by R. L. Syme
“Who goes there?” one of them called out into the night. Cadha froze.
She wasn’t certain if they could see her or not, but she tried to sneak along, keeping in the shadows, making her feet silent.
“I can still hear you,” the voice repeated. A torch came out into the open and Cadha slid out of the light. “Show yourself,” he said.
She stuffed the bag inside her still-wet apron and stepped toward the ship. “It’s Cadha de Witt.”
“Ah, the baby daughter.” The other man laughed and they both came down the gangway toward her. “We’re on your father’s crew.”
“You’re the guard, then?” Cadha thrust her chin forward. “And I’m not a baby.”
“I can see that.” The second man leered at her and the one with the torch punched him in the chest.
“That’s my new sister you’re talking to, there.”
Cadha peered up at the torchbearer. It was Kees Rademacher. His blonde hair looked almost as red as Maas’s in the torchlight. Cadha crossed her arms.
“I heard of your marriage to my sister.”
“I meant to come for supper and meet you, but your father gave me orders to stay with the ship until it could be unloaded. We have a deck crew coming for the last of it shortly.”
A tense silence grew between the three of them, and Cadha tried to edge away. She didn’t want to speak to Pien’s husband any more than she wanted to speak to her father at that moment, but they didn’t appear to want to excuse her.
“You shouldn’t be so cavalier with your name, Cadha.” Kees’s voice was low and he looked around the dock. “There are plenty of people in this world who know your father and would do you harm.”
For a moment, she thought he might make reference to Pien’s kidnapping, and the way being free with the de Witt name could make her a target. But he seemed to have inherited her family’s inability to talk about anything that mattered.
“Does my father really have such a bad name?” she asked.
“It’s not the quality of his reputation that’s at stake,” the other man said. “It’s the fact that you become a mark when you mention that your father is a wealthy pirate.”
“You think I should lie about my name?” Cadha had never heard such a ridiculous thing in her entire life.
“The waters are a more dangerous place each time we sail them,” Kees said. “You would do well to know your company before you make free with that name.”
Cadha stroked the purse inside her apron and thought of Maas. These men had been on the ship with him. Perhaps they knew more than what Josephine and Papa were telling her.
“I gave my name because I came to find you and wanted you to know who I am. I come seeking information.”
The men exchanged high-eyebrow glances. Kees moved the torch to his side so it lit the gangway behind them. “Should we move onto the ship? I’d hate to think of someone overhearing our conversation out in the open here.”
“It isn’t sensitive information.” Cadha held her ground. “I simply wanted to know what you could tell me of Maas Maasen, and his removal from my father’s crew.”
Kees pressed his lips together and nodded. “Yes, Pien… I mean, your sister… she told me that you two had been inseparable as children. She worried you would take it hard when he did not return with us.”
Cadha’s throat burned. Her sister showed such concern for her, yet treated her like a broken eggshell. Why would no one treat her like the woman she was?
She exhaled, long and slow. “I want to know what else you can tell me about his not returning with your crew.”
Kees gave a slight shake of his head. “Not much. I was with him when his sister recognized him, and after that, he was taken into the Earl’s castle. His sister’s husband is one of the Sinclairs.”
A gull passed over their head, which took all of their attentions. The other crewman punched Kees in the shoulder. “It’s about time for us to meet the men.”
Kees gestured with the torch. “You should get home, Cadha.”
“Why don’t you take her,” the man said, reaching for the torch. “Captain de Witt would have my head if I let his daughter race off into the dark alone.”
A moment of hesitation almost gave Cadha the chance to run away, but Kees had her arm before she realized it. Instead of dragging her, as Pien had, he gently wrapped her hand around his forearm and escorted her away from the ship. It was nice to be treated like something other than a petulant child. She could get to like this Kees Rademacher. Perhaps his marriage to her sister wasn’t so hasty as Cadha had imagined.
“No need to worry about Maas,” Kees said as they passed onto the street. “He will be well cared for by his sister and her family.”
“I don’t doubt for his care.” Cadha kept her tone reserved. She hoped it would encourage Kees to say more.
“I didn’t know the lad well, but he came ashore with Brecht and myself when we went after Pien. I know he is a stout, strong-hearted young man. He will do well in his homeland.”
Cadha’s mouth dropped open and her eyes burned. She couldn’t understand why everyone thought Scotland was Maas’s home. He had said to her so many times that Hoorn was his home. They didn’t know him.
She found that she had squeezed Kees’s arm too tightly and he winced. Cadha relaxed her grip.
“This bothers you?” Kees asked. “Speaking of him?”
“No,” she lied.
“He has been like your brother these many years. Of course you care for him. I can see why it would affect you.”
She cleared her throat and touched the purse inside her apron. “I’m surprised he did not come back to Hoorn. This has been his home ever since he can remember.”
“Although Scotland is his true home.”
Cadha fisted her free hand. Everyone seemed to be laboring under a misapprehension that Maas had some secret desire to live out his days in Scotland.
The letter she held in her pocket told otherwise. He wanted to be with her. No matter what they all thought, Maas wanted to be with her.
