Fortune Trilogy 1 - Fortune's Mistress

by Judith E. French

  “Aye,” Lacy admitted, “we do our share, among other things.” She handed him a folded blanket. “But a pirate has little room to talk, even a gentleman pirate with a false name. Are ye complaining of our company, then? If ye are, I’ll have Alfred—”

  “Damn me, wench, must you be so argumentative? You must drive your husband mad.” He sat on the blanket and stretched out his long booted legs. Lacing his hands behind his head, he leaned back against the stacked brandy kegs.

  “I’ve no husband, nor do I want one,” she replied testily. She made herself as comfortable as possible on the other blankets. There was a narrow bunk along one wall, but if her nose didn’t lie, that space was packed with cheese.

  “A spinster, hmmm?”

  She ignored the insult. “Are ye so high-nosed ye cannot offer proper thanks to those who’ve saved your worthless skin?”

  “Not a bit of it,” he answered softly. “It’s a fine ship, and a fine crew.”

  “Aye, buccaneer, that it is. And don’t ye forget it.”

  “Oh, I’ll not forget,” he promised.

  Lacy drew a thick wool blanket up around her. She’d told Ben to make certain that there were clothes aboard for her, but they could wait until morning. God, but she was weary unto death. She pressed her face against the hull of the Silkie and listened to the breathing of the river.

  Her heart sang like a dancing wind against full sails. She was free of Newgate and free of the shadow of the gallows. And as soon as she could get this cursed iron collar off, she’d see the last of this clip-nit pirate with his honeyed words and cocksure manner. Tomorrow, she promised herself. She’d be rid of the rascal tomorrow if she had to kick him overboard herself.

  Chapter 3

  The sound of church bells brought Lacy upright as far as the chain binding her to the pirate would allow her. She blinked and rubbed the raw spot where the iron collar had cut into her flesh. It was still very dark, too dark for her to make out James’s face by what little light came in through the open hatch, but his heavy, regular breathing told her that he slept. She shivered. Even deep in slumber, his nearness was unnerving. He was too big and powerful—too potentially dangerous. Even knowing she could reach the knife to protect herself, she’d no wish to let down her guard and sleep.

  She wasn’t certain if she’d dozed off for seconds or minutes, but she could hear the low murmur of Ben’s voice. Even though she couldn’t see her two brothers, she could picture Ben hunched over the tiller at the stern of the boat. Alfred would most likely be sitting beside him, in his usual silence, his long-stemmed pipe glowing red against the blackness of the Thames.

  Something soft and furry brushed Lacy’s bare ankle. Her heart leaped, then she chuckled as she recognized the faint purring of a cat. She reached down to stroke a knobby, ragged head. “Poor old puss,” she murmured. “You’ve had a hard time of it, haven’t ye?” Where the cat’s left ear should have been was only a nubbin of scarred skin, and her sensitive fingertips felt fresh scabs and matted hair. She continued to fondle the stowaway, and further inspection proved the cat’s sex—male—and the fact that he’d left a good portion of his tail somewhere in his colorful past. “How did ye get aboard the Silkie?” she wondered aloud. “And what shall I call ye, sir?”

  The cat nipped her thumb lightly and curled up in the warm spot behind her right knee.

  “You’ve the arrogance of old King Harry,” she mused. “I’ll call ye Harry, if you’ve no objection.” The cat buried his head against her. “Harry it is, then,” she whispered. “Just don’t let Alfred see you. He makes crab bait of cats.”

  “What’s amiss?” James whispered. He sounded fully alert.

  “Nothing.” She gave Harry a pat.

  “Be still then. I’ve had little enough sleep in the last few months.”

  “Aye, sir,” she answered sarcastically. “Whatever you wish, sir.” How dare he speak to her as though he were her better? A common pirate? Damned if he didn’t think highly of himself, she thought.

  Frowning, she leaned back against the brandy casks. The movement of the boat had changed while she’d concentrated on the cat. Now she realized that they were caught up in a turbulence. The bow of the Silkie slapped against a curl of rushing water. The tide was going out, but this sucking, rolling motion was something more. She glanced up at the hatch, wanting to go on deck but knowing she would only endanger them all. Then she heard Alfred’s voice.

