Always the High Seas: Pirates of Britannia Connected World

by Emily E K Murdoch

  Esmeralda sighed heavily and lifted a mug of steaming grog to her mouth. It soothed her aching throat, helping to restore a little of the energy which two nights of bad sleep had robbed her of.

  How could she get her thoughts in order when all she wanted to do was return to how things had been between herself and Javier? Blissful ignorance it had been, but at least it had been bliss.

  “You cannot have someone on board you do not trust,” George said in the silence, with nods of approval from his crewmates. “You need to know the man beside you will protect you in the worst situations.”

  “I say we put him off at Southampton and make him someone else’s problem,” said Ben.

  Esmeralda laughed despite herself. It was a childlike way to view the problem, and it was endearing.

  She would never be free of Javier now, not even after he was put ashore. He would have a hold over her for the rest of her life. The first person to teach her pleasure, to show her what could be shared between two people who cared for each other.

  She hated him for the way he made her feel. How just the thought of him could stir that desire in her.

  But this was not the time to luxuriate or agonize over memories.

  “I had hoped that by showing him our way of life, he would have understood it, and desire to become like us,” she said softly. “Apparently not. You have all spoken your truth and spoken well. The consensus is clear.”

  Her last act for Javier would be to spare his life. Even she could not bear to keelhaul such a brigand.

  “We will abandon Javier at Southampton, and may God have mercy on his soul.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Javier punched the wall of the brig. This had been intended to relieve the unbearable agony in his heart, but all it succeeded in doing was increasing the agony in his fingers.

  Kneading them together in his other hand, he slumped against the wall and fell to the floor. Right where he had started two days ago, and with even less opportunity to redeem himself.

  A fly was buzzing about, unwilling to fly through the iron bars that prevented Javier from reaching the jailor, who was sharpening the longest knife he had ever seen. The day was hot, sticky with the sun's heat, and no windows for relief.

  Javier sighed heavily, his stomach weighing him down like an anchor. After the last few days, when his heart had raced at almost every moment, it was now a slow, dull thud. There was almost no reason for it to beat at all.

  He could not escape from the Periculum’s brig, for even a cursory glance told him Esmeralda took as much care with her brig as the rest of the ship.

  He had lost her trust. The most precious treasure he could ever have hoped to find, and it was gone. Not just gone, but utterly destroyed.

  He could not return to the Demonios tribe. Not after having failed so spectacularly. It would have been better if he had died, his father would undoubtedly say.

  Assuming he returned. Southampton authorities had struggled against pirates in decades past. They would surely relish the opportunity to hang a pirate for all the misdeeds of his people.

  It was all over.

  Javier hit the wall again, frustration overspilling.

  “Do not do that.” The low grunt of his jailor—Bones again—echoed in the brig.

  Javier resisted the urge to snap back with a curse. These men knew enough Spanish to understand when they were being cheeked.

  Instead, he said sullenly, “Why not? I am hardly going to hurt the ship.”

  “No,” agreed Bones with a smile that revealed almost no teeth, “but I am the closest thing to a doctor on this ship, and if you hurt yourself, you will need to rely on my good graces for any medicine.”

  The man was missing an eye, a few fingers, and the lack of teeth was hardly comforting. How in God’s name had this man been made the doctor?

  His jailor may not have had all his body parts, but he was perceptive. He grinned. “I’m the strongest,” he said. “I’m the one who pops bones back into their sockets.” Cracking his knuckles, he returned to his knife.

  Javier shook his head before he rose and threw himself onto the plank of wood that had been set up as the bed.

  “I was never truly miserable before I boarded the Periculum, you know,” he said aloud. What did he care if Bones took his words back to Esmeralda? It was, perhaps, the only way to speak to her now. She was hardly going to visit him in the brig. “I did not realize what I had to lose until I lost it all.”

  Bones exhaled. “You are not alone, my Spanish friend. Everyone thinks this when they come to sea. They realize that land, perhaps, had benefits they never truly appreciated until they got onto a ship with a devil for a captain and no rations. Not on the Periculum, of course. We have Captain Esmeralda.”

  It was the longest speech Javier had heard from Bones, and he silently agreed with him. He had never understood the fascination so many landlubbers had with the ocean. When you were born on it, the waves were just background, the changing tides just a fact of life.

  And yet Esmeralda had been born to it, just as he had, and she could not imagine anything else. Her veins ran with seawater, and she would never leave it.

  A life with her on the waves…he could see the attraction and why this crew had remained loyal to her even in the darkest of times. He had been gifted with a glimpse of what a life with her would be like, too, and he had loved it. Loved her.

  Then thrown it all away with his foolish words.

  Javier turned to look at Bones, who had stopped sharpening his knife and was now looking along the blade critically.

  “You are a little in love with our captain, aren’t you?” The jailer’s words were said without malice, without teasing, but Javier sat up quickly to deny it.

  “Me? Of course not, what a foolish thing to—I would never—the Captain and I…”

  His voice trailed away as laughter filled the brig.

  “Do not worry yourself, Demonios,” Bones said. “You are not the only one, and I doubt you will be the last.”

