My stomach ached. I believed it felt as if I’d eaten something rotten, and the urge to vomit began to rise repeatedly. I had to swallow hard to keep it down. “Wait, Rasmus, please,” I said, placing my hand on his arm to catch myself.
“Are ye ill, lass?” he whispered. “I’ll take ye back.”
“No, no…please, don’t. I’ll be fine.” I knew I hadn’t eaten anything bad at all. This was a familiar feeling and one I loathed and considered a weakness. For a long time, when I felt something deeply that pained me and hurt my heart, the emotion would settle in my stomach and cause me to retch. Just the thought of what we’d find, sight as yet unseen, sloshed inside of me like bilge water.
“Are ye certain? I won’t have ye makin’ yourself sick over this. I couldn’t bear that,” Rasmus whispered again as the man leading our way turned and appeared to be listening.
We passed through the cargo hold. The squeaking and scurrying of rats, as well as the odor of tobacco and wood, only seemed to agitate my already nauseous state. I couldn’t stand it anymore and stopped, doubled over, and vomited right there. Rasmus turned and placed his big hand on my shoulder to comfort me, but I swished him away and wiped my mouth with my sleeve before nodding for us to carry on.
The man looked over at me and made a sour face before saying, “It’s right down here. They’s a small porthole in there, but that’s ‘bout all. They’s five of ‘um. One ain’t been well since we left Virginia. She’s puked up every last bit a’ food we’s gave her,” he said with a laugh. “It’s a wonder the wench is still alive, but the others has been holdin’ up alright. What ye want ‘em for? Have a little fun on board, aye? Yeah, I cain’t says I blame ye. I could use a little a’ that meself. Been a while since I had me a sweet young piece a’ cake like this lot.” He snickered. He talked too damn much. He set the lamp down on a small table just outside of a thick wooden door. There was a barred opening, about ten by ten inches. I pushed passed them both, clamped my hands on the bars, and pressed my face against them. I could see several figures moving slowly in the darkness.
“You…you sick, filthy bastard!” I shouted at the man, beating him with my fists until he fell against the bulkhead, and I continued pounding him in the face and chest until he collapsed onto the floor.
“Razor!” I could hear Rasmus shouting at me to stop, but I couldn’t, and I didn’t. I kicked him repeatedly in the gut as he cried out in pain, and then I kicked him even harder. “Ye fecking bastard!” I screamed. I reached into my breeches pocket and pulled my razor out, and then knelt down next to him. He was bloodied and moaning in pain. I was glad. I snatched him by his grimy, matted hair and jerked back his head so he could see my eyes and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll never have to see me again.” I drew my razor across his dirty neck, sliced him from ear to ear, and then tossed him over on his face.
“Ye feel better now, lass?” Rasmus’s voice drew me out of my rage, and I jerked my head around to meet his sorrowful glance. For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was, or what I was doing. All I saw were those blue eyes looking out at me through his anguished expression. I looked down at the razor in my hand, covered in the man’s blood, and then over at the heap of his dead body, as a pool of blood began to spread and run toward the port side of the tilted deck.
I wiped my razor on the man’s breeches, and Rasmus pulled me to my feet. “I’m better now. I’m much, much better.” I looked around in the darkness for a moment and then into my love’s eyes again. He appeared confused, as if he’d seen something horrible, yet he pulled me close to him and embraced me tightly.
“You’re fine, lass. It’s going to be all right now.” I buried myself in his warm, wet chest and realized I was shaking. “Shhh…now let’s get these girls out of here and be on our way.”
I took a deep breath and nodded, swiping my hands up and down over my face. Rasmus let me go and lifted the plank of wood that kept the girls barricaded inside the room. He set it aside and then pulled hard on the door until it opened wide with a loud groan. I didn’t know what to expect. I waited a moment to see if they’d come running for the door, but nothing happened.
