They appeared to have sailed into a huge enclosed harbor that stretched two miles or more at its widest point. Far from being the gnarled and uninviting crown of sparsely vegetated rock the island presented to the outside world, the interior boasted lush green slopes and masses of thick palm groves. Peppered in amongst the trees were clusters of thatched huts and stone cottages while pastures higher on the rim held flocks of sheep and cattle. Lime and lemon trees grew in profusion and on the far side of the bay, a large pan of rock used for extracting salt crystals from the seawater gleamed white against the distant green shore. The sun had already dipped below the westerly rim of the crater casting most of the slope in thickening shadows and at the base, there were already lights twinkling to life in some of the huts, suggesting there were taverns and shanties down by the main jetty.
The latter would have rivalled any busy wharf on the Thames. There were warehouses and long flat buildings built of timber, loading docks and enormous winches hung with cargo nets. There was even a road following the shoreline, crowded with carts and wagons. At the far end was a church, its steeple rising white above the shadows.
There were also a trio of tall ships sitting at anchor. Two of them were similar in size and tonnage to the Iron Rose; the third was larger, showing twice the number of gun ports on her decks.
“That be Cap’n Simon’s ship,” Johnny Boy said, coming up beside him. “The Avenger.”
Varian was too overwhelmed to do more than nod. He was also duly impressed, knowing he was likely among the privileged few who had seen the vaunted privateer this close without her guns blazing. As the Iron Rose glided past, he studied the sleek lines of the ship that had been throwing terror into the hearts of Spanish captains for over two decades, his gaze stalling when it came to the unusual figurehead on her bow.
The face bore an astonishing resemblance to Juliet. The exaggerated abundance of carved hair was spread back on either side of the bowsprit, making it seem as if the wind was sending the wave-like curls flowing out behind her. The thin slip of a garment she was wearing had fallen down, baring an oak breast that was as perfectly shaped as the one Varian had beheld last night. Below that, however, the similarity ended, for the body was that of a swan, the feathers looking as real as if they had been plucked out of a bird and glued there, the enormous black wings spread back against the wind.
“That be the Cap’n’s wife, Miz Isabeau,” Johnny Boy said almost reverently. “It were the only thing he salvaged from her ship, the Black Swan before they had to scuttle ‘er. Not Cap’n Beau, of course. Just the ship. An’ that lady over there—” he pointed to a sleek two masted vessel that had been partially hidden by the larger privateer— “is the Christiana, Mr. Pitt’s ship. He designed her himself and she’s the fastest thing ye’ll ever see on the water. Leastwise she will be when he finishes her. The other two over yon, are the Tribute an’ the Valor. They belong to Cap’n Jonas an’ Cap’n Gabriel.”
There were a dozen lighter pinnaces anchored closer to shore, single-masted vessels that were used mainly as transports for ferrying supplies. They had no specific captains, Johnny Boy explained, since they were made to be broken down and stowed in the ballast of a bigger ship. They had also passed a considerable flock of longboats filled with men, oars, and cables waiting at the mouth of the channel to row out and fetch the Santo Domingo. The Rose had traversed the currents and whirlpools safely, but the Spaniard would need a tow.
Varian nodded mutely throughout the boy’s chatter, but his attention had strayed elsewhere. Higher up on the eastern slope of the crater, where the last of the sun’s rays still washed the hill with light, a sprawling two storey manor house had been built on a natural green terrace of land. It was as large and fine as anything that could be found in the English countryside, built of white stone with red clay tiles on the roof and latticed verandas wrapping around the outside of the upper and lower floors. The road that led from the manor to the harbor looked like a ribbon where it trailed down through the greenery, and as the Rose sidled to a halt and the anchor chain began rattling through the hawser, small puffs of chalky dust could be seen in the wake of two riders charging toward the docks.
“That’ll be Cap’n Jonas an’ Cap’n Gabriel,” Johnny Boy guessed. “Folk call ‘em the Hell Twins for good reason, so ye might want to have a care. They don’t take kindly to lubbers. Specially Cap’n Jonas. He has the red hair o’ the devil and a temper to match.”
