The Iron Rose

by Marsha Canham

  “The size of your brother’s ears,” Isabeau snapped. “And unless he wants them soundly boxed, he’ll keep them pointed straight ahead.”

  Chapter Ten

  Once again, Varian found himself at odds. Beacom recovered enough to dust himself off and retire below to fetch the small chest Johnny Boy had appropriated for their use. There was not much in it: a spare shirt and stockings, some linens, and a horsehair brush, but it gave the valet something familiar to do to keep his mind off slashed throats and boiled entrails.

  As for Varian, he was not accustomed to being dismissed out of hand nor being set aside like an afterthought, and it angered him enough that he followed Juliet to her cabin after the revelry had come to a happy end on deck.

  He paused only fractionally, his hand on the latch, before his fingers curled into a grudging fist and he knocked on the door.

  “Come.”

  She was at her desk gathering up the ledgers, maps, manifests and other assorted documents they had collected from the Santo Domingo and the Argus. She had removed her hat, and the lantern light was pouring over her shoulders, gilding the dark waves of her hair with streaks of red and gold fire.

  When Varian entered, she glanced up and sighed.

  “You have the look of a grievance about you, my lord. Be warned, my patience is strained and I have my pistols close at hand.”

  He clasped his hands behind his back. “The correct form of address, which you have thus far chosen to ignore, is in fact ‘your grace.’ ”

  She finished shuffling a handful of papers and straightened. “I am sure you have not come here, all puffed up like a quail, to instruct me in proper manners.”

  “I fear you are already well beyond salvation in that respect, Captain. I have come to inquire after the meaning of your father’s words: that I am welcome to come ashore under your protection.”

  “It seems clear enough to me, my lord,” she said, deliberately misusing the address again. “In essence, you were captured along with the galleon, which makes you part of the spoils, if you will. It follows then, by the purest definition of the articles of privateering, that you have become my property and therefore my responsibility. Trust me when I say I am no more pleased than you with the designation, but there you have it. Even pirates have rules of order.” After holding his gaze a moment longer, she bowed to her task again. “On the other hand, you should be thankful Father did place you under my protection; otherwise my brother Jonas might have shot you out of hand.”

  Varian’s mind was still stumbling over the word property. “Your brother? What has he to do with any of this?”

  “He hates the Spaniards even more than my father, though one would be hard-pressed to find the grain of sand that weighs the balance in his favor. And if you have come here to deliver more of the king’s petulant demands that we uphold the peace … well …”

  She glanced up as Johnny Boy came stumping through the open doorway to tell her the Santo Domingo had been towed into the harbor.

  “Yes, all right. Thank you. Here, you can take these topside for me—” She stuffed the last wad of documents into a bulging canvas sack and handed them to the boy. “Have a longboat made ready. We will be going ashore as soon as Mr. Crisp gives a signal.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.”

  “Hold up there a moment,” she called, stopping him at the door. “What did you do to your leg?”

  Johnny Boy craned his head around to look at the dark circle of blood that stained his breeches above the cup of the carved peg. “ ’T’ain’t nothin’, Cap’n. I backed into a gun carriage and scraped it on a bit of wood.”

  “Make sure you clean it well before you go ashore. I’ll not be pleased if we have to trim another inch off the stump because you were careless.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.” The boy grinned. “I’ll scrub it till it squeaks an’ piss on it twice a day.”

  When he was gone, Juliet noted the look on Varian’s face.

  “ ’Tis the best way to clean a wound, sir, and prevent corruption.” Her gaze danced across his cheek a moment, but instead of compounding his shock by confirming the nature of the stinging tincture she had dabbed over his wound, she settled her cavalier’s hat on her head and snatched her gloves off the desk. “Shall we go topside, my lord? I’ve a few more details to attend before we disembark.”

  Frustrated by the fact that he had come in search of answers only to be left with more questions, he reached out and caught her arm as she started to walk past. Exactly what he meant or wanted to say was cut short when she glared at his hand, then glared up at his face. He released his grip at once, but the daggers were already in her eyes, the steel in her voice. “I thought you said you learned from your mistakes?”

