The low, thick ceiling of cloud that had hung over them for the same three days had made it near impossible to take any kind of a reading from the sun during the day or from the stars at night. The helmsman’s best guess to their position had them stalled square in the middle of Spain’s busiest shipping lanes. They were homeward bound, still four weeks out of Plymouth; low on victuals and fresh water, lower still on any inclinations they might have to engage a strange vessel in enemy water. They had heard rumors, before their departure from the Caribbean, that King Philip’s plate fleet had cleared Hispaniola two weeks before them. The huge galleons, burdened by the gold and silver mined in Panama and Mexico, would be slower moving than the Egret, and it was not inconceivable they could have caught up. Moreover, these plate fleets traveled under heavy escort from India guards whose decks bristled with guns of all sizes and calibers, whose captains had no compunctions about attacking stray ships and collecting English crews to enslave in their galleys.
McCutcheon’s concerns were genuine and Spence took his wiry mate’s counsel to heart. Spit had been on the sea more years than most ships in the English fleet. What few spikes of hair he had sticking out on his scalp and chin were gray, and if he stood on tiptoes the top of his head might reach Spence’s armpit. They had been together nigh on fifteen years, one of the oddest couples on the Main, and known by nearly every merchant and investor in Plymouth for the quality of sugarcane rum they ran up from the Indies.
The Egret was armed, as any reasonably minded merchant trader should be, and had seen her fair share of fighting, mostly against Spanish and Portuguese privateers who objected to Spence’s interference in their trade monopolies. But as any Englishman knew, a man was only as good as the ship he sailed. Both the Spanish and the Portugee had clung to the centuries-old design of square-rigged masts, which meant they could sail only where the wind took them. English vessels were fore-and-aft rigged on all but the main square sail, adding maneuverability in the yards that allowed them to sail circles around more cumbersome galleons, which could only watch and grow dizzy.
The wounded galleon before them was definitely English in design and flew the Cross of St. George on what was left of its topmast, though it was as tattered and charred as her other pennants.
“Below Aulde George, there,” Spence said, narrowing his amber eyes to bring the topmast into better focus. “Do ye recognize the pennon?”
“Crimson on black. A stag, or a goat, I make it.” McCutcheon shook his head. “The crest is not familiar to me.”
“Aye, well, it feels like it should be familiar. At any rate, she’s no simple merchant wandered too far from home. She’s showin’ ten bloody demi-cannon an’ fourteen culverins in her main battery as well as falconets and perriers fore an’ aft.” Spence pointed at the monstrous thirty-two-pounders snug in her waist and added out the side of his mouth, “I’ll wager whoever her master is, he’s not one to haggle over the price o’ trade goods.”
“Mayhap she’ll have shot to spare an’ a tun or two o’ powder if her magazine is not underwater.” McCutcheon’s graveled voice did not betray too much optimism. “Or if she did not use it all gettin’ herself in such a condition.”
Spence straightened and scratched thoughtfully at the violent red beard that foamed over his chin. It was a cool morning, yet there was a faint sheen of moisture across his brow, glinting off the bald dome of his head. He kept staring at the limp pennant that hung so forlornly in the still air. Something about it was nagging at the back of his mind. Something was making his skin itch and his ballocks tighten—a sure sign of trouble ahead.
“Well, we’ve no choice but to take a look. An’ no harm in passin’ by the armory on the way.”
“Aye,” Spit grumbled, and passed the order over his shoulder. “Cutlasses an’ pistols, ten shots apiece. Lewis, Gabinet, Brockman, Hubbard, Mawhinney—” He paused in naming the best musketmen on board and his wizened gaze settled on one particularly expectant face.
