Pirated Love

by K'Anne Meinel

  “Yes ma’am,” he said, giving her a mock salute as he and the other soldier bent down to examine the corpse. The mention of the Captain of the Garrison and her obvious familiarity with him was enough to end the soldiers’ inquiries.

  Tina stepped back and reached for Claire’s hand to pull her around them and walk on. Her hand slipped to Claire’s other side and waist as she walked along briskly, taking them from the scene. She could feel a slight trembling in the blonde beside her. She did not say a word.

  As they rowed out to their ship and were challenged before climbing the Jacob’s ladder, she thought about what was going through Claire’s mind. It was not the first man that Tina had killed, but he was so young, a boy, and for that she was sad. He had however, chosen the wrong target of what surely would have been a robbery. He must have seen that she was a woman and not realized she was so well armed, or that there was another woman beside her, or even the large black man walking behind them. It was all extremely ill-advised and he had paid for it with his life.

  Tina watched as Claire got ready for bed in their cabin. She herself had taken off her crossed scimitars and placed them on the end of the bed. She left, as Claire seemed angry and she wanted a word with the watch. The Cape was a dangerous town, prosperous, and many ships from all over the world were in port at any given time. Having a watch on each of the ships was not only a necessity, but a wise business practice. Theft was common and Tina had no qualms about killing a thief who might sneak aboard her ship. She had more than one crew member on watch and had always cautioned them about being seen, as they would make great targets in the moonlight. This job was rotated so that every man could go ashore and have a good time. She spoke quietly with each of the men on watch and was assured that nothing was amiss. She returned to her cabin.

  Claire had changed into her nightgown and was in bed facing the wall, a sure sign she was upset with Tina, who sighed and began to undress. First she took off her belt which contained the knife and sword and left these on the end of the bed with the hilt of each within easy grasp from the bed should she need it. Then she unbuttoned her shirt and unbuttoned her trousers. Using the boot jack, she removed the knee-high boots so she could not only get them off, but her trousers as well. Pulling the night-shirt she occasionally slept in from its spot in the cabinet, she pulled it over her head and past the wrappings that held her breasts in. She usually only wore it when she had her monthlies, but felt with Claire in this mood that sleeping nude was not a good idea.

  As she blew out the lantern and made her way to the bed, she wondered what the next day would bring. Who had that boy been? She got in under the covers. It was really too hot during the day for such, but the night brought a breeze that was decidedly nippy and snuggling under the covers was enjoyable. She heard a slight sob and Claire turned to her and wrapped an arm around her broad shoulders.

  “I am sorry,” Tina heard her mutter against her shoulder.

  “For what?” she asked, confused.

  “For being such a ninny. You taught me how to use a sword and a knife, and both times tonight I could not even help you!”

  Tina restrained the urge to laugh. “You are still learning. Some of it takes years to learn. You’ve got a natural grace and in time you will have the confidence too,” she told her, caressing the arm across her chest. It was awkward and she finally pulled back so that she could get her arm under Claire’s head and shoulders and pull her close again. The blonde’s arm snaked across Tina’s chest again as she clutched her closer.

  “But you could have been hurt,” she sobbed quietly.

  “But I was not,” Tina reminded her.

  “That boy though.” She shuddered as she remembered.

  “Yeah, I know,” Tina answered with a sigh. It was a sad fact of life though, if a thief chose the wrong target they could end up dead. She did not have the luxury of just stopping someone from robbing her, they could take more than her pocket money and she had to defend herself completely. Now, with Claire along, she had to take even less chances, for both their sakes.

  Caressing each other in comfort would normally have led to lovemaking, but instead it calmed them both and the stress and activities of the day sent them to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Two days later, the five ships that made up Tina’s trading armada slowly made their way from Table Bay and gave other ships a wide berth where they could. Tina had made a full report to her friend Captain Morisson and learned that the youth had a record a mile long for stealing and other nefarious deeds. It did not make her feel any better to find that out because he was only fifteen. They did not know if he had family, and no one had claimed the body, so he would be buried in a pauper’s grave and it would be left unmarked.

  Their ships carried South African wines, cheeses, and other delicacies. Not too much though, as they needed the space for cargoes they would be taking on during the next stage of their trading. Besides, they would be back in a year for cargoes that Tina had already contracted to be ready upon their return. They took on cargo that would trade well in India and the Orient.

  In the weeks that followed they passed such exotic places as Madagascar, an island on the east side of Africa with some very unusual animals, or so it was told in sailor tales to each other. Everyone seemed to know ‘someone’ who had been there and lived to tell the tale. They continued on their way towards India battling great waves and seas that had Claire gasping at their ferocity as they survived them. Seeing Tina commanding her crew and returning to their cabin frequently drenched from the spray of these monster waves was arousing. She was so primitive in her demeanor and yet exhilarated from the battle.

