“Cortés,” she breathed. “But if he already knew, then why has he been insisting that I’m the only one who knows?”
“I don’t know. But, if he’s not keeping you around for information, there has to be another reason.” A conversation from earlier flashed through my memory and I tried to make more sense of it.
Samantha is our biggest bargaining chip, he had said. Bargaining with whom? Tristan and the Templar Knights? If what Sam had told me about them was true, they wouldn’t be doing any kind of trade. They would simply wipe out the Black Knights before they could advance any further. Randall didn’t seem the type to just let her go, either. No, he hadn’t been talking about a trade with Tristan when he’d said that.
Unfortunately, I had no idea who he had been talking about. I had the distinct feeling that whatever it was would end up with Sam dead.
That was not something I planned on letting happen.
Almost two weeks later, the shores of New Spain sat before us, bustling with activity and excitement. Veracruz was one of the biggest ports the area had, boasting even more riches than Mexico City at times. Ships from all over the world were docked here and sitting in the harbor. We’d chosen to drop anchor, owing to the fact that we were trying to avoid being labeled pirates and our ship had no name, and row in to shore.
With our feet firmly on the ground, I gently guided Sam, my arm around her shoulders, her form wrapped in a long cloak to disguise the fact that she was a pale mess and a prisoner. The baby was definitely lost in my eyes; her bleeding having never stopped. She hadn’t passed anything other than blood yet, though, and I was worried that an infection would soon set in. As we’d sailed into the harbor that morning, she’d started cramping badly and the amount of blood she was losing increased. The baby could possibly be delivered before the end of the day if she kept going like she was. Hopeful, I’d shared the information with Randall, explaining that we needed to camp for the night before setting out, to give her time. Surprisingly, he’d agreed very easily.
“I know a place,” I told Randall firmly when he opened his mouth to speak. “An old church, on the outskirts of town. There’s enough space for the whole crew. Send some men for food and water. Someone needs to find a midwife, as well.”
He frowned, not liking that I’d so openly ordered him around, but listened all the same. “You lot!” He yelled at a group to his right, pointing. “Get some food! Bring it to the old church outside town.”
“I know of a midwife here, Captain,” MacTavish said sheepishly. “I can ask for her if ye’d like.”
“Go.” Looking at me, Randall smirked, as if waiting for me to give him something else to do.
“Do you feel well enough to walk, Sammy?” I asked quietly, finding one of her hands with my free one and squeezing slightly.
“I think so.” She was flushed, her cramps having increased some as she moved about and came ashore.
“It will all be over soon,” I assured her, glancing out over the city in front of us. “I promise.”
The walking was slow, which seemed to annoy Randall to no end, and he eventually disappeared, slipping off into the crowd with the rest of the crew without a word. Assuming that they knew the place I had told them about, I kept right with Sam, stopping whenever her fatigue dictated she needed to. Buying a few items from sellers along the way, I tried to ready myself for anything she would need help with. By the time we arrived at our destination, the sun was setting.
The church had been abandoned for longer than anyone could remember, an old building that was forgotten as the city developed. A bell tower, missing its namesake, glowed in the evening sun, the sky orange around it like a halo. The front doors looked rotted and beaten, but held shut as if only the will of God kept them going. Weeds had overgrown the paths and steps, giving the entire brick façade the appearance of a crumbling ghost house.
Laughter and singing floated out of the windows, the smells of cooking meat making my mouth water. Happy that the crew had already arrived and settled for the night, I sighed, ready to deal with whatever the evening would bring us.
Relief washed over me as I led Sam inside, thankful to know that her physical suffering was only hours away from being finished—hopefully. She hadn’t indicated that anything was better or worse, but my gut told me that this was the night she would lose the child.
“Snake Eyes!” Flanagan called from beside a fire, over which a pig was roasting. Next to him, a woman sat, running her fingers through his hair. “It took you long enough!”
A few of the other men greeted me as well, the company and respite having put them in as good a mood as Nassau had.
“Captain had a room in the back saved for the lass,” Greybeard said as I passed him.
“Thank you,” I told him honestly, wondering if he could see how tired I was. It would have been nice to have nothing more to do than sit on the wooden benches around the fires in this old chapel, but Sam needed me, and I wasn’t going to let her down.
“Where’s MacTavish?” I called over everyone, searching for him. Spotting him in the far corner, we made our way to him. The expression on his face didn’t make me excited to hear what he had to say.
“Where’s the midwife?” I asked him, desperately noticing his lack of womanly companionship.
“She wouldn’t come.” He shrugged, taking a swig from the glass bottle in his hand. “Said she can’t risk working for pirates. Bad for business, or something.”
“What?” Panicked, I looked at Sam, who seemed like she was ready to sit down and cry.
“She did send these herbs, though,” he said, digging through his pocket and pulling out a crumpled sack. “Said they would help her with the pain. Sorry, Snake Eyes.”
“She doesn’t need medicine, she needs someone who can check her and tell her what’s going on,” I replied, frustrated.
Glancing around the room, it became obviously clear to me that no one was going to help us. Randall was nowhere to be seen. No woman in her right mind would risk coming here if she didn’t want to be grabbed upon by one of the crew.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, I took Sam’s hand and pulled her along to the back of the space, to the room I’d been told was waiting for us.