Chapter Three
Pien slept in the room she and Cadha had always shared, although as a newly married woman, she should have been with her husband. Josephine slept restlessly, but Cadha didn’t sleep at all.
She hadn’t even been able to entertain the hope of sleep. Rather than settling her, talking with Kees had made her angrier, more determined to make them all see how much Maas loved her.
Her family had done their best not to mention Maas’s name. Kees, whom Cadha still couldn’t think of as her new brother-in-law, slept in Maas’s room, sat in Maas’s chair. But even if Josephine had taken her restless body into Kees’s bed, Cadha still wouldn’t have slept.
She’d become a stranger in her own home, her family continuing on with their lives as if nothing had changed, when the most important thing had changed. They’d left one of their number behind in Scotland with strangers, and he wasn’t with them, where he belonged.
Pien finally rolled over, awoke, and yawned. “Cadha? Are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“I had the strangest dream.”
“I imagine you did, you’ve been kicking me all night.”
But Pien didn’t laugh. She turned on her side, her mouth in a taut line. “I’m so sorry, cub. I have had a hard time sleeping since…”
Cadha tried on a consoling smile, but she couldn’t make it stick. Her sister’s captivity hadn’t been spoken of yet. Mother hadn’t even acknowledged it, except to say everyone was glad to have her back. And they likely wouldn’t talk about it, no matter how long Pien remained in the house.
They never spoke of difficult things. Not around her, anyway.
“I’m sorry, Pien. It must have been horrible.”
“Kees holds me through the worst of it, now.” Her sister’s eyes brightened for a short moment, then turned stormy like the sea. “We’ll find a place of our own, and then I won’t be kicking you anymore.”
“What did you do on board?” Cadha slipped onto her side, facing her sister. It had been months since they’d done this—sharing secrets early in the morning, before the rest of the house was awake.
“Papa gave us the captain’s cabin, although I think he preferred not to think about what we did inside it.” Pien’s face wrinkled into a secret smile. “I offered to sleep in it alone, but once Papa married us, he let Kees join me at night. I promised Papa I would stay in my old room while I’m home, though. For Mother’s sake. But all I wanted to do, all night, was sneak into Kees’s bed again.”
Cadha’s belly tightened. Just once, she’d considered climbing into the tiny bed in Maas’s room with him, to see how it would feel to be so close to a man all night.
Could she dare to tell her sister? Would Pien understand? Cadha opened her mouth to speak.
“But that bed is so tiny. I’m not sure we’d both fit in it,” Pien continued. Her eyes had a far-off, clouded look, as though she were remembering nights spent with her husband.
Cadha closed her mouth and listened to her sister gush about her new husband, her voice low. “I could give up this bed if you want to sleep here,” Cadha finally said, after hearing entirely too much about her new brother’s sexual prowess.
“Oh no. I would never ask you to give up your room. Our room.” Pien took Cadha’s hand. “I shouldn’t be telling you these things, anyway. I just haven’t had anyone to talk to about them. And it’s so wonderful, cub. Being this close to a man you love. It’s heaven.”
Months ago, Cadha might have blushed at these things, but her best friend had been married last winter, and Milla had already told her of the secrets that men and women shared in bed.
“I’m sure it is. I only meant to say, if you’d like to sleep here until you can find a house and a bed of your own…”
Pien’s smile lit the room. “If you insist.” She rolled onto her back and stretched. “I really did have the strangest dream, though.”
“What was it?”
“I was floating on a cloud, and you floated down to me and put a baby in my arms and said it was yours, but you couldn’t keep it. You told me I should keep it, and call it Abbe.”
“Abbe?” Cadha allowed herself a silly giggle, deep from her belly, like they had always done so often as children. “That’s an odd name for a girl.”
“It was a boy.”
“Oh, Pien, you know that we’ll have all girls. Mother has only sisters, and her sisters have all girls, and her mother and mother’s mother had all girls. We are destined for girls.”
A strange glow came over Pien’s face, cutting the lines of her youthfulness into an odd, grown-up look. “I want to give Kees a boy.”
Cadha wilted inside. She knew that feeling. Wanting to give the man you loved whatever he wanted.
She leaned over and kissed Josephine’s soft cheek. “Well, you can have this bed tonight, and try to make all the little boys you want.” Cadha climbed out of the bed and gazed back down on her sister. “But I’m warning you, we’re destined for little girls.”
Pien laughed. “Well, if I do have a boy, I think I have to call him Abbe now, after that dream.”
“That would be wise.” Cadha splashed water on her face from the basin in the corner of the room and pulled out her grey day dress. “I’m going to sit on the dock for a bit this morning.”
Pien came up from the bed, resting on her elbows. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I just enjoy the docks.”
Her sister’s eyebrows pulled together in disapproval. “You’re not waiting for Maas anymore. He’s not coming back.”
A sharp pain pierced Cadha’s heart. “I know that. I know he’s not coming.”
“He’s not going to send a letter, either.”
“You don’t know that,” Cadha snapped. She slipped her hand over her mouth, shocked at her own ferocity. With a breath, she calmed herself. “He might decide he wants to write me and explain himself.”
