Pirate Wolf Trilogy

by Canham, Marsha

  “It is so beautiful, yet so terrifying at the same time. I find myself looking at the many endless, boundless leagues of water and thinking we are so small, so insignificant. A few lengths of wood held together by nails and pitch, afloat by God’s grace, at the complete mercy of the wind and weather. Does it not frighten you, capitán, to know your life may be spent on such a whim? That a storm could strike or a leak could erupt and we would sink to the bottom without a trace?”

  “You worry yourself needlessly señorita. This ship is as sound as a fortress. And we will not be alone on the ocean sea. We will be in the company of a hundred other galleons, an armada that will stretch from one edge of the horizon to the other until we arrive safely home.”

  “Home.” She sighed wistfully. “Alas, I was so happy, so thrilled when Father told us we were coming to the New World. I was so thankful just to be free of the convent, I thought I would die of excitement before we ever reached Vera Cruz.” She paused and glanced at him sidelong. “Do you think that a shameful thing to say? That I was glad to be away from the prayer stools and the smell of incense?”

  “I see little shame in telling the truth.”

  She smiled and moved her hand an inch closer to his on the rail. “Then I shall shock you by saying it was nothing at all what I expected. The villa was magnificent and we wanted for nothing, but Papa would not let either Lucia or myself outside the gates. In two years, I was permitted to drive into the city of Vera Cruz only once, and then with so many guards in our escort, it was impossible to see through the wall of horses. Lucia was terrified the whole time of being waylaid and raped, and so Mama punished me for her fears.”

  “Then that is a true shame, for Vera Cruz is an elegant, beautiful city.”

  “Yes, I know.” She sent another smile, another sly glance in his direction. “I said Papa only permitted us to leave the villa once. I did not say I only left it the one time. The gardener’s son was very much in love with me and took me often through the rear gates. He showed me things that would keep Mama in a swoon for a month if she knew.”

  Recalde returned the smile. “If she knew you were up here on deck with me now, without your duenna, she would do much more than swoon.”

  “Would she indeed? Are you a dangerous man, capitán? Have you a reputation for taking advantage of unchaperoned virgins?”

  The girl was flirting with him. She was pretty enough to make the game interesting, but she was also spoiled and rebellious and obviously thought of herself an exotically daring vixen to have snuck outside the villa walls with the gardener’s son.

  “I can assure you, señorita, your reputation is perfectly safe with me.”

  She pursed her lips and feigned a moue of disappointment. “And here I was hoping you were different from the others.”

  “Different? How so?”

  “The other officers, they look at me like I am the governor’s daughter. They prance and simper and speak of nothing but the weather. Whereas you, capitán, look at me as if you could see beneath my bodice, and if provoked, would rip it open and take what you wanted without troubling to ask.”

  “And if I did? What would you do?”

  “I might scream.” She moved closer and traced a fingertip along one of the prominent veins on the back of his hand. “Or I might tell you that I have not been a virgin for a very long time and that I would give you what you want more than willingly.” She looked up into his face, her own arranged in an expression the gardener’s boy must have found seductive. “Do you know where my cabin is, capitán?”

  “I know.”

  “My duenna snores like trumpet blasts and I have never been able to tolerate her in the same room with me at night. If you were to scratch on my door later, you would find me quite alone.”

  Recalde’s gaze flicked briefly into the shadows and he smiled. “If I were to scratch on your father’s door right now and tell him of our conversation, I’m sure you would not be alone much longer.”

  The girl stiffened. She withdrew her hand from his, curling the fingers into a fist that trembled with the childish urge to reach up and scratch the arrogant face to ribbons. With a swirl of wide skirts, she was gone, her anger and humiliation making her run back along the deck.

  Almost before the sound of her footsteps had faded, another figure detached itself from a niche in the bulkhead behind them, her dark eyes blazing with anger.

  “So. You would have my little sister kneeling at your feet as well, señor?”

  “I did not ask for her company. She followed me out here on her own initiative.”

