Beloved Warrior

by Patricia Potter

  A Frenchie, he recalled. On the ship for mayhap two months. Not long. Despair settled in the pit of his stomach. What if he had done as the others wanted and headed toward Morocco? Sell the cargo and buy more cannons? Take up pirating?

  He had talked them out of it by making promises he might not be able to keep. Now they all might die because of it.

  JULIANA held Carmita as the contents of the maid’s stomach went into the pail that Manuel had left for them.

  She could couldn’t even see the pail. All the lights had been quenched when the storm started. The danger of fire was too high. In between Carmita’s heaving, they held on to each other and the bed to keep from being thrown from one side of the cabin to the other.

  Would it never end?

  At least it kept the oarsmen’s attention away from them. Which horror was worse? Being taken by the oarsmen or drowning in a freezing sea?

  Her own stomach seemed stalwart. But then she had eaten only a bite or so. Carmita had eaten even less.

  “Senorita . . . you should . . . not . . .” Carmita tried before she started to heave again.

  “Nonsense.”

  The ship rolled again, so far to the left that she thought they must topple into the sea.

  Carmita screamed and clutched at her.

  Juliana wanted to comfort the young maid, but her terror was just as strong. Any words of comfort would be a lie.

  The ship righted. The fury from outside came through the timbers. She heard the waves thunder against the hull. How could the Sofia continue to withstand such battering?

  The ship rose again, then dropped suddenly.

  Carmita started praying again. Loudly.

  Juliana rolled against a wall. She prayed, too, then added a few Spanish curses she’d heard her father utter.

  By the Holy Mother, she was not going to die like this. She simply would not.

  THE storm subsided as dawn came. Gray crept through the clouds. The winds lessened, though they still blew strong. Exhausted men dropped where they’d stood.

  Several had been wounded by loose sheets and objects sliding along the deck. One of the ship’s boats had torn loose and injured three men. One man was missing, probably lost at sea.

  Patrick surveyed the moaning men lying on the floor in the surgeon’s cabin. He knew a few rudimentary things to do, but there were too many needing help. Kilil, the Moor who had shared his bench, had taken over the surgery and was doing what he could in binding wounds.

  Then he thought the women might help. Mayhap it would do two things. Add more hands to tend the wounded when the rest of the crew was near dead from exhaustion, and give the men a reason to respect them.

  He was desperate for sleep, had reached the end of his endurance. Since the takeover, he hadn’t slept at all. Diego had slept only for a very few hours.

  All of them needed to keep their wits.

  His side was bleeding again, reopened by the stretching and pulling of the past few hours, but his wound was minor compared to some of the others.

  He went down the steps to the women’s cabin. Manuel was dutifully still there, sitting outside. His head lolled from side to side. He was asleep.

  Patrick knocked on the door, waited a moment, then went inside without waiting for a response. It was obvious one had been sick, and he soon realized it was the young girl. Her face had a greenish tinge, and her dark brown eyes looked bloodshot.

  The other woman, the Mendoza, had her arms around the girl. A Mendoza with a soul.

  Mayhap.

  Or mayhap she was using the girl as a shield.

  “The storm?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Over. For the moment.”

  A shudder shook her body, but he did not see tears. He had yet to see them.

  She stood. She still wore the dark blue gown, but her hair was pulled back in one long, thick braid. Her face looked wan and tired.

  She was also coping far better than he believed any other woman of his acquaintance would do. She obviously feared for her virginity and her life, and that of her young companion, but her back was rigid and her chin set and her eyes determined. Admiration rushed through him.

  She glanced down at the wet and newly bloodied bandage. “You have opened the wound.”

  “Does it matter that a slave bleeds?” he asked.

  Her face reddened. “It matters if anyone bleeds,” she said shortly.

  “The oarsmen wish your uncle had felt the same way.”

  “He and the crew paid for it, though, did they not?” she said.

  He had to grudgingly respect her defiance. She did not cower despite the signs that she was very badly frightened. Instead those tired eyes sparked with outrage.

  “They tried bloody hard to kill us,” he defended himself.

  “Some of the crew must have tried to surrender,” she persisted.

  He shrugged. There was no point in reminding her that the oarsmen had been starved and beaten for months and, in many cases, for years. They wouldn’t recognize surrender.

  “You did not want witnesses?”

  He tensed. She was confronting the fact that had nagged him since he found the two women. She was right. He did not want witnesses. But he knew it was not in him to kill women.

  Nor to see them killed.

  He was one among one hundred. He was not sure how long he could keep the others from rape and more murder.

  “You slaughtered them,” she persisted.

  “They would have slaughtered us. I suspect you would have preferred that,” he added with bitterness.

  “Nay,” she said slowly. “I would not want any man to die.”

  “But given a choice?” he retorted.

  “I had no choice.”

  “Your wealth, that dress you wear, are the fruits of the labor that killed countless men. They died of exhaustion, starvation, whippings. Then they were rolled off the ship for the sharks.”

  “I did not know.”

  “Or care.”

