The Marauder (Pirates of Britannia Book 11)

by Anna Markland

  “Then they will be sorely disappointed if they test me,” he said. “While Con is in France with Lady le Brecque enjoying his wedding trip, I am in command of his Legion and anyone who challenges that command will be met with a firm and deadly hand. They would be foolish to try.”

  He said it in a tone that left no room for doubt, and Remy grinned as he listened to the boast. But it wasn’t so much of a boast as it was the truth. As Constantine’s First Mate, Lucifer had always been one to follow his leader without question, commanding when it was necessary, and conveying the impression that one did not contest his ways and live to tell the tale. But with the event of Constantine putting him in command of Poseidon’s Legion, and his empire, while he was away, Lucifer’s stoic and ominous manner had taken on dimension. Now, he had the full feel of a captain behind him, which made the man that much more terrifying.

  Remy had no intention of crossing him.

  “Aye, my lord,” he said. “Now that we are heading back to Perran Castle with the Spanish at our backs, what will your first order of business be?”

  Lucifer glanced at him. “It will be the same as it was when we left Eynon Bay,” he said. “We are heading home with a hold full of fine goods that we took from the merchant vessel foolish enough to drop anchor where they should not have. Once there, we will offload it, pay the men what they are due for the haul, and then I must deal with a few issues that have been left to my care in the wake of Con’s departure.”

  “Like what?”

  “Several, but the first ones that comes to mind are those two heiresses that we have imprisoned at Perran. I told Con that I would deal with them.”

  Remy knew who he was speaking of. Last month, they’d intercepted a heavily-laden merchant vessel crossing from Ireland to the port of Plymouth. It has been a very rich vessel and they’d taken a huge haul from it, including the two daughters of the merchant who owned the ship. The women had been taken back to Perran and imprisoned, at Constantine’s orders, until it was decided what to do with them.

  Ransoming them back to their father was one thing, or they could very well be auctioned off to pirates willing to pay their price. Constantine had been busy with his marriage, so the duty of deciding their fate had fallen to Lucifer, and Lucifer had been putting it off for weeks. They didn’t normally take female prisoners for any length of time, so Lucifer didn’t want to put it off too much longer. He needed to make a decision and get on with it. He had more important things to worry about than two disruptive females.

  “I’d nearly forgotten about them,” Remy said. “As I recall, they were both rather pretty. What do you intend to do with them?”

  Lucifer watched a gull fly overhead, disappearing into the fog. “Something,” he muttered, turning away from the railing. “Anything. With Con away, I have enough to worry over without having to deal with a pair of she-cats. Mayhap, I shall auction them off and keep the money for myself.”

  “Oh?” Remy was interested. He had an eye for pretty women, and they for him. “How much will you ask for the pair?”

  Lucifer pushed himself off the rail and began to head towards the bow. “I have not yet decided,” he said as he walked away. “But for you, the price is doubled, whatever it is.”

  Remy smirked. “As I recall, the elder one was quite the spitfire,” he called after Lucifer. “You may have to pay me to take her off your hands if no one else wants her.”

  Lucifer simply waved him off, knowing that would never be the case. The elder daughter – he’d forgotten her name – was, indeed, a spitfire. But she was also quite fine, as he recalled. She would bring a fine price should he decide to sell her, and perhaps an even finer price should he ransom her back to her father. Either way, she was his responsibility and he was going to make it worth his while.

  As Lucifer departed for the bow, and Remy and Felix went about their business, Curtiz remained at the stern. He had been listening to the conversation quite carefully. He knew of the female captives because he’d been at Perran Castle when the ship bearing the women had come ashore. And he had been the one to settle the women in their new prison home.

  Curtiz had been their jailor for the most part, at least in those first few early days. And as their jailor, he’d observed much. Mostly, he’d observed that no one seemed to be paying much attention to the women in the wake of Constantine’s marriage. Being that the women were being ignored, and that they were a valuable commodity, Curtiz did what pirates do – made the most of an opportunity, even if it was under the nose of his leader.

