Juliet’s gaze returned to the dagger. It was as rich a trophy as any she had taken in a year’s worth of plunder and she had to think it would be a shame not to have some memento of this stranger’s courageous death.
She stepped over a broken spar and was reaching down to collect the dagger when a hand shot out and grabbed her around the wrist.
The Samaritan was not dead after all. He was very much alive and glaring up at her.
“Is it your habit, boy, to rob the men who save your life?”
She balled her fist and attempted to pull it free. “I thought you were dead.”
He held fast to her wrist and gave his head a small shake to clear his wits. If the blood leaking from his ear was any indication, he was likely hearing a chorus of ringing bells, and the only thing he accomplished by shaking his head was to scatter a few droplets of red across the deck.
“Jesus God!” His fingers sprang open, releasing her. They rose to gingerly probe the lump at back of his skull and he groaned again.
The sound was echoed by the body crushed beneath him.
“Beacom?” A lavender arm lifted to see what was beneath. “Good God, man, what are you doing under there?”
“Waiting for you to rouse, your grace,” came the gasped reply. “Hoping that in your boundless compassion, you might even be willing to heave off me!”
“I would be more than happy to oblige,” his grace said, “ just as soon as I can coax my limbs to work again. You there, lad. Stop gawking at the bobble on my dagger—consider it lost to you now anyway—and lend us your assistance here.”
Juliet arched an eyebrow and glanced to either side, but there was no one else close by. Ignoring the hand he extended, she straddled a leg on either side of his narrow hips instead and, taking up fistfuls of charred purple velvet, hoisted his upper body and held him while the man pinned underneath him wriggled free.
When the deed was accomplished, Juliet dropped him unceremoniously back to the deck while Beacom, who had his back turned and was dusting the soot and grime off his clothes, paused to flutter his hands in gratitude.
“Oh, I thank you, good sir. I thank you so very much indeed. My lord, his grace the duke, has been most uncooperative in answering my many attempts to waken him and I began to fear I might die for lack of air before anyone came to our rescue.”
Contrasting the colorful garments his master wore, Beacom was dressed head to toe in somber, fastidious black. He had a long, bony face to match the long bony body and his teeth, when he spoke, clicked together like castanets.
“I am roused now,” said the duke, swaying to his knees. “Give me a hand, damn you Beacom.”
Juliet watched, somewhat bemused, as Beacom paused in the act of straightening his shortcoat. A cry, not unlike the squawk of a pinched chicken, saw him whirl around and bend to assist his master who appeared to be on the verge of careening nose down onto the deck again.
“Your limbs, my lord. Are they sound?”
“Sound as a newborn babe’s,” the duke muttered. “It is the deck that is spinning like a bloody dervish.”
Beacom looked hardly strong enough for the task, but he managed with a great deal of grunting, pulling, and straining to haul his master to his feet. As soon as he was able to stand unassisted, Beacom gingerly probed the scorched layers of velvet and lace searching for injuries.
Juliet was more intrigued by the duke himself, for apart from her father, who had been awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth, he was the first member of the English nobility she had encountered. His face, when he pushed the lanky strands of hair out of the way, was neither pointy nor vapid, as she expected it to be. The nose was long and regal, the eyes deep-set and shielded by lashes the same gleaming chestnut as his hair. His eyebrows were full and straight, meeting almost in the middle. A slender moustache marked a perfect line along his upper lip, while the neatly trimmed imperial elongated the squareness of his jaw. She remembered seeing a full rack of even white teeth—a rarity among sea-faring men—and although his mouth was compressed now against the pain and dizziness, a smile that had been somewhat breathtaking.
Despite the lace ruffles at his throat and cuffs, the silk stockings and padded trunk hose, he had also wielded an extremely fine sword, one that did not hang about his hips solely for decoration or pomp. It was lying on the deck a few feet away and while Juliet went to retrieve it, Beacom continued to fuss and fret.
“There would appear to be no serious perforations, my lord. It is probably to your good account that you were not a step or two closer to the middle of the vessel.”
