The Iron Rose

by Marsha Canham

  Crisp had initially balked at settling him into her cabin but in truth, it contained the only real bed on board and even that was not built for comfort. Most nights she slung her hammock on the narrow stern gallery, preferring to sleep to the sound of the wake curling off the hull.

  She was also admittedly intrigued. She had heard that all English noblemen were as soft and slightly built as their women, yet this one was tall and strapping, his chest and shoulders were well defined, the flesh taut, the muscles solid to the touch. The dark hairs that covered his breast were thick and silky, narrowing to a finger’s width over his belly before exploding again in a crisp nest at the junction of his thighs.

  There, her gaze had lingered a few moments longer than necessary, for he was more than adequately endowed. Nudity was commonplace on board a ship and she had seen more than her fair share of men’s privy parts in all shapes and sizes. The most outstanding appendage belonged to Lucifer, her father’s gun captain, and while the duke’s pride and glory did not come within a league of such prominence, it did raise a small tingle of speculation at the base of her spine.

  A scandalized cough from the manservant had prompted her to draw the covers above the duke’s waist, but not before she noted that the muscles in his thighs were as hard as oak, suggesting he was an avid horseman as well as an experienced swordsman—one who did not forgo practicing in favor of a game of cards or dice.

  The bruises would heal in a day or two and he could be thankful his clothes had provided enough padding to keep the fire from scorching through to the skin. The lump on his head was more troublesome for there was no way of knowing if the bone was cracked beneath. The fact that he had regained his sensibilities was no proof his brains were not leaking, and she had seen men with similar wounds emerge from battle seemingly fit and hale only to slump over dead a few days later, bleeding from the nose and ears.

  That he was a nobleman in and of itself did not awe her, nor would it win him any special favor on board. Simon Dante’s bloodlines reached well back to a time when England was ruled by wild-eyed Saxons. Being the twelfth of this or the fifth of that would not impress her father any more than it had impressed her, and if Varian St. Clare wanted to keep all his skin intact, he would curb his arrogance and not enter into any meeting with his nose thrust too high in the air.

  Juliet let the wind take the last scrap of twine from her hand, then walked catlike out across the yard, testing her balance against the pull and sway of the ship. With nothing to hold her, nothing below to break her fall, it was a dangerous game that would have brought snarls and shouts from Nathan Crisp if he had seen her. Most of the men who worked the yards ran their length several times a day as a matter of course, but they were not the daughters of Simon Dante; bringing them home smashed and broken would only earn a cluck of the tongue and a shake of the head over their foolishness.

  She went to the end of the yard and did a graceful pirouette on the ball of her foot. Forty feet below, the deck was all shadows and very little substance for the Iron Rose ran dark, sailing without lights of any kind. Out in the open water, on a starless night, something as small as the glow from a pipe could be seen for miles, and Juliet had forbidden all lamps and candles above deck and only below under extreme caution. The gallery windows in her own cabin had been covered with thick tarps painted black.

  Faint snatches of conversation drifted upward, but for the most part, the crew was taking full advantage of their respite after the day’s events. It was a warm night and most had slung their hammocks on the open deck. At this height, they resembled so many maggots rolled into small white carapaces, pale worms against the darker boards.

  Because of the Iron Rose’s superior speed, it had been necessary to drastically shorten sail in order to keep abreast of the much slower Santo Domingo. Juliet could just barely make out the ghostly tower of sails following in their wake. Otherwise, the ocean stretched out black and unbroken on all sides with only a faintly luminous froth of spindrift here and there to reflect the filtered light of the moon. If she closed her eyes, Juliet could isolate the sound of the wake breaking astern, the creak of cleats, the faint hum of the wind straining against the canvas. She could hear the ship breathing, feel the rhythmic throbbing of a heartbeat through the mast. She knew the Iron Rose as well as she knew her own body and could waken out of a deep sleep upon the instant if she sensed something was out of balance.

  The ship rolled into a wave and Juliet compensated for the movement with a graceful, upward fanning of her arms. Her feet were swift and sure and she reluctantly climbed back down the shrouds, pausing midway to secure a loose corner of sail. She could feel eyes on her, marking her descent through the rigging lines, and when her feet landed on solid decking, she heard the growl behind her.

