by Gwyn Cready
“No, sir.”
“Take off your cap when you speak to me.”
Reluctantly, she grabbed the cap and pulled it free. A thick pigtail, so popular with sailors, uncurled and slipped down her back.
She had bound her breasts, inked in brows and whiskers, and carefully chosen a loose sark and trousers. Despite her best efforts, however, she knew from the plays she’d seen that projecting a reasonably believable version of the opposite gender was hard.
The captain’s eyes narrowed. He circled his finger in the air.
Serafina turned slowly.
“What were you doing in the hold?” he asked.
“I was looking for a girl.”
“A girl?”
Girls were occasionally smuggled on board ships by lovelorn sailors and hidden in one of a ship’s many out-of-the-way places. “Molly was my girl,” she said defiantly, “at least I thought she were. A sailor on your ship convinced her to come aboard with him. Said he would hide her in the cable deck. Which is why I signed on. I came here to find her.”
The captain considered this story, fingers templed.
“Are you aware your signature binds you to us for the next year? And that the punishment for desertion can be death?”
The hairs on her neck stood on end. “Aye, sir. I am dreadfully sorry. I am here to serve. For the duration.”
“’Tis very good to hear. However…” He shifted oddly in his seat. “I should not like to start this trip with a hanging. It sets a pall over the men.”
A wave of relief washed over her. “Thank you, sir.”
“I shall paddle you instead. Twenty strikes. Lower your trousers.”
She froze. “I beg your pardon?” Paddling was not a punishment at sea—at least not that she had ever heard of.
“I said lower your trousers. If you think you’ll have any trouble with it, I’ll have the guard in to help us.”
“No, no. I won’t.” Shaking, Serafina unbuttoned her breeks but held the fabric tightly. “W-where do you want me?” She started reluctantly toward the table but had only taken a step or two when she spotted the tight script of an unsigned note peeking from a stack of notebooks on the desk. She dropped her palms on the wood. “Here?”
“That’ll do.”
He stood and she heard the click of the door’s lock behind her.
“Wait.” He scurried to the desk and moved the papers and ink pot from the side over which she’d be leaning and stacked them just beyond her reach.
She gazed straight down, hoping the captain didn’t take note of what he in his hurry had overlooked. She kept her thighs tucked tightly together.
She could feel his indecision.
“No,” he said. “I think perhaps the table instead…”
She dropped her breeks.
For a long moment, the captain said nothing—for such a long moment, in fact, Serafina had begun to hope he’d suffered an apoplexy. Then he exhaled.
He situated himself behind her, which was bad enough, but the rustling of his own clothing sent a thunderbolt of fear through her.
Focus on the papers. The note was upside down. The first words were—
She felt a stinging crack and lurched forward.
The man’s breathing quickened. The ceiling wasn’t tall enough for him to stand straight, and she knew he must be hunched over awkwardly.
Though, perhaps not as awkwardly as you.
He seemed to be positioning himself for a better swing, though what constituted a better swing, she was reluctant to imagine.
The second smack stung more than the first.
“Too much?”
She wasn’t sure what answer would satisfy him, so she said nothing.
He regarded her arse with the interest of a surgeon. “We want to redden the skin but not draw blood.”
Is that what we want?
“You will have a very hard time sitting for the next week, I’m afraid.” The warning had a disconcerting note of pleasure to it.
She heard more rustling followed by a succession of rubbery tugs. His breathing came in short puffs.
She screwed her face in disgust.
“What is it, sailor?”
She froze. “Sir?”
“You made a face. Do you have an issue with this punishment?”
“No, sir.”
“I intend to lengthen the break between strikes. I find anticipation of the lash does as much to improve a sailor’s behavior as the lash itself.”
“I’m certain you’re correct.”
The rubbery noises resumed. She waited until the rhythm quickened. She had no idea where he was looking, or if his eyes were open at all. She slid her fists slowly across the desk and had nearly reached the stack when the captain mumbled, “Oh, God.”
She froze, waiting for an accusation, another strike, or something worse.
But nothing happened and the noises continued.
She reached the final few inches, gently pulled the note from the stack. The communication concerned a meeting at certain coordinates that night. She tried hard to memorize the numbers.
“Are you a virgin?”
Serafina felt ill. “Sir?”
“That girl you mentioned. Have you bedded her?”
“I-I-”
“No reason to be shy. I haven’t met a sailor yet who hadn’t tried his hand at a whore.”
“No, sir.”
“You’re a liar.” He smacked her hard—the hardest yet. “Tell me the truth and I shall reduce the strikes to fifteen.”
The heat of the blows was building. “I canna.”
“Do you prefer boys then, Harris?” He laid a hand on her buttock, and she gasped. “Some sailors do.”
“No, sir. Sodomy is a crime.”
The other hand came to rest on the other buttock.
“I was her first,” Serafina said quickly.
“Oh?” The hands slid away.
“But you’re wrong. She wasn’t a whore. She’s the daughter of a lieutenant. I picked her up in a carriage. She said she wanted to be driven around the park like a fine lady. The ride cost me half a shilling.”
