The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin

by Colette Moody

  “He has left town, you see.” She felt suddenly weak when she realized she might have found more adventure than she’d hoped for. And she really needed to work on her lying, she thought—especially when she finally took all those lovers. “He had to tend to someone several townships away. They sent a carriage for him. Spotted fever, I believe.”

  “And who might you be, lass?” growled the most physically imposing of the three grubby intruders, continuing to devour her with his eyes.

  “Celia Pierce,” she replied softly, sensing that this man could be dangerous. Surely Phillip was listening and would come to her rescue if things took an ugly turn. “I’m his seamstress.”

  “A seamstress, eh?” the obvious leader of the group asked with some interest. “And are you a very good one?”

  “They say I’m the best on the coast,” Celia said coolly. Phillip was coming out to save her, wasn’t he? Any time now would be suitable.

  “Then you’ll have to do.” The leader grabbed her by the arm, and his hulking companion gagged her and tied her hands together behind her back, albeit he was not as rough as Celia feared. To her left, the pirate with the red nose stuffed a nearby black leather bag as full of medical supplies as possible.

  “Don’t get any wise ideas about trying to call for help, or we’ll slice your bleedin’ heart out.” The brawny one tossed a sack over her head. “Just come help us out a mite, and we’ll let you go unharmed.” He picked her up, slung her over his shoulder, and whisked her off into the night.

  Nearly twenty minutes later, Phillip quietly poked his head out of the back room. He carried a fireplace poker in his trembling hand and searched about for any sign of the intruders, then sighed with relief when he saw they had taken nothing of real value.

  *

  “I told you to bring a doctor.” Gayle stared in disbelief at the kicking petticoats of a woman draped over Churchill’s shoulder. “What the hell is this?”

  Churchill snatched the sack from the woman’s head, exposing long, dark hair in disarray, wide panicked eyes, and a rather inelegant gag propping open her mouth. “The doctor wasn’t to be found. We nabbed the town seamstress instead.”

  “The seamstress?” Gayle was afraid for a moment that the sheer force of her frustration might make her head come clean off her shoulders, but when she touched her forehead she found it was still attached. Whether this was a blessing or a curse, she was unsure. “Who will take out the musket balls?” she shouted. “Who will cut off the limbs shattered by cannon shot? Who will tend to the lads bleeding into their bloody bellies? This dressmaker?”

  “Aye,” Abernathy said, tossing the medical bag onto the deck beside her. “And I lifted plenty of supplies, though I found no drink there, as I’d hoped. She’ll do a fine job of stitching up the cap’n and the men, I reckon.”

  Gayle expected the dressmaker to either faint, cry, or scream like some prissy governor’s wife. Instead she simply stood there, then slowly closed her eyes. Maybe she could be of some value, Gayle thought.

  Dowd untied her gag and ogled her. “It was this girl or nothin’. There was no time to gather a proper doctor.”

  Gayle studied the hostage before her. She was tall and dark-complexioned, with beautiful features. Her eyes were surprisingly blue, and she seemed strangely confident, not at all like someone who should fear for her life. “Have you ever seen a surgeon work before, good woman?” she asked.

  “My name is Celia, and I have seen my fiancé remove a musket ball,” the seamstress said matter-of-factly. “Of course that was from the rump of an ox, but I daresay the procedure can’t be that different for a man.”

  Was their unwilling captive actually offering to help? “Then come with me, Celia,” Gayle said, pointing toward the captain’s cabin. She picked up the medical bag. “Churchill, direct the men to take whatever is salvageable from the Abigail Lee, then cast her off and help the others tend to the wounded. We will be with the captain.”

  She sliced through the ropes binding Celia’s wrists and motioned with her dagger that she follow. Celia did so, gently rubbing her rope burn.

  The cabin was lit dimly by a small oil lantern suspended from the ceiling. On the bed Gayle’s father lay very still, his skin clammy and pale, his breathing shallow.

  “Go in,” Gayle instructed, then closed the door behind them.