The duke scowled his way through another stab of pain. “You will forgive me, Beacom, if I wait for these devils to stop dancing in my head before I celebrate?”
“I should not wait too long,” Juliet said as she handed Beacom the sword as well as the jewelled dagger. “The pair of you would be wise to haul yourselves over the rail before the Argus takes on too much more water. Will you be able to manage him on your own?” she asked Beacom. “Or do you need help?”
The pinched nostrils flared. “I am quite capable of guiding his grace to safety. We will, however, require assistance with our belongings. If you can spare another moment, young man, there will be a coin in it for you.”
“A coin?” Juliet rounded her eyes. “Gold or silver?”
“More than you’ll earn by standing here and—”
Beacom’s words were cut short on another squawk as the ship listed suddenly. The Argus settled deeper in the bows, sending the manservant and his burden staggering sideways against the base of the mast. From somewhere in the bowels of the ship came the sound of straining, popping timbers and a roar not unlike a monster rising up from the deep. Men swarmed up the ladderways, including Nathan Crisp who was soaked to the neck with sea water, enveloped in a huge cloud of steam that boiled out of the hatchway behind him. He carried charts and maps and a thick ledger bound in leather, tied with a red ribband.
“There’s a hole as big as Lucifer’s arse in the hull where the powder barrels blew out,” he shouted. “Her back is broken. A minute or two, no more, an’ she won’t be able to keep her head up. We’d best cut loose or she’ll drag the Spanish bitch down with her.”
Juliet turned to Beacom. “You are certainly free to swim below and squander your life fetching milord’s silver shaving cup if you like, but if I were you, I would hasten over the side now.”
“Well, I... ” The beginnings of what might have been an instinctive protest died on a startled gasp as the Argus rolled and wailed again. A flurry of chopping sounds could be heard as men began to take axes to the grappling lines to cut her free, each strained rope giving off a sharp ping as it snapped apart. “Yes. Yes, of course. To the side. At once. Come, milord. Milord—!”
The duke was still leaning up against the broken mast. His eyes were open and although they were fixed on Juliet with a kind of puzzled confusion, his jaw had gone slack and his body was starting to slide down the smooth wood.
Juliet cursed and slung his free arm around her shoulder. Hoisting the deadweight between them, she and Beacom dragged the barely conscious duke to the side of the ship where members of the Iron Rose’s crew stood on lengths of heavy cargo netting to help heave the survivors up and over the rail onto the Santo Domingo.
Swirling green water churned no more than ten feet below the level of the English carrack’s deck but Juliet waited until the last possible moment before she gave the signal for the final tethering lines to be chopped. With one arm looped through the cables, she hung on as the galleon rolled free and righted herself. Cut adrift, the drowning frigate struggled to remain afloat through the surging backwash of waves but it was no use. In less than a minute, with the surface of the water bubbling and hissing, and with the weak cries of the men who could not be saved echoing across the distance, the Argus went down by the stern, leaving a wide circle of broken spars and burning canvas scraps to mark her demise.
CHAPTER TWO
; Juliet wasted little time or energy on niceties. The Spanish prisoners were bound together wrist and ankle. There were well over three hundred captives crammed on two decks and even though they had surrendered their ship and waited in dazed clusters to hear their fate, they outnumbered the combined crew of the Iron Rose and the survivors of the Argus by more than two to one.
Juliet’s first priority was to ensure there were no hidden pockets of Spaniards burrowed below on any of the decks. Ten enterprising soldiers with muskets could undo the day’s efforts and turn defeat into victory. She dispatched armed parties to scour each of the four decks, rooting out another score of men to add to the crush on deck.