“And did you get your money’s worth?” The noises had begun again.
“She was reluctant, of course.” Serafina gritted her teeth, thinking of Edward and that afternoon in the carriage. “Any proper lass is. But once she’d let me loosen her bodice, I knew there’d be little stramash for the rest.”
“Did she like it?”
Serafina nodded sadly. “Verra much.”
“And did you?”
“I told her I loved her.”
“Did you?”
“I did that day.”
The man made a husky laugh, like the puff of the gunpowder in that interminable instant before a great gun fires. Serafina braced herself.
A knock at the door shattered the suspense.
“Later,” the captain cried hoarsely.
“Sir, Mr. Edward Turnbull desires to see you.”
Serafina jerked so hard she nearly knocked the ink pot to the floor.
“Not now! Tell the man I will call on him tomorrow.”
“Sir,” the voice said, distraught. “He is beside me.”
The captain swore under his breath. “Don’t move,” he said savagely to Serafina.
She heard him struggle to close his breeks and sink into the chair. “Come.”
The door opened behind her, and Serafina died a thousand deaths. There was no possibility Edward would not recognize her face—that is if he didn’t recognize other parts of her sooner. But at least she would live unbuggered if not unshamed.
“I beg your pardon, sir.” The captain rose to make a protracted bow. “I was punishing a seaman. I am Captain Peter Thistlebrook. I’m very pleased to make your acqua
intance at last. We have done very well for you on this voyage, and I had every intention of sending a—”
“What is his crime?”
Serafina’s eyes flew open. The voice was Gerard’s, not Edward’s, and he was doing a wretched imitation of an English accent.
“Desertion,” the captain said.
Another crack across her cheeks, and she yelped.
“Stop,” Gerard ordered. “The ship hasn’t even left port, and while I can imagine the lad being a deserter—he looks the type to promise a friend he’ll be one place and then be somewhere else entirely—I do not think paddling is the appropriate response.”
“These young boys need a firm hand. They don’t forget it either. I’ve rarely had to paddle a boy twice.”
No, because they stay the hell away from you, you brute.
“Here, try it yourself,” Thistlebrook said. “You won’t soon forget the feeling of shaping their character. It’s as if you hold their future right in your very palm.”
Gerard stepped into view, stroking his chin, apparently considering the particular shape of the character before him. “Well…”
Serafina gave him a murderous look. He lifted an intrigued brow.
“No,” he declared. “It’s inappropriate. Please instruct the man to cover himself.”
The captain lifted his arm to strike her again instead, and Gerard seized it on the downswing.
“Did you hear me, Thistlebrook?”
Gerard and Thistlebrook appeared evenly matched, but Gerard had a look in his eye that suggested he’d snap the man’s arm in two as easy as letting it go. Serafina lifted her breeks. The balance of power in the room was shifting.
“’Tis the captain’s right to maintain discipline in any way he sees fit,” Thistlebrook said, furious, “not the owner’s.” He shook himself free.
Owner? Edward was the owner of the ship? Serafina’s fortune, at least the part that had remained, would not have been enough to purchase a ship. Edward must have partners.
Gerard had caught the implication too. “Not the owner’s, you say? Not me…the owner?”
“No, and if wish me to continue on captaining this ship for you, then I suggest you let me do the job you pay me to do.”
“I do not. You’re relieved of duty. I’ll take the helm.”
She nearly dropped her breeks again. “You, sir?”
“Are you mad?” Thistlebrook said. “What experience do you have captaining a ship? The men will never rally around a landsman. What if a storm came? What if the enemy fires on you? What if the ship founders upon rocks? How long do you think men will be loyal to a man who they know will get them killed?”
“Longer than to a man who will get them buggered. I wonder what the other men who hire you might say if they heard that?”
The captain’s eyes flashed. “You’re a fool.”
“Perhaps I am,” Gerard said. “But I own the boat, so I can be any goddamned thing I choose. And if you don’t care for that fact, perhaps a little time in the brig will help you come to peace with it.”
The fire in Thistlebrook’s eyes was eventually doused. He paced to his desk, dejected, and sank into the chair.
Too late, Serafina remembered the note.
But it wasn’t the note Thistlebrook was after. It was the pistol.
He grabbed it from the wall and pointed it at Gerard. “We’re going to put you in the hold until this is over. No one is going to get between me and what’s owed me.” He edged closer to the door, keeping the two of them in his sights. “When I open this, you will walk quietly before me to the companionway.” He put his hand on the door latch and unlocked it, which was exactly what Serafina had been awaiting.
“The captain!” she screamed. “He’s bleeding!”
The guard threw open the door, knocking Thistlebrook to the ground, and ran in.
Gerard scooped the pistol off the floor. “He had this pointed at us. I’m Edward Turnbull, the owner of the ship. He’s out of his head. I’ve relieved him of his duty. Watch him while I gather his things.”
Shocked, the guard looked to his captain.
“Don’t be a fool, Murren. This man pulled my gun on me. I took it from him.”
Serafina held her breath. The guard weighed the calmness of the ship’s owner dangling the pistol by two fingers against the disheveled, spittle-mouthed man on the floor. His eyes went to Serafina and then to the desk, half-cleared of its papers.