  “This is your captain?” Celia asked tentatively.

  “Aye,” Gayle answered. “He cannot die. It is not yet his time.”

  Celia assumed that this woman must be the captain’s courtesan, though she wasn’t dressed in the extravagant fashion for which courtesans were known. This one wore a man’s shirt and breeches. She was a commanding presence, with her fiery red hair and full lips. But surely no pirate crew included a female. Celia knew that would never be accepted. In fact, if memory served, someone had once told her that it was considered bad luck for a woman to even be on a ship.

  The redhead rummaged through the medical bag and pulled out a scalpel and some small forceps. She took out some antiseptic powder and shook it onto the captain’s chest. Thankfully, for his sake, he had lost consciousness. “Light that lantern and bring it here so I can better see,” she said, gesturing to an unlit oil lamp.

  Celia did as she was bid and increased the length of the wick to get as much light from it as possible, then propped it beside the wounded man.

  The woman passed the medical bag to her. “See if you can find some surgical thread in here. We’ll have to trust what I remember from assisting Poole and what you remember from the ox’s ass.”

  Chapter Two

  By the time Celia had treated all the casualties aboard Original Sin, the sun was high in the sky. She had slept no more than fifteen minutes at a time all night, and now she was feeling the effects.

  They had lost only one of the wounded, and while she had never watched a man die, she was relieved that he was the only one to expire on her watch. The corpse was moved to an area on deck with the rest of those who had perished in the battle. She had learned from Abernathy, the man with the red, bulbous nose, that their dead would soon be buried at sea.

  Celia had also never sewn flesh before, but she was a specialist after tending to twenty-eight injured men—some barely grazed and some so profoundly injured that she found it hard to treat their gashes and powder burns without flinching. Somehow, she had managed to persevere.

  The courtesan had been absolutely amazing. She had fished musket balls and bits of cannon shot from wounds, which she then cauterized. She had cleaned lacerations thoroughly and dressed them, removed a shattered and now-useless hand from a lad and kept him from bleeding to death, and in general kept up the spirits of the wounded and the well alike. How a common prostitute managed to command a pirate ship confused Celia, as the men seemed to obey her every order, though she might have simply been too tired to see things clearly.

  As Celia sat down on the deck tiredly, the puzzling woman appeared beside her with a ladle of drinking water.

  “Thirsty?” she asked, extending the large wooden dipper.

  “Among other things.” Celia brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes before she drank the water slowly and handed the ladle back.

  “I owe you,” the redhead said softly. “When the lads first brought you, I didn’t think a seamstress would be helpful.” She sat down next to Celia and folded her legs up beneath her. “You’ve proved yourself as valuable as anyone else on board. Thank you.”

  Celia grinned. “Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t as surprised as you are, er…”

  “Gayle,” she said. “Sorry. I’d have introduced myself sooner, but we had so much else to do. I don’t have much patience for formalities.”

  “How did you end up here, Gayle?” Celia was truly interested.

  “The captain is my father. I’ve lived on board Original Sin for nearly twelve years.”

  “Ah, that changes a few things.” Celia mentally shifted her preconceptions. “And the men here
accept you like any other seaman?”

  “Hardly. My father brought me aboard when I was thirteen. Had he not been captain, the crew would more than likely have raped me repeatedly and then killed me. Father protected me and, more important, as time passed he taught me how to protect myself. I’m now the quartermaster on this ship, and senior officer as well. Churchill, the navigator, is the only man who’s been on board anywhere near as long as I have and the only one I totally trust, other than Father. I’ve put in my time and hopefully proved myself to be a valuable crewmember.”

  “But what caused your father to dare have you live aboard a ship at thirteen?”

  Gayle stared at the deck pensively. “Mother had never hidden from me who my father was. Every couple of years he would head back into port and see us. I had his hair color and his dark, cinnamon eyes, so I guess he felt a connection to me. When Mother finally died of consumption, Father came ’round to pay his respects. He really cared for her, you see. He knew I had no other family, nowhere else to go. I think he struggled with the dilemma but decided he could give me a better life under his protection, rather than to toss me a gold sovereign and let me fend for myself in the city. He didn’t want to see me end up as a whore, and neither did I.”

