“Hold her.” Pockmark smiled but it didn’t reach the inkiness of his almond eyes. Not even close.
Riot grabbed one of her arms and she lashed out, kicking him in the shins—boots came in handy for something, after all. He yelped, but didn’t lessen his iron grip on her wrist. Ebba lifted her arm to swing a punch, and Swindles moved in to catch it.
She snarled at them, thrashing to try to break their iron hold, but like all pirates, they were strong from physical labor and larger than her. She’d bide her time. For now.
Strung out between the two lackeys like a fish on a line, Ebba scowled at Pockmark with more hatred than she’d felt in her life. If she got out of this alive, she’d break her back to steal his sodding plunder.
“Damn coward, ye are,” she threw at him. “Ye gotten too soft to fight like a real pirate.”
Pockmark’s semblance of a smile disappeared. Her head snapped back as his fist met her face. Blood erupted from her nose and trickled down her throat. She choked on the blood as white filled her vision.
Ebba leaned forward and spat blood on the sandy ground. It took several blinks before her vision had cleared enough to straighten. Her head rang something fierce, but it was worth it to see that Pockmark’s tricorn hat now sat askew.
“Knew it,” she said, ignoring the warnings in her skull. “Ye are soft. Soft like the underbelly of a fish. Won’t be long afore ye get fat and bald.”
This would usually be about the time one of her fathers told her to shut her gob. The thought came too late, the words were already out.
Rage swirled in the slimy black of Pockmark’s eyes. He drew a dagger from his belt and approached. “Ye’ve got a foul mouth for a whore. But a whore ye can still be without a tongue.”
Sink her. That was more serious than a few punches. She twisted away from him, tugging uselessly to free her arms. No use. She’d have to bloody well scream. Pirates didn’t scream, not the fierce ones. As the dagger neared, she decided screaming may be better than losing her tongue.
“My fathers will kill ye,” she told him, never more serious in her life. They would kill him, slowly. Even for hitting her.
Pockmark stopped in his tracks and doubled over, his cruel laughter bouncing between the alley walls. Swindles and Riot hooted along with him like a personal choir. Ebba’s eyes stung as they laughed at her fathers. Ebba blinked a few times, determined not to give them the satisfaction of seeing they’d gotten to her.
Pockmark straightened his hat and moved close, his rancid breath making her gag. He held the dagger to her cheek, digging the tip in until she couldn’t help a sharp inhale at the pain.
“The old coots won’t kill me. They couldn’t kill no one,” he taunted. “Face it, fish-lips, yer crew just be merchants. And if they be smart enough, they’ll know to keep sailin’ the other way.”
Heaviness weighed in her chest, but she didn’t waver in meeting the captain’s eyes although she knew the kind of person to kill his own father wouldn’t be scared of her. Mercer Pockmark would cut out her tongue, and he’d take pleasure in it. And it likely wouldn’t be the worst thing he’d do to her before the three of them left her to die. Despite the cloying humidity, cold sweat trickled down her temple. She’d never felt fear like this in her life. But then, she’d never been alone to feel fear at all.
Or alone to feel such anger.
“Do it then,” Ebba challenged, lifting her chin. “Only cut off my ears while ye’re at it, so I don’t have to hear yer whinin’ voice.”
Fresh rage erupted across his face before he mastered it. A smirk widened his lips in the wake, displaying a row of gold fillings. Pockmark took her jaw in a grip like steel, forcing her mouth open. “It’d be my pleasure to oblige.”
“Captain Mercer? Oh my! Captain Mercer, is that you?” a shrill voice asked from the direction of the marketplace.
A trio of giggles followed.
Pockmark turned, murder in his yellowed eyes. But his expression slipped into a drawling smile at the three women standing there in low-cut dresses. His eyes dragged across their cinched frames, lingering on their rouged cheeks and fluttering lace fans.
Ebba stared at Sherry, Brandy, and Margaritta, her breath catching at the sight of her friends. She knew Sherry the very best, from a time in her life a few years back that she’d rather forget. And Peg-leg liked to drink tea with her whenever they came to Maltu.
Swindles and Riot tightened their grip on her arms, and the three women didn’t spare Ebba a glance.