  “You know, do you not, it’d mark the death of every last one of us if you were to slip and fall one of these nights. Your father would hang, draw, and quarter us all, and that would be if we survived the keelhauling your brothers would mete out and if your mother did not pluck our ballocks off with hot pincers and force us to roast them over a fire.”

  Juliet smiled into the scowling face of the ship’s carpenter, Noggin Kelly. He had earned his name through the number of times he had been brained by beams and spars—blows that would have dented the skulls of most men but that merely scrambled his wits for a few moments before he recovered. Despite the fact that Nog reminded her of a perpetually aroused mastiff who thought himself too fierce and virile to ever be considered harmless, harmless he was. For even puffed up with manly indignation as he was now, he could be reduced to a flame-skinned schoolboy with a suitably inappropriate riposte or mention of the hot-tempered wife waiting for him in port.

  “Roasted ballocks,” she mused, “are considered a delicacy, I have been told, on some of these heathen islands, though I’ve yet to sample the fare. ’Twould make for a tasty meal, faith, would it not?”

  “You might not take the threat too seriously, Captain, but there are a hundred men on board the Rose who do.”

  “Ahh, but think how much more freely you would be able to move about without all that cumbersome flesh getting in the way.”

  She left him pondering the thought and joined Nathan, whom she had spied leaning by the rail.

  “Nog is right, ye know. Ye take more risks than ye ought. Ye’ve naught to prove to any of us, lass. We’ve all seen ye slit a throat an’ climb a shroud in a gale”—he paused to aim a wry glance upward—“an’ dance a yard in the dead of night.”

  “What if I am not trying to prove anything, Nate? What if I just enjoy being able to do these things?”

  “Then you’re as daft as yer mam an’ it’ll be up to the saints to save yer soul.”

  “Are you implying that Mother’s soul needs saving?”

  “Nay. She has yer father to keep her honest. Though, on a second thought, he’s as daft as her so the pair are both doomed.”

  She laughed. “I hope you are not suggesting that a good man would save me?”

  “No.” Crisp snorted. “It’d take a hellish good man to do that. And like as not, he’d lose his own soul in the bargain. Like Addle-Brain there.” He raised his unlit pipe to indicate the carpenter. “He’s been lustin’ after ye for years an’ look at the state he’s in. Can’t even manage to piss on a downdraft after ye’ve said a kind word to ’im. I warrant he’ll be walkin’ around on three legs all night long now at the thought of ye roastin’ an’ eatin’ his ballocks.”

  Unlike Kelly’s, Nathan’s tongue rarely tied in knots, regardless of the subject.

  “Since we are speaking of ballocks,” she said, “what do you think of the duke’s?”

  He scratched the stubble on his chin. “Well now, I didn’t have as good a look as ye did, but I’ll wager they’re as big as the rest of him.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” she said on a sigh.

  Crisp snickered. “No? Then I’m thinkin’ he’ll be trouble all the same. His tongue is too smooth
an’ his answers come too quick. Glib, he is. An’ up to no good where ye’re father is concerned, mark my words. Cap’n Simon won’t be thankin’ ye for bringin’ him back to the cay.” He leaned over the rail and spat. “I’m also thinkin’ he’ll lay a few stripes across yer rump for goin’ up against a prime warship by yerself.”

  The silence stretched for a full count of ten before the sense of triumph they had managed to keep under tight rein for the past several hours finally exploded. Juliet burst out laughing only a second or two before Crisp snatched off his cap and beat it on the rail in keeping with his hoots and hee-haws.

  “Can ye believe it, lass? The farkin’ Santo Domingo! The supposed Terror of the High Seas an’ we took her! By Christ’s own cross, it won’t just be the almirante of the fleet an’ his fancy dons ye’ve aggravated. I warrant farkin’ Philip of farkin’ Spain will throw fits an’ open up his Court of Inquisition again.”

  “Yes, but do you think Father will be pleased?”

  “Pleased?” Crisp paused to reflect over the word. “He’ll be tickled enough he might just let ye sail off his starboard beam the next time he goes on a hunt.”