“I plan to be on my best behavior.”
The boy smirked. “If that was yer plan, it didn’t work too well with Cap’n Juliet, did it?”
Varian glanced sidelong and bristled under the lad’s grin. “How old are you, boy?”
“Twelve come Michaelmas,” he answered promptly. “My ma’ says I were born under the sign of the holy star. Mr. Crisp says it were just a lamp shining up on the hill.”
“Mr. Crisp sounds like a practical man.”
The boy shrugged his narrow shoulders. “He’s my da’ so I’m bounden to listen to him but I like the story of the holy star better.”
“Mr. Crisp is your father?”
“Said so didn’t I?”
“I meant no offense, I just... ” Varian glanced down at the ornately carved stump that served as the boy’s leg. “Well, I find it odd a man would allow his son in harm’s way when so much harm has been done already.”
“Ye mean my leg? Aye, I paid the butcher’s bill wi’ that one. Were my own fault, though. I were carrying a charge of powder and set it too close to a burning fuse. I looked away for just a blink and blam! Off it went. Mr. Kelly made this for me,” he added proudly, rapping his knuckles on the carved snake’s head. “Cap’n Juliet give me the emerald for his eye. Miz Beau gave me the pearls for the scales an’ Cap’n Simon, well, he gave me bloody hellfire for not havin’ better sense. But I was only six then an’ didn’t know much better. Now I’m twelve an’ Cap’n Juliet is teaching me how to read charts an’ plot a course.”
“I am sure you will make a fine navigator some day.”
“Terror o’ the Seas. That’s what I want to be. Just like Cap’n Dante.” The boy beamed and tugged a forelock. At a shout from the helm, he moved farther along the rail and unlatched the section that swung open at the gangway. Several jollyboats had pushed off from various points along the shoreline and were converging on the Iron Rose like iron shavings to a magnet. The one carrying the Dante brothers was the first to arrive and Varian moved discreetly back from the gangway as it bumped against the hull.
The brothers climbed up the steps set into the ship’s hull and vaulted through the gangway, shouting for the captain before their boots were planted solidly on the timbers. They were similar in height and build, but that was where the resemblance ended. Thanks to Johnny Boy’s description, Varian could identify Jonas Spence Dante by the violent shock of flame red hair that curled over his burly shoulders. His jaw was square, stubbled with the same titian hairs that bristled across his brows and lashes. A visible scar dented the left side of his chin, another crossed his neck above the collar of his battered leather doublet.
By contrast, the younger of the Hellfire Twins, Gabriel, had a face like a deposed archangel. Dark mahogany hair surrounded a handsome face dominated by large, expressive eyes and a sinfully shaped mouth that would have set women swooning in droves were he to walk into a crowded London ballroom. Where his brother looked at home in leather and coarse cotton, Gabriel’s shirt was made of the finest white cambric, his jerkin was embroidered brocade, his long legs were encased in supple chamois.
“Well, where is she?” Jonas’s voice boomed out like thunder. Eyes the color of tarnished gold scanned the grinning crew from beneath the wide brim of his hat. “Where is the captain of this sorry excuse for a sailing ship?”
The forward hatchway opened and Juliet Dante stepped through.
Varian followed the sound of men cheering and had to blink to double-check his vision, for the chameleon had changed her skin again. She was
dressed in tight black doeskin breeches and a snow white silk shirt that had fonts of lace spilling from the throat and cuffs. The trim shape of her waist was now accentuated by a form-fitting black leather doublet that glittered with bands of seed pearls. A short satin cape was draped artfully over one shoulder, the lining scarlet, the wings turned back to leave her sword-arm free. Her hair fell in a mass of auburn curls down her back, covered by a flamboyant hat with a sweeping scarlet brim. Tall black boots had wide cuffs folded down over the knee, and at her waist, the exquisitely wrought Toledo sword.
Varian almost forgot who he was staring at as he watched her stride across the deck, the image of a proud, triumphant privateer.
