Spence signaled the oarsmen to bring them up to the gangway ladder. He was first up the steps, with the grizzled, bone-thin McCutcheon a beat behind. Beau was next to last and made the climb with no difficulty in spite of the perilous tilt of the hull.
The sight awaiting them at the top caused them all to stop in a group inside the gangway hatch. The deck was a wasteland of debris. Planking was torn and blackened from fire, ropes and rigging lines snaked haphazardly across the ruin; the forecastle structure was gone completely, leaving only a gaping black hole in the deck. Barrels and buckets were upturned or on their sides, smashed timbers lay strewn over hatchways, and torn sheets of canvas sail hung limply from the spars overhead. Three crippled cannon rested where they had been blown from their trunions. From under the barrel of one of these smashed cannon a hand and arm protruded, the fingers blackened and frozen in a claw.
A ferocious battle had indeed been waged, not too recently to judge by the lack of staining from blood and ash. But recently enough to retain the stench of charred wood and decaying bodies.
“Ahoy!” Spence shouted again. “Be there anyone on board alive enough to hear the sound o’ my voice? If so, sally forth an’ show yerselves without fear o’ harm, for we fly the Cross o’ St. George an’ serve Her Most Royal Majesty, Elizabeth of England.”
Something—a boot scraping on wood or a piece of debris carelessly unsettled—startled every pair of eyes in the direction of the bulkhead below the mangled remains of the forecastle. A man emerged from the shadows of the hatchway, too tall to do so without ducking his head. His shirt was torn and filthy, the lacing long gone to some other use so that the edges of cloth hung open to his waist. Both sleeves were gone, baring arms that were carved from slabs of rock-hard muscle, bulging with more than enough power to steady two fully primed and cocked arquebuses on the group at the rail.
He stood with his long legs braced wide apart as if balancing himself against heavily rolling seas. His eyes were piercing even at that distance, so pale a blue as to be almost silver. His hair fell in thick black waves to frame a squared jaw and a wide pillar of a neck, both blunted under a heavy growth of coarse gunmetal stubble. From the deep V of his opened shirt, a similarly dark forest of hair gleamed smooth and silky beneath the linen.
Yet, as formidable as he succeeded in appearing, his skin had an unhealthy waxen cast beneath the bronze tan. His lips were cracked from lack of water, the whites of his eyes were shot with bright red veins. Despite the bulk of muscle that shaped him, his cheeks betrayed a hint of gauntness suggesting he had gone even longer without food than water.
“Who are you?” he rasped. “What ship?”
Spence lifted a hand to signal his men to caution as he took a wary step forward. “My name is Jonas Spence. My ship is the Egret We hail from Plymouth, our home port, an’ have been in the Caribbee these past eight months seeking honest trade.”
“An honest English merchantman? I count five guns in your starboard battery.”
“Aye, an’ I count two dozen in yer main, another half score in yer bow an’ stern for chasers. Nor have I heard a name for you or yer ship, though I see by yer flags we both claim loyalty to England’s queen.”
The silver eyes flared with an unaccountable fury for a moment before he answered. “My faith in a man’s loyalty is not as secure as it might have been a month ago, Captain Spence. You will forgive me if I feel a need to err in favor of caution.”
“Ye’re alone here?” Spence asked, scanning the deserted deck.
“If I were, I would have gone mad long before now.” He lowered the snouts of both muskets, obviously a signal to the rest of his men, who began stepping forward out of hatchways and from behind piles of debris. There were perhaps fifty in all, though only one, besides the leader, won prolonged stares. He appeared on the deck above them like a thundercloud, tall, black, and massive, naked but for a winding of indigo cloth around his gleaming loins. He held two long, crescent-shaped swords in his hands, the hilts closed in fists the size of small haunches of beef, the fists attached to arms as thick and solid as the stanchions of a bridge.
Seeing where their astonished gazes were fixed, the ebony-haired rogue offered a crooked grin. “His name is Lucifer. He is a Cimaroon—an African chief stolen from Guinea by the Spanish and sent to work as a slave in their gold mines in Mexico. His hatred for the English, who have also robbed his villages and stolen their men and women, is only modestly less than for the Spanish. And since the day I broke him out of his chains some dozen years ago, his only true loyalty is to me, so I would strongly suggest you put your weapons away before the introductions go any further.”
