searching for three things on her body that didn’t hurt. Failing at that, she contemplated the prospects of remaining in her snuggery for eternity.

The ship rode easy “on a t’r’gall’nt n’ royal breeze,” as she had often heard Nathan call it. As daylight animated wind and water, the Morganse shook off her nocturnal lethargy, and her song raised several octaves.

Cate listened to the ship stir, awakening no differently than any household. She heard the rumble of Pryce’s voice taking several hands to task, his displeasure neither a pretty sight nor sound. The clang of the bell had barely faded before Mr. Hodder’s ungracious rousing of the men from their hammocks. Not long after came the grind of the holystones, gush of water, and flapping the decks dry. The bell rang and the hands were called to breakfast, with a clash of mess kits and hurried slap of bare feet.

Amid all that, however, there was a perceptible reserve in the hands’ manner: their conversation lacking the customary levity, their step less energetic. Listening to the cries of the tortured couldn’t have been pleasant for them either.

Cate was watching two geckos darting about the porthole, when the curtain stirred. Presuming it to be Nathan, with something between awe and amusement, she saw Beatrice push her way under the hem. In determined parrot-steps, and with as much dignity as could be managed by a bird afoot, she crossed the room. In a rustle of hyacinth-colored feathers and a flash of black underwing, she rose to the washstand. Taking a moment to disengage her tail feathers from the basin, she settled and regarded Cate with one beady eye.

Poking through the fog of the day before, Cate recalled Nathan telling her it had been Beatrice who had sounded the alarm and led to her rescue.

How does one go about thanking a parrot?

The presence of another living being was a comfort, even if it was no more than a curmudgeonly bird.

“Flog the bastard,” said Beatrice.

Cate carefully smiled. “I can’t say as I disagree.”

She sighed as contentedly as her aching body would allow. This was home, or the closest to it in several years. At times feeling like a barnacle on the keel, she had found the sense of belonging, usefulness and friendship, contrary to Nathan’s protests. Nothing could cause her to jeopardize any of it.

Through swollen eyes, Cate went back to the gecko, now on a beam. Anyone who complained of cockroaches or rats on a ship hadn’t lived in infested garrets, where it was necessary to leave precious bits of food as bait. Shoes could be worn while one slept, but it was difficult to protect fingers, lips, and noses from being gnawed. The patter of feet in the night was now a comfort, His Lordship on the prowl.

Thinking back to those times brought back several recollections. The hammering head Cate currently suffered was nothing compared to those that sprung from hunger, the ache of battered stomach muscles nowhere near the sharp pangs of starvation. She had been fed well on the Constancy, and even better on the Ciara Morganse, but she would have gained weight on ship’s biscuit and water. Still a shadow of her former self, she could no longer fit a finger between each rib.

Nathan’s tap on the doorjamb startled Cate. He must have tiptoed, for his appearance came without so much as a tinkle of a bell. He backpedaled at the sight of Beatrice. Her head came up from preening and the two squared off in a territorial stare.

“Must she be here?” he said, regarding the bird dolefully.

“I’ll allow you the privilege of explaining,” Cate said careful to move her jaw no more than necessary.

Biting back several remarks, Nathan kept an eye on Beatrice as he kicked the pile of Cate's discarded clothing further into the corner. The smells of bilges, moldy hemp, and male sweat stirred. Her gut roiled and she was beset by a renewed wave of panic and revulsion.

Nathan’s nose twitched, his countenance more troubled, as he said, “No need in trying to repair that bit o’ business. I brought you these.” He produced from under his arm the shirt and velvet breeches he had given her when first arrived.

“We should be putting in anon,” he said casually.

Putting into port was news; there had been no prior mention. It led Cate to wonder if it was indeed a planned stop or an accommodation on her behalf.

“How do we know she’s not a he?” Nathan asked, swiveling to regard Beatrice severely.

Cate frowned, eyeing the parrot as well. “What difference would it make, anyway?”

“Plenty, depending on his motivations.” He arched a suspicious brow. “What says he’s not in here ogling?”

Suddenly self-conscious, Cate tugged the quilt a little higher. “Don’t be absurd.” Admittedly, the bird was showing more interest, verging on affection.