“Hello?” Rasmus said, lifting the lantern and holding it out, just inside the door. We could hear whispering and whimpering, but no reply to his greeting. I stepped around him, and he moved aside enough for me to pass and then took me by my arm. “Easy now, we don’t know what these lassies have been through.”
I nodded to him and then called softly out to them, “Hello? Please come out; we’re here to help you.”
“Who are you? How do we know you’re not one of them?” At last, an answer.
“Well, I suppose you’ll just have to trust us. My name is Ivan, and this is Captain Rasmus Bergman. We’re responsible for running this ship aground. We did it to save you. If you won’t come out, may I come in?”
I took the lantern from Rasmus’s hand and said, “I’ll be alright. Just wait here.” I stepped directly inside the doorway and pushed the lantern out in front of me to light the room. When the glow fell upon them, they winced and covered their eyes as if they hadn’t seen light in quite some time. They were sitting in the far corner of the room in a huddle together, clutching one another tightly. The space was only about ten feet by ten feet, and there was a small porthole. The sickening feeling returned. The room reeked of rancid food and urine, and there wasn’t even so much as a chair to sit on. I covered my nose and mouth with my arm. I looked back at Rasmus in the doorway and then back to the girls.
“Dear God…you poor things,” I said, setting the lantern down slowly on the floor. “Please, come with me. We’ll get you cleaned up and off this ship right now.”
“Why?” The same girl who’d spoken for all of them spoke again. From where I stood, I could see she had dark hair and eyes, and her clothes were covered in dirt, as were they all. Those eyes of hers were so haunting and filled with fear that I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. They spoke to me so deeply and with so much sadness, I feared if I broke our gaze I’d sever her last strand of hope.
“Because that’s what we do. We save girls like yourself. We can explain it to you later, but we must go. We don’t have much time.” Upon my words, I instinctively reached out my hands to them and waited, until finally, the dark-eyed girl looked away and began to stand. My heart leapt into my throat, and I dashed across the room to help them to their feet. “Rasmus, help me. This one can barely stand,” I said, upon finding the one whom the crewman said had been ill for the entire voyage.
Rasmus swept her from the floor into his arms and carried her over his shoulder, holding the lantern to light our way. The dark-eyed girl turned and caught a glimpse of the dead man as we stepped over the river of his blood, and she stopped. “Did you kill him?” she asked, clutching my hand.
“I did,” I answered. She squeezed my hand, and a smile shined from her eyes as she said, “Good. I hated him. He smelled like dead fish.”
I followed Rasmus and led the rest of the girls through the cargo hold and back up the gangway to the main deck. When we at last stepped out into the moonlight, we saw the Jade, now sitting no more than fifty yards out in the channel, dead ahead.
“See, there she is. My Lady Jade,” I told them as I rounded them up, and Rasmus handed off the sick girl to Master Green.
“That’s a black flag. That’s a pirate ship. You’re pirates! You’re not here to save us at all!” the girl shouted and pulled free of my hand. She ran to the port gunnel and leaned over the side.
“No, wait!” I shouted and raced after her. I grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around to face me, and her big, dark eyes were puddled with tears. “We’re not that sort of pirates. I swear it. What’s your name?” I asked, holding onto her.
“Francis. It’s Francis Arminger of Norfolk, Virginia.”
“Well, Francis Arminger of Norfolk, Virginia, you’re going home, but you’ve got to behave yourself and allow us to get you off this ship. I don’t advise
jumping off.” I smiled at her, and she swiped her tears away, leaving black streaks down her round cheeks from the filth of her confinement.
“Who are you, then, if you aren’t that sort of pirates?” she asked, allowing me to escort her back to her friends.
“Let’s just say we’re the sorts who don’t believe that young women are no more than cattle. Do you see that large, red-haired man? That’s Captain Rasmus Bergman, and you’ll never meet a finer man in all your born days.”
“He is quite a striking figure, for a pirate that is,” she said with a slight smile. “And you? What do you do besides murder disgusting men?”
