by Fiona Monroe
She found out on the fourth day after they had been taken captive.
At first, the swarthy pirate had brought a second portion for Birnie, but after the maid started working around the ship, she seemed to take her meals elsewhere. So Elspeth was in her cabin alone, sipping at some murky soup and dipping her ship's biscuit into the liquor, when she heard shouts from somewhere deep in the ship. Unusual noises made her nervous. The fears that made her sleep fitfully were not of the men who held her captive, but that they might be attacked at any moment by a patrol ship and that she would be arrested or slain along with the pirates. She could not eat another mouthful until she had reassured herself that the ship was not under fire.
Her world on board the Chieftain of the Seas had been bounded by her cabin, the short corridor and the fore and aft deck. She had seen nothing of the rest of the ship beyond that brief first visit to the Captain's cabin. As soon as she climbed up the ladder to the deck, she realised that there was almost nobody around. There was someone perched up high in the basket-thing on the top mast, the spot that Lieutenant Wardle had told her was called the crow's nest, but the decks and rigging were empty and there was no lamp lit in the Captain's cabin.
The noises seemed to be coming from somewhere behind double wooden doors that opened to a steep staircase, going straight down into the depths of the ship. She turned a couple of sharp corners and found herself in an open doorway, leading into a long, low-ceilinged hall-like space with a table taking up most of the floor. The room was packed with what looked to be almost all of the pirate crew, laughing and shouting at the top of their voices. They were mostly seated around the table, though it looked as if there were not enough chairs for everyone; some were perching on the edge of the table itself, some were leaning against the walls and some others were lounging on the floor. Through the press of bodies she could just see Captain Scot at the head of the table, with the enormous blackamoor Quartermaster in the place of honour at his right. Someone had a harmonica, and was playing a sea shanty. The uproar was so great that nobody heard her approach, nobody turned to notice her.
A delicious smell pervaded the air, mixing queasily with the unwholesome stench of too many unwashed male bodies, and a full-throated roar of delight greeted the appearance of Birnie at the other end of the cabin. Her hair was coming loose, her cheeks were flushed, and she was carrying aloft a plate bearing a whole roasted leg of pork surrounded by baked apples. The swarthy pirate, who had brought Elspeth her miserable meal half an hour before, appeared alongside her with a plate of steaming tubular white vegetables of some kind, and a jug of fragrant sauce.
Fury, hurt and hunger rose in an irrepressible wave in Elspeth's bosom. She watched a few moments more as Birnie placed the roast pork onto the table amidst the cheers of the men, then stared in horror as the Quartermaster took hold of her hand and actually drew her onto his lap. And far from resisting this familiarity, Birnie smiled and settled herself there with a happy wriggle.
It was too much.
"Birnie!" Elspeth cried, marching forward. "How dare you! Cease that disgraceful conduct immediately and get back to your station!"
Silence fell abruptly. The harmonica-player ceased his racket, the pirates to a man stopped talking and laughing and turned to stare at her. Birnie's face froze, a picture of guilt and consternation. She slipped off the Quartermaster's knees and even brushed her skirts down, mumbling an apology.
"Now just one moment, sweetheart." The Quartermaster rose slowly, imposingly, and stayed Birnie with a gentle, but huge hand on her arm. "You don't need to go nowhere. You with us, girl."
"Take your hands off my maidservant, you filthy brute!" Elspeth screeched, her anger overriding fear and common sense.
She would have run at Birnie and tried to pull her bodily away, as she had before, if Captain Scot had not intervened.
"That is enough!" he said firmly, and interposed himself swiftly between Birnie and her mistress. "Excuse me, your ladyship."
The maid shrank back closer to Washington. Elspeth found herself taken by the arm, courteously but very decidedly, and steered hastily out of the cabin and up the stairs to the deck.
Immediately, an uproar of chatter and hilarity swelled from below.
When they were alone on the moonlit deck, Elspeth shook herself free of Captain Scot's grip and turned to face him, furiously. "You swore that you would protect my maid as well as me from your men!"
"I cannot," he said, with what sounded like a forced calm, "protect either of you from yourselves."
Elspeth threw up her arms. "What kind of a captain are you? Have you no authority?"
"My authority, as I tried to explain before, is consensual. I am not pleased with Washington, if you must know, but if the girl is willing, I can hardly stop them."
The music had started again, and the singing was louder than before.
"And why am I alone of every person aboard this ship shut up alone, and given disgusting slops to eat?" Elspeth continued, her temper rising further. She knew it was an irrational tangent, but she felt too betrayed by Birnie to talk about her any further. "While all of you, including my servant, feast upon fine roast meat?"
"Would you have considered the company fit for you, Lady Elspeth?"
"Well... no." The wind was taken out of her sails.
"Nor did I, which is why I did not offer you the insult of inviting you. As for the fare, I had the cook set aside a portion of the joint to prepare for you, I believe he intends to serve it to you tomorrow as your midday meal. However, if you would prefer, I would be delighted to have the honour of your company at dinner in my cabin tomorrow evening." He bowed.
She was so taken aback that she had uttered a conventional acceptance, with due thanks for the compliment, before she knew what she was doing.