“I’ll see to it that something more decent is found,” Nathan said, picking up his earlier thoughts.

Nathan hung between the bunk and the curtain. Aside from being in territory into which he didn’t ordinarily venture, his uneasiness seemed to stem from something else. With a sinking heart, she realized that he expected her to dress, and judging by the stern set of his jaw, was disinclined to argue the point. The night had been no easier on him: the dark shadow of his beard echoed the circles under his eyes. He repeatedly glanced at her, and then away, making her wonder if her appearance was that disagreeable. A glass hung on the wall, but she couldn’t garner the courage to look. The narrowed vision in one eye, thickened lips, and an overall hot puffiness were guidance enough.

As Cate contemplated trying to finesse her way out of dressing, she shifted with another kind of discomfort: she needed to go to the privy. As perceptive as ever—damn his eyes!—Nathan picked up on the situation.

“I’m sure we can—” he offered, anxiously hovering.

“Not bloody likely,” she growled through clenched teeth. Under no circumstances was she going to subject herself to using a chamber pot, even if there was one aboard, which Nathan doubted. He was quick to assure her, however, that other arrangements could be made. She would have to be far closer to death for that. Once again, she was grateful for the time-honored tradition of the Captain having his own convenience. Having to traipse all the way to the forecastle head seemed an insurmountable expedition.

Nathan discreetly retreated to the salon, although the toes of his boots were still visible beneath the curtain’s hem. Cate moved with eloquent care in sitting up, to the complaint of every nook of her body. On the edge of the bed, she drew several cautious breaths, allowing the light-headedness to abate before rising to her feet.

In halting increments, Cate dressed, daring to peek down at herself. Her neck and chest were a crisscross of angry red nail gouges. The bite on her breast was another story, the tooth indentations now a dark maroon amid a halo of purple fading to yellow. Seeing it made it throb worse. There was fortuitousness in donning the men’s clothing: no stays, and a waistband that barely touched her tender midriff. The binder secured her breasts, but she still hooked her arm under the left one as she took her first experimental steps into the salon.

Cate crossed the room in mincing steps, the slightest jar of her breast causing her to gasp. Nathan saw as much. He knew. He had seen it first hand, for heaven’s sakes.

No secrets on a bloody damned ship!

The thought was more than a little disquieting. At the time, she had been too stunned to care if he saw. Now, it was an awkward truth.

The ship’s motion didn’t help matters; there was an unexpected lurch. Nathan dove to catch Cate as she careened sideways and shepherded her the rest of the way. At the privy closet door, he declared an urgent need to check a chart, his loud humming and drumming of his fingers on the table providing her a curtain of privacy.

Beatrice had moved to the galley gangway rail by the time Cate came out. The bird stared back benignly, as if she had been there right along.

“I thought I smelled coffee,” Cate said hopefully as she shuffled to the table.

Nathan saw her seated. She looked dubiously at the mug on the table before her, her hopes sinking.

“I thought I smelled coffee,” she repeated, dully. That which sat before was her most certainly was not.

“Whipped egg and ale,” announced he brightly to her questioning look. Nathan sobered and said from the corner of his mouth, “I shan’t hold out hopes of aught else forthcoming from Kirkland’s brewing den of Satan, until it’s drunk. It seemed a small price in lieu of being bled.”

Nathan circled and prowled from a distance in thinly veiled disapproval of the shirt and breeches Cate now wore. Gulps of rum required to tamp down the anger he currently masked, he chattered of anything and everything, except the blessed whale in the room. She eventually grew cross and yearned for at least a modicum of directness. To her relief, he was at last called away—some crisis involving the foremast cat-harpins and swifters—and the salon fell quiet, leaving her to cautiously sip her ale.

Sometime in the night, the cries of the cries of the tortured men had ceased. Cate kept her eyes averted, afraid of what scene might await outside. She wondered how far pirate justice went, if it followed the habits of civilian courts back in England: leaving a criminal’s head impaled on a pike or the body rotting in a gibbet. She had looked to Nathan for an indication of what to expect, but none had been forthcoming, and she was loath to ask.