  “Really.” Lucia’s eyes narrowed. “Had I not been standing here, would you still have sent her away?”

  Recalde smiled and took several measured steps toward her, crowding her back into the darkness of the niche. He resumed where they had left off before the interruption, scooping her breasts free of her bodice and hiking her skirts above her waist. As she had the three previous nights when they had ‘accidentally’ met on deck, she welcomed him with a grasping eagerness, whimpering when he impaled her on his flesh and rammed her repeatedly into the hard planking. In a trice her flirtatious whimpers turned into voracious snuffles of pleasure and he was forced to clamp a hand over her mouth, wary of the watchmen posted on the deck overhead.

  His own release was swift, accomplished with a piquant savagery by imagining it was Juliet Dante clutching at him in fear, oozing his revenge from every orifice of her body. When he finished, he simply pushed himself away, leaving the girl quivering where she stood against the bulkhead.

  “Por Dios,” she whispered, her skirts sliding slowly down to cover her bare legs. “My little sister would be dead if you did such a thing to her. I myself wonder if I can survive six weeks at sea. con la piedad de Dios,” she laughed softly. “I wonder if I can even walk back to my cabin.”

  Recalde started to tuck himself back into his breeches. “If you are displeased, I’m sure there are others on board who would be happy to show you more deference, señorita.”

  “You jest, capitán.” She smiled and gingerly tucked back into her bodice breasts that had been suckled and bitten red. “The oaf I go home to marry is fat and balding—much like your capitán Aquayo—and the thought of even letting him touch me is sickening. He is rich and has the king’s ear, and so I must marry him but you, my handsome capitán, you will give me the memories I need to see me through the horror.”

  “I am flattered to have won your consideration,” he murmured dryly.

  “Oh yes, you have won it,” she agreed, reaching out to stop him before he had fastened his breeches all the way. “As you shall win it every day and night for however long it takes to cross this vast ocean-sea. Not only that, but I shall see that you crave me just as much as I crave you so that when we return to Seville you will not easily forget me.”

  Recalde had more than half forgotten her already. He was staring out over the rail, his gaze fixed a point far out where the sea met the sky. He narrowed his eyes and backtracked to search the blackness more carefully. There was nothing visible to the naked eye, yet for a moment he thought he had seen something. Even then, it was not so much that he had seen something, it was more like he had sensed something, had felt a presence lurking out there, crouched low on the eastern horizon.

  His hand fell instinctively to his waist, but he was dressed for formal dining and the belt he normally wore that housed his brass eye scope was back in his cabin. It was probably nothing. There were a dozen pataches patrolling the approaches to the harbor, not to mention lookouts on every high point of the coastline. Only a madman would sail this close to Havana the eve before the armada was due to sail.

  He gasped and looked down, jerked back to the present by the feel of an angry hand insinuating itself beneath his clothes and clutching around his flesh. He was about to swat it away, swat her away when a startled grunt marked the realization that it was not her hand at all that was demanding his full attention.

  ~~

 
; Gabriel Dante lowered his spyglass. The wide stretch of coastline a league away showed few lights on either side of the dazzling expanse of bright glitter that identified the port of Havana. He and Jonas had not been able to bring their ships too close during daylight hours, but with the rain and heavy ceiling of cloud shielding them, they had thought to take advantage of the opportunity before breaking north.

  Both ships ran dark. No fires, no lights, not even a pipe was allowed. The smallest pinprick of red could carry for miles on such a humid, heavy night. They had even gone so far as to change their regular canvas sheets to those stained with indigo dye, a practise that had successfully allowed them to get within five hundred yards of an enemy in the past. Tonight even Jonas was exercising caution, for there were pataches and pinnaces patrolling back and forth along the straits and approaches, some of them running just as dark as they were and equally difficult to see.