Chapter 2
Spence nodded to his men after a moment, then led the way by uncocking his pistol and tucking it back into his belt. He kept a wary eye on the Cimaroon, who remained as still as a statue above them, his wickedly polished blades flaring in the sunlight.
A second man had emerged from the same shadowy hatchway that had concealed his leader. He was not as tall nor nearly as brawny in build, though it could not be said by an honest eye that he suffered for the lack. His hair was light brown, tarnished gold by exposure to the sea and sun. His face was as lean and well defined as the rest of his tautly honed frame; his smile was sheepishly apologetic as he pointed hesitantly to one of the long wooden cylinders slung over Spit McCutcheon’s shoulder.
“That would not happen to be fresh water, would it, sir? Most of us have not had the pleasure of licking anything but dew for the past two weeks.”
“Aye, it would be that, lad,” Spit said, unslinging his pipe and ordering the others to do likewise. “We’ve plenty more where this comes from, startin’ with a full cask in the jolly boat. We’d no idea what we’d find when we come across, ye see. By the look of it, ye’ve had a rough time. Two weeks ye’ve been adrift, did ye say?”
“As close as I can reckon,” said the stranger, running a dry tongue across drier lips as he watched the pipes being distributed among the men. “And rough? It has been hell, sir.”
Beau unslung the two water pipes she carried and handed one to a grateful sailor. The second, she held until she sliced away the wax seal with her dagger, then put it into the blond man’s shaking hands. His eyes, she noted, were the color of jade, narrowed against the painful glare of sunlight. They bore dark, purplish circles of fatigue beneath and his mouth, like that of his leader, looked dry and cracked from thirst.
He was the only other one, aside from the Cimaroon, not dressed in the long breeches and rough canvas shirts of the common tars. His shirt, beneath the heavy soiling, was made of fine linen, his hose were woven, not sewn, from unseamed wool. His hands, though strongly shaped, had not worked a lifetime on ratlines or canvas sheets, and the boots he wore were cut in the Spanish style, molded snug to the calf with a folded leather cuff. Moreover, he had the distinct walk of a landlubber, not the easy, rolling stride of a man accustomed to holding his balance in stormy seas.
Not like the other one, the dark-haired one. He was every inch the seafaring villain, from the square, jutting jaw, to the well-developed arms and upper torso that suggested his preferred place in battle would be feeding thirty-pound iron balls into the snouts of the bronze monsters that crouched along either side of the gundeck. His face was all planes and angles, dominated by a straight nose and a firm, uncompromising mouth. It was not a face that betrayed emotion too readily or parted with trust too often. Pale, humorless, cold, his eyes had not stopped moving, assessing each man in Spence’s group, starting with the burly captain himself and ending with the prunelike visage of Spit McCutcheon. None appeared to have raised any hackles, yet he had not set aside his muskets. He lowered one, to avail himself of a long, deep swallow of water, but he kept the second tucked under his arm, his forefinger resting a twitch away from the trigger.
He murmured something to the tawny-haired fellow, who nodded and grinned at Spence with the ease and charm of a courtier.
“Your ship, Captain
Spence. She looks to be sound and steady. A welcome sight, you may believe.”
Spence swelled his chest. “Aye, she’s a sound beauty, all right. Eight months we’ve been at sea an’ only hauled over once for a scrapin’.”
“You met with no trouble from the Spaniards?”
“We looked for none. As I said, we’re honest merchants goin’ about honest business. Honest enough to share our names as well as our water,” he added, glancing pointedly at the shadowy figure against the bulkhead.
“You are absolutely right, Captain Spence,” said the blonde, hastily stepping forward into the sunlight again. “We have been unconscionably rude.” He thrust out his hand. “My name is Pitt. Geoffrey Pitt. Honored to make your acquaintance. And you truly do have to forgive Captain Dante his manners, not that he ever had any great excess to boast in the first place.”