The amber eyes of the captain, which more often than not twinkled with mischief and good humor, had not retained their joviality in his offspring. Solemn and serious most times, Beau Spence’s eyes were large and fiercely proud and more often than not brought to mind a tigress stalking its prey. Thankfully, neither the captain’s ponderous girth nor the shocking red fuzz that dominated his walrus-like features had been passed to his daughter. Beau’s hair shone with only hints of red in the brightest of sunlight, and then only on the rare occasions she left it unplaited. Most times she kept the rich auburn braid bound as tightly as her doublet, which, though considerably smaller in size than any other garment on board, did a fair job in flattening and smoothing any distractions that might lure a lecherous eye from his work. Moreover, being the only woman on board a ship full of lusty-minded men, she had shown no hesitation or lack of skill in using the razor-sharp dagger she wore strapped about her waist, or—as one poor gelded bastard had discovered—the wickedly thin stiletto she kept sheathed in the cuff of her boot.
There had been some who had balked at the notion of a woman joining the crew of the Egret—what soundly superstitious sailor would not? But she knew every plank, spar, and cleat on board. She worked as hard as any of them and ofttimes harder than most, if only to prove she was deserving of their respect. Seven voyages ranging from six months’ to a year’s duration had more than proven it. It was only the captain who tried to test her patience now and then. Four weeks from home and he was starting to take precautions as if he were suddenly remembering he was her father.
But Spit McCutcheon had no qualms about including her in any venture. She was a dead shot with a pistol and could hold her own with a cutlass against men twice her size. And even if the tiger eyes had not been focused intently on him now, almost daring him to pass her by, he probably would have called her name.
“Aye, Beau. Fetch yourself a cutlass an’ join the party. Have Roald break out some pipes o’ water as well; no tellin’ what we might find over yonder.”
Beau followed the others down to the main deck and waited for the weaponry to be distributed. She buckled a cutlass around her waist and slipped a second belt, strung with powder cartridges and a pouch of lead shot, over her shoulder. A brace of pistols completed her arsenal, tucked securely into the sword belt and adjusted like old friends.
Jonas Spence paid no more heed to his daughter than to anyone else as he raked the small group and pronounced them ready. He led the way to the ship’s rail and climbed down the gangway ladder to where four oarsmen were waiting in the jolly boat. He had not troubled to cover his bald head with a hat, but he drew on a pair of leather gloves as the boat pushed away from the hull of the Egret
The captain’s gloves were specially made, the left one containing two stuffed fingers to replace the ones he had lost to a misfired musket several years ago. It was a small affectation, wanting to appear whole in front of strangers, and extended to include the wooden calf and foot he had learned to use with only a minor limp to betray the fact his leg was shot away below the knee. Despite the impediments, there was not a tar on board who would not have followed him into hell if he asked it of them. The Egret carried a crew of ninety and it was to Spence’s credit as a fair and able master, that the same ninety men, give or take a spate, had been with him since his ship had been launched from the dockyards ten years ago.
As the jolly boat came within hailing distance of the unknown ship, the crew’s attention was fixed steadfastly on the looming hull. There were still no signs of movement on board, no glimpse of a curious head, no ominous creak of a falconet swiveling on its iron cradle to take aim on the advancing boatmen. There was only the soft rush of water sliding under the keel of the jolly boat, and the faint clinking of two small iron rings that dangled from a broken spar high above the deck.
“Ahoy there! Anyone aboard?”
Spence’s booming voice sounded unnaturally loud as it rolled across the gap and echoed off the hull of the wreck.
Eight hands
rested over the curved stocks of eight cocked pistols while all eyes continued to stare intently up at the ship. This close, the damage to her superstructure gave clear evidence she had been involved in fierce fighting. Aside from the scars and pocks that marbled her sheathing, there was fully ten feet of clean board below the waterline indicating a fatal leak somewhere in her keel. Another six feet would bring the sea on level with her open gunports, and inboard flooding would finish the job.
Spence signaled the oarsmen to bring them up to the gangway ladder. He was first up the steps, with the grizzled, bone-thin McCutcheon a beat behind. Beau was next to last and made the climb with no difficulty in spite of the perilous tilt of the hull.