  They had both been astounded to see the crowded conditions in port, and they had not needed to see the larger warships maneuvering toward the mouth of the harbor to know that the flota would begin making the massive exodus any day now. Having noted this significant repositioning of the warships, Jonas was taking the Tribute in as close as he dared to see if he could get a count of exactly how many of the heavily armed galleons would leave with the first flush. After that, it would be time to lay on canvas and beetle back to the cays with all haste.

  Gabriel rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. He raised the glass and took another sweep of the shoreline, but the four pataches he had already identified were presenting obvious silhouettes against the lights of the harbor, and were not giving the hairs on his neck a reason to stand on end. As a precaution, he walked to the larboard side and swept the horizon behind them. He did not see anything on the first sweep, not even on the second. But on the third he picked up a pale silhouette cutting swiftly in from the west and heading straight for the Tribute. It was another ship, larger than a patache, with at least three masts and high towers fore and aft.

  A galleon. Running dark.

  Gabriel aimed the glass at the Tribute. Knowing his brother was watching his back, Jonas would likely have most of the sharpest eyes on board searching forward. As if that fear needed confirmation, Gabriel saw no visible change in speed or direction from his brother’s ship. He was moving necessarily slow, with only his indigo topgallant and topsail mounted on the foremast, steerage tops on the main and mizzen. He would have to shake out the sails on all three masts soon if he wanted to build up enough speed to maneuver away from the galleon before the Spaniard drew within effective range of his guns.

  “Fuck me,” Gabriel muttered aloud.

  “Might not have to,” his helmsman said dryly. “Pleasure might be all theirs,” he added, pointing to two more ghostly spectres closing fast on their own flank.

  Gabriel swung his glass around and sure enough, the Tribute was not the only vessel in trouble. A pair of bloodhounds, coming from seeming thin air, had taken the scent of the Valor. They must have found him the same way he had found the pataches, by pinpointing his silhouette against the bright lights of the harbor. It was a stupid, careless, and potentially dangerous error in judgement to have come in so close, and they would be lucky to find the speed to outrun them before all hell broke loose.

  “All hands up top,” he ordered calmly. “Open the ports and clear the decks for action. On my signal... ” He stopped and glanced swiftly at the Tribute, still apparently oblivious to the danger looming in the darkness. Jonas wouldn’t be able to see any signal shy of a gunshot or a flare, and if they were going to do that... .

  “As soon as they’re primed I want the gunners to fire a full broadside.”

  “A broadside, sir? But we’re still well out of range and won’t accomplish more than letting them know we’re not wogs.”

  “I suspect they know that already. But if you can think of a better way to get my brother’s attention, I am all ears.”

  The helmsman grinned. “Aye sir. Full broadside it is.”

  “Oh, and Riley... since we’re not doing more than spitting in the pond, load the guns with double charges of powder. Might as well give the bastards an impressive show of fireworks while we’re at it.”

  Recalde groaned. Marisol was abusing him with the same degree of determined savagery he had displayed earlier, and he was not only seeing stars, he was seeing lights explode across his vision. Moments later, he saw more lights, but by now the muffled volley of thunder from the first explosions had rolled over the harbor and Recalde knew it had nothing to do with Marisol’s skills with her mouth.

  “Jesu cristo!” He twisted his fingers in her hair and jerked her head away from his groin, all but kicking her aside in his haste to run to the rail. Far out in the soupy darkness of the night, a ship was firing its cannon, the concussions reflecting orange and gold across the water and in the hovering thickness of the air.

  There were running footsteps above and below him as other members of the Contadora’s crew were drawn by the exchange, likely the same reaction as on board every galleon in Havana harbor. Fingers pointed and stabbed the air excitedly as a second ship opened fire, then a third... then a fourth! There were two smaller silhouettes in front—one of them shockingly close to the harbor—and three much larger ones behind. The two smaller vessels were being driven toward land, but as they piled on sail, their speed increased and they were able to peel away, one to the east, one to the west.