  “I do care,” she cried out. “I know it was terrible, no matter what you did, but . . .”

  “No matter what I did,” he repeated softly. “What do you think I might have done, Senorita Mendoza?”

  Her mouth trembled slightly as she sought an answer. To her credit, she did not dissolve into tears.

  Then she finally spoke. “My uncle said you . . . they . . . were criminals, murderers, infidels.”

  “You would see men die in agony because they did not embrace the same religion as you?”

  She shook her head.

  “It was battle. Our lives against theirs,” he said, wondering why he was trying to justify his actions. “I fought for the French and was taken prisoner by a Spanish nobleman. He sold me to your uncle when ransom was not paid.”

  Her unusual eyes searched his for the truth.

  “Over half the oarsmen are prisoners of war sold for coin to your uncle,” he continued. “Honorable men, many of them, but made into animals by your uncle. Expect little mercy from them.”

  Her face looked stricken.

  “We need help with some injured men,” he said. “You did well enough with me yesterday.”

  “Is that a request or an order?”

  “I do not make requests.”

  “I will do it.” Her fingers knotted into a fist. “For them. Not because you ordered it.”

  “Aye, you will,” he said. “You owe every man here. You and your family. We were rowing because you were hurrying to a rich marriage,” he mocked. “You and your fine clothing.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice as he remembered those last strokes of the whip. On both Denny and himself.

  He had to maintain that anger. She was entirely too appealing, despite being Mendoza’s niece. He did not want to admire her. He did not want his body to react in treacherous ways, nor to feel the hot stirrings he had suppressed these past years.

  Too long without a woman’s body.

  She stepped back from him. He wasn’t sure whe
ther it had been his words or something in his eyes. “I had no choice in the matter. I did not wish to go to England. I was forced ...”

  He stared at her for a moment, looking for the truth, but then it really did not matter. The only thing that mattered at the moment was keeping her alive. Getting more of the crew on her side. “Manuel will take you to where the injured are.”

  “Carmita is coming with me? I . . . I do not want to leave her alone.”

  “She can go. Manuel will stay with you. If there is any trouble he will come for me.”

  Her eyes closed for a moment. “Gracias.”

  “Do not thank me,” he said shortly. “You should not have been aboard this ship. You are a complication. Try not to make yourself more of one.”

  He had turned to go when she asked, “Who are you?”

  He turned back to her. “On the ship? I was One. That means I lasted longer than anyone else. After me there is Two, Three . . . One Hundred arrived the same day you did. He might have lasted longer than the man he replaced, which was a little less than a month.”

  Shock filled her face, widened her eyes. He wondered whether she believed him or not.

  It doesn’t matter, he told himself.

  “You are a Scot,” she said.

  “Aye.”

  “How . . . long to be . . . One?”

  “Nearly six years to my count,” he said. “Before that I rotted in a Spanish dungeon for a year.”

  “I cannot do anything about that,” she said softly. “I wish I could. Words mean nothing, I know. I will try to help where I can.”

  Regret in the soft voice sent frissions of heat through him. He did not see a lie in her eyes. He wanted to touch her cheek. It looked soft. It had been so long since he had touched anything soft. . . .

  He fisted his hands into a fist. They weren’t soft. They were knotted with calluses.

  Bloody hell, but he was going weak. The worst thing he could do was to touch her. He had forbidden her to the rest of the crew. He would lose any control if they thought . . .

  He turned toward the door. “Manuel will be outside. We have a shortage of clean cloth to bind the injuries. Tear your chemises and bring them with you.”

  Her face flared red.

  “And anything else we can use,” he added. “I will be making sure that you do.” He purposely made his voice harsh. Bloody hell, but he wanted her terrified of him. He wanted her to do exactly as she was told. It might be the only way to save her.

  It astounded him how she stood up to him, asked so many questions. She was intelligent enough to want to know her enemy. Or was she just waiting for a chance to take his dagger, to try again to plunge it into him?

  “How many are injured?” she asked.

  “Ten.”

  “Does that include you?”

  “Nay.”

  Her gaze went down to his shirt that had turned pink from blood and rain.

  “Will you be there?”

  He shrugged. “Mayhap.”

  He turned around and went out the door. He’d wanted to linger much too badly. To erase the memory of the stench of the rowing deck by smelling the rose scent of her. Even more, he wanted to ease his sore body into hers.

  Manuel was waiting by the door.

  “Take both of them to the surgery,” he said. “They will help the injured.”

  “Si,” the lad said. He looked as weary as Patrick felt, but he knew there would be precious little sleep for any of them in the next ten or twelve days.

  “Stay with them. If there is any trouble, come for me.”

  “There will be trouble,” the lad predicted.

  Patrick knew he was right. There would be trouble, and he wasn’t sure whether his plan to alleviate some of the hatred against Mendoza and his family would work. Was he wrong in thrusting the women among them, hoping that some of the crew would see them differently?

  If not, he would soon have another rebellion on his hands. He didn’t even know how far he could trust Diego and MacDonald.

