Heart's Ransom

by Sara Reinke

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Rafe dreamed that he was home in Santa Ponca. Not the sprawling hacienda nestled against a landscaped hillside overlooking the sea that had his father had eventually purchased with the money he had earned from privateering, but the small, three-roomed cottage in which he had been born.

  He and Cristobal had shared one cramped bedroom between them, each with their own, straw-filled mattresses set against the floor. After Cristobal’s injury, however, and when Lucio had come from Madrid to tend to him, Rafe had been made to sleep in his father’s room, while Evarado had kept a pained and near-constant vigil at Cristobal’s side.

  The dream was a memory; one in which Rafe stirred from sleep at the sound of voices coming from the adjacent room as his father and Lucio shared cups of wine by the fire. It was the tone of their conversation more so than the words that had drawn Rafe from his restless slumber. They had been negotiating; Lucio speaking in low, almost gentle tones, and Evarado responding more sharply.

  Lucio was trying to tell Father he did not need to worry for payment, Rafe recalled. He remembered rising to his feet and shuffling sleepily toward the doorway, curious and somewhat frightened by his father’s tone. Lucio was leaving that very next morning to return to Spain. The worst with Cristobal was behind us, he said, and he needed to get back to Madrid.

  He heard the jangle of coins as he stood, shied in the doorway of his father’s room, his eyes round and glistening with reflected firelight as he watched Lucio close his hands against Evarado’s, pushing them back. His father held a coin purse; he had tried to offer the money to Lucio.

  Rafe remembered that Claudio had been there, too, the three men sitting in a comfortable circumference, all with their backs to him as they’d faced the stone hearth.

  “You keep your coins,” Lucio said to Evarado. “Give them to your crewmen, their families. They are the ones in need of it, not me.”

  This had apparently been the culmination of a lengthy debate, because Evarado―a man not renowned for surrendering readily or easily―sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh, his shoulders hunching in defeat.

  “Let me take the boy, Evarado,” Lucio said gently, patting his hand against the other man’s leg. “He is of no use to you now, and he will only bring more trouble for you later.”

  Rafe hedged back even further in the doorway, his eyes widening. He had no formal education, but it did not take a scholar to realize the physician was speaking of him. Because I am the one who caused all of this trouble. It is my fault. He is right―I am of no use to Father now.

  “He will learn from me,” Lucio said. “I will care for him as my own.”

  At this, the older man had glanced in Rafe’s direction and spied him in the doorway. His expression shifted from the softened care he had awarded to Evarado to something more stern. Evarado and Claudio both followed his gaze, and Rafe hunched his shoulders, dropping his eyes toward the floor at his father’s visible disapproval.

  “Rafe,” Evarado said sharply. “Come here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rafe replied quietly, reluctantly drawing away from the shelter of the shadow-draped doorway and approaching the three men.

  Evarado caught him by the crook of his arm when he tried to stay somewhat behind his chair. He pulled Rafe forward in stumbling tow, as if presenting him to Lucio. “He is a strong boy,” he said.

  “Evarado…” Lucio began.

  Rafe looked to Claudio for some hope of rescue. Claudio looked stricken, but remained mute.

  “He can be lazy,” Evarado said sharply, making Rafe lower his eyes in shame. “But it is nothing a firm hand and some steady discipline will not fix. I have let him get by with too much, I know, but it is hard when I am out at sea.”

  I am sorry, Papa! Rafe wanted to cry. He wanted to crumple to his knees and press himself against his father’s legs, pleading for his forgiveness, begging for Evarado to love him again. Please don’t send me away! I will be better, Papa! I will be good! Please, I am sorry!

  Lucio said nothing, and Evarado turned Rafe smartly about. “Lift your eyes,” he said, and Rafe obeyed. He was blinking against the sting of tears, and it didn’t escape his father’s notice. Evarado turned his own face away, his brows knit, his lips pressed together in a thin, grim line.

  “You will be leaving in the morrow,” he said without looking at Rafe. “Pack one bag, and no more. You will be sailing for the mainland, for Madrid, with Señor Guevarra Silva.”

  Later that night, after Lucio and Claudio had left the house, Rafe lay against his bedding and listened to his father weeping. Evarado had gone to sit at Cristobal’s bedside, as was his habit, and Rafe could look through the doorway and see his shadow against the wall. He watched his father clap his hands over his face, his shoulders shuddering, his back bowed with the weight of terrible, overwhelming grief as he wept.

  I am sorry, Papa, Rafe thought, closing his eyes, his own tears spilling as he trembled beneath his blankets. I am sorry I hurt Cristobal. I will be better, Papa. I will be good. Please do not…

  “I am sorry, Papa,” Rafe murmured aloud, opening his eyes. He was dazed, nearly delirious, and did not realize that he was no longer in the small house in Santa Ponca, that he was no longer the frightened boy listening to his heartsick father weep. “I…I will be better. I will be good…please…please do not make me go…”

  “Hush now, hijo,” he heard Claudio say gently. He felt Claudio’s hand drape against his brow, comforting and soothing.

