Shadow of the Corsairs

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  It was as though he was looking at the sun – so beautiful, but it hurt his eyes

  “Was it like that when you lost your wife?”

  The sun was extinguished, plunging him into blackness.

  “She was murdered and I could do nothing. My daughters were killed and I could do nothing!”

  Morwena was in his arms once more. He could not be sure who comforted who. It felt good to hold a woman in his arms again and feel the soft curves pressed against him. Her hair smelled of lemons and felt like the softest silk as he ran his hands over her hair, stroking her cheek. Black eyelashes stood out starkly against her skin.

  He wanted to kiss those lips. But the only woman he had ever kissed was Mellesse. It was Morwena who bridged the distance. Lips as soft and plump as their promise touched his. Arousal shot through his core, an aliveness like the shift of light heralding an upcoming dawn.

  He deepened their kiss and she responded, opening her mouth to him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “She was murdered and I could do nothing. My daughters were killed and I could do nothing!”

  How could she have been so self-absorbed? The words were out of her mouth before she even considered the wisdom of speaking them out loud.

  Death came to them all one way or another – disease, old age, accident, childbirth – everyone since the time of Eve had experienced the separation of death, but murder? The deliberate taking of a life? In a world that was full of suffering, Morwena had never understood why one would deliberately cause suffering to another. And to murder children? Unfathomable. Who could be capable of such evil?

  Suddenly, the comfort of the embrace did not seem adequate to offer a measure of comfort so she let him kiss her, or perhaps she kissed him? Morwena was completely unprepared for the scalding heat of it, a hint of the power his body possessed, barely restrained, made every nerve in her body rise to attention.

  Whatever she had tasted, she wanted more of it, so she opened her lips and drank it in.

  When they broke apart, she was breathless and so was he.

  “Yeh-nay tseh-hi,” Jonathan whispered, then he translated. “My sunshine…”

  Never, never had she been kissed with such intensity. Certainly not by Carmelo, whose infrequent kisses were dry and passionless by comparison. Now the man who had aroused her to such desire looked down at her with a look of surprise she was certain was mirrored on her own face.

  “Morwena, I…”

  It was remarkable, she could look into his eyes and know exactly what he was thinking.

  Not what… who. Jonathan Afua was thinking of his lost wife.

  The heat between them cooled, although she knew the flush still remained on her cheeks. She put a finger to his lips.

  “Don’t say anything more. We will forget what happened tonight. By the time the sun comes up, everything will have seemed like a dream. And we will be friends and business partners once more.”

  Morwena moved away from him and removed the boiling kettle from the stove. A few moments ago, she was wide awake and ready to see out the night. Now, lethargy weighted her like a blanket and all she wanted to do was curl up in her own bed and sleep. Perhaps tonight’s adventure had troubled her more than she thought.

  “I should bid you good night,” she whispered. “Thank you for everything tonight. I don’t know what might have happened to Nico and me if you hadn’t…”

  The light in Jonathan’s eyes dimmed a moment, then he looked away, as though he was gathering his thoughts.

  “I should stay. To protect you. Your brother might return.”

  No. She didn’t want to be an obligation, a duty.

  “Nico is here with me.”

  Jonathan raised his chin and gave a small smile, more to himself than her, as though an entire conversation had passed without her knowing.

  “You’re right. That is probably a good thing.”

  Jonathan hesitated a moment, then picked up her hand and kissed it.

  “Sleep well.”

  She followed as he made his way downstairs. Morwena couldn’t be sure but wondered whether the night sky was already turning grey in anticipation of the dawn.

  “Lock the door behind me.”

  She nodded tiredly, unable to look into his eyes. She had embarrassed him. He had kissed her in the heat of the moment and regretted it.

  It was good she had said those words – her vow to forget the night that had just passed – now all she had to do was make herself believe it.