Nathan Crisp led one such party to search the cargo bays and what he found there caused him to swallow his cud of tobacco whole. There were storerooms filled with crates of silver bars, all bearing the stamp of the mint in Vera Cruz. Four huge barrels contained pearls the size of a man’s thumbnail. There were sacks of uncut emeralds from Cartagena, chests of gold from the mines in Peru, bales of spices and rubber in such quantities that the initial euphoria Juliet and Nathan felt upon opening door after door, turned to consternation for it would take days to transfer all the treasure to the Rose. Even then, it was likely the privateer would sink under half the burden.
While it was not unusual for warships to carry treasure, it was definitely curious that a ship with the firepower and reputation of the Santo Domingo should be weighted so heavily with cargo. It implied she was going to be sent back to Spain with the September plate fleet. Twice yearly, in spring and fall, fleets of galleons loaded with treasure rendezvoused in Havana. They came from Vera Cruz in Mexico, from Nombre de Dios in Panama, from Maracaibo, Cartagena, and Baranquilla along the northern coast of Peru and Colombia. The trading vessels went from port to port along the Spanish Main, circling the vast Gulf, touching on the islands of the Antilles and Caribbean until they arrived back in Havana, where they gathered into a single fleet to make the journey back to Spain.
In Havana, they were met by an armada of warships which did not winter over in the New World with the trading ships, but were there strictly to act as escorts to the treasure ships on their voyages back and forth across the Atlantic. In April and again in September, the Armada de la Guardia would deliver a new fleet to Havana and collect the ships that had spent the winter or summer filling their holds with treasure then escort them back across the Atlantic to Spain.
Whatever stroke of luck or fate had put the Santo Domingo in Juliet’s path, she was not about to lose either the ship or the immense treasure she carried. It was imperative, therefore, to off-load the Spanish crew as soon as possible and vacate these waters before any other curious ships happened by. Once it became known, word of the galleon’s capture would spread through the islands like a fever, increasing patrols and raising the already staggering reward placed on the heads of any privateer who bore the name Dante.
For over twenty-five years the Pirate Wolf, Simon Dante, had been the plague of Spanish shipping. He had fought alongside Sir Francis Drake and been one of Elizabeth’s fearsome seahawks who had helped defend England’s shores against invasion by the Spanish Armada. Winning glory, accolades, titles and estates, Simon had taken away nothing but letters of marque signed by the queen, official sanctions to harass, capture, and plunder ships of a hostile nation, which, in the West Indies, was mainly Spain.
His wife, Isabeau Spence Dante was the offspring of a red-haired giant of a pirate who had taught his daughter how to fire a cannon by the age of twelve and how to navigate a ship around the Horn before her twentieth birthday. Her maps and sea charts were prized by captains of every nationality who sailed on the Ocean-Sea, and to every cartographer in England, she was known as the Black Swan after the elegantly painted imprint that identified her work.
The Black Swan had also been the name of the ship Simon Dante had given to Isabeau as a wedding gift. She had returned the favor by presenting him with a son, Jonas, nine months later. Another son, Gabriel, had followed within three years, and Juliet ten months after that. None of the three had shown a desire to be anywhere else but on the deck of a ship, and with parents like Simon and Isabeau Dante, it was no surprise they would grow to be a trio of magnificent thorns in the Spaniard’s side.
All three had fought for and earned the right to sail at the helm of their own ships. Armed with twelve heavy culverins that fired thirty-two pound shots, and eight twenty-four pound demi-culverins, the Iron Rose had been presented to Juliet on her twentieth birthday. The fact her captain was a woman held no less terror for foreign crews who sighted her sails on the horizon. Most ships ran up as many sheets as they could carry and fled before the wind, for to see the Iron Rose’s pyramid of canvas turning into the chase, usually meant her brother’s ships, the Tribute and the Valor were not far off her beam. And woe betide the arrogant captain of any vessel who thought only to shake off the three pups pursuing him; chances were better than nine out of ten that the Pirate Wolf himself, Simon Dante, would have already circled his Avenger around to lie in wait off their bows.
On this occasion, Juliet had been alone, intending only to take the Iron Rose to sea to test the strength of a new rudder design. She had been startled herself to emerge from a tropical squall and stumble across the two battling ships. At first she had thought the rumble of guns to be lingering thunder, but when the rain had passed and the mist had thinned, the lookouts had spied the Santo Domingo blasting the Argus into kindling.
