Too easy—Kate said, “Sometimes that’s seems more like a reason to give up.”
Then they heard the cry of a gull and said it together: “Land.”
They both rushed to the porthole, but could see nothing from there, at least not yet. Kate threw open the door, but there was already someone standing there. He blocked her way, and in a moment, came the master.
He said, “Get back in your cabin and stay quiet there.”
Kate said, “Where are we?”
But he didn’t answer, just went on with his business, whatever that was.
During the voyage since Ambrose Standish had left and the ship had taken on more prisoners, the women were only let up on deck at night. Kate knew by her midnight reckoning that the Red Wind was very far south from the British blockade of France. She also knew by the stars that they were not in the Mediterranean Sea, that is, not that far to the east.
They were probably still off the coast of Africa though, as opposed to the islands lying west in the Atlantic. But unless they wanted to spend months going around the southern cape of the continent, they would have to go back past Gibraltar and through the Mediterranean Sea to get to the Middle Eastern ports.
That’s where she assumed they would go first, for that is where Fiya was from. Her ransom would probably yield the handsomest profit. Once that was done, who knew what would become of the rest of them.
It might not have been the original plan according to Ambrose Standish, but Kate could see that the master was getting nervous about the loyalty of his mutiny-prone crew. It was an interesting dilemma for the new master who had once been part of that crew.
Wolves turning on one of their own, she thought. Kate felt it had a certain poetic justice. But she knew that the women would be the ones to suffer most for another mutiny.
But the longer they sailed, the better chance the British would capture them . . . or the French . . . or the Spanish, or any other entity now fighting against Britain.
But there was also an alternative that was far worse: Other pirates who did not see the market value of women who had been left “intact” could take the ship. Purity was only an advantage if you planned on selling it somewhere else. Booty was reason enough to take a pirate ship—women aboard was an added prize. But they could also be a source of trouble: Men fighting over favors, as it were.
Of course, she could be wrong. Perhaps they would go continue south and pass her uncle’s squadron in the night. She might even end up in India and see the Wilde from a distance. She’d wager that the Earl would still be drunk. Kate almost laughed, but caught herself, because even there in her mind, it sounded . . . crazy.
“Perhaps I shall jump ship and swim ashore,” Fiya said.
“Aye, and I’d be the one there beside you. That’s why they will not let us out of here.”
It was too hot in the cabin. Kate slipped off her dress and sat in her petticoat. Fiya had done the same thing long ago.
“This man of yours,” Fiya said, “why does he not come to save you?”
“I’ll ask him the next time we go for a stroll. When that will be and in what state I will be, who knows.
“Insha’Allah,” Fiya said.
God’s will.
Fiya was studying her for a long moment. Kate fought the urge to squirm for she had already found that she could hide very little from this woman.
Fiya added, “You should not mock the higher power.”
Kate put her hands to her hips, but her face did not show the same such resolve. Her bravado had quite disappeared. “I’m afraid,” she said lowly, and her hands fell away.
“So you keep saying, little one. Yet you still track the night sky. You still tend the frightened lambs and their make-believe ills. These are not the acts of a coward, but one who knows that life will go on.”
Kate patched up the other women in their woes: badly pricked fingers from hopeful sewing on rough seas. It was an act of optimism, and she didn’t discourage the notion that the clothes wouldn’t be torn again. Some of the women had hives from nerves or too much heat. Most had sleeplessness from too much worry or fear.
On occasion, she even attended to a few of the crew at the master’s request. Good will could go a long way, she hoped. Her supplies were again running low.
“Listen,” Kate said.
The crew was fighting. The master was shouting the loudest, but he was out-voted, it seems. True pirate tradition, Kate thought. He was now only a master at the discretion of the crew. Still, it was better that he yielded a point or two than lose his command and probably his life.
“What are they saying?” Kate said, having picked up too little of the language to follow an exchange so fast and furious.