  Claire wished she could be like her wife in many ways, but a lifetime of experiences could not be taught. These experiences enabled her to point out ships they would pass from afar that she explained might have attacked if they were not in the convoy they were in and so well-equipped. She pointed north, far away from where any of them could visually see, to the place where men kept several wives. She explained some of the stories that others of her crew were eager to add to. These stories and adventures kept the weeks and months at sea from becoming boring. Claire felt she was constantly learning new and exciting things, and some things that came naturally to Tina would leave her flabbergasted.

  “We are entering the Orient,” Tina told her as they came to India with the intention of trading.

  “I thought the Orient was China?” Claire naively asked.

  “It is, although some consider India the Orient too,” she explained. They were now in the Arabian Sea and headed for Bombay, then south down the western side of India towards Calicut and on to Cochin. They would circle around the island of Ceylon and north again up the eastern side of India to Pondicherry and Madras before taking on a longer journey further up the eastern seaboard to Calcutta. In each of these ports, Tina and several of the other captains had contacts they could trade for goods. Since the East India Company had a charter with the English government and thought of India as exclusively theirs, it was a dangerous situation for their trading venture, but if they succeeded it could potentially render their profits so huge that the one trip would be worth all their whiles. Tina knew they were in danger of being arrested as British citizens trading in these areas, but she hoped they could get in and get out before they were caught, and also set up cargoes for their return trip from the Far East without arousing the attention of the authorities.

  “What happens if we are caught?” Claire asked, concerned. She had been keeping the books as she had been taught and knew down to the bucket the supplies they had for trade.

  “Well, the East India Company or the EIC as it is known, is not above killing, and they are terribly corrupt. The English government has attempted to rein them and their power abuse in, but they keep borrowing from the company and that leads to favors granted,” Tina explained. “They use the military here in India as though they were their own private army.”

  “T
he English government borrows from a private company?” she asked, aghast at such a thing.

  Tina nodded, she was not really surprised. “Aye, and someday that will come to a head when they ask too many favors, take too many liberties, and use the wrong people.”

  “Really, what would they do to us?” Claire asked, wondering at this phantom company.

  “They would confiscate our ships and our trade goods without a qualm. I do not think you realize how valuable our cargo is here in the East and how dangerous this is. Raping us and putting the men into prison is the least of our worries.”

  “The least?” Claire asked, now genuinely alarmed.

  “With great wealth, like the wealth the East India Company has realized from trade here in the East, comes great corruption. They think they own the people they trade with. They are beneath the British, and the people, the commoners, resent them. The contacts I and the other captains have, are the ones who will bring us goods that the East India Company could only hope to find. Free trade should be allowed so the people get the most of their hard work and products,” she explained.

  Claire looked out over the waves at the spot where Tina had indicated India would come into view in the coming days and wondered what their fate was. She had been excited during most of this trip, as Tina and the crew had regaled her with tales, but always she had thought of them as just that, a tale, not to be fully believed. The thought of being raped, of being imprisoned, certainly did not appeal. She had not realized how dangerous it actually was for Tina and her little armada to make this trip. “Will they not confiscate your goods when you sail with them back to England or France, much less the Americas?”

  “That’s why we will not let any of our crew ashore until we have sold the cargoes. They will fetch a lot of money for what we have, as it will be of the highest quality and not part of the carefully controlled EIC. For all they know, our cargo was lost at sea, and after it is gone and sold they will not be able to trace it to me or any of the other captains involved. I have applied for a charter through Canada on behalf of my grandfather’s company, which someday will come to me. They will think that Lady Beauchene, as they will see the charter, will be easily taken advantage of with my grandfather’s many ships involved. They will grant the trading charter and we will continue legally from there. We will not be trading in France though, not with the war going on throughout that country and into Italy.”

  “How do you know all this?” Claire could not help but wonder.

  “I talk in every port with other captains and gossip is rampant. You have to learn to take some of it and sift through to the truth,” Tina peered off into the distant waves as though she saw something. It gave her a bit of a squint and often left her face with noticeable wrinkles from the sun.

  “How will you keep your crew, or the crews from the other ships, from talking?” she asked.

  “They are paid after the cargoes are sold and delivered. Most are loyal, but there will always be someone who will talk. We can just discount it as a tale told,” she explained, again peering off. As she had excellent sight and Claire could only see a fraction of what Tina did, she wondered what she was looking at. She called up to one of her crew that was already climbing the rigging to climb up the main mast further to see what they could see. Since he would be well above the waves, he could see further out to sea and see farther over the distant horizon.

  Tina had helped Claire climb one of these once, and her fear of falling had rendered her nearly immobile as she looked down instead of out. Tina had to hold her and calm her. Once she calmed enough to look out though, she was surprised at the different view from well above the ship. Anyone that thought the Earth was flat had obviously never been a sailor.

  “What do you see?” Claire asked, knowing Tina often ‘felt’ or ‘sensed’ things well before she could possibly comprehend them.