“Who let these two whoremongers on board my ship?” she demanded. “A pair of gold doubloons to any man brave enough to throw them overboard!”
Despite the exited murmur that went through the crew, none were imprudent enough to step forward and it was with an exaggerated sigh that Juliet withdrew her rapier slowly from its sheath.
“I see I shall have to do the honors myself, then,” Juliet announced. “Who first? The mongrel or the pup?”
Jonas Dante grinned hugely and drew his sword. “If she’s still dry when I’m finished with her, Gabe m’boy, you have my permission to lay a stripe or two across that saucy arse of hers.”
“And you have mine, Gabriel dearest,” Juliet said, flexing the thin blade of her rapier in a shiny arc, “to carve that rather over-boastful codpiece he wears down to its proper size. Unless, of course, I attend to it first.”
A raucous cheer went up from the crew of the Rose who were hanging over the rails on the foredeck, draped over yardarms, gathered three deep on the quarterdeck. Wagers were shouted and shoulders slapped to make room as brother and sister slowly began to circle one another, their blades hissing to and fro, slicing the air as they warmed their arms and readied themselves to engage.
“Gracious good heavens, my lord,” Beacom whispered over Varian’s shoulder. “Do you suppose they intend real harm to one another?”
But Varian only held up a hand to command silence, intrigued by the spectacle unfolding before him. He and his brothers had often practised their swordsmanship, but never with unblunted blades, never with such fearsome intensity in their eyes.
Jonas broke first, taking advantage of a clever feint to open the attack. Juliet deflected the initial series of parries with ease, countering each with a lethal deftness that forced the much larger Dante to scramble into a hasty retreat.
A second prolonged engagement saw the two leaping catlike between the anchor capstans, lunging over and around barrels and crates, pushing the wall of roaring crewman back to the rail. The sound of steel ringing off steel was accompanied by flashes of blue sparks and grunts as both combatants were forced to think quick on their feet as the strikes came faster, closer to their marks.
Sheer size should have given Jonas the advantage of strength, but it became shockingly evident that Juliet was far superior in skill. Her ripostes were delivered in a blur, her attacks measured out in precise quadrants. Her balancing arm rarely left the narrow indent of her waist long enough to flutter the wing of her cape nor was her hat ever in jeopardy of being dislodged. Every attempt her brother made to break into a charge or overpower a thrust by brute strength was met with an adroit twist or an acrobatic leap that put her somehow behind him, above him, beside him, prodding his rump with the tip of her blade. When he whirled around, she laughed, offering deliberate openings and slashing them shut again with a swiftness that left her opponent lunging ineffectually at vacant space.
Varian’s instincts rose to the surface, stinging with manly indignation each time he saw Jonas miss a failed opportunity, or stagger back in a clumsy retreat.
The torment ended soon enough as Jonas was herded toward the open gangway. With the offending codpiece hanging by a strip of cloth at the crux of his thighs, the coup de grace was delivered and he was propelled, howling and cursing, through the rail and out over open water.
A great cheer went around the deck and Juliet—barely winded—spun on the balls of her feet and brought the tip of her blade to a glittering rest beneath the chin of Gabriel Dante. He responded with a casual shrug, raising his hands to show he held no weapon.
“In no mood for a swim tonight?”
“The water is a tad chilly for my taste,” he said, sighing. “And this is a new feather in my cap, dammit. I’ll not squander it on a brother’s conceit.”
“I’d not squander it either,” she said, examining the plume with interest. “Though I may pluck it for my own if I am not accorded a properly respectful greeting.”
Gabriel lowered his hands, presented an elegant leg, and swept forward in a bow that bent him gracefully in half. It also put him in the perfect position to reach out and circle his arms around his sister’s upper thighs as he was rising. With a maniacal roar of glee, he flung her over his shoulder and used his forward momentum to carry them both toward the side of the ship. A step away from tumbling her over the rail and into the drink, the younger Dante was halted by the sight of two new arrivals standing in the gangway.