Now she had an enormous treasure, three hundred prisoners, and an eight hundred ton warship on her hands, none of which made her particularly happy at the moment.
“Loftus agrees with my estimate,” she said, glancing at the Iron Rose’s helmsman, “that we are less than half a day’s sail from Guanahana Island.”
“We have no friends there,” Crisp said, frowning.
“No, but look you, between there and here—” she stabbed a finger at a small dot of black ink on the map she had spread on top of the binnacle— “is an atoll. We could tow the galleon at least that far and set the Spaniards ashore. Once we are rid of them, we can think about what to do with the rest of the cargo, whether to risk making a run for Pigeon Cay, or to off-load it somewhere and return for it later with Jonas and Gabriel to guard our backs.”
Nathan could see by the look on her face that the second option was not an option at all, for she had as much of a rivalry with her brothers as she did an abiding love and affection. Nonetheless, he sighed and shook his head. “We’d be trying to find this atoll in full dark. How the devil do ye expect to make a dead reckoning of a sandy pimple the size of my toe nail at night?”
“I’ll find it. Unless you fancy standing on guard for the next forty-eight hours straight until we find a larger toe nail in daylight, we’ve little other choice.”
“We could just heave them over the side,” he grumbled. “It’s more than they would have done for us.”
“We could, but it would still leave us with one other small problem.”
“Only one?” He snorted. “Ye have yer father’s gift for understatement, lass.”
“What do we do about the English crew? We can’t set them adrift on the same island as the Spaniards or they’ll end up either dead or chained to oars in the belly of some galleyass. The closest port friendly to the British is at least a week away, which puts it a week beyond impossible. We’re overdue as it is.”
“The Frenchies would take ‘em off our hands an’ trade us a few barrels o’ wine for our trouble.”
“Yes, then they would turn around and sell them to the Spanish in exchange for trading privileges.”
“Might I make so bold as to offer a suggestion, Captain?”
Juliet and Crisp both looked around as Lieutenant Beck stepped up behind them. They had been aware of him pacing the deck below for some time, working up the nerve to approach.
“Is there something you need, Lieutenant?” Juliet asked. “Something else we can do for your men?”
“You have been exceptionally generous already, Captain. In fact, I was rather hoping there was something we could do for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well.” He clasped his hands behind his back and stood with his legs braced slightly apart. “It would appear to me that you have taken on somewhat more than you anticipated when you came to our rescue. This galleon, for instance. At a bare minimum, I estimate it will require a crew of seventy men to work the sails and keep her headed in the direction you wish to go—more if you should happen to cross the path of another enemy vessel. Your own ship carries a compliment of how many? No. No, on second thought—” he held up a cautionary hand. “Do not answer that; I should not want to be accused at any time of trying to prise information. My only intent is to establish that while your crew is more than adequate for sailing the one ship, it would be hard pressed to manage two. You mention the possibility of towing the galleon, and I’m sure this would be feasible for a day or two, as long as the weather held steady and seas remained amenable. Of course, you also have the option of sinking the Spaniard, but she’s a grand ship, an even grander prize and while I can only speculate as to its value to your family’s enterprise as a whole, I expect you would be loathe to do such a thing if at all avoidable.”
Crisp folded his arms over his chest and scowled. “Is it that ye like the sound of yer own voice, lad?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Is there a point at the end of all this meandering?”
“A point? Why, yes. Yes, of course. The point would be that I am offering the services of myself and my men in whatever capacity you might require. We are, each and every one, fully trained to the tasks of setting sails, rigging lines, manning the guns, even pumping the bilges if that is necessary to keep this monstrosity afloat. It is, if I might say, one of many advantages our navy has over, say, the French or the Spanish. A Spanish gunner is trained only to fire a gun; he would not know how to set a sail if his life depended upon it.”
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