Carlos’s eyebrows knitted together and he shook his head, causing the beads and shells in his braids to clack against one another.
“I do not understand that you would want something so badly that you are willing to exchange all of this for only one thing, but … yes, I do have it.” He reached deep into the side pocket of his trousers and withdrew a small leather pouch, handing it to Edward.
“To you, Eduardo, from Evangelina,” Carlos solemnly offered.
Edward’s eyes gleamed as he fumbled with the knotted drawstring at the mouth of the pouch. When he managed to untie it, he carefully withdrew its contents. It was a small brass box, no bigger than the brass bird that Tess had first retrieved the emerald spinner from. The entire box had been dipped in wax and a seal imprint had been applied to each of its six tiny sides. Clutching the small box to his chest with both hands, Edward sank to his knees.
“Evangelina!” he shouted up to the sky. “For this, I will forever love you!”
Tess watched, stunned beyond belief. Impossibly, in that single gesture, Edward’s disloyal behavior had sunk to an even lower level and his treachery had just risen to a new height.
Her surprise and outrage was no less than that of her father’s, however.
“You bloody scheming bastard! You barbarian!” Dr. Willoughby roared. His face was purpled with fury and he hurled himself towards Edward who was still kneeling on the deck. A half dozen pairs of hands shot out, clutching him, bringing his lunge to a complete stop in midair. As though crazed by this sudden confinement, he continued to scream, “You traitor! Taking sides with the likes of this–this murdering, son of a whore!”
Tess’s disbelief at Edward’s behavior had now shifted to her father’s. She had never heard him utter a single profanity in front of her before. In spite of their present danger, she felt a small spark of joy. She had never seen her father react so passionately to anything.
Her attention returned to the fierce pirate captain and Edward, and she watched as Edward’s eyes narrowed. His voice was cold and deliberate. “Are you addressing me, Sir? A fellow gentleman?”
“You are not a gentleman!” Dr. Willoughby roared. “You are worse than a common rogue! You are scum! How dare you disgrace the honor of–”
Tess could not believe her ears. He’s outraged! He’s defending my honor! My honor! He’s–”
“– your King and country!” the doctor spat out.
King and country? Tess was stunned. Whose honor? Not mine …. A slow, suffocating sadness filled her chest and Tess felt utterly spent. As she blinked back her gathering tears, she dared to glance at her grandmother’s face. Her grandmother was staring straight ahead, her jaw clenched tightly shut.
Carlos drew his saber and stepped forward, its point piercing the skin on Dr. Willoughby’s chest. The doctor’s eyes bulged in outrage as much as in fear, and a thin trickle of blood spilled down the front of his shirt.
“I will not let your slurs towards me go unanswered, Sir,” Carlos growled ominously. “Do you have anything to say which might redeem yourself?”
“Carlos,” Edward interjected and placed a restraining hand on his friend’s arm, “this man is not a man of war, and in fact, saved my life in London–”
Carlos turned to look at Edward but did not lower his blade. “He has spoken vile accusations, and his insults reach beyond my forgiveness, yet you tell me that you owe your life to this man?”
“I do,” Edward conceded.
Carlos slowly returned his gaze to the doctor.
“What am I to do then?” He stared at the doctor and a small smile began to spread across his mouth, his murderous demeanor melting away before their very eyes.
The man is truly demented! Tess shuddered at the change in the pirate leader. It’s as though he’s possessed by more than one personality! She stood rooted to the spot, terrified that the slightest movement would set him off again.
It was obvious to her that she was not alone in her fear. Not one sailor so much as shuffled his feet. They all seemed mesmerized by the drama unfolding before them. Carlos’s eyes began to sparkle with a maniacal gleam again.
“Yes!” he shouted gleefully. “This situation provides me with the opportunity to show you just how much of a gentleman I am!” He sheathed his saber with great flourish.
“I shall spare your life!” he announced cheerfully, his grin fully blossomed.