“Dante?” Spence’s fiery eyebrows speared together over the bridge of his nose. “Not … Simon Dante?”
Geoffrey Pitt attempted to look surprised. “You have heard the name before?”
“Heard the name?” Spit McCutcheon echoed the question with a slackened jaw. “Christ Jesus on a stick … is there a warm-blooded man on either side o’ the Ocean Sea who has not heard the name o’ Simon Dante? As a fact, where we just come from down in the Caribbee, we were told half the bloody Spanish fleet was out scourin’ the Indies for him—that’s why we were able to slip in an’ out again without drawin’ too much notice.”
“Well, as you can see,” Pitt acknowledged with a little too much strain behind his smile, “they found us.”
Spence turned on the stump of his wooden heel, his eyes widened out of their creases as he surveyed the wreckage strewn about them. “Then this—this is the Virago?”
He did not attempt to keep the awe out of his voice. Nor should he if this was, indeed, the infamous privateering vessel that had—if the reports they heard were to be believed—sailed right into the harbor at Veracruz, only the most heavily fortified stronghold in the Spanish Main, and looted hundreds of thousands of ducats’ worth of King Philip’s gold right out of the royal treasure house.
A second spin had Spence staring up the topmast at the ragged flags that still hung limp against a windless sky.
“It wasn’t a stag or a goat, ye block-brain,” he hissed at McCutcheon. “‘Twas a wolfhound. A crimson wolfhound an’ a blue fleur-de-lis on a black field: the arms o’ Simon Dante, Comte de Tourville.”
Even Beau was markedly impressed as she stared, along with the other members of their boarding party, at the saturnine features of Dante de Tourville. The Spanish called him pirata lobo—the pirate wolf—because of his cunning and prowess at stalking and cutting the richest ships out of the plate fleet. The English called him a rake and a hero, often whispering his name louder than those who sailed in the company of the vaunted sea hawks Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkyns, and Martin Frobisher. It was also rumored that while the Queen called him “that bloody Frenchman” in public, in the privacy of her chambers she called him something very different indeed. A genuine titled nobleman, he was French by birth, half English by blood, and reputed to be all larceny by nature.
Which was possibly why Beau felt some vague uneasiness at the way he continued to hang back in the shadows. Certainly, if he had been hunted and attacked by the Spanish he had every right to be cautious, even wary of strangers boarding his ship. But once those strangers had identifed themselves as allies, should he not have regarded them with more friendship than animosity? After all, his ship was sinking. The horizon, now that the morning fog had completely burned away, was clear in all directions, meaning the Egret was their only means of salvation unless they all intended to go down with their ship.
As if on cue, the Virago gave a deep-bellied groan and took a noticeable swoop to starboard. Something in her holds must have given way, for there was the sound of cracking timbers and water rushing through a breach in the hull, and she took a moment to steady herself as her weight settled again.
“We took the men off the pumps,” Pitt explained, looking worriedly toward the bulkhead. “We were not entirely sure what we would be facing when you rowed over. Perhaps we should put them back?”
A nod from Dante sent a dozen men scrambling below and brought Spence’s fiery red eyebrows crushing together again.
“Ye can’t be thinkin’ ye can keep her afloat much longer? The first ripe gust o’ wind will push her over.”
“Hopefully, we can buy a little time,” Pitt said, then abruptly changed the subject. “Your guns, Captain Spence. They appear to be eighteen pounders.”
“Aye,” he said slowly. “Culverins. The rest are fivers— sakers an’ minions.”
“An odd question to ask when your ship is sinking,” Beau murmured out of the side of her mouth. McCutcheon, to whom the comment was directed, only frowned and whished her to silence.
“And your holds—full or empty?” Pitt forestalled the objection to such a prying question by raising his hand. “I ask only in order to determine if your ship can bear any more weight. Several tons’ worth, to be exact.”
“Several tons?” Spence’s startled gaze went from Pitt to Dante. “So it wasn’t just a tall tale. Ye really did it? Ye really raided the treasure depot at Veracruz?”