  “I’ll take the tiller.”

  “Aye,” Ben answered. “Best ye do so.”

  Lacy held her breath. Ben was a fine waterman, but Alfred was better. If Ben was willing to relinquish the tiller to his brother, then the boat was in trouble.

  The Silkie quivered like a horse before a jump, and the small patch of sky Lacy could see through the hatch was blotted out above by the looming bulk of London Bridge. Ah, she’d not really slept. They’d come aboard near the Custom House, so the Silkie had gone only a short distance down the river.

  “Use your oar to push off from the archway!” Alfred shouted. Lacy heard the scrape of wood against stone.

  “Harder, man!”

  The stern spun sideways and the bow dove, then rose and shot forward into calmer water. A single star twinkled through a gap in the clouds, and London Bridge was behind them.

  Lacy breathed a sigh of relief. The bridge. She’d nearly forgotten. The treacherous currents under the London Bridge were legendary. Rivermen on the Thames were licensed to carry passengers and, she supposed, to pilot larger vessels up and down the waterway. Ben and Alfred had traveled the river before, but they weren’t all that familiar with the tides and they certainly possessed no license.

  Other ships crowded the river below the bridge. She could see the forest of masts against the moonlit sky. But Lacy knew from experience that the Silkie carried no light. She slipped as silently as an eel along the surface of the muddy Thames, carrying them ever farther from Newgate with each passing minute.

  The damp night air was filled with the scents of tar, mud, and rotting wood. Lacy sniffed, catching a faint smell of cinnamon. Voices echoed across the water, and from the deck of one three-masted square rigger came the wailing lilt of a sailor’s hornpipe.

  Thoughts swirled in Lacy’s head, and her chest grew tight. Within seconds, her perceptions of the world around her altered radically. She began to feel as though she were struggling in deep water, unable to swim or even to think clearly.

  No! She swallowed hard and balled her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms. No, she wouldn’t let it happen now. She’d not go into a trance—not again.

  For a minute, it seemed she’d taken control of her senses and prevented the seizure. The giddy sensations retreated, and the hardwood deck beneath her became real again. She smelled the acrid scent of pitch and heard the notes of a hornpipe clearly through the mist.

  Cautiously, she took another breath. Since she’d been arrested, she’d only suffered one vision, and that one had been so queer—so different from her other spells—she’d supposed she was taken with prison fever. Always before, she had returned to full consciousness with a knowledge of incidents that had yet to occur played out in vivid detail of color and sound. It was her curse, a witchy legacy from her gypsy mother—an inheritance that had brought Lacy naught but pain and trouble all her short life.

  Damn me, but I’ll not succumb this time! she vowed. I’ll fight the seeing!

  The last incident in the prison had left her with confused images, faint and without accompanying sounds. Perhaps she was outgrowing the weakness now that she’d reached her mid-twenties. She pinched her arm hard to keep herself from slipping under.

  Cursed gypsy blood! She’d never known her mother. Red Tom, her father, had never referred to the woman by name. She was always that “damned gypsy witch.” How her parents had met or where her mother was now, she didn’t know. Her father had left her with his elderly parents on a farm until she was eight, and of an age to be of use to him
and her half-brothers in his trade.

  She’d loved the farm, loved the planting and the reaping, loved the change of seasons that brought a new round of chores yet kept a solid sameness. And she’d been enchanted by the animals. Her first memory was of riding the great gray plowhorse as her grandfather tilled the rich earth.

  She had a way with living creatures; even the wild things let her mend their hurts and walk among them unchallenged. Once, when she was barely six, she’d ridden a dairy bull that had gored three men. Innocently, she’d slid off a fence onto the piebald beast’s back and spent the better part of the morning scratching its neck. Her grandfather had been frightened half to death when he’d found her with the animal, but the only harm she’d suffered was a bruise she’d gotten when she tumbled off the bull’s back and landed on a rock.