“You see? Your mouth might have cost you your life, but I am not the–what was it you accused me of being?–oh yes, a murdering, son of a whore, wasn’t it?” The smile dropped from his lips. He closed his eyes for a moment and when they opened, they glittered with a dangerous fury. He drew in a deep breath, and then slowly exhaled.
“Call me what you will, but my mother made her living the only way she could.” Nodding to the burly man holding one of the doctor’s arm, Carlos directed, “He may live but he’ll utter no further insults. Take his tongue!”
Thrown to the deck, his arms and legs pinned down by the pirates, Dr. Willoughby writhed helplessly and a guttural screech exploded from his mouth as they pried it open. Tess’s scream was lost in the melee as the flash of a dagger’s blade appeared over her father’s face. Above it all, a shrieking wail pierced through the roar of adult voices.
“Hold on!” Carlos commanded. His brow was gathered in confusion. “What is that offensive squeal?” The intended tongue mutilation came to a temporary halt as all eyes locked onto a disheveled looking pirate who pushed his way through the crowd with his outstretched arms offering a squirming, squalling package.
“It’s a milksop, Sir! Found him in with the chickens. But it’s not a normal lookin’ sucklin’. Have a gander at this!”
Carlos peered into the blankets without touching the bundle. His nose wrinkled up in disgust and his look of confusion was quickly replaced by one of suspicion.
“A suckling? Where is the mother?” he roared. “There is a woman on board! Show yourself!” His head swiveled from side to side, his eyes sweeping over those who stood before him. “I swear I will strip and whip each of you until I find her!” With a sudden bellow, he grabbed the baby, holding him upside down by one scrawny leg. Swiftly he slashed the child’s thigh with a small hand dirk, turning the babe’s cry into a shriek of pain. Tess cried out, her own wail going unheard as just then, with a murderous howl, her mother broke through the wall of bodies and launched herself in a ferocious attack on Carlos. She was wearing her dress, having changed back into it once again, and her hair flowed loose and long behind her. Maternal instinct exploded.
Tearing dementedly at Carlos’s face and eyes with her bare hands, Elizabeth Willoughby slashed at him with unbridled fury. Caught off guard, he attempted to protect himself with his free hand, while he continued to hold the dangling baby with the other.
The baby’s screaming had intensified momentarily with the burn of the knife wound, but his screams suddenly lapsed into a choking gasp that always heralded his seizures. His small body stiffened and spasmed, his distended head bobbing violently at the end of his fragile neck. The seizures swept over the baby’s body in fierce waves, magnified in their strength by the increased pressure on his brain in the inverted position.
And then, just as suddenly as they had started, the paroxysms stopped. Elizabeth abruptly ended her attack on Carlos and directed her attention towards her child. The infant dangled from Carlos’s hand, his tiny body hanging ominously still. Elizabeth tore her son from Carlos’s grasp and cradled the baby to her chest, collapsing down onto the deck.
A grievous keening escaped from her lips as she stared into her son’s sightless eyes, his tiny pouty lips already turning a dusky blue in early death.
“You’ve blinded me, you bitch!” Carlos clutched at his face, his hands suddenly free. Reaching down, he yanked Elizabeth roughly to her feet and threw her against the deck railing. A momentary flurry of activity broke out as Captain Crowell and a few others from the Argus crew lunged towards the woman in a usele
ss gesture of assistance, their attempts to help her cut short by the restraining strength of the pirates around them.
“Is it dead?” Carlos sneered, clutching the side of his face that bled freely where his eye socket and cheek hung open in dripping strips of torn flesh. “Extending your misery and pain is going to provide me with such great pleasure!” he laughed viciously, “and I always get what I want!”
“When I am finished with you,” he continued his threat, “you will be begging me to let you join your abomination of a son in death!” He slowly advanced upon Elizabeth with deliberate steps. Struggling to her feet, she clutched the tiny corpse to her chest, backing up firmly against the railing, until retreat was no longer possible.