“They prepare to go into holier lands.”
At Kate’s questioning look, Fiya added, “To the holy lands of Islam. They will stay near the coast of Africa and slip into the Mediterranean, but to avoid your British navy they must have the good will of Allah.”
Logical enough, she thought, but Kate was confused. “Why fight about that?”
Fiya raised a hand for silence, for she was still trying to make it all out. Finally, she said, “They fight over who must stay aboard tonight and guard while the rest go to shore and sin.”
“Better there than here,” Kate said. “It sounds like they would make better Christians. They could go sin and be forgiven only to do it all over again. It’s a common practice, I hear.”
“Do not mock that which is beyond or above you,” Fiya said again, and Kate apologized.
Fiya’s religion—the same as much of her crew—did not allow fermented drink of the grape or the grain. They did not eat salt pork and preferred the women to be well covered, including the head and shoulders.
They were also supposed to pray a few times a day, but that seems to have escaped them along with “Thou shall not kill, nor sell women.” Or maybe that part didn’t apply to them. Kate didn’t have much schooling on religion, only what she had read in her mother’s journals. A bit more from the O’Malleys, none from her father at all.
“One last binge before the well runs dry,” Kate murmured.
“We should escape now. No time would be better.”
Suddenly, the argument stopped.
Fiya said, “Three will remain on board. They will toss their dice to decide who the unlucky three will be. Those three will have to swear an oath not to molest any woman but the women of India.”
Those women, who kept much to them, seemed to have been sacrificed in order to keep the crew from the others. Kate figured it’s because they would not fetch a good price anyway, or maybe that too was the luck of the dice.
But the crew had tired of those women lately. The women from India were more like walking dead than alive anymore. Kate shuddered. With little response left in them, the crew had taken to torturing the women to get them to squirm and cry out. Kate couldn’t bear to look at their disfigured bodies without giving thanks to whatever higher power that might listen. She also felt guilty that she felt such relief that it was their bodies being so misused, and not her own.
It didn’t take long for the boats to drop. The crew rowed towards shore with the exuberance that only anticipation of extended bouts of sin can bring. They were singing bawdy songs, she knew the swear words anyway and inferred the rest of the meaning.
Kate watched them out the porthole. As their forms grew smaller and more obscure, the sound of their singing faded away. She was left with the breeze and the sea gulls in the distance. It might have been comforting, in any other circumstance.
She tried the door. It was latched tight and boarded from the outside. An extra precaution, she had noticed on occasion, that was given to only this cabin.
Ambrose’s doing, she assumed, telling the mutineers to show extra caution. A little parting gift from a wicked man, and if she ever had the good luck to see him again, Kate wasn’t quite sure what she would do.
Just now though, she felt like crying.
Fiya started to pray. Kate fell asleep in the dark warm closeness of the night and Fiya’s smooth voice. She woke with a start. It was very dark, very quiet. She glanced to Fiya, but could see nothing in the cabin.
Kate heard the scraping again: the sound that must have awakened her, then the click.
An unfamiliar voice said lightly, “Come now, my sweet. There’s a good girl.”
The board was lifted from the door with some effort. She could tell because it dropped to the floor. The thud was followed by a swear word, then silence. It lasted for a long time, or so it seemed. Whoever it was out there must also be concerned about the guards.
Then the cabin door squeaked open. Kate could see a small form outlined in the doorway. In a second, Fiya grabbed a hold of the intruder’s wrist. Kate hadn’t realized that Fiya had even moved. There was now more light coming in from a nearby lantern outside. She could see the struggle going on.
Fiya’s prisoner was only a lad, maybe ten years old. He was a wharf rat, a thief come aboard a semi-deserted ship to pilfer.
“Bloody hell!” he cried out. He was English, another refuge or deserter.
He squirmed in Fiya’s grasp, finally biting at her hand to break free. They didn’t hear him run, but in a moment they heard a splash. He had jumped overboard. They exchanged glances; they were close enough to shore to swim.