  “I am trying desperately to do so, believe me. Unfortunately the rules seem to change every time I turn around.”

  “You will just have to turn a little faster then, will you not?”

  “Believe me, I am spinning now, madam,” he muttered, but she was out the door and halfway up the steps to the quarterdeck.

  An hour later, Juliet was finally ready to go ashore. The Santo Domingo was securely anchored fifty yards astern and had become a magnet for swarms of jolly-boats. It was long past full dark and lanterns had been hung from her lines and rigging, flooding the decks bright as day. Men were already banging together winches that would be used in the morning to off-load her cargo of treasure.

  Juliet was heading toward the gangway when she noticed how closely the Duke of Harrow was watching the proceedings on board the Santo Domingo. He was squinting to see through the glare, and when Juliet searched the far deck to see what had piqued his interest, she saw the English lieutenant, Beck, moving freely among the crewmen on board, even supervising the men as they lowered huge nets into the belly of the galleon.

  “If you want to come ashore, my lord,” Juliet said, drawing Varian’s attention away from the Santo Domingo, “we are leaving now. But take fair notice that if you make a nuisance of yourself, you will be carried back here like a sack of grain.”

  Apart from a small muscle that quickened in Varian’s cheek, he remained silent.

  By contrast, Beacom took one look over the open rail at the gangway and blanched. It was a steep descent down the outer skin of the hull with nothing to cling to but the narrow rungs that were set into the timbers. The sky was black overhead, the water an eerie confusion of shadows and shapes below. The lights had attracted schools of fish, some who swam near the surface and darted about like iridescent streaks. Some of the darker shadows on the bottom moved independent of the longboats above, huge round, flat creatures with long whiplike tails snaking out behind.

  “Dear me, your grace.” Beacom melted back from the rail. “I think I should prefer to wait for a chair.”

  Varian watched Juliet flick the wing of her cape over her shoulder and disappear below the level of the deck. “I doubt there are more than two ways of disembarking, Beacom,” he said dryly. “Her brother took the one earlier today, and you see before you the other.”

  “Ho there!” Juliet shouted from below. “We haven’t all night. If you fall, just give the barracuda a few sharp kicks and they get out of your way.”

  Beacom whimpered and Varian sighed. “Perhaps you would prefer to remain on board? I’m sure the ship’s company will find ways to amuse you.”

  The valet’s pale hand fluttered up to clutch his throat. “I’ll not abandon you now, your grace. Lead on.”

  “Follow close behind me. I’ll guide your feet and catch you up if you put one wrong.”

  Beacom gave a jerky nod and waited until Varian was three steps down before he stretched a foot gingerly over the side. Terror more than aptitude kept him moving down the ladder, and he did not stop or open his eyes until he felt a hand clamp around his ankle and guide it onto the rocking longboat.

  As soon as Beacom and Varian were settled, one of the oarsmen used his paddle to push away from the side of the Iron Rose. It presented an odd
perspective, gazing up from the water, and Varian felt dwarfed by the enormous bulk of timber, the towering masts that rose high into the night sky. He could see gouges in the wood, scars from past conflicts. He also counted the gunports and realized what a truly powerful, deadly vessel he had been aboard.

  When they pulled around the bow, his attention was caught by the carved figurehead. It was a woman, naked but for a ripple of linen lying on a diagonal across her groin. Her hands were reaching forward as if to support the thick arm of the bowsprit; her legs were straight and shapely, the feet pointed down like those of a dancer.

  They reached the towering hull of the Santo Domingo and waited but a moment for Nathan Crisp and Lieutenant Jonathan Beck to clamber down the side. The two men were sharing a laugh over something the crusty old sea dog had said, but when Beck saw Varian sitting in the longboat, he sobered at once and extended a polite bow.

  “Your grace. I had heard you were recovered from your wounds and was pleased to learn they were not fatal.”