“It is you who are the abomination!” Elizabeth spat the words out loudly and clearly. “And I will take from you, all possibility of such a pleasure.”
Carlos hesitated a moment, surprised by the strength and conviction in her words.
“You will have no choice in what happens to you!” he snarled.
“You are … so very wrong,” Elizabeth taunted, and smiling as confidently as Tess had ever seen her mother smile, Elizabeth catapulted herself soundlessly backwards over the railing into the waiting ocean depths below.
“No-o-o-o!”
It was as close to the sound of a man’s soul breaking as any could imagine.
Although Dr. Willoughby had remained firmly pinned to the deck, he had managed to twist his face towards his wife’s last words and had seen her feet disappear from his view. Enraged with the strength of one who has nothing left to live for, he tore himself from the grasps of those holding him down and launched himself at Carlos, his hands throttling the pirate’s neck.
Carlos’s eyes bulged, at first with surprise and then with ensuing strangulation, as the doctor’s deadly grip crushed inward on his windpipe, its rings of cartilage beneath his fingers yielding and snapping under the force of such pressure. Things had happened so fast that for a heartbeat or two, no one moved, no one comprehended what was happening.
Suddenly Dr. Willoughby gave a soft grunt and released his grip on Carlos’s neck. Both men collapsed simultaneously to their knees, Carlos grasping his mutilated face and crushed windpipe, and Dr. Willoughby clutching his abdomen. A large dagger hilt protruded between his hands.
Looking down at the weapon, his mouth opened and closed though no words came out, as the shock of his injury sank in. Lifting his eyes up to scan the faces of those gathered around him, Dr. Willoughby locked his gaze for a few moments on the horrified faces of Mrs. Hanley, then Cassie, and finally on Tess.
His face crumbled in grief and his eyes filled with unspoken emotion, full of longing for words that had never been said, and of regret, too late, for the ones that had. He slowly returned his gaze to Mrs. Hanley’s face which was now streaked with tears, their pathways having washed small ruts down her cheeks through the blood and soot and odorous muck that caked her skin.
“Take care of my girls, won’t you?” he pleaded out loud to her, his voice cracking with emotion, and then grasping the dagger’s bloody handle, he gave a fierce tug and watched as the blood pumped from his body, his life’s force splashing onto the deck at his knees, watched until his eyes became sightless and he collapsed down into the already gelling pool of his own blood.
“Girls?” The word had not escaped Carlos’s notice. “What girls?” he wheezed, his voice already strident with the swelling of his bruised vocal cords.
“Father!” Cassie and Tess screamed out in unison, and heedless of their disguises, threw themselves upon his lifeless body.
“Eduardo!” Carlos beckoned while casting a glance about with his remaining eye. “You have more women on board? Just how many surprises do you have for me?”
Rushing forward, Edward grabbed Tess by her arm and hauled her to her feet. “What in the hell are you doing in this filthy garb?” he demanded, his face screwing up in disgust. Spinning around, he addressed Carlos. “This is Tess Willoughby. My fiancée. And,” he hesitated for a moment as he peered at the other sailor lying prostrate across the doctor’s body, “I believe this is her house servant. This one is called Cassie.”
“She’s my sister!” Tess spat the words out at both him and Carlos.
“Attractive as she is, it’s obvious that you don’t share one drop of blood with her!” Edward retorted. “And bloodlines are the only thing that matter.”
“Bloodlines!” Tess’s loathing for Edward surfaced, numbing her grief. You think bloodlines are important? Then you should know that your brother–”
Tess’s words were choked off as Edward quickly smothered her mouth with his hand, snarling at her. “I will not tolerate insubordination from you or any other. Do I make myself clear?” She saw the familiar blackness fill his eyes, and she froze under his grip.
“That one is merely a servant,” Edward reiterated to Carlos, “and there should be a garrulous housekeeper somewhere ….”
“She is careless? This housekeeper? Why do you tell me this?” Carlos’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“Garrulous! Garrulous! Not careless,” Edward laughed brashly. “Can you not hear out of your ears? Or has your command of the English language deteriorated in all of this time?”