“Captain Mercer,” purred Brandy. She sashayed into the alley, hands on hips and full silk skirts swishing. “I’ve missed you so.”
Pockmark’s eyes glittered. “Have ye now? We can’t be havin’ that.” He cleared his throat, eyes dropping to her ample chest.
Brandy pouted, dragging her finger across the large ‘V’ of skin at the top of her bust. “I was beginning to think you didn’t like me. I heard tell in the brothel that you arrived yesterday, but I’m yet to see you.”
Swindles cleared his throat, pointedly tilting his head to Ebba, who still hung, nose dripping, between him and Riot. Pockmark flashed him an irritated glare, but raked his eyes over Brandy, saying, “I’ll show ye just how much I like ye once I wrap up my bus’ness here.”
The swishing of a second pair of skirts joined Brandy’s. “But I have another client in two hours,” Margaritta whined, tossing her golden ringlets and sweeping the back of her hand across her bare shoulder. “I wanted to join you both.”
Pockmark’s eyes filled with greed as he darted his gaze between the two women.
He cast another look at Ebba, who kept her expression smooth.
“We’ve all missed you, Captain Mercer.” Sherry finally approached, her crimson red dress the largest of all the gowns. “If you accompany Brandy and Margaritta, I’ll see you only pay for the pleasure of one. Simply because we’ve been so desolate without you.”
Riot groaned quietly as though slipping into a hot bath. Ebba wrinkled her nose.
“I can’t be sayin’ nay to that.” Decision clearly made, Pockmark held out his arms for Brandy and Margaritta.
He swaggered to the alley’s exit, an arm around each woman. Turning back, he said, “Have fun with fish-lips without me.”
Pockmark disappeared around the corner. The giggling of Brandy and Margaritta gradually receded as they moved away.
Sherry approached the spot where Ebba was still strung up between Pockmark’s lackeys. Her bosom jiggled dangerously.
“Have fun with her!” she exclaimed. “I certainly mean to.”
Dashing forward quicker than her skirts should allow, Sherry slapped away Swindles’ hand and laced her fingers with Ebba’s. “I know several cutthroats who’d pay handsomely, given your exotic coloring.”
Riot chuckled and released Ebba’s other hand. “Make sure it be a bunch of them.”
“I’m the mistress of Maltu’s brothel. You can be assured of that,” Sherry quipped.
Remaining mute, Ebba scurried out of the alley in Sherry’s swishing wake. She rubbed her bruised wrists once safely out in the main walkway, barely able to focus on the marketplace, which seemed to be blurring. Pockmark must’ve hit her harder than she thought. Twisting, Ebba watched as the two lackeys exited behind them and strode in the opposite direction.
Sherry squeezed her hand, dropping her act like a bucket of water. “Are you hurt, ma cherie?”
Ebba adjusted her weapons in her sash, staring at the ground. “I’m okay, Sherry. Thank ye for savin’ me.” Eavesdropping hadn’t turned out as she’d expected. For a moment there, Ebba had thought she’d be a goner. Her insides were shaking and quailing from lingering fear. But aside from a bloodied face, she was in one piece.
Taking a deep breath, she straightened.
Sherry gave her a once-over, and then nodded, taking off in the direction of the marketplace center. Ebba hastened to catch up.
“Ma cherie, an alleyway!” the brothel matron muttered. “What w
ere you thinking?”
Heat flushed Ebba’s cheeks. “Aye, not my best notion, I’ll admit. But I won’t hesitate to shoot my pistols next time.”
“You won’t hesitate to shoot your pistols? I think the lesson was that you shouldn’t enter an alleyway at all.” Sherry threw her hands in the air in a clink of bracelets. “Pirates. I’ll never understand your logic.”
And that’s why pirates didn’t tend to get on with land people. “I’m right sorry Brandy and Margaritta have to be drinkin’ tea with Pockmark for so long. He won’t be makin’ nice company.”
Sherry sent her a stern look. “You know they aren’t drinkin’ tea.”
“Aye, they are,” Ebba replied. “They drink tea with their clients. And ye drink tea with Peg-leg. Ye have polite conversation. And that be all.” She held her defiance steady as the mistress scanned her face. They’d had this argument many times and Sherry likely knew how it would end—with Ebba winning.
