Across a Moonlit Sea

by Marsha Canham

  On board the Scout Dante had the dubious pleasure of watching the quartet comprised of the Queen’s faster-sailing galleons stretch their lead in front of him. The Scout was not alone in her tardiness; many of the private vessels traveled in the same pack, including Victor Bloodstone. Whether by accident or design the Talon kept pace with the Scout, always a little to the rear and off the starboard quarter. Behind them the five remaining pinnaces struggled through the turbulence of the fleet’s wake, tacking back and forth like fleas trying to avoid being capsized by the heavy waves.

  Dante was on the afterdeck watching some of their antics when Pitt joined him.

  “We’re about as ready as we’ll ever be.”

  Dante nodded grimly at the assessment, then his gaze went back to the horizon.

  “Is it still there?”

  The sun was too bright, dancing off the tops of the waves, making each pinpoint of light resemble a suit of sails. But for three days now, early in the morning and last thing at night, something had been out there, riding low on the horizon, a mere speck of white at dawn, a nagging itch at the nape of the neck throughout the night.

  Dante’s first thought had leaned toward a Spanish zabra or a Portugese urca bound in the same direction as their fleet. His second, supported by Carleill and considered by Pitt, was a supply boat or even a treasure ship heading for Cadiz to be refitted. In reality, it could have been any of a thousand ships that regularly passed back and forth between the gates of the Mediterranean, yet neither Pitt nor Dante believed it for longer than it took to read the suspicion in each other’s eyes.

  “You don’t suppose—”

  “If it is,” Dante had replied with quiet menace, “I will kill her myself.”

  Both men had looked back at the distant speck on the horizon, not wanting to believe it was possible, yet, when it was still there three days later, with no visible sign of the ship either speeding up to overtake them or falling off to veer into another port, both were more than half convinced it was the Egret.

  “I truly will throttle her,” Dante murmured, barely moving his lips. “I will close my hands around her throat and squeeze until her eyes squirt out of her head and her tongue turns black.”

  “Maybe it isn’t them. Maybe it is, as Carleill suggests, a cautious mariner reluctant to advance on such a large fleet.”

  Dante stared at the green of the distant sea, then into the green of Pitt’s eyes.

  Neither one of them believed it for a minute.

  At roughly four in the afternoon the great limestone seawall on which the town of Cadiz sat rose up from the sea, the harbor behind it bristling with a forest of masts and rigging. Heedless of William Borough’s expectations of courtesy, Drake led his galleons into the bay, giving no warning of their intent until they were past the outermost spit of land. Two large galleys put out officiously from the Port of Saint Mary on the opposite side of the harbor, wanting to inquire after his business. They were shallow-draught vessels, driven by oars, and at the first thunderous volley from the Bonaventure’s guns, their curiosity was satisfied and they made an abrupt turnaround, stroking furiously for the shoals where they knew no galleon could follow.

  Drake hoisted the Cross of St. George on his mainmast. When he ran his own pennants and standards up the lines to announce to the town of Cadiz that the Dragon of the Apocalypse had arrived, the pandemonium onshore and in the crowded harbor was visible. The streets clogged instantly with citizens running, screaming, for the safety of the Citadel. Soldiers were dispatched from the fortress in a scramble of disorganization and lined the top of the cliffs like small black spikes of hair, their presence there as useless and ineffectual as the muskets they fired or waved in the air.

  Drake ordered the Bonaventure straight into the massed crowd of shipping anchored alongside the quays. He took a moment to admire how closely the tightly packed formations resembled the paintings Dante had removed from the San Pedro, and with the admiration still shining in his eyes, he gave the order to open fire. He loosed three full broadsides into their midst before sheering off. The privateers behind him did likewise before breaking off into smaller packs and attacking selected portions of the harbor. Many of the supply ships and galleons that were in Cadiz being refitted for war were indeed without sails and were hapless targets for the guns of the Queen’s privateers. Some of the smaller vessels that could move cut their anchor cables and tried to bolt, but they were no match for the sea hawks, and in short order the bay was filled with smoke and noise, there were ships burning and ships sinking, few, if any, with the means or ability to answer with their guns.