  Javier gaped. After all her talk about never fraternizing with the crew?

  “I thought…” he swallowed, unsure exactly how to phrase it. “I thought she never would…that she kept herself distant from the crew.”

  “And so she does, and we are all respectful and know where those boundaries lie,” said Bones simply. “We would never attempt a thing, you understand, but that does not remove the desire, nor the hope.”

  Well, they all had eyes, and some of the crew had two. They could see Esmeralda for what she was, a goddess of the sea.

  “Some of the crew had to take themselves off the Periculum at the last port, for they knew they could not stay on this ship with such longings,” said the jailor. “She is like a siren, calling out to you, but instead of sailing by her, you sail every day with her. You cannot sail away from your captain.”

  “They were lovesick,” said Javier quietly.

  Bones nodded. “You can teach yourself out of seasickness, but lovesickness never leaves you, even on shore.”

  Javier nodded. It was not difficult to sympathize with the unnamed crew who had departed at the same port he had come aboard. Being in the brig was torture, not because it was a prison, but because it prevented him from being closer to Esmeralda.

  He wanted to comfort her, hold her, tell her she could conquer the world if she wanted.

  But what words could he offer her—him, a traitor, a Demonios? Could he tell her that he regretted it? He did, every word…but at the same time, he could not regret the actions that brought him to her. He would never be able to say, honestly, that he regretted boarding her ship.

  That impetuous plan had brought him to her.

  He could not change the past. He would happily change parts of it—the sense of betrayal, the way she had discovered his true past.

  But the way he had loved her, the touch of her skin, her face as she experienced joy, pure joy, for the first time?

  No, he would never take that
back.

  “You should never have come here, Demonios,” the jailor said heavily, placing the knife onto a rack and pulling out another one.

  “Even now, I do not think I can regret it. I mean, you think it is difficult being on the Periculum and loving your captain? I hated my last captain. He was a monster. Escaping him was the best decision I have ever made, no matter if it leads me to the gallows.”

  Despite his strong words, he swallowed at the thought. His neck was in danger, for who knew what Esmeralda would do with him when they reached the shore?

  “I heard,” Bones grunted. “What did your father think of your disobedience? I assume he was on the same ship?”

  “Yes,” Javier said with a dry laugh. “But he did not take too kindly to my disobedience against the captain, as it was, he was in the chair at the time.”

  Bones laughed.

  “I was running from him. Running from who he was, what he ordered us to do,” said Javier into the silence. He was not sure whether Bones wanted to hear this, but it was doing him good. Wasn’t that what the Catholics did on land—confess? “Murder, torture, kidnapping—it was what my father taught us, and yet I despised it. I thought I was running from the ocean, thought it was the sea I hated…but it was him. Him, and everything he stood for.”

  “Blaggard.”

  For a moment, Javier thought his jailor was cursing, but there was no malice in the man’s eyes.

  “We do not do that here,” he said emphatically, though spoiling the effect slightly by holding three knives in one hand as he examined them. “We rob from those rich enough to be out here, but no deaths. The captain ensures that.”

  Javier nodded. “I did not know there was another way to live on these currents, but now…now it is too late. I have thrown away my only chance of a happy life before I even had a chance to grasp it.”

  “God has not smiled on you,” his jailor agreed, putting down the knives and starting to sharpen one. “Perhaps you will have a better chance of making a life at Southampton.”

  Javier allowed his head to drop back onto the board. “No. My father will find me, no matter where I go. ’Tis the hangman’s noose or death at the hands of my father. That’s my future.”

  ***

  The salt air sprayed over the deck, coating it in a shimmering sheen, but Esmeralda did not see it as she paced. Even the gentle sway of the Periculum as it adjusted its course could not calm her. It had never failed before.

  The sun was high in the sky, and within hours, they would be at Southampton. It was a new day, and despite the lack of sleep, she still felt as sharp as she ever did.

  She had to. She had to take responsibility for her actions, and that responsibility was arriving faster than she could imagine.

  She reached the railings on the starboard side and leaned over, looking out onto the wide expanse of the ocean. Her ocean. She had always been loyal to it.

  Loyalty she had not found in Javier. No matter how hard she tried, she could not rid him from her mind. Once they abandoned him at Southampton, she would never see him again. The ocean was vast, and it was unlikely that two ships could meet again unless by appointment.

  Not that she wanted to see him again.

  Sunlight sparkled on the churning waves. It had always held everything she needed, the ocean. Food, weapons, laughter, companionship in her crew.

  She had never felt lacking …until Javier stowed away on board.

  Now she knew what was missing. Companionship was not enough. Love was what she wanted, what she craved, and not just the irresistible touch of his hands on her skin, but the intimacy of lying beside someone, living beside someone.

  The worst of it was, she wanted it with him and no one else. That closeness, that intimacy, the sharing of two souls.

  Was that love? Was that what the poets had written about? She had seen poetry, bound in leather in the booty they had taken from other ships. It had not made much sense to her, then. Now…

  “Do not fret yourself, it isn’t going anywhere.”