  He must not have left after all, Rafe thought, dimly. He must still be sitting by the fire.

  “I did not mean it,” he whispered, his eyelids fluttering closed, his mind fading again. “Please, Claudio…I…I did not mean to make Papa weep…”

  When he woke again, it was with a start. His eyes flew wide and he gasped as he sat up in bed. “Kitty―!”

  He looked around, momentarily disoriented. He forked his fingers through his hair, shoving it back from his face. He was in alone the captain’s quarters of El Verdad. Beyond the stern windows to his left, it was dark, and the room was lit with the soft, faint glow of two oil lamps. He could feel the ship in motion beneath him, rocking gently on her keel, and he could hear the churning trough of the wake below the windows.

  Rafe shoved the blankets aside and swung his legs around, sitting up slowly. He winced at the effort, as a deep, visceral ache tightened through his midriff. He sat against the bedside, listening to the faint jangle as the empty cuff drooped from the mattress and fell, spared from hitting the floor by the eight links of chain holding it fast to his wrist. He drew up the hem of his clean linen shirt, and grimaced at the bands of dark, angry bruising that marred his belly. He remembered now; Cristobal had taken Kitty. He had kicked Rafe repeatedly, driving his boot with brutal force into Rafe’s belly and groin.

  Isabel had poisoned him, and he had tried to save himself, employing the only rescue he could think of. He had forced himself to vomit and had hoped it would prove enough to see him past the worst of the toxin’s effects. It would seem to have worked, Rafe thought as he rose slowly, unsteadily to his feet.

  He limped toward the chamber door and opened it. He shied back in surprise to find a woman in the corridor, a stack of neatly folded linens in one hand and the other outstretched, ready to open his door. She yelped, sharing in his start, and the linens fell as she recoiled in wide-eyed fright.

  “I am sorry,” Rafe said, his voice cracked and hoarse. While the woman forked the sign of the cross at herself and muttered some rapid, nearly inarticulate prayer to the Blessed Virgin to spare her any further such fright, Rafe bent over to pick up the fallen linens. It proved a grievous error in judgment. The movement left his head spinning, and he groaned, stumbling sideways into the wall.

  “What are you doing out of bed, Captain?” the woman asked, reaching for him.

  Captain. Rafe leaned heavily against the doorframe, feeling as weak as a newborn kitten, as if all of the merits promised by his lean, muscular frame w
ere no more than illusions. I am no captain. I cannot even bloody keep my feet beneath me.

  He blinked at the woman, and recognized her face. He drew back in new surprise, his head swimming, his vision growing murky. “Maria…?” he gasped to Isabel’s housekeeper.

  He groaned, his knees buckling. He nearly collapsed upon the threshold, but felt a strong arm clamp firmly about his middle, helping to support him. He glanced to his right and found Claudio beside him; the boatswain had been just behind Maria in the companionway corridor, and now he helped to draw Rafe to his feet.

  “You should not be up yet, Rafe,” Claudio said, leading Rafe in staggering tow for the bed.

  “What…what is she doing here?” Rafe asked, craning his head, trying to see Maria behind them.

  “She is with me,” Claudio said, and Rafe blinked at him in bewildered surprise. “It is a long story.”

  “Where are we?” Rafe asked.

  “Almost a full day out to sea,” Claudio replied. “We are marking a course along shore, heading south-southwest past Porto toward the fortieth parallel.”

  Rafe blinked at him again; had he been at his mental best, and not the dazed, bewildered stare he currently suffered, he still would have been confused by Claudio’s answer.

  “Portugal,” Claudio said by means of translation. “We have reached Portugal, Rafe, and we are following the coast. We are a day out from Lisbon.” His expression grew grim. “There is no sign of La Venganza yet, but we are running slow because of our bowsprit. There was not time to see her properly refitted back in La Coruna. And Cristobal will likely gain a bigger lead on us overnight, too.”

  “Why?” Rafe asked. The room seemed darker to him now, he realized, and the shadows seemed to be closing in with every step he took.

  “Because around the fortieth parallel, we may start hitting heavy fog banks,” Claudio replied. “The warm waters from the Mediterannean coming up from the Gibraltar Strait mix with the colder Atlantic. Makes for bad weather. We will have to brail up some canvas and run more slowly, especially if we keep in with the land.”

  Rafe shook his head, the movement leaving him suddenly dizzy. He stumbled to a halt, leaning against Claudio, pressing his hand against his brow. “We…we cannot,” he said, his voice strained. “Cristobal will not slow down…”

  “Cristobal has probably tacked further west, out to sea, to avoid any fog,” Claudio said.

  “Then should we not do the same?” Rafe murmured.

  “We cannot, Rafe―not with our bowsprit as weak as she is,” Claudio said firmly. “If she snaps, we could lose the foremast, too, and we want to be as close to land as we can get in case we are crippled.”

  The room was spinning. Rafe’s knees folded and he groaned, collapsing to the floor. As Claudio cried out his name and clutched at him, struggling to support his dead weight, it occurred to Rafe’s fading mind:

  You should be the captain, Claudio, not me…