  A second small fleet of galleys attempted to rally and do what they could to deter the English and keep the mouth of the channel that led to the inner harbor open for escaping ships. They threw themselves at the ElizabethBonaventure, but with the other three Royal Navy warships riding off her flanks, the galleys were dispatched, five of them in flames, the other two with shattered oars and battered courage.

  Dante had managed to stay in the shadow of the Bonaventure, offering his support against the galleys. Wanting to give his crew confidence, he selected one of the slower ships and stalked it precariously close to the shoals, blasting away as quickly as the men could reload and fire. Through a break in the smoke he caught sight of one of the galleons making laboriously toward the mouth of the channel and he understood at once why the galleys had thrown themselves into the suicidal attack. On her foremast she flew the standard incorporating the arms of Portugal, Leon, Castile, and Naples; at the main, the crossed keys of the papacy; on the mizzen, the red-and-white ensign of Spain; and on the stern, the enormous banner with Philip’s royal arms.

  It was the forty-four-gun Santa Ana, the flagship of Philip’s favored admiral, the Marquis of Santa Cruz.

  Dante looked for Drake, but either the Bonaventure had not noticed the rata behind her shield of smaller vessels, or he was too preoccupied with the galleys to break free.

  Once more Dante had cause to rue the inadequate firepower of the Scout; her guns would be no match for the enormous Spaniard. But what he could do, and what he did do, was order the helm about to put her on a direct course to intercept, hoping to delay the rata’s retreat into the inner harbor or at least block the deep water in the center of the channel.

  “Full sail, Mister Carleill; bring us in across her bow.”

  They would have to look sharp if they were going to cut the Santa Ana off, and when there was no immediate response from the helm, he whirled around and stared at the white-faced Edward Carleill.

  “Helmsman! Did you hear my order?”

  “Sir … she’ll ram us!”

  “Not if you bring her in fast enough!”

  “There is no room behind her. You’ll drive us into the shoals!”

  “Either relay my order, helmsman, or I’ll bring her in myself!”

  The Santa Ana had manned her guns. A full broadside erupted from her beam, sending shot screaming through the Scout’s tops, tearing sail and rigging and adding a curtain of thick smoke to further cloak her movements. She was gathering speed. Men were in her yards unreefing sail, others were on deck running out more guns, bringing her lower tier to readiness. A blast from a second broadside found a man on the Scout’s mizzen, sweeping him off the yard and showering the afterdeck in red droplets. Carleill looked aghast at the spatters on his mustard-colored doublet and reeled back in horror.

  “Mister Carleill!”

  It was no use and Dante furiously took command of the helm himself, shouting orders to the tops, spurring the men—who were themselves not accustomed to working the lines with iron shots zinging by their heads—into realigning the sails to grab the windage. His one small advantage was the momentum he had carried forward from the initial run into the harbor, and at his orders the Scout took a noticeable leap forward, shaking off her lethargy as if coming to realize she would have no choice with a madman at her helm.

  Dante brought her streaking in, drawing heavy fir
e from the Santa Ana. Pitt returned two broadsides to each of her one, and the combined noise of their exchange finally brought Drake’s attention swinging around, with the Revenge and Golden Lion following as quickly as they could break off from the galleys.

  Lucifer had joined Dante on the afterdeck, summarily growling aside the man who held the tiller. He looked intently to his captain for orders and, when they came, responded without a flicker of hesitation.