  The one to the west found open water, but the one heading east was met by the patrolling pataches, bristling with ten guns apiece. As the pataches drew within range and opened fire, the vessel had to veer yet again to avoid sailing into range, but by then the galleons had used their forward speed to good advantage and were emptying their batteries as fast as the crews could load and fire.

  Recalde was transfixed by the scene unfolding less than a league away, as was every other man on board. His hands gripped the rail as if to crush it, for he could tell by the silhouette that the trapped vessel was an English privateer.

  “Use your chain shot,” he urged, willing his command to carry across the distance. “Take down her sails. Close in tight, by God, and you’ll have her!”

  Like a fascinating dance executed in excruciatingly slow measures, the privateer backed his sails hoping to elude the converging pataches and outrun them to the open sea, but instead, he ran straight into the guns of the two closing galleons. All five ships were spitting orange flames, some of the shots striking their targets, some throwing up tall spouts of white water on the sea. The echoes of the shots did not take quite so long to reach the harbor now, but the ships were engulfed in clouds of white smoke that hung in the air like a blanket and drifted toward shore, cloaking the action from view.

  The last clear glimpse Recalde had, the privateer was struggling. Her sails had been holed by shot and some hung in tatters. There was a fire on the upper deck, almost indistinguishable from the constant blasts of the guns on both decks and when she moved out of sight behind a low promontory of land, she left a wide streamer of smoke boiling out behind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It had taken twelve back-breaking days to remove the guns from the Santo Domingo and mount them in batteries onshore. Frenchman’s Cay had a natural embankment that sat like a shelf along the length of the beach, but the earthworks on Spaniard’s Cay had to be laboriously trenched and built. There were few complaints aside from aching muscles, however. Food was plentiful and the days, stretching into September, were neither as hot or as humid as they might have been a month earlier. Morning came with the ringing of a ship’s bell and the men would work until well after dark before crawling into the hammocks they’d strung among the trees. Canvas tents were erected along both beaches but most of the men preferred to sleep under the stars.

  Juliet worked alongside her crew. The culverins each weighed between four and five thousand pounds, fired shots that weighed thirty-two pounds apiece and required a powder charge of ei
ghteen pounds each time they were primed, all of which had to be transferred from the galleon to the tents erected on shore. What Juliet lacked in brute strength she made up for by supervising the reassembly of each gun carriage on shore. The brass barrels had to be bolted to the trunions, then the sights adjusted by driving in a quoin for the proper elevation. When the last monster was winched overboard, rowed to one of the beaches, and hauled to its final resting place, she ordered Crisp to sail the Iron Rose through the channel so that each gun could be aimed to achieve maximum damage when fired.

  Four types of shot were stacked in makeshift magazines built behind the treeline. Ball shot was effective for holing the decks and hulls. Chain shot, consisting of two cast iron balls attached by a length of chain, would wrap around spars or yards and reduce them to splinters. Grape shot was used mainly for keeping an enemy under cover. Dozens of small round balls were packed into the throat of the cannon and when fired, would spray across a deck in wide fan, killing or maiming anyone exposed. The fourth and last type of shot was sangrenel, a cloth bag filled with jagged scraps of metal. The bag disintegrated when the powder ignited and the razor sharp bits of iron sheared through flesh and bone like hot knives through lard.

  Varian St. Clare worked, stripped to the waist, alongside the other members of the crew. Spending long days in the sun, his skin started to turn a deep bronze, making his smile appear wider and whiter than before. Muscles that had not been soft to begin with hardened to oak and laughter that had not seemed to come easily before, had the men around him grinning, especially when he was laughing at his own inability to do things that came second nature to seamen. As good as he was with a sword, he was all thumbs when it came to wielding a glaive or a black bill, both weapons that were used for fighting in close quarters when there was no room for fancy footwork or orderly quadrants. When instructed on the use of a boarding pike, he managed to somehow hook his own breeches and fling himself through the open gangway. And when he climbed the rigging one day, he shouted at Juliet to show her how well he had done, only to twist his foot around a ratline and dangle upside down in a shroud until someone could go up and rescue him.