  ***

  Jonathan remained in the darkened street outside the shop and watched until the faint flickering yellow of the lamp in the upper window extinguished. The street was deserted as it should be in the early hours of the morning when the good citizens of the city were in their beds. The only creature he saw was in the flash of movement as a roaming cat chased some prey.

  Though still wary in case the troublemakers from the gardens had followed – which he doubted – he made the mile and a half walk back to the ship submerged in his thoughts, the streets now familiar to him.

  He hadn’t meant to kiss Morwena, but once her lips had touched his, he could do nothing else. She was like fire – she drew him and warmed his soul in ways he thought had died along with his family. Fire enticed, but it also burned.

  Right now, his body clamored for the comfort of a woman’s arms, a woman’s body. The sound of music rose – violin and accordion made themselves known to him along with the sound of laughter from a tavern. He could lose himself there – in company, in drink, in a woman…

  His body may demand it but the thought made him ill. Over the sound of drunken merrymakers, he heard other voices, a chant, the sound taking him down an alley. A sliver of reddish-gold light emerged from the cold grey of night. The door of a church stood ajar, beckoning him in. The altar was aglow with candles, their light shining through red and yellow glass chimneys, casting the statue of the crucified Christ above in sharp relief. A small choir rehearsed and a priest played the small pipe organ off to the side.

  It might have been closer to dawn than to midnight, but in the darkness of the hour and darkness of his thoughts, Jonathan washed his hands in the holy water stoup, taking comfort in the rituals he had learned as a boy.

  He had had a prayer rope when he was captured, tied with forty-one knots of the deepest blue silk and finished with a cross made of olive wood. It was long taken from him but, still, he could see it in his mind’s eye.

  He slipped into the pews and knelt. He closed his eyes and imagined the smooth knots slipping through his fingers.

  I cross my face and all over my body with the sign of the cross.

  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

  Lord pity us, Lord spare us, Lord have Mercy on us, Amen.

  Glory to the Father, Glory to the Son and the Holy Spirit now and forever and ever world without end, Amen.

  I believe and offer my supplications unto the Holy trinity.

  I denounce Satan in the sight of the Holy Mother Orthodox Church. And in the presence of the Virgin Maryam whom is Zion forever and ever. Amen.

  My Lord have mercy...

  My Lord have mercy...

  The liturgical music came to an end and Jonathan opened his eyes. On the floor by his feet was a crumpled flyer. He picked it up and angled it toward the candlelight.

  The illumination was too poor to see the words, but the image in the center was plain enough – the Blessed Virgin weeping over the earth. Below, women and children in chains raised their hands in supplication.

  Help us!

  Inside his head, the voices of his daughters cried.

  Papa! Help us!

  He squeezed his eyes hard shut and harder still until he saw red.

  My sweet girls.

  He sensed someone beside him. He opened his eyes and found a white man not much older than himself looking back at him with a worried frown. He was dressed in a black cassock.

  �
��Are you unwell?” the young priest asked cautiously, slowly. No doubt he thought Jonathan was some kind of drunkard who’d wandered in to sleep off the effects of his boozing.

  Jonathan shook his head. He started to rise when he saw the man looking at the piece of paper in his hand. He looked down at it again. He heard the voices of his daughters and all the voices of the damned once more.

  When he looked back up at the priest, the man’s frown had gone. Sympathy touched his face instead.

  “We ransom as many as we can,” he said. “But it’s never enough.” It sounded like an apology.

  Without thinking, Jonathan untied his purse from his belt and poured out the coins that had been his wages. Discs of silver and copper fell into the priest’s hastily outstretched hand.

  “It’s never nearly enough,” Jonathan answered, turning toward the door.

  “Can I help you?” the priest asked.

  Jonathan looked back down at the paper with its pathetic plea and let it go so it fell to the floor.

  “For me, it is too late.”

  He supposed he ought not have been surprised to find the lamp still burning in Hardacre’s cabin, despite the fact that everyone on the Terpsichore was fast asleep except for the man on deck watch.