Please, God, I prayed as we passed an old crucifix on the wall. Help me know what to do. Help her through this.
“How are you feeling?” Putting my own desperate worries and anxieties aside, I gently guided her into the room that had been reserved for us.
“Crampy.” Frowning, she placed a hand over her stomach. “Like I’m having a bad period.”
Pursing my lips, I kept my thoughts to myself, yet again. She knew what was happening—the expression on her face said as much—but I didn’t want to blurt it out for some reason. It was as if saying it out loud made it more real than it already was.
“Do you need anything?” I pressed, looking her over.
“I don’t think so.” She appeared somewhat pale and exhausted, but other than that, it was as if nothing were occurring. I never would have known what she was going through if she hadn’t told me.
Glancing around the room, I frowned, feeling half thankful for the privacy and half annoyed she was still being treated as a prisoner, even if she was a very well taken care of captive. A fire burned in the hearth, sweltering hot, but a welcome comfort. There was only the table and a few chairs, an old picture frame broken and sitting in one corner. Everything else had been cleared out by some mystery person, either tonight or sometime in the past when the place was abandoned. It made everything feel cold, impersonal, and old.
Suddenly, I wondered if Sam felt deserted now.
“Hey,” I spoke up, smiling. “Do you need more clean rags? I can go wash some for you in the well, if you’d like. Or do you not want to be alone?”
“Actually, I’d like a few minutes, if you don’t mind.” Grimacing, her lower lip trembled some and there was a flash of moisture in her eyes. “To get ready, I mean.”
&nb
sp; Feeling my own emotions catch, I nodded, hesitating to leave. “It’s going to be okay, Sammy. I know it’s hard, but it’ll be okay someday. It will always be your baby.”
“I know.” Sniffing, she grinned at me, eyes shining brightly. “It’s just hard to think about the future now. Everything I’d been planning for isn’t going to happen. Tristan—all I can think about is Tristan. He was supposed to be coming home to his pregnant wife. Instead, he returned to no wife and now he has no baby.”
She didn’t have to say what else she’d been thinking and feeling. The words were practically hanging over her head like a neon sign. She had no Tristan, no baby, and it was obvious her heart was in shambles.
Stomach twisting, I stepped forward, taking her into my arms as a tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m here, Sam. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
“I know.” Voice trembling, she retreated, straightening the back of her shirt and staring at the floor. “Thank you for that.”
“Do you still want me to go out for a while?”
“Yes, please.”
I studied her once more, trying to decide if she would truly be okay, and then left the room as she’d asked, grabbing a handful of rags out of my bag by the door.
Shutting her into solitary confinement behind me, I sighed deeply, my shoulders slumping a bit. It was as if the crew didn’t even notice me, going on with their loudness and partying in the chapel. Their actions were probably highly offensive to those who were religious, but they didn’t care, like always. I found the atmosphere to be too much for my taste, though, and went outside, searching for fresh air and some semblance of quiet.
The well wasn’t far from the church, tucked into a tiny grove of trees that hid it from the main road. This, too, had crumbled over time, the bricks broken around the top, some of the stones having fallen to the ground. The plants felt more overgrown here, like the jungle was trying to consume anyone or anything that entered. Allowing myself to be enveloped by the greenery, the sounds from inside the chapel fading into the background, I set to work, finding the old bucket and tossing it inside the hole.
Thankfully, the container didn’t have any holes. As soon as I’d brought the liquid up and had a drink, I began washing the rags, silently thinking over everything I’d learned and been through in the last while. It seemed so much like a blur and yet in the same instant as if it had all happened in only one day.
Where would we go from here?
Would Tristan and the Templars ever catch up with us?
“You look like a man plagued by demons, Snake Eyes.”
Startled, I peered up, staring into Randall’s face on the other side of the grove. “Captain. I didn’t hear you come.”
“No worries.” Striding over to me, he sat on the edge of the well, staring down into the depths. “How does your fair lady go?”
Frowning, I glared at him for a second before grabbing another rag and scrubbing it together forcefully. I’d never enjoyed being teased, let alone by a brute like him. “She’s fine. Resting.”
“Good. We’ll stay through tomorrow night, as well. Beyond that, I can’t give her any more time to sit around.”
Curious, I glanced back over to him, laying the cloth I’d just finished across a fallen branch to dry. “Why are you being so generous?” Waiting for the answer, I regarded him with a cool and calculated stare. He’d proven many times that he didn’t ever do anything unless it benefited him personally.
“I want her to live.” Sounding genuinely surprised, his eyes widened and he stood, returning my gaze. “I told you, we need her.”
“For what?” I pressed. “You already have a direction you want to go. Are you really waiting for her to tell you where the treasure is?”
“Watch yourself, Snake Eyes.” His tone was still friendly, but it held an edge to it, a resonance that warned me I was getting into dangerous territory.
“I’m sorry,” I replied automatically, stepping back a pace. “I only meant . . . I don’t understand why we keep her. She’s slowing us down. If there weren’t company and food for the men, they’d be in a rage over having to delay for her. Do they know something I don’t?”