The sight awaiting them at the top caused them all to stop in a group inside the gangway hatch. The deck was a wasteland of debris. Planking was torn and blackened from fire, ropes and rigging lines snaked haphazardly across the ruin; the forecastle structure was gone completely, leaving only a gaping black hole in the deck. Barrels and buckets were upturned or on their sides, smashed timbers lay strewn over hatchways, and torn sheets of canvas sail hung limply from the spars overhead. Three crippled cannon rested where they had been blown from their trunions. From under the barrel of one of these smashed cannon a hand and arm protruded, the fingers blackened and frozen in a claw.
A ferocious battle had indeed been waged, not too recently to judge by the lack of staining from blood and ash. But recently enough to retain the stench of charred wood and decaying bodies.
“Ahoy!” Spence shouted again. “Be there anyone on board alive enough to hear the sound o’ my voice? If so, sally forth an’ show yerselves without fear o’ harm, for we fly the Cross o’ St. George an’ serve Her Most Royal Majesty, Elizabeth of England.”
Something—a boot scraping on wood or a piece of debris carelessly unsettled—startled every pair of eyes in the direction of the bulkhead below the mangled remains of the forecastle. A man emerged from the shadows of the hatchway, too tall to do so without ducking his head. His shirt was torn and filthy, the lacing long gone to some other use so that the edges of cloth hung open to his waist. Both sleeves were gone, baring arms that were carved from slabs of rock-hard muscle, bulging with more than enough power to steady two fully primed and cocked arquebuses on the group at the rail.
He stood with his long legs braced wide apart as if balancing himself against heavily rolling seas. His eyes were piercing even at that distance, so pale a blue as to be almost silver. His hair fell in thick black waves to frame a squared jaw and a wide pillar of a neck, both blunted under a heavy growth of coarse gunmetal stubble. From the deep V of his opened shirt, a similarly dark forest of hair gleamed smooth and silky beneath the linen.
Yet, as formidable as he succeeded in appearing, his skin had an unhealthy waxen cast beneath the bronze tan. His lips were cracked from lack of water, the whites of his eyes were shot with bright red veins. Despite the bulk of muscle that shaped him, his cheeks betrayed a hint of gauntness suggesting he had gone even longer without food than water.
“Who are you?” he rasped. “What ship?”
Spence lifted a hand to signal his men to caution as he took a wary step forward. “My name is Jonas Spence. My ship is the Egret We hail from Plymouth, our home port, an’ have been in the Caribbee these past eight months seeking honest trade.”
“An honest English merchantman? I count five guns in your starboard battery.”
“Aye, an’ I count two dozen in yer main, another half score in yer bow an’ stern for chasers. Nor have I heard a name for you or yer ship, though I see by yer flags we both claim loyalty to England’s queen.”
The silver eyes flared with an unaccountable fury for a moment before he answered. “My faith in a man’s loyalty is not as secure as it might have been a month ago, Captain Spence. You will forgive me if I feel a need to err in favor of caution.”
“Ye’re alone here?” Spence asked, scanning the deserted deck.
“If I were, I would have gone mad long before now.” He lowered the snouts of both muskets, obviously a signal to the rest of his men, who began stepping forward out of hatchways and from behind piles of debris. There were perhaps fifty in all, though only one, besides the leader, won prolonged stares. He appeared on the deck above them like a thundercloud, tall, black, and massive, naked but for a winding of indigo cloth around his gleaming loins. He held two long, crescent-shaped swords in his hands, the hilts closed in fists the size of small haunches of beef, the fists attached to arms as thick and solid as the stanchions of a bridge.
Seeing where their astonished gazes were fixed, the ebony-haired rogue offered a crooked grin. “His name is Lucifer. He is a Cimaroon—an African chief stolen from Guinea by the Spanish and sent to work as a slave in their gold mines in Mexico. His hatred for the English, who have also robbed his villages and stolen their men and women, is only modestly less than for the Spanish. And since the day I broke him out of his chains some dozen years ago, his only true loyalty is to me, so I would strongly suggest you put your weapons away before the introductions go any further.”
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The Robin Hood Trilogy Page 133