  “Good motivation to learn how to tie knots, I suppose,” Celia observed aloud.

  “Verily. Father has always tried to keep a rather low profile as a raider. He says the greedy pirates and privateers are the ones who get done in. They earn a horrible reputation, and then everyone and their minions are out chasing them, hunting them down for the bounty on their heads.”

  “What name does your father go by? Perhaps I’ve heard of him.”

  “Madman Malvern.”

  Celia gasped. “I have most certainly. Didn’t he cut out a man’s eyeballs once and save them in a jar?” she asked, with a mixture of excitement and horror.

  “Totally exaggerated. He did blind a man once by shooting him in the face with a flintlock,” Gayle answered casually. “But he didn’t harvest any organs as trophies. That would be rather depraved. It’s amazing how legends like that get started.”

  “I see,” Celia whispered, marveling at how blinding a man could balloon into the collection of optic booty. Wait a second—blinding? Was that what they were talking about? “So how is the captain doing?” she asked nervously, hoping to change the subject.

  “I checked on him a bit ago,” Gayle answered, pulling her red hair out of her eyes and refastening her hair ribbon. “His color is better, but he’s still not as stable as I would like. He’s lost a lot of blood. We need to get him to a place where someone can tend to him properly.”

  “My fiancé should be back by now. You can take your father to see him.”

  “Your fiancé?”

  “Yes. Your crew came for him last night before they settled on me.”

  Gayle’s eyes narrowed. “I guess you didn’t realize it, but we’re already bound for medical care.”

  “Are we? Where?”

  “Did you not notice that we’ve been under way all night? We’re heading to the Bahamas. I’ve some friends in New Providence who’ll lend us a hand and ask no questions.”

  Celia scowled. “But I thought after I helped you and your crew, you would return me.”

  “I will,” Gayle reassured her. “But I first have to ensure the crew gets suitable medical attention. I don’t know your fiancé, but I doubt his willingness to aid the people who kidnapped his betrothed.”

  Celia contemplated the man who had hidden in his own back room, breaking wind while she—naïvely trying to save him—had been abducted.

  “I doubt his willingness to aid anyone but himself,” she said aloud. “He’s probably not even missed me.”

  Gayle’s deep sepia eyes warmed. “Then he is most assuredly a half-wit.”

  “No argument,” she answered, then paused. “Unless I told you that you were being too generous. He may be closer to a quarter-wit—or even an eighth of a quarter-wit.”

  “He sounds like quite the prize,” Gayle said. “Then you won’t mind a jaunt to the islands before we return you to the mainland. Consider it a wedding gift—a proper send-off.”

  “I thought that type of thing was only for the groom.”

  Gayle beamed, which Celia found unexpectedly striking. “You’ll find Original Sin to be a rather unconventional vessel. We’re not big on propriety or decorum.”

  “I noticed that right after that bastard put a sack over my head.”

  “Very intuitive of you,” Gayle retorted. “So a send-off you’ll have. We’ll fill your final days as an unwed woman with the kind of adventure most people only read about.”

  Celia sighed and became more serious. “I would like to let my father know that I’m all right. He must be mad with worry.”

  “Unfortunately, by the time we get a message back to him, you’ll be standing next to the courier. We’ll be in New Providence in two, perhaps two and a half, days, weather permitting. For now, you should get some sleep.”

  Celia looked around warily. “I’m exhausted, that’s true. But I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep here.” She leaned toward Gayle and spoke softly. “Some of the men are eyeing me a bit hungrily, shall we say. Especially that burly dog who slung me over his shoulder.”

  “That would be Dowd. Well, it’s no wonder. That frock of yours is quite…flattering.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I made it myself.”