“If he’d been going to write, he would have sent the letter with us, and not paid someone else to take it. He trusted us to make his goodbyes for him, and there will be no letter.”
Cadha bit back her retort. Pien didn’t understand, didn’t know how Maas felt about her. None of them really understood.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know that he doesn’t have the money to hire someone to bring a letter to Holland when he simply could have written one and handed it to Father to take with him.”
“But he might…”
“Cadha.” Pien jumped out of the bed and crossed the room. “You need to understand. Maas was never really ours. He thought his sister was dead, or he never would have stayed with us.”
The stale smell of their morning bedroom crept into Cadha’s nose and stung it. She needed to get out of the house. Her family didn’t understand, and they wouldn’t listen.
To placate her sister, she nodded and parroted the words. “He’s not coming home. You’re right.” She pulled out of Pien’s grip and put on the dress she’d just taken out.
“Where are you going?”
Cadha tied her apron in a quick bow and turned away from her sister. “I’m going to help Mama with breakfast.”
Josephine seemed to accept her excuse, and returned to their bed, stretching out on her side. “I may try to get some more sleep.”
“I’ll tell Mama not to wake you.” Cadha touched the door handle and stopped. “Your ordeal has taken a toll on you.”
The silence pulsed like a wave with a heart of its own. Pien made a small noise. “It will be good to sleep a bit more, I think.”
Cadha swept out of the room, wishing her sister a good rest, and aching inside. Her family refused to acknowledge she knew anything of Maas and his desires, and they never told her anything important.
She was done being treated like a child.
With quiet footsteps, she passed Maas’s old bedroom and then her parents’ and left the house, taking a deep breath of the salt air and wishing for the sea.
Chapter Four
Valc Vanhorn stuffed the front of his dress with more straw than was likely necessary, and checked both sides of his chest for escapees. Finding none, he pulled the brown hood low, dragged the woolen sash around his face, and hobbled onto the street.
His staff sank into the dirt with each step, and he kept his eyes down as much as he could. Careful to make the creaky noises Greta would have made, he groaned his way down the street to the docks while people gave him a generally wide berth.
It helped that he stank to high heaven—or more accurately, lowest hell. His long hair slipped out the side of the hood, one strand hanging down past his chin. If none of his customers looked too hard at his face, they would never see he wasn’t Greta Rulf, and the illusion of her pleasant plumpness would help to hide him.
The docks were emptier than he expected. Once he reached the spot by the big tree where hired boats typically plied their trade, he planted his staff to one side and pretended to lean on it. A big man approached with a slight woman at his side.
“Ship for hire,” Valc croaked. Greta would have been proud. He’d imitated her almost precisely.
The man eyed him and switched places with his woman, walking nearest to Valc. Both of them scrunched their faces when they passed him and hurried their pace.
“Ship for hire,” he repeated when a balding man in a black coat passed. No luck.
Damn, Valc thought. He’d been watching the previous day when three different people hired out a boat standing in this exact spot. It was a known hocker stand, although perhaps he was too early for the regular crowd, and not early enough for the truly desperate.
Another couple walked by, uninterested. Why in the blazes would anyone be here at this time of day if they weren’t looking for a boat? No one but sailors should be awake this early.
At the other end of the dock, a few men worked on the deck of a longship. Their chatter and clatter were the on
ly noises, save the occasional patter of passing feet.
“Are you hiring?” a voice came from behind him. Two young men stood back off the walk path, hands in their pockets.
“I am.”
They exchanged a look and one of them made a crude gesture. “I won’t pay much for an old crone like you, but I do like fat women.” The two laughed so loud, their cackle seemed to crack the morning.
Valc closed his hand around his staff and was just about to advance on the two rats when someone appeared between him and the vagrant youths.
“Ralph, William, if you don’t leave this poor woman alone, I’m going to go get my father, and he will split your skulls like ripe pumpkins.”
It was a woman, and one with a fine shape by the look of her, and a quick tongue, too. She took a wide stance, hands on her hips, grey woolen dress hugging her long waist. Her blonde hair cascaded down her back. He hadn’t seen a woman’s hair loose and flowing like that in… too long. It was half-braided on one side, as though the boys had interrupted her.
Did she live in the area? Why else would she be on the docks with half-braided hair at sunup?
“We… we didn’t mean…” stammered one boy.
“We only meant to hire… a boat…” the other finished.
The half-done girl swiped her hands. “You leave her be. Go home. You shouldn’t be on the docks at this hour, anyway. Don’t make me get Papa.”
The young men bolted, running down the dock and onto the street without looking back. The woman pulled her hair over her shoulder and turned around.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, but Valc lost the rest of her sentences, staring at the beautiful contours of her face. He raised his chin a touch too far and the hood began to slip back.
Valc caught himself and lowered his eyes. “Not to worry, my dear. I would have clocked them straight away with my staff.”
“But surely…” She released her hair and made a wide sweep with her hand. “I mean, I didn’t intend to say you couldn’t protect yourself. I just know these boys.”