"Then let me escort you back to your cabin, your ladyship, and I shall see you tomorrow at eight."
She could not sleep, once she had wrapped herself again in the lavender blankets. The scene of jollity replayed itself behind her eyes, the roughness and rowdiness of the men's voices, the heat of their packed bodies, the lilting music and the delicious smell of the roasted pork. And Birnie, smiling and relaxed amidst it all. The misery she felt now was loneliness, she knew, and it was absurd. The Captain had been quite right; it was impossible that she could have joined such company.
The truth was, however, that she adored parties and she hated solitude. She hated feeling insignificant and left out.
She had just managed to slip into a light doze when she was jolted back to consciousness by footfalls and voices outside her cabin door. It was Birnie coming back at last, she supposed. She hastily turned towards the wall and wrapped the blanket more tightly around herself, determined to pretend to be fast asleep so that she would not have to deal with the maid right now. In the morning, she was going to have to give her an almighty scolding for her behaviour, and she did not particularly look forward to that. It was not her usual place to discipline servants. Beyond outbursts of temper at servants who had displeased her, such matters were handled by the housekeeper or the butler. Out here, however, she was sole mistress and Birnie was her responsibility. She could hardly turn her out of doors on a pirate ship in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, and she did not really want to threaten to do so when they got home as she still needed the girl as an ally and a companion on the voyage, but it was nonetheless her duty to reprimand her for her disobedience and immoral behaviour.
Perhaps this was something of how James felt, Elspeth thought suddenly. She felt a small niggle of guilt.
She waited for the creak of the cabin door and the guilty shuffling of a maid trying to enter and settle herself without disturbing her mistress, but nothing came. Instead, the voices continued—she could distinguish no words, as they were speaking in low, half-whispering tones, but she was sure that one was female, and therefore could only be Birnie—and then receded.
This really was too much. Perhaps she would indeed tell Birnie tha
t she would be dismissed from service when they got home. A good place at Dunwoodie House was something any girl of her class in the neighbourhood aspired to, and there would be many other girls eager to have the same chance; and as for her temporary promotion to Lady Elspeth's own maid, she was grievously neglecting her duties.
Elspeth had no intention of getting out of bed again and pursuing the girl, but anger—and distress—made it impossible to sleep. She lay there hugging the blanket, stewing in wounded feelings, until further noises came from nearby. The walls between the cabins were merely planks of wood, and anything that happened in one cabin could clearly be heard in the next, and the one beyond that. Elspeth had become used to the sound of snoring from the two men who occupied the cabin next to hers, whoever they were; she had also heard the deep bass voice of the Quartermaster singing, pleasantly and melodically, early in the morning, so she knew that he had the larger cabin at the end.
The snoring pirates were still revelling the night away down in the hold, she imagined, but there was no mistaking that the Quartermaster had retired—and not alone. There were giggles, there was the rumble of his voice, there was a long potent silence, and then there were gasps and groans.
Quite unexpectedly, a flaming excitement flooded through Elspeth's whole body as she listened to the cries of her maid growing louder and longer. A fire ignited deep between her legs, and she sighed and squirmed and let her knees fall apart as a muffled rhythmic thudding sound resounded through the wood. There was a crash, as if something heavy had fallen down, which did not drown out a deep guttural yell and a high-pitched noise that was almost a scream.
In the silence that followed, a silence quickly succeeded by scuffles, more giggles and low voices, Elspeth lay alone in a state of near-unbearable longing, every nerve on fire, until it began all over again. She fell asleep eventually only through exhaustion and dreamed of Sir Duncan Buccleuch crouching over her, smiling roguishly, wearing nothing but a pirate hat.
Chapter Eight
It was light when Elspeth was awoken by the slight creak of the cabin door being pushed open very quietly, and Birnie made a pitiful attempt to sneak in without wakening her mistress.
She jumped when Elspeth sat bolt upright, her flushed face a picture of guilty consternation. She averted her glowing cheek and made bustling movements with the blankets and chamber pot, as if trying to look like she was in the middle of her morning tasks.
"Good morning, my lady," she said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you, I was just taking out the night-soil. Are you ready for breakfast or would you like to rest longer?"
"Don't pretend," said Elspeth sharply. "Do you think I am completely stupid?"
"I—no, my lady." Birnie looked trapped, standing there in a gown that still reeked of roast meat and tobacco and rum, holding a chamber pot.
"You are a disgrace. How could you behave so, and with one of these vile murdering thugs—our captors?"
"My lady, they truly are not so bad as that, and Mr Washington is as gentle as a lamb—"
"He was a slave, Birnie! A slave on a plantation! Have you no self-respect?"
"How is that his fault, my lady? He's not to blame for his birth. He's a slave no longer, he's a fine brave gentleman with gold to his name, and he'll be captain of a ship one day soon, he says, and I—and I love him, my lady."
Elspeth stared at the defiant girl in complete astonishment. She was too stunned by her words to react as she ought to the disrespectful manner in which they were spoken. "Birnie, you have known him scarce a week."