A tug at her sleeve broke her stare. Cate looked into a pair of golden orbs at her elbow. Hermione gaze shifted in broad suggestion from Cate, to her drink, and back.

“It’s…well, I’m not sure what to call it, but it’s not tea.”

Hermione sniffed interestedly at the proffered mug and bleated in complaint.

“Pray see Kirkland on the matter. I’m a bit incapacitated.”

The beast nudged her elbow, demanding to be petted. Cate obligingly scratched behind the silken ears, feeling a bit better for the company. She thought the rustle of feathers she heard was Beatrice taking her leave, but it was Artemis, appearing from below. The owl alighted on the back of Nathan’s chair and stared.

A triumvirate of women, she mused.

A dash of movement caught her eye: a gecko, perched on the sill of the stern window, eyeing her as well.

How does one discern the sex of a lizard?

“Well, here we all are, eh? A sisterhood amid the Brethren.”



###



True to Nathan’s word, port was made that afternoon. Seen from where Cate sat on the gallery sill, under the sun hanging in a hot orb, the little town appeared barely capable of clothing itself, let alone having any to spare. Nathan waved off the minor detail.

“I have the acquaintance of someone, who knew someone else, who had a connection with someone else, who had access to someone else.”

In other words: don’t ask.

Cate bit back the observation that the stays, shift, and skirt he deposited in her arms smelled markedly of fresh laundering. A small fragment of soap was placed ceremoniously atop the folded clothing. Laden with bits of flower petals and leaves, it was heady with the scent of lavender and roses.

Nathan dismissed her gratitude out-of-hand. “It seemed someone who worshipped cleanliness deserved something to put upon its altar,” was all he said.

She impulsively kissed him on the cheek in gratitude, not only for the clothing but for everything this last day. It was then she discovered that he wasn’t above blushing.

“Still need to find something to do with that hair,” he muttered gruffly and ambled off.

Cate smiled. It was an old joke. Her unruly locks were a running point of contention with him, good-natured but determined. There was a certain irony in it, coming from someone who barely contained his own mane.

The days passed. Cate’s confidence incrementally grew. She was still subject to jumping at an unexpected noise, the pop of a plank, creak of a shroud, clump of a boot, or slap of a wave sending her cowering. Shying at being left alone, she was given to periodic fits, vacillating wildly from sobbing to vacant stares. The smell of bilges, muck, and hungering men cloyed stubbornly in her nose, causing her to snort and snuffle. Nathan hovered over her as if she was an enfeebled aunt. She grew fractious and wanted to rebuke him, but found that she had neither the will nor the wherewithal to do so.

The death of his own crewman was on Nathan’s hands. She would have never requested or expected such a deed, but the fact was he had killed in her defense. It was unclear if it had been a simple act of violence, chivalry, or if there had been a greater meaning in it. He wasn’t saying and it was blessedly difficult to ask.

Men were dead; there was no romance or glory in that.

Cate mentally marked off the small blessings. She had been lucky, she kept telling herself. She was whole, nothing was missing, the bite above her nipple a sharp reminder of how close she had come. Her face was swollen, but there were no broken noses or teeth, not even a finger. Her throat hadn’t been cut, and most importantly, albeit sore and bruised thighs, Bullock and his pack had failed at their initial mission.

So, why didn’t she feel lucky?

She carefully searched the face of everyone she met, from Squidge to Hodder, Towers to Smalley, Jensen to Millbridge, looking for any signs of recrimination or reproach, accusation or resentment, but saw none. For that matter, she saw nothing. She didn’t inquire as to what had befallen Bullock and his cohorts, and no one said. Every trace was gone, no belongings or gear auctioned off, no recollections over a cup of grog, no mention at all. It was a Brotherhood of Silence, in which she was an inadvertent member. What threats had been made to guarantee that silence was an even better-kept secret. On that mark, she was an outsider looking in.

In the long run, she had taken no worse beating than a forecastleman in a minor blow. The matter was over, forgotten. They had moved on, just as she was expected to do.

And so she did. Nothing more was said—nothing more need be.





End of Part One