CHAPTER FOUR
They left the following day when a majority of the repairs had been made. The captain and her first mate had also traded a portion of their cargo for supplies and gold. They made their way north from the island they had stopped at, but only because most ships headed further west and if anyone were following them, they had less of a chance of finding them.
The captain let Claire up on deck accompanied by Frank, but she warned her they would be punishing her attacker that day and if she did not want to watch she did not have to. Claire chose to watch and stood behind Tina and James, her first officer.
The man was brought before the assembled crew. The captain and her first officer watched several crew members of this man’s same ilk for trouble they could cause. The man was forced to his knees.
“You were warned to stay away from my woman and yet during the worst of the storm you slipped away from your duties to attempt to rape her person. How do you wish your punishment?” she asked him in a conversational tone.
“It ain’t natural,” he spat at her. He had been fed gruel and had vomited it up more often than not. The brig had stunk because he refused to use the slop bucket and had urinated wherever he felt the need. Between vomit and piss and the pile of excrement he did manage to use the bucket for, it stank, and he had breathed it for days. It had addled his mind, fueled his anger, and made his person stink unnaturally.
“You were told the consequences,” she said coldly, and nodded to one of the men who handed her a whip.
“It ain’t natural!” he repeated heatedly. “Two women, it ain’t natural I tell you!” he shouted and the two men holding him were hard-pressed as he struggled.
“Tie him up,” she ordered, and watched dispassionately as he was tied between two posts, his arms spread and his legs barely supporting him as they raised him to his tiptoes.
She looked out at her crew. “I do not speak to hear my own voice. I expect obedience, and if you do not like it, and do not wish to share in the generous booty we have all worked for, you know you can leave,” she told them. Several of the men nodded, acknowledging what was general knowledge to them all. Still, a few muttered beneath their breath.
Tina took the measure of a few of the troublemakers and wondered when she would have to replace these men. Some men would never appreciate her generosity, instead they would take it as a weakness and try to exploit it. Some men were greedy and wanted what they believed were more treasures when she shared the booty they had captured.
Slowly, she pulled the long whip back. The end was tipped in iron and would cut into the man’s flesh horribly. A lesson needed to be made though, or there would be no discipline, and a ship ran on discipline. If her men did not respect her, they would choose another over her. It was hard enough to find men and she could only raid so many prisons to find men unjustly accused and willing to sail under a woman’s flag. She let the whip flick back to hear the crack and the man tensed, but she pulled the whip back again. The second time she flicked her wrist, it cracked back and bit into his back through his shirt, which instantly tore beneath its iron tip. The man cried out immediately in pain, but bit it back trying to withstand it and be a man. Back and forth she flicked it, inflicting the punishment. She counted as she crisscrossed his back. Welt after welt rose up on the exposed back once the shirt was in tatters and filled with the blood oozing from the open wounds. She was methodical as she went in an even pattern down his back and then up again, making the crisscrosses as she counted off the one hundred lashes that had been threatened long ago for anyone touching ‘her’ women. Other women had been brought aboard the ship and she had to institute this harsh punishment to deter them from tumbling them. Whore or lady alike, they had been under her protection, and she did not share what was ‘hers’ with anyone.
By the thirtieth whip mark his shirt was in tatters; by the fiftieth the man was unconscious. No one could stand up to such punishment, and while every seaman was here to witness the penalty, not everyone agreed with it. Some had gleefully looked forward to seeing this particular sailor receive his comeuppance. He had not been well-liked, except by a few of his select cronies, but no one wanted to see what the whip was doing to him. By the seventieth whip many had turned away, but the captain had stopped and ordered them to look. “He was warned. This is what happens when you do not obey an order!” she told them, and they all watched quietly as she finished meting out the punishment. “Cut him down,” she said, disgustedly, as she viewed the mincemeat that was now the man’s back.
The doctor they had on board took him down to the small infirmary and administered drugs to keep him unconscious as he attempted repairs on the man’s raw back. There was not enough flesh to sew it together, and if infection set in he would be lucky to survive, but then that was the purpose of the punishment…to make men avoid it if at all possible.
The crew was silent the rest of the day and discussed it as little as they could. No one would forget the sight, and while many did not like the man, they wondered if it had been a just punishment. Still, he had been warned.
Claire had stopped watching and slipped below to return to the captain’s cabin after the tenth lash. The blood had been horrible, but actually seeing flesh being torn from the man’s body had made her feel quite ill. She waited down in the cabin, wondering if her impressions of Tina had been wrong. She was disgusted by the whole thing and to think she was the cause of it! Then she thought about the alternative, that man’s fetid breath, his hands touching her body, his manhood inside of her, and she shuddered. Tina had saved her from being ruined. Was she ruined anyway? Tina had, after all, been with her, but that was not real fornication, was it? Like between a man and a woman, or a husband and his wife? It did not count… did it? Claire wondered, as she waited for Tina to return.