“None of this would be possible without him. That’s all you need to know for now. See to your friend. Once we’re back aboard the Jade, I’ll get her back to health.” I sighed and gazed at Rasmus as he ordered Fin to signal the Jade that we were ready. The tide was at last high enough that the Belle was beginning to groan and shift in the sand. I walked back to the port gunnel and could see the longboats below, rocking gently in the now calm waters.
“Alright, let’s get this ship back on the water. Hoist the sails!” Rasmus called out to every able-bodied sailor, including the crew of the Belle. “Toss those tow lines off the bow to my boats below, and we’ll be out of here before ye can say Davy Jones.”
Rasmus loved to say Davy Jones. I laughed to myself at how simple and wonderful he was and how I’d grown to know what he’d say before he even said it. The warm, loving man he was beneath it all filled me with so much happiness, I’d almost forgotten the look in his eyes when I’d lost myself below in the hold. I’d acted on something I didn’t understand and didn’t want to think about it in that moment. I wasn’t ready to face it, and I prayed that when the time came that I could no longer run from it, he’d be there in the darkness with me to help me find my way out.
“Razor, get everyone secured and steady. She could pop like a cork and shake things up a bit when the Jade gives her the tug,” Rasmus ordered, and I obeyed.
Less than thirty minutes later, the Jade had managed to pull the Belle’s keel free of her trappings, and by dawn, the Jade was along her starboard side, tied on. The second the planks were lowered, I rushed the girls across, and all eyes were upon them as I whisked them below and down to the sick berth. As the crew of the Jade watched, they stood silently by and waited, before rushing in to claim their prize.
“Here. Lay her down in my hammock, and please bring fresh water and some food,” I said to Fin as he now carried the sick girl, cradled in his arms, into the room. “We have a cabin for you. It’s small, but neat, and I’ll have some clothes brought to you so you may clean yourselves up and change.”
“Mister Razor, are you a doctor? You seem very young to be so accomplished,” the smallest of the girls asked as I leaned over the sick one and checked her breathing.
“I’m not a doctor, but I’m as close to one as we have available, lass. Francis, can you write?”
“Yes, I’m educated, sir.”
“Can you please open my medical log and enter all of your names for me while I tend to your friend? Please note your ages and where you all were taken from as well. By the way, what’s this one’s name?”
“Edwina. Edwina Sherridan. She’s my younger sister,” said a soft-spoken girl about five feet two inches tall with light brown hair and sad hazel eyes. She stood next to me and took her sister’s hand as I dunked a clean cloth into the pail of water Fin carried in and patted her face.
“I’m Irvette, by the way. I can do that, if it’s agreeable to you.” She held out her hand for the cloth, and I gladly handed it over to her. I needed to create a mixture, or some sort of tonic, to rouse Edwina—if there was, in fact, such a thing.
I turned and found Francis holding what I believed to be my medical log, but it was not. It was my private journal. I reached out and snatched it from her hands and slammed it closed. “So, you can read, can you? Well, being a fine young lady as ye are, I’d think you’d know better than to read someone else’s personal thoughts.”
“I…I didn’t mean to, I swear.” She stood frozen and looked me up and down as if she’d just met me for the first time.
“Fin, are you out there?” I called out, to which he rushed in the door. “The empty cabin next to mine…get these girls over there. I’ll bring this one over when I’m through.” I turned back to Francis, slid my journal back into the bookshelf above my desk, and grabbed the medical log. I pushed it at her, pulled out the chair, and motioned for her to sit.
“Irvette, was it? I’ll take care of your sister. Go with Mister Fin, and get cleaned up and get some rest. Fin, can you bring the ladies some water and soap, as well as some clean clothes, please?”
“Aye, it’ll be a pleasure, Mister Razor.”
Fin led the girls out of the room, and I closed the door behind them. I turned around and folded my arms across my chest and fell back against the door. “So, how much of my personal thoughts did ye read?”
