He moved fast, crushing her against the bulwark. His hands fumbled at her waist, sliding down and around to cup her ass. She gasped as he squeezed her. Her wet lips grazed his cheek, breath hot on his face. Fingernails dug into his ribs. He smashed his chest against hers, her nipples piercing his pecs. Her hair smelled like salt and sand. He licked her neck and struggled to untuck her shirt from her pants. She seized his arms and shifted her weight, turning him around so that he was between her and the bulwark. Her foot kicked the bottle of rum as she moved, and it clinked noisily as it rolled onto its side.
"Oh dear!" she said, giggling lightly. "It's spilling. Can't have that." She held up a finger, halting him, and bent down to forage for the bottle. She stumbled, and her fingers tapped the neck of the bottle. It rolled behind his leg. "Raise your foot," she said. He did as instructed, and she reached under him. Her gaze lifted suddenly, glaring at him through the red tresses of hair that had spilled over her face.
"What are you . . . ?" he started, scowling. Everything was moving so slowly.
She pushed upward, her shoulder catching the underside of his foot. Her left hand shot into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and when she withdrew it, something flashed silver and red. She summoned all of her weight to shove him up and over the rail.
The deck tumbled out of view, his legs flailed in the air, and every notch of his spine grated against the rail as he slid off. The world spun end over end, sea and ship swirling in a dizzying blur. And then he saw her looking down on him, hair burning crimson in the moonlight, face eclipsed in darkness.
Bart's back slapped the water.
He struggled to stay afloat as the ship sailed away from him at startling velocity, much faster than he had realized it was moving. He opened his mouth to scream and sucked water into his lungs. He hacked, ejecting something dark and faintly red into the water, where it expanded in a black cloud around him. He continued to cough, grains of salt scraping his esophagus on their way out. He thrashed his arms, slapping at the rolling waves, and pain shot through his torso like a bolt of lightning. His legs started to sink, as if gripped by invisible hands. The water rose above his nose, and he thrust himself upward, but the pain in his stomach was paralyzing him. The muscles in his arms were quickly growing numb and stiff.
The ship moved quietly into the horizon, and the woman remained a shadow at the stern, watching him sink. The last thing Bart heard was a crack of distant thunder from the storm somewhere behind him.
NATHAN
Flies circled the churned mess of Henry's ravaged kneecap, buzzing incessantly in a near perfect sphere. He swatted fiercely at them, his remaining eye gleaming with defiance. A sickly-sweet aroma wafted from the ghastly wound.
He doesn't know he's dying, Nathan realized with a wry smirk.
"What're you smiling about?" Henry barked.
"We hang on the morrow," Nathan chuckled, "and still you swat at flies."
"They'll have me soon enough," Henry nodded. "But not tonight."
The late afternoon sun cast a ray of light through the small square window, projecting two bars across Nathan's legs. He found it amusing that someone had bothered placing bars in the window at all. Not even a ten year old girl could squeeze through that opening.
Large flecks of dust trailed through the sunlight, in no hurry to greet the cold stone floor of the cramped cell. Straw was scattered about, and a brown river of feces streamed from the rusty pail Henry had carelessly kicked over in his sleep. The black sewage was littered with the corpses of greedy flies that had realized their mistake too late.
Occasionally, a fresh breeze would sweep in through the window, combating the mingling stenches of feces and Henry's festering wound. Nathan could taste salt on the wind, carried in from the harbor nearby. Two days ago, when he was thrown in here, he would stand on his toes to peek out the window to catch a glimpse of the impossibly blue water, white sails, and flocks of birds gliding above. Now, he didn't want to look at all he had lost. He was certain that no one was coming to his rescue, and he would hang alongside his pitiful cellmate in the morning.
He would never again see his beloved Annabelle, the beautiful strumpet he had spent a month with before so foolishly returning to the sea. She was the first woman he had ever been with, and she would in all likelihood be the last. When fate brought him back to Nassau, Annabelle was gone. According to gossip, she had left for Tortuga with her pimp, Charles Martel, after she had been viciously raped and disfigured. Nathan also heard that she'd fallen in with Blackbeard, but he didn't believe that for a second. He tried desperately not to think about her copper skin, her full breasts and hips, her thick black hair, and, above all, her big brown eyes and luscious lips.