  She’d had the spells even then; she couldn’t remember ever not having them. She’d sink into a trance and witness an event hours or days before it actually happened. As a young child, she didn’t have the wisdom to hold her tongue. Instead, she eagerly told anyone who would listen what was about to happen.

  It was her grandmother who had taught her the danger of letting others know about her witchy gift. “Hush,” the old woman had said. “Hush, lest they take ye away and burn ye for a Satan worshipper.”

  Whenever the trances had come upon her, her grandmother had hugged her against her ample breasts and rocked her, and her grandfather had prayed the devils away. Gypsy witchling or not, bound for heaven or hell, she was of their blood and they loved her.

  That life had ended when Red Tom came to fetch her home. In one day’s span, she went from being the darling of a household to the bottom-ranked hand in a wrecker’s crew. No more warm mugs of milk and being tucked into a soft featherbed with a lullaby and a prayer. Sleep after that came when and where she could find it—most likely with the hounds, for they’d not mock her for her manners and delicate sensitivities.

  Red Tom had handed her over to the care of his woman, a slovenly fisherman’s daughter with four children of her own. She was the first of many stepmothers Lacy was to know. Some were kind and others cruel, but none stayed long, and none cared for her as her grandmother had cared. No one brushed her hair or saw that she had decent clothes; no one cared if she came to meals or stayed awake all night. And all of them, to a woman, were afraid of her.

  And why wouldn’t they be afraid? She could do what no normal human could do; she could see into the future. And sometimes, whether she wanted the power or not, she could save lives or cause them to be lost.

  When Lacy was fourteen, she had prevented Dame Walters’s aging father from burning himself up in his bed when she’d gone into a trance and seen him drop his pipe onto the blankets. She’d told Dame Walters to run home at once and see to him. Sure enough, the graybeard had fallen asleep, heedless of the smoldering quilt. Dame Walters had thrown water on the fire and the old man had escaped without harm.

  Still, Dame Walters had never acted the same toward Lacy again, and she’d gone out of her way to avoid eye contact. Lacy had lost one of the few friends she had in the village. It didn’t matter if Lacy’s magic was white or black, it was all to be feared.

  Witchling. Gypsy get. Devil’s jade. They called her that and more. Her half-brothers, Ben and Alfred and Beatty, had made the evil-eye sign against her and taunted her. Even Red Tom had been afraid. Men said of him that he was bold enough to spit in the devil’s eye, but Lacy had seen the doubt in his gaze and felt the hesitation in his touch. He was as superstitious as any other seafarer, and her gypsy sight scared the wits out of him.

  Her witch power had kept her from being beaten by her father, but it hadn’t kept her from doing as she was told. He’d brought her to learn the wrecker’s life, and learn she did. Her only school was the sea and the rocky beach. She’d been eight when she’d lured her first sailing vessel to destruction on a hidden shoal.

  Red Tom had used her curse when it suited him. Sometimes, she’d see ships or coming storms in her visions. In time, she learned to hide the spells and keep her seeing to herself, as long as they took possession of her when she was alone. When it happened, she lost track of time. She didn’t know if she lost consciousness for seconds or an hour. Alfred had told her that her eyes closed, and it looked as though she were asleep, but she didn’t know if that was true. Sometimes, though, if the spell was brief, no one noticed.

  The trance that had occurred inside her Newgate cell had been quick. She had snapped back into the real world with a hazy image of a strange, red-hued barbarian in her mind’s eye. His ebony-colored hair had been long, nearly to his waist, and his eyes black as night. His nose had been broad and his lips thin, his black eyes slanted and oval, not round like the eyes of a normal man. And his face had borne peculiar tattoos from the line of his chin to the craggy ridges of his high cheekbones.

  The vision had troubled her, but it had not returned. She had begun to believe that perhaps she had dreamed the bronzed man. Usually her sight showed familiar people and places. Like the trance that had brought her to the foot of the gallows ...

  In early summer, she had warned a village widow woman not to allow her only son to go fishing on a seemingly calm day. The boy was only twelve and his mother’s hope and joy. But the mother had ignored Lacy’s advice and let the child go. When a storm arose suddenly and the boat capsized, the grieving mother accused Lacy of murder by witchery.