  “We’re too slow.”

  Jonathan halted as he passed the open cabin door and frowned.

  Hardacre’s head was bent low over the drafting table, his long hair, gold in the lamplight, hanging down, obscuring his face.

  “We’re too lightly armed.”

  Jonathan was exhausted. After tonight’s excitement, he wanted nothing more than to sink into his bunk and sleep, but Hardacre’s words drew him in.

  He wasn’t sure if the captain knew he was even there. He stepped further into the room, looked down at the mapping desk and made out a cutaway sketch of a schooner.

  Hardacre looked up at last, a little bleary-eyed himself. “We need platforms to fire Congreve rockets from, and we need a way to hide a sizable cannon. Here, maybe…” The captain put an “x” in the middle of the diagram.

  In spite of himself, Jonathan was drawn into the half-mad world of the Terpsichore’s captain. “And you plan to hide that gun in the bowels of the ship? Good luck getting it up onto the deck. You and everyone on board would be dead before you got the chance to use it.”

  “Not if we had a lift.” Hardacre used an unlit cigar as a pointer. “We’ll use counter weights to maintain the ballast and if we brought her up from amidships, we’d have the best firepower at our beam.”

  Jonathan stared at the roughly-drawn schematic “You’d have to use drop floors and bring her up through the skylight hatch.”

  “So, you think it could be done?” The captain’s voice was light and as eager as a youth.

  Jonathan shrugged. “Sure, I can’t see why not. But why you want to do it?”

  Hardacre’s voice dropped half an octave. “You know why. The galiots are faster and more heavily armed.”

  Jonathan had an analogy immediately. “The lion can fell an elephant.”

  “A hyena can stop a lion.”

  Jonathan folded his arms and wrinkled his brow. “Only if it is lucky. Hyenas are ugly and treacherous. They sneak up on their prey. By some of the superstitious, they are considered to associate with witchcraft – incarnations of the djinn.”

  During Jonathan’s enumeration of the hyena’s flaws, Hardacre’s smile broadened into another of his manic grins

  “That’s it, you’ve got it! We can go where cruisers and frigates can’t go. We’ll sail in under their covering fire. We’ll be able to meet these bastards head on in their own waters.”

  This was a mistake. A mistake to listen to this young madman. Perhaps Jonathan was too tired to think clearly, to resist the drive of revenge, and yet he stayed there, almost hypnotized as Hardacre pulled out another roll of paper, a map.

  His eyes skimmed across the familiar coastline of Africa, the Delta, the life-giving Nile itself. Just beyond where it disappeared off the page was his land, Ethiopia.

  “There.”

  Jonathan jolted and straightened himself. Had he just fallen asleep on his feet? He wasn’t sure, but he looked where Hardacre pointed.

  “The information Ahmed Sharrouf gave us and what we’ve been able to piece together from his journals is he has plans to build a stronghold somewhere along here.” Hardacre ran his finger across the Tunisian shoreline.

  “We don’t know where. We’ll need intelligence of our own. I’m trying to make a useful contact with this new British envoy, William Bentinck. Lord William Bentinck… he’s quite the reformer. Not afraid of getting his hands dirty – although from what I’ve been told, he’s been ordered to behave himself. I took the liberty of offering our services.”

  Jonathan struggled to keep everything straight in his tired brain.

  “Offering our services for what?”

  “The bloody corsairs raided the southern coast of Sicily a few months ago and kidnapped more than three hundred. Bentinck may be simply saber rattling, but he’s made it quite clear he expects the Ottomans’ help in returning them. And the fact he has the British Navy’s Mediterranean fleet at his disposal should be enough to make them think. He’s a canny one, that I’ll grant you…

  “As long as we provide useful tidbits of information for him, I’m thinking he’ll turn a blind eye if the Terpsichore is sitting a little lower in the water if you know what I mean.”