The more formidable of the scowling faces belonged to Simon Dante de Tourville who stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrow raised in askance. Less threatening but no less daunting was the frowning visage of Isabeau Dante whose head was shaking over the antics of their three adult siblings.
“Put me down you sodding son of Beelzebub,” Juliet cried. “Put me down or so help me I’ll skin your ballocks with my teeth and—”
Gabriel grinned and swung around so that Juliet could see what had caused his momentary burst of brotherly mercy.
Raising her head, she shoved aside the curtain of hair that had tumbled over her face. “Oh. Good evening, Father. Mother. Welcome aboard.”
CHAPTER NINE
“You sail in here a week overdue dragging a bloody great galleon on your heels and that is all you have to say: Welcome aboard?”
Juliet squirmed just enough to loosen Gabriel’s grip and slip off his shoulder. She snatched her hat off the deck and resheathed her sword, then offered up a wide smile. “Welcome aboard Father, Mother; I am very happy to see you both.”
“We have been worried, young miss,” Isabeau said, “and a sharp wit will earn you no favors here. Where have you been? How in God’s name did you come to be in possession of a damned warship?”
”It’s a very long story, Mother, and—”
“We have time,” Simon said, interrupting her in a voice that was as smooth as silk yet sharp as a razor. It was a voice she knew better than to defy but it brought a smile to her lips anyway.
Folding her arms across her chest in a fair imitation of the man glowering down at her, Juliet relayed with brusque efficiency the details of incident involving the demise of the Argus and the attack on the Santo Domingo.
“We took advantage of the Spaniard’s distraction long enough to come up on her blind side, board her, and take command,” she said, finishing the tale in a silence so complete one would have thought the crew was hearing it for the first time.
“You boarded her?” Isabeau Dante’s amber eyes narrowed. “An armed Spanish galleon three times the size of the Iron Rose and you simply sallied forth and boarded her?”
“Hell no, Cap’n Beau,” came an anonymous voice from somewhere in the crowd. “We peppered her good, first. Swept the decks clear o’ all them tin-breasted wogs an’ grappled to her tighter ‘n a whore’s fist. Then the cap’n tells us “up an’ over” and up we goes an’ over to the last man. We’d do it again, too, if’n she asked us.”
A murmur of general assent rippled across the deck, but it only whitened the lines around Isabeau’s mouth. She was certainly no stranger to the risks of engaging any ship in battle—the empty sleeve that hung at her side was proof of that. She also knew her daughter all too well and could be fairly certain that whatever account Juliet or any of her loyal crew gave of the action, it wou
ld not be one tenth as terrifying and perilous as the reality had been.
Simon Dante was also searching the faces of the crew, stalling here and there when one of them was too slow to erase a cocky grin. He tipped his head and peered up at the masts, noting the fresh timbers that braced the broken foremast, the newly spliced lines of rigging, the repaired sheets of sail.
“We were also caught in a storm yesterday,” Juliet added. “We took some small damage there too.”
The crystalline blue eyes settled upon his daughter.
“You were aware, were you not,” he said slowly, “of the identity of the Santo Domingo before you decided to interfere? You knew her compliments and firepower? You knew that no one in full possession of their wits would consider challenging her on their own, regardless of how distracted the galleon was with a kill.”
Juliet’s reply was as calm as the steadiness of her gaze. “I took offense that the Argus had surrendered yet the Spaniard did not withdraw her guns. She was, in fact, preparing to hull the Englishman, to sink her and leave no witnesses behind.”
“And because of this indignation, you threw yourself, your crew, and your ship in the path of completely unwarranted peril?”
“No. I tried to imagine what you would have done in a similar situation.”
Simon Dante narrowed his eyes. A full count of ten passed before he responded. “Yes, but I am generally thought to be a madman and I had higher hopes for my children.”
“If that was the case, my love,” Isabeau muttered under her breath, “you need only look at Jonas and Gabriel to know how miserably you failed before Juliet ever set foot on a deck.”
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