After her outburst, Birnie appeared to have run out of steam and perhaps thought the better of her impertinence. She hung her head and said, "Yes, my lady."
"And you have yielded up your greatest treasure to him."
"Well... no, my lady."
"Don't lie. I heard you. I heard everything."
Birnie's face turned a deeper shade of red. "Oh. No, my lady, I mean, I gave that to Robbie Sangster, he was a groom's apprentice, at Dunwoodie last summer. But he took up with the kitchenmaid at the manse afterwards, and he broke my heart. That's how I know I'm really in love this time, my lady. Mr Washington is so, so much more wonderful in every way..."
"Stop it!" Elspeth cried. "You are a brazen little hussy and a disgrace to our sex. If we were back at Dunwoodie I would have you thrashed til you could not sit down for a week! In fact when we get home I will see that Mrs Swankie learns all about your appalling misconduct, and you will be properly punished."
"But we are not going home, my lady!"
"Of course we are going home, you foolish girl. What do you mean?"
"We are going to Barbados, my lady! You are to be married, and there's a native lady's maid waiting there for you—I was supposed to return home on the Heron."
"Well, what of it? That was before the Heron was captured by pirates. Now, the pirate Captain will take me home, so that my father will pay a ransom. And when we get there, I promise you—"
"Mr Crowther would pay a ransom too, my lady."
Elspeth struck the girl across the face.
As soon as the echoing slap died away, Elspeth regretted the outburst. It was uncouth, it tipped the balance of blame in her own direction, and it gave Birnie the dignity of injury. It also made the chamber pot slosh alarmingly.
Birnie looked momentarily shocked and put her fingers briefly to her cheek, but quickly recomposed her expression to a kind of sulky blankness.
"You will not discuss my affairs again," said Elspeth, with as much frosty authority as she could manage. "Now take that thing away and bring me my breakfast."
He was definitely getting too old for this sort of thing.
Roderick had entered into the spirit of the revels because that was what was expected of him as captain of the Chieftain, and if he did not behave as a rollicking, hard-drinking gentleman of the seas and celebrate the capture of a ship by eating its meat and downing its fine liquor in the company of his men then those men might decide before long that they would prefer a captain with a greater capacity for enjoyment. The Heron had turned out to be carrying quite a large consignment of Madeira wine, as well as half an African jungle and one feisty noblewoman. The company had managed to sink at least half of it in one sitting, and Roderick was finding it hard to wake up that morning.
He was not particularly in the mood for any kind of confrontation with Washington, either. When the burly Quartermaster presented himself unannounced while Roderick was trying to get down a calming breakfast of salted beef and gritty coffee, it was as much as he could do to remain diplomatic. Really, he wanted to pull the blighter's damn head off and boil it in pitch.
"Well, Mr President? Land been sighted yet? Sea-monster? Rock inhabited by strangely alluring singing maidens?"
Washington stared back impassively. "Her ladyship be one lying sea-whore, Captain."
"Sorry. What?"
"She going to Barbados all right, but not to visit no cousins. She going to be married."
"She is?"
"And not just to any old body. Her ladyship, she going to be married to Crowther, biggest damn man in that whole damn island. So, I withdraw my objection to the ransom scheme, Captain. You was right. We will make a whole lot of gold from Mr Isaac Crowther, for sure."
"Right... and you know this, how?"
Washington shifted his stance and put his hands behind his back. There was the tiniest suggestion of a smirk on his usually inscrutable face. "Little bird tweeted it in my ear, Captain."
"Oh. Would this little bird have dark eyes and a petticoat?"
"Could be."
"Are you doing this on purpose to infuriate me, Washington?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"I told you, I told everyone—leave the ladies alone. Did you take her back to her cabin last night, or yours?"
"Now that ain't no business of yours, Captain."
Roderick rubbed his forehead. He knew perfectly well that the girl had been more than willing, he had w
itnessed her enthusiasm for the President first-hand the night before. It did not alter his opinion that Washington had taken advantage of her, and potentially created trouble, and it had certainly undermined his authority. Still, the serving-girl was a secondary consideration. After all, nobody was going to pay for her to be returned in one piece. It wasn't worth fighting with Washington about. He tried to focus on the more salient point. "If this is true, why didn't she tell us?"
"Little bird tweeted more in my ear. Lots you don't know about her ladyship."
"Oh for God's sake, man, just tell me everything you got out of the girl."
"Seems that princess, she one naughty girl. Reason she packed off to marry rich man in Barbados, she found in bed with other man. She wild." He imparted this information with relish.
"You do know that servants gossip, Washington, and not always accurately."
"I know that servants, slaves, whatever—they always know what go on with the great folks. Always."
Roderick knew that this was perfectly true. "Which do you think is the most intelligent of the men who joined us from the Heron?"
"Stanpike," said Washington, without hesitation.
"Yes. Dig him up and bring him here."
Within a few minutes, a spindly, smartish sailor presented himself in the cabin. The boy, for he looked scarcely more than twenty, was a long way from losing his ingrained deference to authority; he stood to attention before Roderick in classic naval fashion, in his yet-unblemished merchant seaman's uniform, looking most unlike a pirate. "Sir."