The mistress sighed. “As you say, ma cherie, though one day you may be more interested in what happens between two adults. You may meet a handsome young man.”
Ebba opened her mouth, but Sherry cut her off. “I know, I know. It goes against one of your precious ship laws.”
“It ain’t against our ship laws as such, Sherry. More my own law,” she told the woman. “It just ain’t what I am. There only be three types of people in this realm—males, females, and pirates. And I’m a pirate. That’s all I’ll ever want to be.”
To be a pirate was to be free, to witness and chase the impossible. Ebba couldn’t afford to be limited by the idea of what a male or female should do—or how they should live their lives. She looked at the people who dwelled on land and didn’t want that existence for herself. To grow up, to marry, to get a job, to grow old, and to die. The marketplace on Maltu was only exciting because of the novelty. To go there each day for food for the rest of her life was Ebba’s equivalent of a nightmare. The single time her fathers had forced her to contemplate not being a pirate had been the worst experience of her life.
Plus, the odds of meeting a ‘handsome young man’ weren’t very good when her fathers barely went ashore. And doing so wasn’t high on her priority list. Filling her dreads with beads, sailing with her fathers, and chasing a life of adventure far outranked that prospect.
She had serious plans.
“I be a pirate,” Ebba repeated, chin jutting forward. “And yer workers drink tea with their clients.”
Sherry sighed. “I would not argue with you on this issue again, my beauty, though you are nearing the age where clinging to these notions makes you appear childish.”
“I’ll be a child for as long as I want to be,” Ebba said plainly. And she would. Childhood was working for her pretty well. If the sail wasn’t torn, why would she mend it?
The matron rolled her eyes. “Spoiled by six fathers as you are, I’m not sure there’s any incentive to act your age.”
Huh? “I ain’t spoiled.”
Sherry pursed her lips, her eyes dancing. “Ma cherie, now that is an illusion I cannot play along with. It’s normal for any father to spoil his daughter. To have six fathers is to be spoiled six times over. And. . .honestly, it’s as though you’ve taken the worst part of each of them.”
Was she referring to Locks’ temper? Or maybe Peg leg’s moods? “Do ye not like me, Sherry?” she asked, a small wrinkle between her brows.
“I love you,” the mistress was quick to correct her. “If they’ve given you their vices, they’ve also given you the best parts of themselves. But it’s because I love you that I say these things.”
Hmm, everyone had bad and good in them. “If I have six times the bad stuff and six times the good stuff, then that seems even-like.”
Ebba couldn’t be sure, but she thought Sherry mouthed pirate logic before rolling her eyes.
Shrugging a shoulder, Ebba asked, “What are ye sayin’, Sherry? Speak plain. My fathers give me too many baubles?” If that was what she meant, Ebba would stop listening and start nodding, just like Stubby showed her.
“No, my beauty. Simply that you are far too innocent and protected for a seventeen-year-old. By now, most young adults are not so . . . naïve about life. I worry that by spoiling you so, your fathers are crippling you for later life.”
Phew, she didn’t mean baubles. “Don’t worry yer head on it,” Ebba said. “I be copin’ just fine as things are.”
The woman shook her head. “And if you stop coping, you’ll just pretend nothing is wrong because of your other pirate law. You’re already pretending you’re fine after what happened in the alley.”
The mistress was a mite cannier than the average landlubber, Ebba would give her that. But Sherry had her ropes tangled about the ship laws. “We don’t pretend, Sherry. It’s just that when unexplain’ble things happen at sea, ye learn to stop askin’ why. My nose be bunged up from the alley, and I certainly didn’t enjoy it at the time, but I be right as rain now. What’s the point of goin’ on about things?”
“Call it what you will, my beauty. But you can only fill a bucket so much before it overflows.”
When had they started talking about buckets? “Aye, true enough,” Ebba hedged.
They were nearly back to where she’d left Plank and Stubby and Ebba’s gut twisted with an onslaught of nerves. She’d be in serious trouble for leaving. How likely was it she could talk herself out of punishment?
“There’s one of your fathers over there,” Sherry said, pointing.
Ebba slowed her pace, her heart racing.