  Dante sheered the Scout across the Santa Ana’s bow, close enough to see the sweat glistening on the faces of the Spanish gunners. The flagship had no choice but to turn off her course and, in doing so, sailed straight into the path of Drake’s gunners. Together with the Revenge and the Golden Lion he started to pour round after round into the Spaniard, pounding her hull to bits, sending men, guns, sails, masts, pitching into the water. She was soon holed beneath the waterline in a dozen places and was sucked under by the weight of the sea flooding into her holds. She kept firing her guns to the last, however, with shot and flame and a cauldron of boiling steam marking her swift descent to the bottom of the bay.

  Dante, meanwhile, had narrowly missed running into the rocky teeth of the shoals. He came so close, in fact, his keel scraped sand and a jagged scream of stone against wood juddered the length of the Scout. But he skimmed free and shook out her nerves, leaving the Santa Ana to Drake as he circled and set his sights on a fat-looking Levantine who was trying desperately to steal away with the clouds of smoke and cut out of the harbor, into the freedom of the open sea.

  On the deck of the Talon Victor Bloodstone’s eyes narrowed as he tried to peer through the veils of drifting smoke. He had watched the Scout’s run against the Santa Ana and he had been cheering for the huge Spanish argosy, hoping De Tourville would underestimate the speed and handling of his ship. He had wanted to see the bow of the Spaniard crush into Dante’s beam, to see it shatter apart like kindling, sending the French bastard screaming into the sea of fire.

  When the Scout had disappeared behind the galleon, there was still a hope she might smash herself against the shoals or, better yet, be caught in the crossfire from Drake and the three Royal Navy galleons.

  But no. The Scout had emerged intact, beetling away from the confusion with hardly more damage than a few torn sails.

  “The bastard is like a cat with nine lives,” Bloodstone muttered. “What will it take to kill him?”

  Horace Lamprey, his nose a mass of angry red scabs over a swollen and miscolored glob of crushed bone, glowered after the Scout and cursed her master with equal warmth. He cleared a smear of ash out of his throat and conjured a pleasant picture of the Cimaroon with stakes driven into his eyes.

  “I’ve a few debts I’d like to repay myself,” he growled. “Too bad she doesn’t cut in front of us. I would not mind catching her in the crossfire.”

  “Maybe,” Bloodstone said slowly, “we can arrange to do exactly that.”

  Lamprey followed Bloodstone’s gaze and just caught a glimpse of the Levantine merchantman sidling away into the whirling wisps of smoke. Her sails were fully shaken out and she was gathering speed. What the encroaching dusk and the haze could not accomplish, the outer lip of the bay would surely do, hiding her from all searching eyes inside the harbor.

  Trailing in her wake, stalking her like a predatory wolf, was the Scout with Simon Dante de Tourville at her helm.

  “Bring us about, Mister Lamprey. The Levantine is far too big for one ship to take on. The captain may require our … assistance.”

  “Aye.” The broken face split into a malevolent grin. “Aye, Captain, that he might.”

  Dante ran the length of the main deck and took the steps to the aftercastle in a single leap.

  “Well come in alongside her and try to hold the Levantine against the land,” he said to Pitt. “If we can squeeze her out of the wind, we might have a chance of herding her right into the cliffs.”

  “Sir? Captain?”

  Dante turned and saw Edward Carleill standing behind him, still gray in the face, but rigid with his own mortification.

  “Sir, I don’t know what happened back there. I cannot explain it, I can only promise it will not happen again. In fact, if—if I delay in following an order by so much as a blink, sir”—he fumbled to draw his sword from his belt— “you would do me a favor by running me through.”

  Dante studied the taut young face and could not stop himself from thinking of Beau, wishing she were there with all her stubbornness and pride.

  “This … is my first real battle sir, and—”

  Dante cursed out a breath, then tilted his head. “Stand by the rudder and be prepared to relay my orders to the letter. And you had best believe I will run you through, Carleill. Without hesitation.”

  Young Edward swallowed hard. He resheathed his sword, then took up his position by the tiller, his feet braced wide apart, his hands laced tightly behind his back.