What about the guards?
Only three, they knew. He had twice slipped past them easily enough. And maybe they were drunk too?
Fiya motioned for Kate to keep quiet and follow. They crept out of the cabin. There seemed to be no sounds at first. Fiya grabbed Kate’s arm and pointed. They could just make out the shape and sounds of the rowing of a small boat. It was already a good distance from the ship.
“He escapes, we may catch him still.”
Then they heard the swearing and the cheer. The guards were rolling dice up on the quarterdeck and seemed to have missed the whole affair going on below them.
One of the few Englishmen of the crew said, “Aw, go on with yer then. I gotta ring the bell, not that it makes no never-yer-mind here. Don’t see why I has to stay, I don’t mind drinkin’ in yer blasted holy places.”
Kate saw a musket propped on the rail. She grabbed it. The sailor saw the movement and started towards her with a swear word.
She fired, but the gun wasn’t loaded. Grabbing a powder horn and ball pouch that were hung up nearby, Kate knelt down and frantically tried to load.
The man stopped abruptly, lurched a few more steps, and then fell away with a knife sticking out the side of his throat. Kate didn’t have time to scream or cry or be ill. She knew it was Fiya’s work.
The man’s gurgling cry brought the other two guards scurrying down the steps. Kate spit the ball into the gun barrel, and then pushed in some wadding. She slid the ramrod in, but was already out of time, they were almost on her now.
She fired the musket with the ramrod still in. The rod launched like a harpoon. At such close range, it went through the abdomen of the first man and into the upper leg of the second as he came down the stairs behind the first.
The ramrod pinned them together like two flailing beetles that her brothers used to torment. They tumbled the rest of the way down the stairs, though the first man was clearly dead.
Another shot came from close behind her, and Kate turned around and back to see Fiya had fired into the third man’s back. The men must have been dead before they stopped squirming, because their fingers still twitched a bit, but their eyes were open and not moving at all.
Fiya went to the first man to fall. She put a foot to his face and pulled out the knife from his neck. She then went to the others at the bottom of the steps. She slit the throat of one as Kate turned away.
It was a fine blade, Fiya’s knife. Damascus steel, the best ever made in this world, it was said. Others claimed the blades were made in some other world. Many of the crew had them now. The weapons came from Fiya’s ship and were part of the prize.
The knives were a point of honor to families who had served in the Crusades long ago—not on the Christian side. Each blade had an inscription, an oath of the kill. Once drawn, it was said they could not be sheathed until they had tasted blood. Passed down for centuries of generations, this was the kind of steel that lasted forever and remembered the blood of every man it had kissed.
Fiya wiped off the blade on the dead man’s clothes.
Kate went to the rail and retched.
By the time Kate’s stomach was empty, Fiya had dragged one of the corpses to the rail.
“We must dump them over,” Fiya said.
Kate took a gulp of air before she had the nerve to help.
It took some time, mostly because Kate kept getting sick. There was nothing left inside her, yet the painful heaves would not stop. When they finally did, the women dumped the bodies over and found themselves free.
“The jolly boats are all taken,” Kate said, gasping for air and wiping her face with the hem of her petticoat.
“We have the ship, the tide favors us,” Fiya said calmly. She closed her eyes and put her chin up. The breeze blew on her face. She added, “So does the wind.”
“We don’t have the strength between us to make full sail,” Kate said. “We might drift to who knows where.”
“It shall be as God wills.”
Kate sighed heavily and put her hands on her hips, but only took a moment to think. She said, “Right, the anchor.”
Fiya used her knife to saw through the anchor rope and set them adrift. They could only hope that by dawn, they would be out of sight and not within rowing range of the returning jolly boats, and that they weren’t taken again going out by some other ship coming in . . . or that they wouldn’t collide with another ship at anchor . . . or drift onto shoals near the shore . . . or be dashed on rocks unseen under the water.