The mistress held out a lace kerchief. “Use this to clean off a few specks of blood. Though judging by Plank’s expression, it won’t help any.”
Ebba took one peek at the furious Plank bearing down on them and turned pleading eyes on her friend.
“No, ma cherie. You must face the music, as they say. You insist on being treated like a child. That comes with all the drawbacks, not just those you choose. But . . . I can promise to detain Peg-leg until night falls, if that’s any help?”
Through the wave of revolt at the comment, a tiny tendril of relief found Ebba. That would get rid of one angry father for a while at least. Peg-leg was a sod when he got in a mood.
“Thank ye, Sherry,” she said, reaching out to squeeze the woman’s hand.
Sherry swooped down to kiss her cheek. “Any time, my beauty.”
The mistress swished away in a flood of red fabric and Ebba turned to Plank, her shoulders slumping.
She didn’t bother to wipe the blood off her face.
Speaking of buckets, Ebba-Viva Fairisles was officially in a bucket of shite.
Four
“Three moons of swabbin’ the deck!”
Ebba moaned. “Three moons? Plank, that ain’t fair.”
Plank hauled her down the sandy path to the town which was still visible in the dying light of day. “Ye were gone an hour, Ebba-Viva Fairisles. One hour. Stubby ran to get the others, we were that worried. So don’t be takin’ that tone o’ voice with me.”
Ebba narrowed her eyes.
“Tuck that lip in smart-like. Ye won’t be poutin’ your way out o’ this. Ye returned all bloodied,” he continued his rant.
She wasn’t pouting. Much. And if she was, it was because usually a pout worked. She released her lip. “But I overheard—”
“Anythin’ could’ve happened to ye.”
They had to hear about Pockmark’s Plunder. “Aye, but—”
Plank glanced up and smirked.
Dread filled her boots as the horde of her remaining fathers hustled toward them down the barren path. Sherry lied! The moon was yet to come out, but Peg-leg was there with the others. Ebba stole another peek at Plank’s face—still furious, bugger. Plank wasn’t even the one she was concerned about.
“Bilge-sucking Hornswaggle o’ a Hempen Halter!”
Ebba’s back snapped straight as Stubby cursed.
Clearly satisfied the others’ anger matched his own,
Plank pushed her forward and crossed his arms. She stood as stiff as a mast as the crew shouted over her head. She cringed with every clucking sound of disappointment from Locks and Peg-leg. When they clucked, she knew she’d really screwed up.
“—Is that blood?—”
“—Where be the cur who dunnit?—”
“—You know better than to wander off, Ebba-Viva.—”
She avoided Barrels’ probing eyes, staring at her boots.
“I told her she’ll be swabbin’ the decks for three moons as punishment,” Plank put in.
Ebba’s mouth dropped. He was really going to make her do that? “Ye can’t be serious?”
Grubby patted her on the arm, face as white as a new sail from all the shouting. “I’ll swab the decks for ye.”
Locks grabbed a fistful of Grubby’s shirt and hauled him out of the circle surrounding her. “We’re tellin’ her off, Grubs.”
Peg-leg tilted her chin up, scrubbing at her bloodied face with his sleeve. “Which slimy beggar did it to ye? I’ll shove me wooden leg down his gullet and watch him choke to death.”
The others hushed at his question.
Ebba opened her mouth, about to dive on the opportunity to tell them of Pockmark’s plunder. And then shut it.
She opened her mouth again, yet Pockmark’s cruel words about her fathers churned deep inside her, making her hesitate. Her fathers were on the older side. If she told them about the three hateful pirates, they’d go after Malice without fail. They’d do anything for her. Remembering Pockmark’s horrible, vacant expression, Ebba didn’t want to put her fathers at risk of being hurt by naming her attackers. She’d never wanted to go after a plunder more in her life, but her fathers were her life.
“I ain’t recallin’,” she said finally.
The three words hung in the air. Her six fathers stared down at her for a leaden second before erupting into chaos once more.
She added, “I’m sorry for goin’ off—”
Her words were drowned out in the racket overhead. Ebba stamped her foot, hands on her hips. “Listen to my apology,” she demanded.
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Immortal Plunder (Pirates of Felicity Book 1) Page 3