  Esmeralda smiled as Cook joined her at the handrail.

  “What do you mean?” she asked quietly.

  “The ocean,” he said simply. “It is not going anywhere. You do not have to worry about guarding it, pacing up and down here like a sentry.”

  She sighed. “Not guarding the ocean. Just one man. In the brig.”

  Silence grew between them. She had known Cook long enough not to concern herself with filling the gap, but it weighed on her.

  “The man cooks well. A man cannot be truly bad if he can cook well,” said Cook. “The soul pours into your cooking. Bitter soul, bitter meal.”

  Esmeralda laughed but then saw the serious look on her companion’s face. “I have always trusted you, Cook, and you have always been loyal to me. I cannot remember a time when you were not on board with me, even as a child.”

  The older man smiled, but there was a tinge of sadness in his look. “I loved your mother. Did I ever tell you that?”

  She stared, unable to take in his words. They had been spoken so calmly, but of love, and presumably…well. Passion.

  “I cannot believe it,” she said honestly.

  He laughed, wrinkles creasing around his eyes. “I was not always old, Captain. Once I was young—younger than you are now. I was young, and I loved a woman called Louisa.”

  It was strange, hearing this from a man who had been a protector, friend, and eventually confidant, as Esmeralda had grown.

  His voice grew dark. “I loved her, and she returned my affections, but…well, she caught the eye of your father before I could raise enough funds for us to leave the ship. Then it was too late.”

  Esmeralda placed her hand on his. “I had always wondered why you stayed on my father’s ship for so long. You did not have his cruel nature.”

  “I would not partake in his reign of terror,” said Cook darkly. “I took myself to the kitchens, and told myself that if I only wielded a knife to provide sustenance, to prolong life, then I was better than those brigands above deck. I am not sure, even now, whether I was right.”

  She sighed, knowing full well they had both seen too much on that ship. “But you came with me. You abandoned him.”

  “Your mother had died,” he said. “Gone, too young. I promised her I would watch over you. Be a better father to you than that scoundrel of a man who sired you.”

  Esmeralda swallowed. “Thank you, Cook. But with this…you cannot help me.”

  She removed her hand and took a step away from the handrail, but his next words made her pause.

  “You rebelled from that father.”

  Esmeralda turned to look at the old man. “Of course. By the time I realized what he was, I had to leave.”

  Cook jerked his head toward the other end of the ship. “Now you captain your own ship when most ladies, I am told, feel a little giddy just walking on a deck.”

  “I wanted to make my own life, and nothing was ever given to me,” she said with a shrug. “I had to take it.”

  He nodded with a smile. “You did not like how your life was going, so you decided to do something about it—and you followed through on those plans. It could have all gone wrong, you know.”

  “But it did not,” she snapped. She was not sure what he was attempting to insinuate, but she did not like it.

  “For Javier, it did,” Cook said simply. “He was attempting the same as you. Looking for a better way of life. Escaping some demons, if you ask me, and while demons come in all shapes and sizes, his are much the same as yours.”

  Esmeralda swallowed. That was the trouble with Cook. He was far too perceptive, and he knew her better than anyone else in this world.

  “I cannot change how things are,” she whispered, conscious of other crew members on the deck. “They will not allow it.”

  “You are the captain of this ship!” Cook said fiercely. “This is not a democracy, as you tell us frequently, so why act like it for this, the most important decision y
ou will make in your life? You want him? Keep him!”

  With those words, he stomped away and descended below deck.

  Esmeralda found her breath had caught in her throat. Confusion swirled in her mind where decision had once been.

  Turning to the ocean once more, she saw something that made her heart twist.

  A seagull floated above them, effortlessly riding the currents of the air. It squawked and soared over the ship before being joined by another of its kind.

  They were approaching Southampton.

  Chapter Twelve

  The heavy thunk as the Periculum docked at Southampton could be felt across the ship. Javier felt it while still in the brig, and he knew the juddering lurch as a vessel made anchor.

  Just as that heavy metal sank, so did his heart. They had arrived. That meant he would be off the Periculum within the hour and away from Esmeralda.

  If he was honest—and why lie to himself now?—a small part of him had expected her to make her way down to the brig before they arrived.

  What they would have spoken about, he was unsure. How he would have borne it, seeing her and knowing he was unable to reach out and touch her, he did not know.

  But she had not come. He had not seen another soul, other than his jailor, for the entire day. When he had voiced his hope to Bones, he had laughed.

  “You have much to still learn about our captain, you know,” had been the reply.

  Javier had sighed. “Yes, but I will never have the chance now. That opportunity is gone.”

  Javier swallowed, his heart fluttering not with passion but with panic. It had been easier to ignore the thought of a hanging, but there was no way to avoid the idea forever.

  Pirates were criminals.

  Criminals were punished. Everyone knew that.

  “Prisoner ready!”

  The voice was barked from above. The jailor rose to his feet, and only then did Javier realize just how tall and broad the man was.

  Bones grinned at his look of surprise. “I am going to have to put these chains on you now.” He held out a pair of manacles and shackles. “Do not try to run. It will not go well for you.”