She checked back toward shore, but saw no boats rowing out. She listened with her eyes closed. Nothing. No one was responding to the shots, or maybe they heard and didn’t care. Probably wasn’t so unusual around here, she figured.
“Wherever here may be.”
Kate walked around the deck dousing the lanterns. All was eerily quiet, with only the sounds of the ship, but nothing of sailors. Would they get out to sea and drift until they were all dead from thirst and starvation? Or madness?
Suddenly, her mind flashed to a phantom ship, this one. The red hull was faded, the sails were tattered, and no soul was aboard, only skeletons in dresses.
She snickered. Madness had already set in, perhaps. She whispered, “Insha’Allah.”
At least they could steer, and they had supplies. The new master had seen to his serious business before seeing to the pleasure of the crew. In another place and time, he might have been a good officer, she thought, but then she remembered the mutiny.
“His crew might kill him for this.”
They managed a small bit of sail and could hear voices on the other ships in the harbor as they passed. Most of the words Kate did not understand. They were in tongues she did not know and was beginning to believe that she would never care to know. Occasionally they heard a ship’s bell. Kate figured that it took them a few hours to drift free of the harbor.
She pointed up, and Fiya glanced to the three masts, which showed in stark relief like burned barren tree trunks against the starry night sky. The fore and main masts looked sturdy enough, but Kate suspected the mizzenmast, the one farthest aft, was weakened from rot. She grabbed Fiya’s knife and went to check it for sure.
Fiya rubbed her chin as she studied the slivers from the mast. It meant the woman was deep in thought, Kate knew, a gesture Fiya said once that she had picked up from her father. Fiya had deep respect for the man, love as well though she would never admit it. Fiya had disappointed him, and for that, she would never forgive herself and would never expect him to forgive her either.
Fiya didn’t comment, but Kate knew the look. They were of the same mind it would seem: They must
find a way to ensure their safe escape without ending up in a worse situation than being taken by pirates. Worse, like the Red Wind at the bottom of the sea. But they wouldn’t be alone down there.
Galleys were vessels used by the early Egyptians and Phoenicians for both trade and war. These vessels were still in use by Mediterranean pirates, also known as corsairs, though the design of the ships had been well improved since the earliest days.
Called corvettes, a ship like the Red Wind was derived from the design of a galley. Such were the type of ships preferred by the early pirates in the Caribbean as well. That design had also been improved for their specific roles in warfare and as privateers.
Corvettes, like frigates, were utilized for their speed, medium firepower of 28 to 44 guns, and maneuvering capabilities. Used to relay dispatches and carry passengers, they provided urgency with some protection too. They were the eyes and ears of the fleet, roaming the seas in search of prey and information on enemy movements.
During a sea fight, these smaller ships were employed to communicate between the huge war ships—the ships of the line of battle—which could not maneuver quickly due to their vast size and weight from multiple decks of cannon.
During battle, it was difficult for vessels to know the status of the fight with all the noise and smoke from cannon fire and burning. Much like a cavalry bugle is used to signal action to the troops, these smaller vessels would raise their signal flags with orders coordinated by the fleet commanders. By swinging in and around the battle lines, they conveyed those orders to all that could see. They also came to the assistance of foundering ships and survivors.
But the Red Wind was not quite sound. One mast was rotting, and the ship no longer had jib sails far to the fore like a frigate, because the jib boom had been altered to allow for the Red Wind to ram other vessels.
As a consequence, the bowsprit, which is the long arm sticking out the front of the ship’s bow like a hummingbird’s beak, had been cracked from ramming so many times.
The masts and booms on a ship support the entire design of the vessel. With one part lost, it could create stress in another part, causing weakness in the whole, especially without a full crew to tend to the constant wear and damage.
The Wilde Flower Saga: A Contrary Wind (Historical Adventure Series) Page 34