  Dante caught the look in Pitt’s eyes. “Don’t say it.”

  “Not a word. Not about the helmsman or the guns you left behind.”

  “She’s still a woman, dammit,” Dante hissed.

  “It doesn’t seem to bother her. Why does it bother you?”

  Dante scowled. “Are your gunners ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Then stand by the goddamn boards, she’s coming into range. Mister Carleill …?” “Aye, sir?”

  “Hands to the sheets. Bring her in close and fast on a course to intercept across the bow. Same maneuver as before, only this time, let’s see if we can crowd her into the reefs.”

  Clear of the bay, the Scout took the wind on her stern quarter and chased down the Levantine. Iron-gray water curled off her bow as she tacked onto a parallel course, then started leaning over degree by degree. The master of the Levantine tried frantically to put on more speed, but the Scout was lighter, faster. She drew alongside and loosed a full broadside, rocking the huge merchantman and driving her toward the land in a futile effort to evade. Smoke blossomed from her guns and the high-pitched wail of stone balls passed in an arc over the Scout’s sails, most of them bouncing harmlessly into the sea.

  Dante’s guns thundered and the decks shuddered as he poured another volley into the Spaniard. The Scout had built up too much speed, as it happened, and threatened to shoot right past the galleon, but Carleill brought her smartly to heel and veered close enough to the giant for the next broadside to bring gouts of shattered wood spraying across their own decks. An explosion, followed by a boiling black corkscrew of smoke, curled upward from the Levantine’s powder magazine, and it was a mild disappointment a few minutes later to see her haul down her flags and pennants and signal her surrender.

  Dante ordered the Scout’s sails backed so that she almost came to a halt in the water. The gunners on the larboard beam cheered and threw their caps and bandanas in the air. Those on the starboard battery started to do the same when a blast of incoming shot exploded through the rail, sending shattered timbers in a lethal spray across the deck. Two guns heaved up on their carriages, one of them crushing a man to pulp beneath the barrel when it landed. The second was torn free from its tackle and crashed through the deck boards, its nose pointing straight up to the sky.

  Through the smoke and the screams of wounded men, Dante saw the Talon bearing down on them. He cursed and shouted a warning, most of it lost to the roar of another crushing broadside.

  But Pitt had already seen her and ordered what was left of his starboard guns loaded. He shouted for the crews to fire at will even as Dante ordered the sails reset and tried to pick up the wind again.

  The Levantine must have been just as surprised as the Scout to see another ship emerging from the clouds of smoke clogging the mouth of the bay. More so when the ship began firing on its own countryman. She was not about to be caught up in their argument, however, and veered closer into the land, leaving the two to pound each other to splinters if that was to be their intention.

  It certainly appeared to be
Bloodstone’s, for he was standing well off, using his demis to soften the Scout’s hull and rigging before he moved in for the kill. Dante ordered evasive maneuvers and the privateer made a valiant attempt to obey, but she was now the one effectively trapped between the land and the open sea. Bloodstone kept pace, kept the great bronze teeth of his guns firing, chewing away at the sails, rigging, and masts, turning the sea around her into a mass of spouting fountains.

  And enjoying every bloody minute.

  Chapter 27

  “We have to do something!” Beau shouted. “Aye, daughter, aye. I see what’s happenin’ an’ we’re movin’ as bloody fast as we can! Ye’ve put everythin’ in the tops except the shirt on yer back!”

  Beau cursed and paced the length of the Egret’s fore-deck, her fist pounding the rail every two or three feet. It may have been the decision, unanimous, of the entire crew to bring the Egret around and chase after Drake’s fleet. But it had been Beau’s and Spence’s to stay far enough back they could not be stopped and dispatched home again, their tails tucked between their legs. For two weeks they had dogged the English sea hawks, always keeping their sails barely in sight on the horizon ahead. They had only put on sail and picked up speed when the bleak thread of the Spanish coastline began to take shape.