  “We should get you into some proper sea clothes,” Gayle said as she stood. “That clingy dress won’t be comfortable for you here. You can sleep in my quarters. That should offer you a bit more privacy.”

  Celia stood as well, for the first time feeling her body weight as a tremendous burden. “But where will you sleep?”

  “I’ll make temporary accommodations in Father’s quarters. I’ll need to tend to him anyway.” She motioned to a short lad of only fourteen or so. “Hyde.”

  The young man shuffled over, a small bandage wrapped around his temples. “Yes, miss?”

  “Hyde, take our hostage—I mean, our guest—to my quarters and set her up there. She’ll need some more comfortable clothes.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “And, Hyde,” she added sternly, “no one is to disturb her there.”

  The lad nodded and headed toward the rear of the ship, motioning for Celia to follow him.

  She muttered a word of thanks to Gayle before she wearily followed Hyde and thought how strange it was to be thanking her kidnapper. Then the notion blurred into another one concerning the engagement party she had planned to attend with Phillip this evening. What an unexpected diversion she had fallen prey to.

  When they reached a door across from the captain’s quarters, Hyde stopped. “Here it is, miss,” he said matter-of-factly as he opened it.

  The room, no more than three feet by six feet, contained only a small cot and an undersized trunk being used as a nightstand. When Hyde lit the small lantern suspended on a chain from the ceiling, little else but a battered mirror on the wall and a book by the bed was visible. “She reads,” Celia whispered to herself, surprised by this anomaly.

  “I’ll bring you something to change into, miss.”

  “Thank you, Hyde.”

  The lad returned with a pair of button-up breeches made of beige calico, a white linen shirt, a blue sash, stockings, and some leather shoes. “The sash’ll help the pants stay up should the breeches prove too large,” he said. “The shoes was the smallest I could find.”

  Celia picked one up and held it to the arch of her foot for size. “They’ll do fine, Hyde. Thank you.”

  “Yes’m.” He left, shutting the small door.

  This was definitely—what had Gayle called it? Ah, yes, “adventure.” She stripped down to her chemise and fell onto the cot in exhaustion. So far she had been abducted, sewn up a bevy of wounded strangers with a large curved needle, urinated into a pipe that passed her emission quite indelicately right out
the side of the ship, and been the most sleep-deprived of her life.

  She extinguished the lantern and pulled the scratchy blanket over her before she succumbed to her fatigue, briefly wondering what further “adventure” lay ahead of her.

  *

  “I don’t bloody like it,” Caruthers erupted. “Not one bleedin’ bit. It’s bad enough having a woman aboard all the time,” he said with his Cockney accent. “But havin’ one act as cap’n—that’s just fuckin’ wrong.”

  “Tell me,” Churchill replied, eyeing the ship’s bosun carefully. “Who do you trust to act as captain only until he is well enough to return? Do you think any of these blokes will step back down once the captain’s recovered?”

  Caruthers stopped carving a tiny nude woman with freakishly large breasts from a piece of mahogany just long enough to run his fingers through his dark, braided beard. “You’re sure Cap’n will recover?”

  “I am. He spoke a bit earlier today. He needs a doctor, but he’s not ready to leave this world.”

  “And he’ll not want to retire once he’s healed?”

  “The captain once told me he’ll never retire. He’ll be back at the helm, mark my words. Then we can set sail to recover his hoard, just like he promised.”

  Caruthers seemed to mull this over a bit, and Churchill put down his sextant and studied his face. Because the ship’s majority voted pirate captains into power, he needed to make sure most of the crew would support Gayle if she was going to temporarily man the helm of Original Sin.

  “You know he’d want her to take over, at least until we make it to the Bahamas,” he said. “He wants her treated like his son, not his daughter.”

  “Aye, though that troubles me.”

  Churchill smiled through his frustration. He had expected some resistance from the crew, but had hoped that Gayle’s exemplary service on Original Sin would make her an obvious choice. “She’s competent. And you can’t say she’s been bad luck, mate. She’s been here nearly twelve years and we’ve yet to lose the ship.”