“Aye, we did it,” said the Comte de Tourville, emerging into the harsher light for the first time. His hair gleamed blue-black under the sun and there were fat slicks of moisture streaking his temples and throat, sure signs he was suffering from more than just a parched throat and an empty belly. The cause of his discomfort became clearer each time he put his weight on his left leg. His hose, from the knee down, was split, the calf beneath was wrapped in filthy strips of bandaging. And the reason he had not set the second musket aside was because he used it for a crutch. “Have you a winch and cables on board?”
“Oh aye. Aye,” Spence said, striving to supress his excitement. “Cables thick as my arm an’ a winch stout enough to lift a brace of oxen.”
Visions of crates full of gold and silver bars sent a visceral thrill through the members of the boarding party, for surely the grateful Frenchman would offer to compensate Spence for his troubles. As spry as she was and as bold a captain they had at the helm, the Egret had been plagued with nothing but foul luck on this voyage. Two months into the venture a storm had forced them into Tortuga, where most of their trade goods had been confiscated by greedy port officials. They had some barrels of rum and bales of spices, but it would barely bring enough in Plymouth to cover the cost of the expedition.
Spence’s thoughts had taken a similar turn and were abuzz with so many possibilities, he almost did not hear what Dante said next.
“It isn’t gold we’ll be transferring, Captain Spence. It’s guns.”
“Eh? Guns, did ye say?”
Dante nodded. “A commodity far more valuable than gold these days and as you have already noted, we have a pretty arsenal on board the Virago. I may be able to do nothing to save my ship, but I sure as hell can save the guns to use again another day.”
Spence looked again at the monstrous bronze demi-cannon. They were surely beauties, with scrolled snouts and great winged eagles molded onto the barrels; worth a small fortune to anyone whose intent was not honest trade. “But … what of the gold ye took from Veracruz?”
“We have already been relieved of that burden,” said the pirate wolf, his voice rusty with the same anger that kindled in his eyes. “But I promise you, the guns are far more valuable. They are unique, in fact, cast in the royal foundry at Marseilles. Mr. Pitt assures me, if your beams are sound, you can take the weight. Your Egret is what … one hundred and eighty tons, thereabout?”
Spence nodded mutely.
“The Virago is one-sixty and she bore up with no complaint. It is well worth the risk,” he added, grinding his teeth against a surge of impatience. “These demi-cannon fire thirty pounds four hundred yards, with enough power behind them to blast any ship clear out of the wat
er.”
“Any ship except the one that found you,” Beau remarked under her breath. Spit glared at her again, but he was too late.
The startlingly piercing eyes located the source of the whispered sarcasm and Beau felt the tiny hairs across the back of her neck ripple to attention. He walked toward her, pushing past the coughing McCutcheon, whose attempt to camouflage what she had said went for naught.
He came right up and stood in front of her, close enough for the menacing heat that radiated off the masses of muscle and brawn to have melted any man’s courage.
“Did you say something to me, my boy?”
The gunmetal jaw was level with the top of Beau’s head and she had to square her shoulders and tilt her chin up to meet him squarely in the eye. It was a gesture her father knew all too well and she thought she heard him groan but could not be certain; the blood was suddenly pounding in her ears, too loudly for her to hear anything but the sound of her own heartbeat.
This close, she could not help but be awed by the sheer size and presence of the silvery-eyed sea hawk. His legs were long and thick with muscle, barely contained by the filthy woolen hose; his waist was lean, his belly-where it showed through the carelessly open V of his shirt—was flat and hard as a board. Chest and arms would have flattered a gladiator, with power flexing through every sweat-sheened sinew. His neck was a solid pillar, the jaw blunted somewhat under several weeks’ worth of bearding, but as imposing as the man himself, with a deep cleft shadowing the center point of his chin. His lashes were absurdly long for a man, black as ink, framing eyes that burned with equal measures of contempt and arrogance. Beau could feel herself tensing, her blood humming as it did in the hot, still moments before battle. She suspected he was singling her out for a reason, being the smallest and slightest among the boarding party, wanting to establish his superiority from the outset.
Across a Moonlit Sea Page 3