He turned his bayonet toward the captain. “Get up, sir, and follow me.”
The captain climbed to his feet with a look of cold fury. Serafina saw the astonishment on the sailors’ faces as he walked through them at the bayonet-point of his guard.
“Jesus, Sera,” Gerard said under his breath, “is there anything about you and this goddamned plan that’s going to be easy?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps you’ll want to ask Martin Luther.”
His face fell. “I can explain that.”
“Dinna bother. We have bigger problems.”
“The only problem we have is figuring out how fast we can get to the gangplank and get the hell off this boat.”
“Ship,” she said. “And we cannot.” She directed his attention to the windows behind him, where the distance between the stern and Leith was rapidly being filled by a carpet of blue.
Nineteen
“‘Brig,’ ‘helm,’ ‘relieving you of your duty’?” Serafina said, bristling at the sight of Gerard in the chair at the captain’s desk. “Who gave you such a thorough grounding in nautical terms?”
He turned the page in the notebook he was examining. “Oh, just a couple of my captain friends—James Kirk and Han Solo.”
“Well, I hope they taught you more than just words. We’ll be running the place now.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Nae?” Uncaptain-like he might be, but he was particularly handsome in that frock coat.
“I don’t know anything about ships,” he said. “That’s true. But I do know how to lead people.”
“Your advertising concern, it employs more than just you?”
“It’s not an advertising ‘concern.’ It’s an agency. And I’m the head creative and soon-to-be partner.”
“And a creative is what?”
“Someone who creates.”
“Oh, like the hunchback who whittles three-headed snakes in front of the Blinded Maiden? I bought one for one of Abby’s servant boys. He loved it.”
“Yes, only with multimillion-dollar products instead of three-headed snakes and the Chrysler Building instead of the Blinded Maiden—and, by the way, the entire tavern brand experience here could use a major relaunch.”
“Speaking of snakes,” she said. “Look at this.”
He perused the note. “So?”
“So he’s meeting someone tonight at those coordinates.”
“Maybe it’s his lady friend?”
“Well, I hope she can swim. ’Tis in the middle of the North Sea. And perhaps Captain Solo might have mentioned that stopping in port for a mere hour is rather odd.”
“Is it?” Gerard tapped his fingers. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Why did he stop?”
“To drop off the cargo.”
“Did you see any cargo unloaded?” she said. “I didn’t.”
“Well, I wasn’t watching the whole time, but there were wagons waiting outside.”
“How many?”
“A dozen easily.”
She said, “So it seemed the plan was to unload the cargo. But we left—very suddenly. By the way, before I was dragged in here, I overhead Thistlebrook asking someone for his silence on something.”
“Who was it?”
“I dinna know. And the captain may know I overheard him.”
“Certainl
y didn’t seem to quash any feelings he had for you.” Gerard looked up, eyes twinkling.
She sniffed. “What can I say? I am verra likable.”
“Indeed, you are. And Edward is the owner of this ship?”
“Aye.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. My fortune would not have been enough… I don’t know what to think about that. He must have partners.”
Gerard leaned back and put his feet on the desk. “Where are we heading, by the way?”
“Duchamps has us on a course to Haarlem. I overheard him say it to the master as I was being walked in. But before long, he’ll knock on that door and ask if you wish to take the shore route or the more traveled path that crosses the Dutch road.”
“That’s a trick question,” Gerard said, “and since the ship doesn’t have wheels, I am comfortable that the answer is the shore route.”
“With the rocks off Iron Craig and the sandbars of the Isle of May?”
He licked his lips. “Yes.”
“I see this is going to be a verra short voyage.”
“And remind me if you would why we can’t just return to Leith? Seems to me a nice turnaround would be in order. Dinner at the Squeak and Blade, maybe another glass of whiskey—”
“The trouble is—”
“Did I ask about trouble?” He shook his head. “No, I did not.”
“The trouble is I have no wish at present to return to Leith.”
“Oh, please don’t say you want to go to the rendezvous. What if the ship Thistlebrook is supposed to meet has a particularly large cannon on board?”
“I have no wish to meet the ship, but I’d like more time to look for the cargo. Let’s keep La Trahison out till the morning. Tell Duchamps to sail us toward fifty-six longitude, eighteen latitude.”
Gerard regarded her with a look of awe mixed with curiosity. “You’re a navigator too?”
“If you mean can I read a map, then, aye, I can. I lived on a ship until I was sixteen. The sea here is like my village green.”
“Shouldn’t we question Thistlebrook too? Maybe using some of that nice flogging this century is known for? I wouldn’t mind seeing the guy worked over a bit.”
“What a barbarous streak you have,” she said, though it pleased her to hear the hints of his anger. Her hands were still shaking and she held herself tightly to cover it. “I dinna think we should show our hand at this point. Not until we’ve finished searching the ship. Even if done in the deepest hold, there’s nothing of a cross-examination by whip—or even without—that willna be known immediately by every sailor on the ship. ’Tis the nature of ship life.”