He scratched the stump just beneath his elbow, where his left arm had once been, lost at sea thanks to a collapsing yardarm. In dreams the arm remained, and he had no knowledge of its absence until he woke. In dreams he wasn't in a cell. In dreams he scaled the ratlines of Harbinger, the ship he had served aboard under the command of Captain Jonathan Griffith. He climbed and climbed until he finally reached the top, where he was greeted by cool winds and curious seagulls. The deep blue sea stretched in an endless radius, with no sign of land in sight. The sky was a perfect cerulean, unblemished by clouds.
And then a fly or a foul scent or someone shouting orders in the harbor would rudely stir him from his wonderfully oblivious slumber, and he would find himself back in the darkened cell, minus a limb and smelling of shit and death.
The larger cells had been filled to the brim with pirates when Nathan and Henry were first brought in. Nathan recognized several of them as fellow crewmates from Harbinger, which now rested in blackened pieces at the bottom of the sea. Nathan and Henry were put in a "spare cell," as the guards called it, which was considerably smaller than the others, and minus a bed or even a bench. It felt extremely isolated, and it was the only cell partitioned by solid walls instead of bars.
Henry had made friends with the next inmate over, even though they were separated from view. Nathan couldn't be sure what the man looked like, as his sight hadn't yet adjusted to the dim dungeon block when he was first dragged past. He sounded older, with a coarse voice that broke on words with too many syllables, sending him into wheezing fits. He called himself Jethro, and claimed to have served alongside the infamous pirate Charles Vane, who had set fire to a ship in the harbor when Woodes Rogers first arrived to establish order. Jethro maintained that Vane was on his way to rescue him. "Vane's men are highly placed, they are," he claimed. "Some o' them work right under the governor's nose, they do, and he hasn't the foggiest notion. They wait for Vane's order, and when he gives it, the governor's in for a surprise. I can only imagine what they'll do to that pretty wife o' his."
Nathan wrote the old man off as crazy, but Henry seemed utterly convinced that Jethro was his ticket out of here. "He knows an awful lot of detail," Henry said whenever Nathan balked openly at Jethro's wild claims.
"You can laugh all you want," Jethro said nonchalantly. "But ask yourself why they bring me wine, and bring you soiled water."
"No one brings you wine!" Nathan scoffed.
"I'd show you," Jethro replied, "if not for the wall between us."
"Convenient," Nathan said. Jethro would probably swear his rescuers were right around the corner even as the noose was fitted around his neck.
A heavyset guard named Ferrell approached, raking his keys across the bars, as he liked to do every few hours. Sometimes he would wait until they were sleeping before he did it. When Ferrell reached the spare cell, Nathan fixed him with his hardest glare. He was met with obnoxious laughter. Ferrell enjoyed provoking a reaction from men who would soon be too dead to challenge him.
"I wonder," Nathan grated, "would your keys ring so loudly if we were not scheduled for execution?"
Ferrell's eyes went fierce at that, his sweaty cheeks blooming red, and he clutched his rifle threateningly. "I wonder," he furiously intoned, "would you speak so bo
ldly if you weren't destined for the gallows?"
Nathan stood and clutched one of the bars. "If I weren't destined for the gallows, I would return for you."
Ferrell slammed the barrel of his gun against the bars, and Nathan recoiled just before his fingers could be smashed. "You've got one more night to dream of revenge," Ferrell said, grinning through his teeth. "Shame you'll wake up." He lumbered off, giggling to himself.
Nathan sat back down, his face flushing with heat. How had it come to this?
"Katherine Lindsay," Henry rumbled as he flicked a fly from the black mess of his gaping knee. He had uttered that name at least once every waking hour over the past two days, as though he would forget it if he didn't recite it regularly. But how could anyone forget her? "She's killed us all."