  And that was why the Spanish were here.

  Only, he wasn’t going to tell Lucifer any of that. He would pretend he had no idea why the Spanish had come. But the truth was that the Spanish had come to Perran Castle on his invitation to take on the daughters of a wealthy merchant so they could negotiate with the women’s father. Even if the Spanish pirates didn’t return the women to their desperate father, the women were both quite beautiful and would make fine concubines for the Spanish pirates.

  But it was all for a price… and Curtiz was demanding a high price, one that the Spanish were willing to pay. After the loss of the Leucosia, they saw it as a great opportunity to take something from Constantine le Brecque, something of value, and Curtiz was more than willing to be the intermediary for the transfer.

  The truth was that he didn’t have any real loyalty to Constantine or Poseidon’s Legion. He’d been bouncing around since his service to de Nerra and his only purpose in life was to make money, so the opportunity with the two female captives had been too good to pass up. They would be gone before Lucifer or Constantine realized they had been taken and, God willing, so would Curtiz. He planned to take the money from the Spanish and run.

  But meanwhile, he would play the loyal pirate, at least for as long as it suited him. He was a good warrior, an even better sailor, and those skills had been impressed upon Constantine and his crew. He pretended to think as they did and, so far, the ruse had worked.

  But he was in this only for himself, as he would soon prove.

  Unfortunately, Lucifer was ignorant of the thoughts of a man he was slowly learning to trust. At the moment, he was more concerned with the Melinoe making port before the Spanish figured out they had escaped. The fog had begun to lift and the ship was making excellent time, drawing closer to Perran Castle along the western coast of Cornwall. In fact, the fogbank remained to the south as they passed out of it, leaving the Spanish buried in the mist and still out to sea.

  With fair skies ahead and the wind at their back, the Melinoe glided gently into Perranporth Cove beneath the enormous citadel of Perran Castle, and the anchor was thrown into the soft, white sand bottom. Then, and only then, did Lucifer breathe a sigh of relief, for his ship had come home safely and the booty they’d collected from an ill-placed merchant vessel near the coast of Ireland was quickly offloaded and taken up to the great vaults of the castle.

  Lucifer was the last man to leave the ship, heading up to the castle as carpenters began to comb over the Melinoe to repair what damage there was from the Spanish cannonballs. It was barely mid-morning, but Lucifer was already thinking about a good meal and a soft bed. He’d been at sea with his men for nearly eight days, so he was anxious to see what had gone on in his absence and administer Constantine’s empire as best he could. But he was seriously thinking that all of that could wait until he’d been fed and rested.

  Except for the women captives. His conversation with Remy had brought them to light again, something he’d put aside for so long that thinking of them again brought instant distaste. Damnation, he’d already put them off long enough, and something was nagging at him to see to the women before he took care of his own needs. Given that there was some guilt with the way the women had been caged up for so long, he didn’t want to put it off any longer. He needed to get it over with, and the women had to know they hadn’t been forgotten and that their fates would soon be determined.

  In hindsight, his choice to visit
the captives that day would be a decision that changed his life.

  Read the rest of SEA WOLFE by Kathryn Le Veque

  Excerpt from THE RAVISHING REES

  by Rosamund Winchester

  Enjoy this except from Rosamund Winchester’s Pirates of Britannia world novel…

  Chapter One

  The Cantankerous Cock

  Dockside in Cobh, Ireland

  1443 A.D.

  “That bastard Berks better not have been lying,” Bruce “the Braw” Bolton grumbled into his fifth mug of ale.

  Robbie tapped his finger against the rim of his first mug, the amber brew still more than half way up the glass. He didn’t like letting the drink dull his senses, especially not when there was business to complete. And cutthroats eying his purse.

  “I trust Mortimer and Scofield,” Robbie intoned, his gaze pinned to the door across the crowded dockside pub. It was filled to the brim with smelly sailors, buxom wenches, and men who looked like they’d rather kill you than share the air with you. But that didn’t bother Robbie. He was right at home among them. “If they say I can trust Berks, I will trust him. Besides,” he said, rolling his shoulders, “I can think of no one else who can get their hands on the information we need.”