  Even the threat of Red Tom’s revenge couldn’t save her that time. She’d been dragged before a local squire, then carried to London and thrown into Newgate. Her trial had been a mockery of justice. No one listened to her; no one cared that she had tried to save the child’s life, not take it. Nothing she could say prevented her from being sentenced, first to be branded with a W for witch, and then to be hanged by the neck until she was dead.

  Lacy touched the burn scar on her forehead. It still hadn’t healed; it was sore and raised. If she closed her eyes she could still see the red-hot iron descend toward her face. She hadn’t screamed when the heat seared her flesh. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she knew her cries of pain would give the sadistic warder pleasure. And she wouldn’t give them anything ... not willingly. She’d cheated them of her neck, so far.

  God alone knew where she would go or what she would do. She couldn’t go home. Even among wreckers, a convicted witch was too dangerous to hide. The king’s men would hunt her, and the devil’s mark on her forehead would be her undoing. She hadn’t thought past getting away from the executioner. Perhaps the New World ...

  Lacy flinched as the sinking feeling returned. She opened her mouth, but no sound came from her throat. Her mind felt as though it were being sucked down a funnel. With a final shudder, she gave a sigh and went limp. Her eyelids closed and the spell seized her.

  The sun was a ball of molten orange light, hotter than Lacy had ever known. The heat seeped through her skin to warm her blood and bones. Around her, she could hear birdsong, and the whisper of wind through swaying branches. Seagulls cried overhead, and she smelled the sea. In slow motion, Lacy looked down at her bare feet. Beneath her was white sand, as fine as wheat flour.

  “Lacy.”

  Someone called her name. She knew it was her name, but she’d never heard it pronounced that way. She turned toward the voice and saw him again. Her copper man. Naked but for a scrap of cloth wound around his loins ... his face scarred with blue-black tattoos.

  “Lacy.” He held out his arms to her. “I’ve waited for you,” he said. “I’ve waited so long.” The last words came from his mind, not his lips, but she understood perfectly.

  She smiled at him and nodded. “I’m coming, Kutii. I’m coming. Be patient awhile longer.”

  He stared at her with a sorrowful gaze, a look that brought tears to her eyes. “I need you. Daughter. I need you.” He dropped to one knee and scooped up a handful of the milk-white sand. Slowly, he let it run through his fingers. “Time passes,” he reminded her. “And m
y time is soon at an end. Come. Come quickly.”

  Then, like a clap of lightning, the sand and green swaying trees were gone. The tattooed man was no more. Instead, she was in the ocean again. She knew it was ocean, because her tongue tasted salt, but never had she seen water so blue or clear. She was swimming, down and down, deeper than she’d ever gone, so deep that her lungs ached and blood pounded in her ears. A flash of movement crossed her line of vision, and she saw, for just an instant, a strange multicolored fish unlike any fish she had ever seen before. And then the sea floor rose to meet her, and in the scattered bones of a ship she saw the glimmer of gold.

  “Lacy.” Ben gripped her shoulder and shook her. “Wake up, girl. Lacy.” He stood at the foot of the ladder with a lantern in one hand.

  “Wh ... at? What is it?” She took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on what her brother was saying. Her mind didn’t want to hear him; her mind wanted to go on seeing the blue water ... remembering the bronze man.

  “Are ye at that again?” he snapped. Ben held up the light and looked around the small, cramped cabin. He was an inch shorter than Lacy and had no problem standing upright in the cuddy.

  “No. No,” she lied. “I was napping. What’s wrong?”

  James blinked, coming awake. “What’s wrong?” He tensed. “Is it the watch?”

  “Naw,” Ben replied. “I saw something jump down the hatchway.” He poked at the canvas that covered the brandy casks. “Something small and furry. A rat maybe.”

  “A rat?” James echoed.

  “I doubt there’s any rats aboard the Silkie,” Lacy said, remembering the tomcat she’d named Harry.

  “We’re hauling Dutch cheese as well,” her brother continued. “In case we’re stopped. “There’s six rounds stacked back ’ere on the rack. Rats like cheese. Ruin it, they will.”