Francis slipped the quill into the ink and turned in the chair to face me. “I’m very confused, sir, uh, ma’am. I don’t understand why a woman would disguise herself…and the Captain’s woman, no less. I’ll admit, at first I thought it peculiar the way you gazed at him so, but I dismissed it as sincere admiration for the man.”
“I’ll not give you any explanations. You violated my most intimate thoughts by reading that, and now you’ve put me in a dangerous position. I will tell you this—if you share that information with another living soul, I’ll have no choice but to call you out as a liar and have you detained forcefully until we reach Nassau.”
“Nassau? Why are we going to Nassau? You said you were taking us home.” She turned completely around in the chair and glared at me with a peculiar gleam in her eyes.
“We’re taking you to Nassau to a safe place, and we’ll arrange passage back to Virginia for you from there. The Belle wasn’t the only ship in these waters carrying young girls. We have other business out here.”
She turned back around and lowered her head. “I suppose I should thank you. I believe it’s already long overdue.”
“You can thank me by keeping what you know about me to yourself.” I walked back over to Edwina and rinsed the cloth and placed it back on her head. “Are you finished writing down what I asked?”
“I am,” she answered, standing.
“Let’s get you to your cabin, then. Get some rest. We still have dangerous waters to go through until we reach Nassau.”
“They…they did things to us, you know,” she said as I opened the door for her.
“They always do things to us, Francis,” I said, as those deep, dark eyes began to puddle again.
“Is that why you dress as a man?”
“No…that’s why I’m free.”
Thirteen
THE MASK AND THE MASQUERADE
Nassau was still three days off. Our crew had stripped the Belle of her tobacco, cotton, and food stores, as well as their ale and rum. We had plenty of water, and the rain had filled and overflowed our water stores. As painful as it was, I’d ordered the girls be confined to their quarters and assigned Fin to stand as their sentinel for the duration of our trip.
Edwina slept most of the first day. I managed to steal several hours myself, having made a bed on the floor next to her. When I awoke, I found a strange, albeit popular, remedy for her fatigue and weakness, in the form of potato soup. Doctor McGraw had noted in his medical book that potatoes were the food of life and that a man could live on potatoes his whole life and be healthy and happy. Of course, he added that citrus fruits were also essential to keep the scurvy at bay.
I went down to the kitchen to check on poor old Hawk, and as he’d claimed, he was back on his feet and cooking as usual. As I explained with great vigor and cheer everything that had transpired the night before and informed him on the condition of the girls, I created a broth of potatoes and squeezed the juice of several oranges and a lime into a cup. Upon my retur
n to the sick berth, I requested that Irvette prop her sister up so we could pour it into her mouth. Edwina coughed a bit, but she gradually began swallowing the thick broth in small sips.
I kept Francis close. I’d assigned her to keep notes on Edwina’s progress, and I dictated to her everything I was doing and had done, as well as my theories and prognosis for her recovery. With no fever or obvious signs of trauma, as well as the witness accounts of the other girls, my diagnosis was simply malnutrition and dehydration due to her constant seasickness.
“While the water is still fresh and drinkable, as well as the citrus juice, we’ll need to offer it to her on the hour. Give her this ginger mixture as well for her nausea. The broth will also assist in rebuilding her strength,” I dictated to Francis, and she dutifully obliged.
By nightfall, we’d reached a steady and smooth six knots, and I desperately needed fresh air and to speak with my Captain. Once the girls were securely tucked in, I made a bed on the floor and asked Francis to stay with Edwina until I returned. No longer shy of walking up to the Captain’s quarters and requesting an audience with him, I did just that.
“Enter,” Rasmus said upon my knock. At sea, the Captain’s door was never locked. Although a degree of respect and privacy was always honored, the only locked door aboard ship was now the cabin where the young girls stayed. “Razor, it’s good to see you. Close the door, please, and have a seat.” He was so formal. Perhaps my charade was finally settling on him. Either that, or he was expecting someone else as well, and he didn’t want to lead me into his chamber gently, out of fear one of our masks would slip off.
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