  Bruce snorted, then gulped the last of his ale, before wiping the froth from his face with the back of an already soiled sleeve. “What’s this letter you said you found? And what’s it got to do with Ireland? Couldn’t we have asked around in Liverpool?” Bruce’s voice was edging on the whiny, but Robbie knew better than to assume Bruce was complaining. The man would sit through a hail of musket balls without flinching. No…this wasn’t him complaining, this was him forgetting he’d already asked all those questions; at their hideout in Leeds, at the dock in Liverpool, on their ship crossing the Irish Sea, and not more than thirty minutes ago when they’d first set foot in the teeming pub.

  “I have already answered all those questions, Bruce. And if you call that wench over one more time, I will slit your throat so you can’t swallow another drop.” His voice was hard, without inflection. It was the voice he used when robbing the well-appointed carriages of nobles. Nobles with more money than purpose; men and women who cared more for their baubles than their people. And so, he relieved them of their baubles and purses so they could better recognize the plight of the less fortunate.

  At least that’s what he told himself when he was lying in a bed of gold coins, tupping a comely maid.

  Bruce belched, making Robbie cringe. “Oh, aye, you said the letter mentioned someone of interest—and do not think I wouldn’t kill you before you had the chance to ruin my throat.” Bruce’s sneer was about as menacing as a puppy with a twig.

  Choosing to ignore Bruce’s pathetic threat, Robbie drawled, “And that someone is why we took the ship from Liverpool and are now sitting in this hell-hole by the sea—I really wish you’d stop licking your mug, Bruce.” Suddenly, the image of Bruce as that same puppy with a mug in his maw surfaced in Robbie’s mind. He swallowed the chuckle that emerged.

  “Are you going to finish yours?” Bruce asked, his unfocused eyes gleaming at the mug in Robbie’s grip.

  “No. And neither are you. What good are you to me if you can’t hold a sword—bastard.”

  Bruce shrugged, sniffing. For a man of Bruce’s size—a head taller than most men, and wider than most doorways—he was about as hard as pudding. Until you threatened one of his mates; then, you’d see the true strength of The Braw Bolton. A strength like that came in handy when robbing carriages along the foot of the Pennines in the River Aire valley.

  It was one such carriage, containing a ruddy-faced chinless earl, that had changed the course of Robbie’s life. He’d spotted the carriage through his spyglass from two hillocks away. The road was one less travelled by most nobles because of the rise in highwaymen—so Robbie knew that whoever was in that carriage had to have been desperate to get to wherever they were going. And desperate men usually carried something worth being desperate over. Though the driver had been armed with a hand cannon, Robbie had planned and pulled off many robberies along that road and so he knew just when to strike—as the carriage came around a bend in the road, just around a large boulder. The driver didn’t know what hit him until he landed on his back with Bruce atop him, his knife to the driver’s throat.

  Robbie lost no time in opening the carriage door and leveling his sabre-point at the man inside. A beady-eyed man with a chest bedecked with gold medallions and pendants, his be-ringed hand clutching a long, narrow jeweled box. It only took a sneer and a threat of emasculation to get the spineless man to give over all his valuables—and the box he seemed unwilling to relinquish. Until the tip of Robbie’s dagger was pressed against his groin.

  He thought little of the box until he and Bruce had reached their hideout, which was five miles southwest. But once they reached the safety of their cottage in the woods, Robbie opened the box to find the letter inside it, sealed in red wax with the insignia of a bear.

  Shrugging, curious, he broke the seal and read the letter. He could still remember every word.

  To His Grace the Duke of Revel,

  His majesty, King Henry VI, requests your immediate action regarding the matter of Saban Rees, known as Sabre. You are hereby ordered to commission twelve men of exceptional skill to aid in your search and capture of the smuggler and anyone else connected to the dastardly criminals of the so called Ganwyd o’r Mor. Any of the men who are able to find information pertaining to Rees’s whereabouts or are able to capture him or one of his family will be rewarded with ten pounds of silver.