Laughing, he shook his head, motioning to the church. “That lot? No. You’re better informed than any of them. They do what I say, or die. You are my brother-in-arms, Mark. Out of the entire crew, I have confided in you the most. Do you know why that is?”
“I have no idea,” I confessed. Something about the way he was speaking made me uncomfortable, like I was slowly being led into a trap.
“I like you,” he said simply. “You aren’t afraid to do what you need to. It’s a good pirate, the man who will put aside everything to obey his captain. I need men like you behind me.”
The near mutiny I’d witnessed came to mind at that, the crew fighting over whether or not they could trust Randall to do as he said. It occurred to me that I’d never done that; I’d always believed he would do what he said he would. If the Templars arrived to thwart him, that was another thing. However, if he had no outside force to stop him, I truly believed that Thomas Randall could accomplish whatever he set his mind to. It was what made me wary to go against him.
I may have been the one they called Snake, but Randall was a true predator, hiding in the grass.
“You have me, Captain.” Swallowing hard, I nodded at him, trying to think if there’d been any further signs of an uprising. Anxiety over being away from Sam so long was starting to eat at me as well and I fidgeted, ready to go back.
How much longer would he want to stay and talk?
“You’re a good man, Snake Eyes.” Grinning, he sat down once more, apparently appeased with my promise. “I’ve a mind to promote you, when this whole mess is over with. Granted, no one will have a need to be a pirate once we’ve finished what I have planned. We’ll be living like kings—gods.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Silently, I wondered exactly what that plan was. He wouldn’t tell me all of it now, though, that much was clear.
Standing abruptly, he made to leave, pausing at the tree line of the grove. “You know,” he said in an odd tone. “You remind me of her sometimes.”
“I’m sorry?” Bewildered, I stared blankly at him.
“Sam. There’s something about the two of you that feels the same, but I haven’t quite put my finger on it yet.”
Heart suddenly racing, I swallowed, continuing to stare. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’ll figure it out eventually.” Smiling, he left, his footsteps fading into the darkness.
Gathering the wet rags, I followed after him, trying to calm the panic that had taken over at his words.
What if he did find out how we were similar? Would he kill me for lying, or would I become a prisoner like Sam?
Sammy.
Speeding up, I practically raced through the doors of the church to her room, looking around wildly to make sure no one had bothered her while I was away. Talking with Randall had left me on edge, the discussion making it easy to imagine her being attacked while I’d given her the time she asked for.
“Everything okay in here?” I asked, coming in and returning to the solemn environment.
However, it immediately became clear everything was not okay. Her shoulders were shaking, her body collapsed on the table. That wasn’t the most alarming part, however. It was the sight of Sam’s hands covering her face, blood smeared across them as they stifled her wailing.
“What is it? What happened?” Rushing to her side, I glanced her over, trying to assess what had happened in my absence. Had someone come in here? Was she hemorrhaging? Going over every inch of her, I desperately searched for what was wrong, before I finally saw it.
The baby was tiny, so tiny that it could have fit in the palm of my hand, the head not even reaching my fingers. Resting on the table, between her legs, it was smeared with blood as well. Carefully, I picked the small child up, marveling at it, my eyes drifting from the small figure to Sam.
“I f-felt something c-come out,” she said, sobbing even harder, her face still hidden. “And when I l-looked, it was the b-baby.”
Shifting my gaze to the child again, tears pricking me. It was a girl, her pale skin somehow so perfect while still underdeveloped, the veins of her body showing through the somewhat see-through flesh. Her eyes, still fused shut, looked peaceful somehow.
The chord protruding from where her belly button would have been was dark, leading up into Sam’s pants and the placenta I assumed she still needed to deliver. It seemed like something had happened with the baby’s nutrition source, but I didn’t know if it had been a natural occurrence, or something brought on by the beating Sam had received when she was kidnapped. I did know for certain that the child had passed away within the last week, judging from its size.
“It’s a girl,” I said quietly, brushing my finger across the tiny forehead.
“Oh.” The announcement seemed to have shocked Sam some and she uncovered her face, staring at the two of us.
Turning to let her see, I showed her the child, smiling sadly. “Here.” I told her, giving her my free hand to help her sit up. Once she was somewhat comfortable, I passed the baby to her, laying it against her chest.
The sound she made could have destroyed even the coldest of beings. I watched as she cradled her child beside her heart, weeping for her and the life she would never have. Shedding a few tears myself, I rose and gathered the string and scissors I’d bought earlier in the day, cutting the chord for her and tying it off.
“I’m going to go outside, to the chapel,” I whispered, knowing that she wouldn’t be paying much attention to me. There would be time to take care of her soon enough, a space where I could make sure that she was going to be okay. Right now, she had to be alone with her daughter, to say goodbye and to tell her whatever it was she wanted her to know. “You still need to deliver the placenta. It should come on its own in few minutes. I’m going to give you a few moments with your daughter. Just call if you need me. I’ll be right outside.” She briefly acknowledged my words with only a nod. “I’m so sorry, Samantha.”
Carried Away (The Swept Away Saga, Book Two) Page 24