  “No more so than I, Lieutenant. We have not had an opportunity to speak since the incident, but please accept my condolences over the loss of your ship and the brave men in your crew.”

  “Thank you, sir. Captain Macleod was a good man, a fine sailor, and will be sorely missed.”

  “He trained his men well, at any rate,” Crisp announced for Juliet’s benefit. “Loftus tells me if it weren’t for the crew of the Argus manning the lines, she would have floundered in the storm and been driven out into the Atlantic. As for the lieutenant here, it’s a shame he hasn’t a larcenous nature. I’d put him at the helm any day. He maneuvered that bitch through the reef like he’d done it a hundred times.”

  “I was raised in Cornwall, sir, where the currents and breakers have cracked the spines of many a fine ship.”

  “Take the compliment in the spirit it was given, Mr. Beck,” said Juliet. “Mr. Crisp hoards them like a spinster does her kisses.”

  The oarsmen took up the stroke again and within minutes they had cut across the bay and were approaching the lights along shore. Higher up on the slope, the huge white house glittered like a cluster of jewels. When the longboat bumped into the dock, Juliet and Crisp leaped out first and while the others disembarked, they stood together talking in low voices.

  Varian, after the first few steps on solid ground, was surprised to discover he was as queasy and unsteady in the knees as he had been during his first days at sea. To his quiet disgust, he recalled he had spent some of that time with his head bowed over a slops pail and it was no comfort to know he was susceptible to the same weakness going from the sea to land.

  A carriage was waiting to take them up to the big house. It rattled like the bones of a skeleton over the rough road, and Varian’s teeth nearly snapped off at the gums with the effort it took to bear the renewed hammering in his head as well as his hip and shoulder. By the time they rolled to a halt, he was ready to throw his body out the door and hug the closest tree.

  “I would like a moment alone to speak to the duke,” Juliet said, waving for the others to step down. “Take these inside for me,” she said and handed Crisp the sack of charts and manifests that had ridden beside her on the seat. “Have someone show the lieutenant and Mr. Beacom to rooms with clean sheets and hot baths.”

  The carriage had stopped in front of the big house. Lamps hung from every pillar and post along the hundred-foot length of the wide veranda; every window on both stories blazed. There was only one corner of the coach where the shadows had not been chased away and while Juliet Dante had the advantage of being able to see every crease on Varian’s face, every hair on his head, she remained for the most part in darkness save for the ruff of white lace at her throat.

  The irony of her wearing lace and velvet was not lost on him. At the same time, he had to admit the black and crimson suited her nature, worn not out of any need to comply with fashion, but simply because it reflected her power, her confidence, her lethal grace.

  She sat with her hands tapping lightly together on her lap for a few moments, then, seeking some way to occupy them, began stripping off her leather gloves, one finger at a time.

  “I was burned once,” she said as a casual matter of fact. “My shirt caught fire and I lost a few layers of skin before the men could douse me. Since then, I’ve had cuts and musket holes that have not hurt half so much. I admire the lieutenant’s fortitude; he must have suffered immeasurably. Do you know how it happened?”

  “I am afraid I was not made privy to the information.”

  “You were at sea with him for six weeks and never thought to ask?”

  “One simply does not ask a man outright how he burned his face.”

  “One doesn’t? Plague take my manners then, because I did. It seems he was betrothed and—much like yourself—eagerly returning home to marry his sweetheart when his ship encountered a Dutchman off the Canaries. Shots were exchanged and one of the sails came down in flames. He had powder on his cheek from having discharged his musket several times and the fire caught his shirt, his hair, his face. When he arrived back in England, his sweetheart took one look at him and screamed in horror. He returned immediately to the navy, where he knew life was more tolerant away from the vulgar niceties of a well-bred society.”

  “I will own that there are those who judge their fellow man more harshly than others, but to say that all of English society as a whole is vulgar—”

  “Am I so wrong? Do you really believe my mother would be well received at court? Would she be invited to dance a galliard, to play a game of bowls on the green? Would she find no lack of partners willing to sit next to her at a dinner party when she uses her stump to hold the meat for cutting?”