Tina finally came into the cabin and went immediately to the cabinet and pulled out the tub to fill a bucket with warm water and splash her face and hands. She had been far enough away from the blood splatters, but they were all over the deck and she had assigned the man’s cronies to mopping the deck to clean it up. She did not look at Claire for a long time; she leaned wearily over the bucket before finally getting up and pouring it down the drain.
“Are you all right?” Claire finally worked up the nerve to ask. It was a familiar phrase Tina had asked her many times in the time they had been together. She did not expect an answer.
Tina sighed gustily as she waited for the tub to drain completely, watching the little water go down the drain. “I hate that,” she said sincerely.
Claire wondered what she meant as she came to look in the drain for the cause of her statement.
Tina looked up and looked very sad. “I hate that I have to do things like that,” she said sadly.
Claire realized she did indeed hate that she had to mete out punishment, but in the time she had waited for Tina to return to the cabin she had come to realize, as harsh as the punishment was, it was also just, a deterrent to those who would take advantage of Tina’s sex and good nature. She had to follow through on her threats to mete it out and put fear and respect in the hearts of some of them. If she did not, she would not be the captain for long. In that moment, she realized how much she respected Tina for hating that she had to do it. She helped her put away the tub and hesitantly she took Tina in her arms to comfort her. Much to her surprise, the gentle kiss she bestowed on Tina’s brow led her to kiss down her face and across her lush lips. At first Tina did not respond and Claire pursued Tina for perhaps the first time in their relationship. When she finally did respond, a tiny bit, Claire stopped and hugged her close, comfortingly. She had not wanted to turn this into more intimacy, but she wanted to offer something to this brave and strong woman who hated having to hurt someone who did not obey her.
Tina had been confused at her own lack of response; she felt dead inside right now. She had left her first mate in charge of continuing on their journey. She would go up and join him in about six hours before rel
ieving him for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, she had come to her cabin to escape. She had not really seen Claire sitting there watching her as she washed her hands and face. From a small child on, she had seen punishments such as the one she had meted out be enacted. She had never liked it, but it was a necessary evil. She was the captain and it was her duty. She understood duty. As Claire took her in her arms and kissed her as a mother kisses her child, she felt her own lack of having had a mother to look up to. The kisses had not continued to be like that and it took her brain a while to realize a response was being demanded. Once it kicked in, Claire had stopped and just held her. It was one of the kindest acts she had ever experienced and she held Claire close, appreciating the moment.
They did not make love that night, but merely held each other in the bed as each tried to sleep. Claire was still awake when Tina finally arose to take over for her first mate. “Can I come with you?” she asked, softly.
Tina tried to look down at her in the darkness. “I appreciate the thought, and I would love you to, but not tonight. Tonight is the night the others are most likely to try something with me,” she told her as she firmly attached her sword and knife belt around her small waist.
Claire sat up and tried to make Tina out in the dark. She had not lit a lantern as she dressed to go out on deck. She was alarmed at Tina’s words. “What will they try?” she asked, naively. The punishment was set and over was it not?
“To kill me,” Tina said, matter-of-factly.
“What?” Claire asked, not sure that Tina was not joking and unable to see her in the dark.
Tina did not answer again as she headed for the door. “Could you bolt this behind me? Again, no one but me or James is to come to the door,” she told her as she slipped out before Claire could argue or answer.
Tina was not even to the top of the stairs to the main deck when she heard the distinctive whisper of bare feet on the wooden steps coming up rapidly behind her. She went to a crouch and pulled out her knife. Her assailant went right over her and tumbled to the deck she had just been about to go up on. She leapt after him, seeing the knife flash in the light of the moon. Her knife was deadly accurate and she thrust up and twisted it, the cry the man might have made dying on his lips as he died under her. She heard other feet making noise as they headed towards her in the moonlight. She pulled out her sword and spitted one man on it before it wrenched out of her hand from his weight. The final man cried out as he attacked and they fought. Her strong shoulders stood her in good stead as she wrestled with the man. Tangling her feet with the downed man she had already killed, she fell to the deck, immediately rolling out of the way as the man she was fighting plunged his knife into the deck where she had just been. It stuck in the wood and she rolled back to slice down his arm with her own knife. He pulled his knife out of the wood, and before she could roll away again or get up, he swung out and caught her along the ribs, she immediately felt the warmth of the blood on her shirt. She knew blood loss was a quick way to lose strength and she knew she would have to finish this fight quickly or he would overpower her. He came at her and crouching, she switched the knife from her right hand to her left. As the moonlight glimmered on his blade, she slapped it aside to bring her own blade up and disembowel the man. He dropped his blade to grab at the innards that streamed down his pants’ front. She could see the horror on his face as he realized he was going to die, and he fell forward onto the deck.
Tina looked around for additional attackers, but saw no one. Holding her arm against her ribs, she headed up to the upper deck and, seeing Frank, asked him to fetch the doctor. “Careful, there are three bodies on deck there. I want them left for daylight,” she told him, warningly. James looked at her curiously, but did not question. He had known the man had friends and there would be trouble. Having them clean the deck after the punishment had been like rubbing salt into the wounds. They had not planned well or she would now be dead.