  By now Jonathan was quite sure he didn’t, but he nodded along anyway.

  “We’ll set off as soon as Morwena has finished finding our provisions – we’ll go on a new moon. I want to see the lay of the land first.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine? I thought you’d show more enthusiasm than that.”

  “Enthusiasm? I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about!” Jonathan shook his head. “Look, Hardacre, you might be able to live on two hours of sleep a night, but I can’t. It’s been a long day.”

  If he could have mustered the energy to laugh, he might have done so at the change of Hardacre’s expression. The captain seemed to waken a little and looked at his pocket watch, held upright on the desk in a hinged wooden box made of olive wood – like a miniature clock.

  “I had no idea it was that late. But you have to admit, dealing with the gabellotti tonight – last night,” he corrected, “was a fine bit of entertainment.”

  “I’m not sure Morwena feels that way, Nico certainly doesn’t.”

  Hardacre shrugged. “If Nico had showed the same fortitude as his sister, I’d invite him to join the crew. Hell, I’d invite Morwena to be part of the crew if I wasn’t certain she’d oust me as captain at the first opportunity.”

  His grin faded a moment and Jonathan could see the young man thinking. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it, apparently thinking better of it.

  Good.

  Hardacre began putting away his ink and pens, then rolled up his maps before dimming the lamp of his desk. “Well, don’t let me keep you from your bed any longer,” he offered.

  Jonathan turned to the door. He was surprised to feel a slight disappointment in his judgment of Hardacre – he had been anticipating some flippant remark about he and Morwena from the man.

  “Good night… and sweet dreams.”

  Ah, there it was.

  Jonathan smiled to himself as he left the cabin without looking back or speaking. In all the other ways Hardacre was unpredictable, at least he was consistent in this.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Morwena stood at the entrance to the kitchen and watched her father hunch over his midday meal. She tried to judge his mood. She’d had little opportunity to talk to him since he returned from the visit with his sister.

  There had been a steady run of trade all morning and, to all outward appearances, he was the man she had always known him to be – businesslike and pragmatic, even jocular with some of their regular customers.

  Nico had left
the house before dawn. It was agreed that Morwena would gauge their father’s mood and decide when, exactly, to break the news about this prodigal son’s desire to return home.

  With everything that had happened over the past six months, it was probably about time they had a discussion of other things as well, the business, Pietro, and Papa’s own health…

  “Father?”

  Thomasso looked up at her immediately. His eyes were alert and his features strong. This was not one of his bad days when his eyes would be unfocused and his mouth and jaw would be soft and slack.

  “I need to speak to you on a number of matters,” she said. He picked up the tone in her voice immediately. His eyebrows lifted. He set down his fork and regarded her with his full attention. Yes, indeed, this was to be one of her father’s good days.

  She sat down at the table opposite him.

  “I hope I have been a good daughter and more than that, shown my worth to you in business.”

  “My, this is to be a serious discussion, indeed,” he said, a slight smile belying the gruffness of the words. He patted her hand.

  “Before you start, I wish to say something to you. I had a long talk with my sister and I wish to have a discussion with you, too. So, perhaps, we can both speak our minds and lay our hearts out.”

  “Then you go first, Papa.”

  “Savarina has told me in no uncertain terms that I have been a stubborn and unreasonable old man who will end up bitter and alone. She fears because I have driven away my two sons, I will be equally foolish and drive away my only daughter.”

  Now she squeezed his hand. “Never, Papa.”

  He covered her hand with his left. “My memory fails me on occasion. There are days where I know I’m irritable for no reason, and Sava tells me my temper is getting worse. She asked me how the business was going and I couldn’t tell her. Me! The man who always knew his profit down to the last copper coin, who could recite price lists from the top of my head, who knew the location of every nut and bolt... now I don’t know where they are or when we last ordered them. There are some days I stare at the ledger and cannot remember how to do sums.”