  He searched the shadows. “Are you deliberately trying to shock me, Captain, or are you simply trying to get me to admit that we are all conceited boors? If so, then yes, I will admit it … if you will admit that you hold a similar degree of conceit—it is merely seen from the opposite side of the mirror. You wear your scars and ferocious nature proudly, and you scorn any man with uncalloused hands and rosettes in his shoes. As you say, it is not likely that the one-armed wife of a pirate lord would be made lady-in-waiting to the queen, yet how likely would it be for men like Beacom and myself to be treated as equals at your dining table? The very first time we spoke, you insisted I address you as ‘captain,’ yet you mock my own rank at every turn. You cannot have it both ways, Juliet. You cannot cry foul when you are guilty of the same crimes.”

  She was so still and so quiet he could almost hear her lashes blinking together. It was the first time he had used her proper name and he suspected it did not sit well.

  “I did not hold you back to receive a lecture on social conceits, your grace. I thought only to save you from further embarrassment by advising you, in all good faith, against going inside the house and spouting your directives and demands from the king. They will not be happily met.”

  “You have yet to tell me why.”

  She responded with a shallow puff of disdain and he spread his hands to show he had won his point. “You chastise me for not asking the lieutenant a simple question, yet when I attempt to do the same with you, you stab me with a blade.”

  “I have stabbed you with nothing, sir.”

  “You think not? If your eyes were weapons, madam, I would have been bloodied from head to toe a dozen times over.”

  She drummed her fingers again. She turned her head when she heard footsteps outside on the crushed stones, but her glare sent whoever it was into a hasty retreat.

  Her fingers stopped. Her hands curled around her gloves, and she turned to look at him again.

  “Our grandfather, Jonas Spence, was killed on board the Black Swan, in the same battle that cost my mother her arm. After fifty years at sea, he had few of the original appendages he was born with. He had but one leg, one arm, his body was a map of scars and deformations that would have made Lieutenant Beck seem positively handsome by comparison, yet he neve
r once chose to remain behind when there were adventures to be had. He never balked from a fight, never ran from an enemy, never took a half measure when the whole was required. My brother Jonas was always by his side, mimicking his great lusty laugh, catching him when he tipped over from too much rum.” She stopped, thinking perhaps she had said too much already, and finished with an edge of impatience in her voice. “Had you seen the look on my brother’s face when he carried Grandfather’s body off the ship, you would not have to ask why he would never abide by any edict for peace with the Spanish. Neither would my father, or my mother. Or me, for that matter.”

  He shook his head. “Would that not make you hunger for peace even more?”

  “Peace, aye. Capitulation … never.”

  “No one is asking you to capitulate.”

  “Are they not? The Spaniards will never honor a peace treaty that allows foreign ships to sail these waters. They have too much at stake. They have an entire New World at their command, for heaven’s sake, and as long as they hold it, they maintain their supremacy on the sea. While the Virgin was on the throne, Father used to receive official missives demanding he return to England for an audience with his sovereign, insisting he cease his attacks on Spanish shipping, scolding him, threatening him with all manner of repercussions if he disobeyed. Yet there were other communications, delivered secretly and often encoded so that they made sense to Father’s eyes only. They praised him for his successes, even encouraged him to increase his attacks, to do everything in his power to disrupt the trade routes and strike the Spaniards where it hurt most: in their treasury. The old queen understood that if you stopped the flow of gold and silver from the Main, the Spanish king would have no money to build ships, to pay his armies, to garrison ports a thousand miles away from Seville. There were dozens of privateers in these waters, most of whom received the same veiled winks from Elizabeth as my father, and their efforts had results. While Spain’s coffers emptied, England’s filled with the one-tenth share of the treasure taken from every captured ship. A good part of England’s navy was built with the ill-gotten gains of Elizabeth’s sea hawks.