  “I thought I saw a mast. You frequently see them before the sails...” she left off as she looked intently outwards, towards the sea.

  “Sail ho,” came the call and several of the crew looked to Tina to see her reaction. She glanced to see how far back the other ships were and could make them out one by one. That meant they could come to help if she were attacked.

  They watched the ship intently. Of course, it was not the first ship they had seen at sea in the many months of sailing they had done. In fact, they had hailed a couple of them carrying the British flag to send letters back to England, where they would eventually make their way to the Americas and Canada. Some of the sailors under Claire’s tutelage sent letters for the first times in their lives to their wives or sweethearts. They could only hope their wives and sweethearts could find someone to read it to them. Many had started with, ‘I know this must come as a surprise that I am writing to you....’

  Tina did not know if it was because they were approaching Indian waters and the vast British Empire that encompassed so many territories, or if it was because she was naturally alert, but she felt something in the air as they sailed across the Arabian Sea to Bombay, their first port. They would take cargo ashore here and arrange for cargoes if they could not find them in an expeditious manner. They would return in a few months after the last of their goods from the Americas was discharged in the Far East. This would mean that larger cargoes could be loaded, but it also had the potential for spies to report their presence, and they could very well be arrested for trespassing on the EIC’s almost exclusive territories.

  People who had not been to India could not understand the diverse cultures that lived in this vast land. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism were the four major religions. The British, in their arrogance, felt they could inflict their brand of Christianity on the masses. They had not made much headway, but you would not know that from their rhetoric. Tina trod very carefully among the various factions in her dealings. A woman in trade, much less a sea captain, was highly suspicious. Bombay was near enough to Arabia that some women wore face coverings and Tina adopted this mode of dress to hide her features. The first time Claire saw her, she was shocked at the transformation. No one who did not know Tina’s marvelous eyes would know it was her. Her bright red hair was completely hidden, much less her other striking features. Under the full-length robe she wore were her pants, her sword, her knife, her knee-high boots, and her frilly blouse. The only thing she did not wear was her crossed scimitars; they did not fit under the outfit.

  Using an interpreter could be a tricky thing as well; finding an honest person who spoke the various dialects, and a language that the captains or Tina also spoke, could be difficult. It helped that some of the major languages in Europe were spoken here due to the continued presence of English, Dutch, Portuguese, and other European nations in this rich country.

  Still, they attempted to use some of the people they had met in the past or some who had been recommended to them by other trustworthy ship’s captains and other sailors. Some deals were struck, some cargo offloaded, and some stowed on board the various ships, distributed so that no one ship had the entire fortune that they were accumulating in trade.

  * * * * *

  Claire found it fascinating as she got her first glimpses of the country of India. Tina was a font of information and the books they had on it terribly inadequate. Tina purchased an outfit for Claire which she found stifling, but hiding her identity as a woman first was important, and she had not ignored the things Tina had warned her about. This part of the world was male dominated, and while Tina still managed to do business here, it was through men who worked for or with her.

  The few times she was allowed to go ashore, Claire found it was drier on the western part of the country. She was assured there were mountains to the north. As they traveled down the western side of the country, it became humid. From what Tina explained to her, it was tropical like a lot of the Caribbean. One of the oddest things she found was the fact they celebrated Christmas, and there was absolutely no snow. It was so hot as to almost be stifling and hard to breat
he. The seasons were the opposite of England. They had snow only in the northern mountains, and instead had plenty of rains in the tropics. They had to be well gone before the monsoon season arrived, approximately in June. Tina wanted to be to the Far East and back for the rich cargoes she was arranging so they could sail on and be gone before someone betrayed them to the authorities. Someone was always watching; someone was always willing to betray for money.

  Claire found Tina to be terribly paranoid as they continued to sail around the country and stop at the ports they had set out. She decided to send two of her boats on so they could skip the next city and then the two she had sent on could meet them up in Calcutta.

  Claire was amazed at the incredible poverty she could see when she was allowed to go ashore. It was much more blatant than anything she had seen in England. There were so many more people too. Well- veiled to protect their identities, the men were also strangely garbed in turbans, and a few of them wore a type of robe as well. Underneath it all they were well armed as even their contacts or friends could turn on them. They turned aside as British soldiers walked the streets, ostensibly to protect the peace, but more to bully the people and keep them under British rule.

  The open markets amazed and delighted Claire. The prices were so cheap she wanted to fill chests full of the incredible delights they had to offer: from jewelry to extremely rare spices and beautiful silks.

  “We can get some of these things now, as we do not know if or when we will return to shop again,” Tina murmured quietly in English to Claire, trying not to be overheard. The merchants were from all over and one never knew what languages they could speak or understand. One of Tina’s crew carried her scimitars in his hands at all times in case she needed them, as she herself could not carry them without looking suspicious. They purchased many things that caught Claire’s eye, some for future trade and some for herself. She had never indulged herself before, and Tina enjoyed spoiling her.