  “Do you really think so?” Juliet’s pleasure could not be contained and this time when she laughed, the entire composition of her face changed. The stern set to her jaw softened and her eyes sparkled with the moonlight. Her lips took on a gentle fullness that was not often conducive to barking orders and having them obeyed.

  She would have liked to fling her arms around Crisp in a hug, but she knew their easy friendship had its boundaries. Instead, she looked forward to seeing the startled and much aggrieved expressions on her brothers’ faces. The best they had managed on their own hunts was a brace of carracks off the coast of Colombia full of reeking boucan-eaters.

  “Jonas and Gabriel will be green with envy. Positively green.”

  “Aye, they’ll not take it kindly that their sister captured the biggest prize in the Caribbee. Ye’ll have to watch yer back an’ have a care not to walk out alone at night.”

  Juliet sobered a moment and frowned. “You don’t think they would—?”

  “Praemonitus, praemunitus. Forewarned is forearmed.”

  Juliet dismissed the admonishment with a wave of her hand. “With hunting season about to begin, they’ll be too busy for childish pranks.”

  “They painted ye blue the last time ye vexed them. That pair is never too busy for pranks, an’ well ye know it.”

  She studied Crisp’s face through the eerie glow of moonlight. “You realize that with the Santo Domingo, we now have six ships. It would not just be the plate fleets that would sail in fear of the Pirate Wolf, for we now have the firepower to attack Cartagena, Maracaibo, even Panama itself.”

  “Ho, there lass. Ye’ve set yer sights a mite high, have ye not? Maracaibo? Cartagena? Panama?”

  “The whole of the Spanish Main would be ours for the taking. Jonas and Gabriel would be the first to agree—”

  Crisp interrupted with an expletive. “Aye, an’ stab my liver with a spoon if I’m surprised that yer brothers would be game for such lunacy. As for the Spanish, d’ye think they’ve run out of ships to send after us?”

  “Perhaps if they would just stop hunting Father like a dog—”

  “Simon Dante would not return the favor an’ well ye know it. It were a Spaniard what put the scars on his back, an’ it were a bloody papist Spaniard what cost yer mother her arm. Nay, he has a long list of reasons to keep hatin’ the dons, but there’s a devil of a difference between attackin’ ships on the open water an’ formin’ up a fleet to raid a well-protected port.” He paused long enough to thrust his empty pipe into his mouth. “Such a thing hasn’t been done since Drake attacked Maracaibo near forty years ago an’ since then they’ve reinforced their land defenses, increased their garrisons by a few hundred thousand soldiers, an’ built ships like the Santo Domingo to patrol the sea-lanes an’ keep ’em clear of dogs like us.”

  Juliet knew better than to argue with Crisp, especially when his teeth were clamping down on his pipe hard enough to snap the stem. In truth, there was little to argue. Simon Dante had spent five years chained to the oars of a Spanish galleass, and if the scars were not enough of a reminder of the hatred he bore the Spaniards, he needed only to see the empty sleeve that hung below his wife’s left elbow.

  It had happened almost five years ago. Simon Dante had taken his ships the Avenger and the Black Swan on a hunt off the Straits of Florida. With Isabeau assuming her usual command at the helm of the Swan, they had stalked the galleons of the plate fleet and set their sights on two smaller ships that moved slower than the rest of the pack. A third galleon sailed protectively in their shadow, one of the India guards, and at first glance, she seemed to be wallowing as if she was suffering steerage problems.

  If the warship appeared to lumber, however, it was because of the weight of the sixty-four guns she carried on three decks, the lowest painted a dull black to disguise the row of closed gunports. If she seemed to have a foolish captain who steered her away from the main fleet, it was because she was eager to lure each of the privateers into a confrontation, beginning with the smallest of the raiders: the Black Swan.

  Never one to balk from a fight, and knowing Dante’s Avenger was circling around to attack the galleon’s stern, Isabeau had sallied forth to answer the challenge. It was not until they were well within range of the Spaniard’s guns that the ports on the lower deck opened and Isabeau saw the trap for what it was. Before she could break away the gunners unleashed a horrendous broadside that blew away most of the Swan’s mainsails and the tops of two masts, and raked her upper deck with terrible results. Standing helpless in the water, she could only watch as the great galleon bore down with the intent to ram her amidships.