“I can speak as well as you!” Carlos retorted in a wheezy gasp, “and it is my eye and throat that need help, not my ears! Which one is el medico?”
“That one.” Edward pointed at the doctor’s body.
Alarm spread over Carlos’s face as the realization sunk in.
“You see, Carlos, your hotheaded temper will be the death of you yet!” Edward chuckled and shook his head. “But don’t despair, my friend, as my fiancée here has learned well from her father before his untimely passing. She herself brought me back from the brink of death.”
Now it was Carlos’s turn to laugh. His swollen throat made it sound more like the hiss of a serpent than a chuckle. “Another rescue from the doorway of death? How many times do you get to visit it and talk your way back before you are to be shown in?”
“Ah ha! That, perhaps, is the question we would all like to have answered for ourselves, wouldn’t we?” Edward smiled. “And with such help from Evangelina,” he murmured, brandishing the brass box still in his palm, “I may have all of the outcomes that I could ever want!”
Jerking roughly on Tess’s arm, he scowled at her, while speaking in general to all those present, and to Carlos specifically. “So now, if we may be allowed to exit from this welcoming party, I shall ready my fiancée to return to the sick bay with the proper tools … and much cleaner attire.” He grasped her tightly to him and began to walk towards the companionway, before turning around once more.
“Oh yes, Carlos. One more thing. The others–” He nodded his head in the direction of the remaining captives. “Do with them what you will. My gift to you.”
Tess found herself alone with Edward in his cabin and once again she struck out offensively. “Who is Evangelina? And what was it that she sent to you, delivered by that–that monster up there?”
Tess’s questions hung sharply in the air between them. Edward laughed and replied mockingly, “Do I detect a tone of jealousy? Could it be that my bride-to-be is already madly in love with me and objects to hearing another woman’s name on my lips?”
“You flatter yourself!” Tess spat angrily. “No woman who knew you–really knew you and the kind of person you are–would ever have anything to do with you! She must be desperate, insane even, to have any interest in you!” she seethed.
At this accusation, Edward’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched as he bent over to open the secret drawer in his cabin.
“Evangelina … is … my sister, if you must know,” he stated non-chalantly as he manipulated the small star knob on the drawer front. “We were not just twins you see, my brother and I, but two of a surviving set of triplets. She, the girl child, shortly after being weaned, was sent back to be nurtured by my mother’s people, whils
t Thomas and I were raised in the London court, with the appropriate court training as befit us.”
“A sister?” Tess was momentarily struck dumb by this revelation.
“Yes. And now married to Carlos,” he added with an amused smile.
“Married to him? Is such insanity a family trait then?” Tess’s anger had returned and her tone was scathing.
“You are brave and foolish all at once, to aggravate me so, Tess,” Edward sighed, “and I warn you now that when we are married, I will break your high spiritedness down into proper submission, suitable for a wife. It can only go badly for you if you continue to insist on such insubordination.” He turned around to face her and held out his hand. “Put these on.”
Edward was giving the rings back to her. “You will need them to heal Carlos. The blue of the tourmalines will produce strong intuition–clarity to see possible outcomes, and the emeralds, as before, will ensure the success of your treatment choices.”
Outraged at Edward’s assumption, Tess shrieked “He killed my father!” and then her voice broke and trembled. “He killed my father … I will not lift a finger to save him.”
“You will do so because I wish it to be so,” Edward whispered calmly, stepping so close to her that she could feel his heart beating as he clutched her to his chest. She stiffened at his touch and attempted to pull her face away from him as his lips brushed her earlobe. “And if I am kept happy,” he continued, his voice soft and dangerous, “and if Carlos is kept alive of course, it may go better for your housekeeper and servant.” Tess’s own heart thudded in alarm at this spoken threat.
Edward’s hand brushed her hair, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a gleam of gold on blood-red, reflecting the lantern’s dim glow.
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