  His hold was tenuous at best. If the crew felt they could sail the ship, they might go with the Moors who were urging them to turn to piracy. If they didn’t learn, then another storm might well kill them all.

  This one nearly did.

  Inverleith.

  It seemed as far away as ever.

  Chapter 11

  JULIANA was able to breathe again as the door shut behind the Scotsman.

  His presence filled the room. Even after he left.

  The anger was all too obvious in his reply when she’d asked who he was.

  Just “One.”

  But everything about him screamed he was far more than an ordinary Scot. From his speech and obvious natural leadership, he was probably a noble. And he’d said a ransom had been asked. That meant his family was known to have wealth.

  Why hadn’t they paid the ransom?

  A shudder ripped through her as she relived the quiet rage and barely suppressed violence in his voice.

  She’d expected the worst when he’d entered. Sweet Mary, she’d expected the worst from the moment the mutineers took over the ship. She thought she would die during the storm, knowing that the ship was in the hands of slaves.

  Surprisingly, she and Carmita were still alive. Still untouched. She didn’t know how long that would last, but she would grab every moment she could.

  She also welcomed the idea of keeping occupied rather than waiting in this cabin for whatever fate awaited them. If she and Carmita proved their worth, then perhaps they would be set ashore somewhere.

  A faint hope, but nonetheless a hope.

  She wished she understood more of the tall Scot. She’d seen a flash of something like lust in his eyes, but he had not acted on it. Instead, it seemed to anger him.

  “Carmita, help me sort what can be used as bandages,” she said to the girl.

  “Do we have to leave the cabin, senorita?”

  “I think we will be safer if we do. If we help . . .”

  It was obvious from the look on Carmita’s face that she did not agree, but nonetheless she rose from the corner into which she’d tried to blend during the Scot’s presence and knelt next to the trunk.

  Her new dresses spilled out. How enraged her father would be if he knew what had happened to the dresses he so hastily and at great expense had provided for her wedding.

  He wouldn’t particularly care what happened to her, except for the loss of the union with the Earl of Chadwick’s son. But her mother . . .

  The first tear fell down her cheeks. She had tried to hold them back. They would not accomplish anything but to give satisfaction to the barbarians who had murdered the entire crew. She thought of her mother and the fact that the woman would have no more hope; it was more than Juliana could bear. Would her madre ever know what became of her?

  Juliana wiped the tear away and willed no others to follow. She saw Carmita’s quick glance and tried to explain. “I was thinking of Madre,” she said, trying to relieve Carmita’s new apprehensions. “I miss her.”

  “Si. I, too.” She bit her lip. “There is no one to mourn me.”

  “There will be no need to mourn,” Juliana said with more conviction than she felt. “If they were going to do anything, they would have done it. We must now make ourselves valuable to them.”

  Carmita shuddered. “I do not know how.”

  Juliana reached out and clasped her hand. “I do not, either, but we will learn together.”

  Minutes later they had torn her five chemises and several underdresses into strips. She prayed it would be enough. Then she tried the door.

  It was unlocked.

  The boy, Manuel, stood straight against the opposite wall. Slight. Terribly young to have taken part in murder. But she knew he had. Just as all her captors had.

  “The capitán said I was to take you to tend the injured,” Manuel said.

  She didn’t try to argue that she knew little about tending wounds of any kind, much less chall
enge his description of the Scot as capitán.

  She followed him, Carmita at her side.

  The surgery was crowded. It was little more than a large cabin. About the size of her uncle’s cabin. It had six cots, and now all were full, and several men were on the floor. A man splattered with blood seemed to be acting as a physician.

  He was olive-skinned. A Moor, she knew instantly.

  He regarded her with open curiosity.

  “I . . . the Scot thought I could help,” she said.

  “Any are welcome,” he said.

  “Are you a physician?”

  His smile was thin. “No. But I have experience with wounds.” He spoke in heavily accented Spanish. He paused. “Do you?”

  “No. I can stitch, though, and I learn fast.”

  “Then we begin.”

  “I am Juliana,” she said. “This is Carmita.”

  “My name is Kilil,” he said. His eyes were dark and unreadable. Neither friendly, nor hostile. Just . . . hard.

  “What can we do?”

  “A leg is smashed. I must cut it off and burn it. The upper leg should be tied off as I cut so he will not bleed to death.” His gaze never left her face, and she knew he was testing her.

  She nodded, not knowing whether she could bear the man’s pain. But her life might well depend on it. As well as Carmita’s.

  He nodded to two men who were in the background. They lifted a man onto a table. The wounded man moaned with pain as Kilil examined the mangled leg.

  She winced. The leg was ripped open and a bone was protruding from a large gaping wound. Her legs barely held her. It was not the lack of courage on her part, at least she hoped not. It was the man’s agony.

  Kilil gestured with his head toward a table. A box lay on its top as well as several bloody instruments. “Medicines.”

  She opened the chest. Most of the bottles contained herbs she recognized. She knew herbs. Her mother loved gardening and had her own herb garden. There were also two bottles that contained a powder she did not recognize. Opium, according to piece of paper tied around the container.