He's right, Nathan reminded himself. She had left him to die here. She could have saved him and herself so easily. There was a reward for her safe return to London, and Nathan had hoped to claim it under the guise of an innocent sailor who had been kidnapped alongside Lindsay by Harbinger's pirates. In truth, Nathan was far from innocent, but he had hoped the friendship he thought he shared with Lindsay would compel her to corroborate the story.
Katherine Lindsay had apparently vanished into the wilds of Nassau or booked passage on a ship to God only knew where, leaving Nathan to rot in a cell. Her mane of red hair burned in his mind like a sunspot seared into the retina. He could scarcely recall her face, overpowered by that shroud of hair. There was a time when he felt so sorry for her, held against her will by Captain Griffith, who probably thought he had found a wife. Griffith murdered her husband without hesitation and took her without bothering to consult his crew.
Katherine had seemed so lost, so ready to give in, and for a time Nathan thought Griffith might have won her over, as insane as that notion seemed now. And then something changed. Nathan had no idea when or why it happened, but survival suddenly became a priority for Katherine, at the expense of every man aboard Harbinger, including Nathan. Griffith let his guard down, and Katherine took his life as quickly as Griffith had taken her husband's. Nathan wondered what went through Griffith's mind in that final moment, other than the bullet. Did the justice of the deed occur to him, or was it nothing more than a betrayal?
"That bitch shot me leg," Henry whimpered for the hundredth time.
"Yes, Henry," Nathan sighed. "You mentioned that once or twice."
"I done nothing to her," Henry went on, firmly shaking his head. "I done nothing!"
"That's not exactly true," Nathan said. If there was one thing Nathan had learned, it's that not a single pirate held himself accountable for his own actions. The disreputable paths they had chosen were irrelevant to whatever indecencies they were suffering presently.
"They'll probably take it off," Henry groaned. The flies were growing more courageous now, deftly avoiding the frantic sweeps of Henry's hand and landing on dark flakes of dried blood. "One-eyed, one-legged Henry," he went on, shaking his head.
"I don't think you'll need to worry about that much longer."
"Says you," Henry sourly replied, aiming a finger at Nathan's missing arm. "Yours healed up nicely."
Nathan massaged the stump at his elbow, fingers rolling over the bone just beneath the skin. "Not really," he shrugged. "It didn't grow back."
Nathan felt older than he imagined any twenty-one year old should. He had lost much of his appetite along with his arm, and his skin felt taut over his bones. His ribs ached with every breath, and his eyelids were constantly threatening to close. His sandy blonde hair was starting to fall out in tufts. There was of course no bed in the cell, and his ass was sore from sitting on the hard stone for so long. Shifting his position no longer assuaged the pain. He had grown accustomed to discomfort. "Life is pain," his father told him years ago, after Nathan had been thrown from a horse and scraped up his elbow, on the very same arm that was now shortened. "So long as you're in pain, you aren't dead."
Henry hissed through his teeth, jerking his leg sharply. "Oh god," he moaned. His forehead was drenched in sweat. "Will this never end?"
"Very soon," Nathan reminded him.
A distant door creaked open and a column of white light spread down the hallway. "Whossat?" Henry said, leaning forward with a crazed look in his eye. "WHOSSAT??"
Nathan set his head against the closely-notched bars, trying to see who was coming. The fat guard on his way to taunt me with the keys again? Nathan could break his arm, unlock the cell, and make a run for it. What other chance would he get? He was dead either way.
Three shadows split the column of light on the floor, stretching in size as the footsteps grew louder. The shadow in the middle was tall and large, and his pace was less stiff than the flanking shadows.
Nathan pulled his head away from the bars and propped himself against the wall with one leg flat and the other raised, his one arm dangling casually over a knee. He wasn't about to let them see him sweat.
"This one here," came a gruff voice.
"I remember."
The three men stopped before the bars. The two on the right and left were guards, and the middle was Woodes Rogers, Governor of the Bahamas. Nathan had met him once before, after he demanded one of the soldiers in town take him before Rogers. He was promptly thrown in this cell, and Rogers came to him a short time later.