Frank returned with the doctor and a lantern and they stitched up her ribs quickly. She had not lost too much blood, but another shirt was ruined and for some reason this angered her more than the men attacking her.
“I will stay and...” James began to offer.
“I got it, you get some sleep. I may need you at daybreak,” she ordered him and with a nod, he saluted and left the upper deck.
“Can I stay?” Frank asked, and Tina looked at his hopeful face. Nodding tersely, she ordered, “Blow out that lantern.”
It was cold in the night air despite the tropical breezes. Part of it was shock, she knew, and she pulled her jacket tightly about her as she held the wheel. She knew if a strong breeze came up she could turn it over to Frank, but some perverse part inside of her wanted to be there when the hands began to awaken and come on deck for their duties to relieve the night watches. Seeing the bodies lying there would send a message that did not need words.
CHAPTER FIVE
During the following week, Tina allowed Claire up on deck, but insisted that Frank or she be her escort at all times. It was not that she did not trust her crew, but there were still a couple of malcontents. There had been grumbles when she ordered the men who had tried to kill her thrown from the boat and not properly shriven. She would not allow them to be wrapped in cloth and weighted down so they would sink to a watery grave. Instead, by throwing them from the boat like that, they were food for sharks and other fish. She was sending a very direct message to those that would defy her. Their worthless carcasses deserved no respect.
Most of the crew were firmly behind Tina and enjoyed meeting the woman they were holding for ‘ransom’. Some wondered if they would even bother to collect it. They could see how enamored their captain was of this blonde. They teased and laughed with Claire, many of them older and taking on a fatherly mien. Some told her stories and others related how Tina had saved them from a life of crime or prison. She had given others a choice, and while not everyone had taken her up on her offer- some would never work for a woman-most of those who had stayed were good, if hard men. They adored their captain and as she continued to make it profitable to work with her, they stood behind her. They extended that courtesy to her lady and the respect she was accorded was something Tina expected and appreciated at the same time.
They also began to teach Claire the rudiments of sailing. She was delighted in this new-found freedom and knowledge. She could understand the muscles in Tina’s arms and shoulders when she attempted to steer the great wheel. She did not last long and was amazed when Tina steered for hours, seemingly without fatigue. She understood better now why Tina wore men’s shirts, which fit her admirably, and were frequently tailored to her incredible physique. When Claire saw Tina wear just a vest occasionally, with the tropical heat, she understood further how the redhead burned so dark a shade of brown on her brawny shoulders and arms. The work that Tina did required a strength that women frequently did not possess, and she was amused to attempt the same pursuits. The wheel was heavy and too large and she laughed when it was suggested she keep trying to run her ‘own’ ship.
The sailmaker was enamored by Claire’s blonde good looks, but absolutely adored her as she sat next to him for hours, sewing with him as he repaired sails. Other sailors joined them as they all swapped stories and Claire got an education in the outrageous tales they told each other. Relying on the classics, she repeated what she had learned in school and from her tutors about Greek and Roman mythology. She realized some of the stories these men told were versions of the same stories she told. They might be lacking a formal education, but they did not lack knowledge. They had more ‘street smarts’ than she could aspire to.
Tina watched with genuine delight as her crew made friends with her ‘lady friend,’ as they referred to Claire. The fact that she was Lady Von Hagen had not been forgotten, but they had used a play on words to rename her. She was ‘the captain’s lady friend’ and that was that. To a very few, she was Lady Claire or Lady Von Hagen. To Tina, it was always Claire. She found it nice, wh
en among the crew, that Claire referred to her as the captain, but in private it was now Tina. Something about her British accent, and the way she said it, made Tina feel weak at the knees.
Something Claire found odd was that the crew and Tina would never tell her where they were going or what they planned to do in the future. They had gone into several ports to deliver goods from their holds to barter, to sell their ill-gotten gains, and to listen in taverns for news. On a lark, Tina had dressed Claire in men’s togs and slicked back her long, blonde hair as dandies did, in a queue at the back of her head. She had even gone so far as to paste a false mustache on her upper lip to complete her disguise. Taking her into town, it was near to impossible to hide her girlish figure or feminine ways though. They could not stay long, and while Claire had been disappointed, she had also been frightened as men looked at her with lustful eyes once again. Her own crew had barely managed to get her out of there as Tina ended up in a fight with one man.
Alarmed when she saw the stitches on Tina’s rib cage from the knife fight on the ship, Claire was even more alarmed by the bruises that formed from an actual fist fight. Tina returned victorious and smiling despite a bloody nose and a black eye.
“Maybe I should get a patch and look even more sinister?” she teased, but Claire was not amused. It was dangerous and she understood now why Tina kept her hidden, for the most part, as they went from port to port with their goods.
Claire was having the time of her life, but Tina would no longer tell her about her past and regretted mentioning her grandfather or that she had been raised on ships. This saddened Claire, but she thought she understood. She did not realize the passage of time until it was brought home to her one day after their last port visit.
Pirated Love Page 9