  Once you have secured the twelve men, send a missive to Captain Marcus Gyland of the Waverunner in Liverpool. He will transport you to Cobh, Ireland where you will begin your mission.

  Grace be to God,

  Sir Aryn Marshall, Secretary of His Majesty’s Council of the Royal Navy

  That name…Rees… It had been the name of the man his father had died cursing. Robbie didn’t understand why that name had stuck with him for so many years—perhaps it was the delirious ramblings of his father as he wasted away—but there was a feeling, a pulling, that caused Robbie to take notice.

  “Saban Rees…” Robbie let the name slip from his lips, like an exhalation long in coming.

  “Careful,” a gritty voice said from behind him. “Yer likely ta get yerself killed sayin’ that name in a place like this.”

  His hand flying to the dagger at his belt, Robbie twisted on his stool to find a reedy man staring down at him. With one eye.

  “Berks,” Bruce hissed. “Thought you were long gone.”

  The man rolled his one eye and snorted. “Och, aye, I should be long gone. The information ye asked for was about as hard ta get as a nun’s virginity. And it didna come cheap.”

  Robbie watched as the long-time smuggler and supplier of stolen goods plopped down on the stool beside him, the linen wrapped around his missing eye slightly askew. Red, wicked looking flesh shown from beneath the fabric before Berks righted it. Robbie wondered what had happened to Berks’s eye, but one man didn’t ask another man about such things. Unless they were drunk. Which they were not.

  “Lass!” Berks bellowed. “Ale!” The wench in the barely tied together bodice and rucked up skirt smiled at him, showing a row of brown teeth. Robbie cringed but said nothing, waiting for Berks to get his drink and take the first gulp. Berks slapped the wench’s arse and she giggled before turning and sauntering over to another thirsty-looking man.

  “What information do you have, Berks?” Robbie asked, eyeing Berks warily. He did trust the man but could he trust that the information he’d bought was good? Robbie and Bruce could very well end up sailing right into a trap; the Irish Sea was rife with Scottish pirates, and Welsh smugglers, and all manner of seafaring criminals—not that he could blame them. Stealing was much more lucrative than tilling the soil or tanning a deer hide. He should know—his own father had died a wasted man, a chivalric knight turned crip
pled tanner. He’d died a broken man—in body and spirit, whatever the falling boulder hadn’t crushed, his loss of confidence had.

  Berks finished his ale with Bruce looking on lasciviously, then smacked his lips and answered, “No’ here. We can talk upstairs. Ye have a room?”

  Robbie nodded, rising to his feet. He stood a head taller than most men and so it was easy to see every face in the pub. No one seemed all that interested in him or his companions, which was good. He’d hate to kill anyone tonight.

  Bruce wobbled as he stood and Robbie sneered at him, disgusted that the man would allow himself such weakness, especially when he needed to be at his best. They were among potential enemies; letting their guard down could spell disaster—for their plan and for their mortality.

  Robbie led the way to the room he’d procured for the night. He hadn’t been sure if Berks would come through with the information; he had been prepared to wait. He’d already waited months to get to Ireland, and years before that, waiting for God’s mercy as his father lost his mind and his mother lost her will to go on. They were both gone now…and so he no longer waited for God to do anything—he’d do for himself. And if that meant travelling into pirate-infested waters to find the truth of his heritage, then so be it.

  Bruce shut the door behind them as they crowded into the tiny room with the single cot and the grimy window.

  “Speak,” Robbie said, crossing his arms over his chest to keep from throttling Bruce who’d barely made it up the stairs without falling on his goddamn face.

  Berks took a deep breath, his one-eyed gaze flitting about the room as if looking for enemies hiding in the shadows. After finding no one lurking about, he finally spoke. “Saban Rees is a cutthroat. They call him Sabre ‘cos he’d cut ye in half if ye as much as look at him crooked.”