Rogers was a tall man with a great round belly held aloft by a sloping belt, the huge buckle facing downward. He wore a navy blue coat with polished brass buttons. His head was covered by a full white wig, the curls of which rested on his shoulders. He had a broad nose and bushy eyebrows that were just as black as his impenetrable eyes. His chin was inconsequential, descending into the frill of a white collar. His left cheek was engraved with a round scar, roughly the size of a bullet, bordered by a thick ring of rubbery skin that was split in several places, like a crater on the moon. His upper jaw on that side was slightly caved in, forging an uneven face. His skin was surprisingly tan and leathery, as if he had spent much of his youth outdoors.
"I watch hangings whenever I can," Rogers said without delay, peering directly into Nathan's eyes. "Not because I enjoy them. In fact, I loathe death. I feel a man who hands out judgment should witness the consequences firsthand. It's a small price to pay."
Nathan rolled his hand, opening his palm to the ceiling. "You came here to tell us that?"
"Pay him no mind, Nathan," Henry spat, shaking his head. "Thinks he's better than us because he talks fancier. He's just a pirate for the King."
Rogers seemed unaware that Henry existed, despite the intolerable stench of his wound. "I do not respect those who would condemn a man to death without the decency to watch them die."
Nathan fronted a casual smirk, though he felt a nervous twinge in his cheek. "That sentiment will comfort me as the rope constricts about my throat."
"You're not a typical pirate," Rogers said. "Your speech is long and clear, and you are evidently bred of fairer stock."
Henry grunted loudly at that, but he failed to divert Rogers' attention.
"Not all sailors are simpletons," Nathan said.
Rogers leaned against the bars, furrowing his considerable brow. "Is that what you call yourself? A sailor?"
"Governor," Nathan sighed, "my time is running short. What do you want?"
Rogers wasted no more time, pushing himself off the bars. He broke into a pace, walking back and forth outside the cell while the guards remained dutifully still. "You claimed to have sailed with Katherine Lindsay, a woman whose name continues to plague my desk. Her husband's family is nothing if not diligent. And it seems I may have let her slip through my fingers."
"That's too bad," Nathan said, suppressing a curse. "If only someone had warned you."
"I am a busy man, and I sent Benjamin Hornigold in my place. That was a miscalculation. Now, Hornigold has fled my employ, last seen in the company of a redheaded woman, before he sailed his ship and crew out of my harbor to . . . well I think you know where."
<
br /> "I don't follow."
"I think you do." Rogers adjusted the buckle that his belly rested upon. "In fact, following is exactly what I expect you to do. Benjamin Hornigold was a former pirate. Also of fairer stock. He surrendered himself to me under the condition that he hunt down the criminals he once crewed alongside. I quickly came to regard him as a friend. A fellow adventurer. We traded many tales in a short span. I suppose, over the years, politics have made me a sterner man." Rogers' gaze faltered only for a moment, a shadow passing over his face. He almost looked sad. "It seems Benjamin's ambitions got the better of him. The only reason he would have fled is if that woman promised him something I could not."
Nathan snickered. "A fuzzy nook between her legs to rest his face?"
Henry choked out a laugh.
Rogers bristled. "Now you pretend you're a less cultivated young man than you and I both know you are. No doubt such vulgarity was a necessity to keep your place amongst scoundrels, but it will gain you nothing in my presence."
Nathan embellished a sigh. "And what could I possibly gain from you?"
"I suspect you're a man of at least two faces," Rogers said, studying him. "It takes a rare sort of intelligence to blend so effectually with one's environment."
Nathan shrugged. "If I was so smart, I wouldn't be in here." His teeth gnawed at the inside of his cheek. I certainly wouldn't have trusted Katherine Lindsay to do the right thing.
"He's got you there, Gov," Henry added.
"There's no greater crime than wasted talent," Rogers said.
"So hang me," Nathan chuckled. He was starting to enjoy this. If he was going to die, he might as well have some fun first.
Rogers seized his belt buckle and shifted his girth. "Though my resolve in suppressing piracy is encouraged by your lack of respect, I fear I must decline."
Nathan's arm slid off his knee, and his hand slapped the cold stone floor. He curled his fingers, dragging his nails along the irregular surface. "You want me to tell you where they went?"
"No. I want you to show me where they went."
The Devil's Tide Page 2