  Simon Dante had come beating in with moments to spare, the Avenger’s guns blasting the Spaniard with unrelenting broadsides as the Pirate Wolf placed himself as a shield between the galleon and the wounded Swan. Round after blistering round discouraged the Spanish captain from pursuing his advantage and allowed the Black Swan to limp out of range. Suffering heavy damage to his own vessel, Simon broke off and escorted Isabeau into safer waters, but it was not until several hours later that the two ships were able to come alongside one another and exchange hails.

  That was when Simon learned his wife had been gravely injured. A round of Spanish shot—rendered inferior by the practice of cooling the iron too quickly—had disintegrated on impact. The pieces of exploding metal had swept the forecastle deck, killing three crewmen and nearly taking Isabeau’s forearm off at the elbow. Despite the best efforts of both ships’ surgeons, it had been necessary to remove the damaged bone and flesh before the threat of gangrene finished the Spaniard’s bloody work. To add further insult, the Black Swan’s wounds proved fatal and she had to be abandoned before the day was out.

  The loss of her ship had affected Isabeau almost more than the loss of her arm, and while she had never shown any outward reluctance to take to the sea again, she had not sought the command of another ship. Indeed, it was Isabeau Dante who had insisted the Iron Rose be given to Juliet, and not a day passed that Juliet did not do everything in her power to justify her mother’s faith. Simon’s had been harder to earn, for each time she took the Iron Rose out of port she could see, deep in his eyes, a little of the unutterable horror that had been on his face when he had brought his injured wife home.

  Juliet’s navigational skills, her fighting spirit, her seamanship, were the equal of any man. If her father needed further proof that he had taught her well, it was sailing behind her now, docile and subdued and flying the British flag on her foremast.

  “The Spaniard—Aquayo,” she murmured through a frown. “He praised us for being so well informed.”

  “Aye,” Crisp said. “What of it.”

  “The Santo Domingo was brought to the Indies to patrol the sea-lanes between Cartagena and Havana, and to keep rogues like us at bay. Odd then,” she cont
inued, thinking aloud, “that we found silver bars stamped by the mint in Vera Cruz in the same cargo bay as pearls from Margarita Island and emeralds from Barranquilla. Even odder that so much treasure should be packed on board a warship.”

  “Aye, well.” Crisp blew out a long breath. “If ye want to spend the next few hours porin’ over the manifests, I’m sure ye’ll find an answer to the puzzle. Me? Since I can’t read that fancy Spanish bilge, I’d be no help, so I’m for a big plate of biscuits, a slab of cold mutton, an’ enough ale to set me on my arse till mornin’.”

  “You deserve it. All the men deserve it, and if you haven’t done so already, break out an extra ration of rum.”

  Crisp tugged a scruffy brown forelock. “I’ll do that, Cap’n. Right after I set the watches an’ trim the sails. Smells like a storm comin’ up, an’ if Loftus can’t squeeze more speed out o’ that sow, we’ll be waddlin’ right into it.”

  Chapter Five

  An hour later, Juliet was still poring over the manifests taken from the Santo Domingo. She had not found the answer as to why a warship would be carrying cargo from three very distinct regions of the Spanish Main. She did, however, find the name of the officer whose ears she had made a little shorter, and the discovery made her own ears perk a little higher. Capitán Cristóbal Nufio Espinosa y Recalde. He was listed in the crew manifest as the capitán del navío, the military commander on board the ship, second only in importance to the capitán de mar, Diego Flores de Aquayo.

  What triggered Juliet’s intrigue was that up to a month ago—and she had no reason to doubt the accuracy of the reports her father’s partner of thirty years, Geoffrey Pitt, gleaned from his legion of spies along the Main—Recalde had been the commander of the military garrison at Nombre de Dios. It was the main port for Panama and Peru, sited near a huge, festering swamp that was almost impossible to fortify by normal methods. Francis Drake had plundered it twice in his seafaring days, once in 1572 when he took over the governor’s house for a week while his men sacked and burned the city. The second time, less than a year later, he ambushed the treasure train coming across the isthmus from Peru, but there was so much silver and gold on the mules, he had to leave half of it in the swamp.