Mutiny of the Heart

by Jennifer Bray-Weber

  Rissa was close enough that Ricker could see the poor soul dangling from his distorted arm. He bristled. No mishap had befallen the crew, no accidental cooking fire or overturned lantern. The boat had been attacked.

  “Whoever did this,” Valeryn’s voice was low and somber as he scanned the horrific site, “They’re gone now.”

  They sailed up alongside the schooner. Burning pitch and wood crackled and wafted in the thick air. Half a dozen bodies strewn across the blood-soaked deck. Flames licked up the mast from piles of sail and rope deliberately pushed against the pole. Not only was the fire intentional, ’twas meant to signal passing ships, to draw someone to the massacre.

  “Ship ho!” The top man pointed southeast.

  “What she hail?” Quint hollered up.

  “No flag, Capt’n.”

  No flag, no claim to country. Which could mean a rogue ship and trouble, of this Ricker was certain.

  “She coming this way?”

  “Nay. She sails leeward.”

  Heading away. ’twas suspicious. By the look on Quint’s face, she thought so, as well. She tried to sight in her scope, but from her frustrated grimace, her vantage must have been too low for her to see the vessel. She slapped the spyglass shut.

  Ricker stared through the brown smoke swirling below the bulwark before rising into the breezes. Carnage. There was no other word to describe the scene. Men split open, lying in large pools of blood. Red footprints littered the deck. Strangely, none led to the hatch below deck. ’twould seem an act of pirates except for that one fact. Pirates would surely search the boat for valuables. At the very least, they’d make off with provisions, sails and anything not nailed down.

  Pointless killings of fishermen just did not make sense.

  Movement caught his attention. Unsure he trusted his eyes in the haze, he focused more intently to a spot under the aft spar. There! Movement!

  “Captain Quint!” In two steps, Ricker stood below her. “There’s a man alive.”

  She leaned into the rail, squinting through a thick passing cloud of smoke, and mouthed an oath.

  An arm reached for a rope, but failed to pull its broken body up.

  “Sam! Where the devil is Sam? Sam! Get a longboat in the water. Now!” Ricker helped maneuver the rescue boat out over the ship’s edge. The longboat smacked into the water. Sam, Valeryn and two other tars rowed over to the burning vessel. It took mere moments for Sam to recover the injured man. Valeryn swept the schooner for any other survivors. He clambered back into the row boat empty-handed.

  And none too soon. Hungry flames fanned out, eating through the fishing vessel. The mast popped, sheered, then crashed down. Sparks and balls of fire snapped and skipped onto unscorched sections of the deck.

  Sam climbed up Rissa’s ladder with the man thrown over his shoulder. He gently laid him on the floor. The poor sap had been cleaved across his chest with a large blade. So bloody was the fellow, Ricker could taste the bitter metallic odor on his tongue.

  The fisherman gasped for air in shallow pants. Terror clouded his rounded, sightless eyes.

  Captain Quint kneeled beside him. “Calm down,” she urged. “You’re safe now.”

  Hacker squatted on the other side, as best as his rotund belly would allow. He adjusted his round spectacles, rolled up his sleeves, and worked to staunch the bleeding. The injured man flinched and whimpered, but Hacker didn’t let up, hollering for Jack to fetch up his surgeon’s bag.

  “Who did this to you?” Quint asked.

  His eyes erratically wavered, the color of his pupils swallowed up by fear.

  “Ship ho!”

  Everyone looked up.

  In a jolt of speed, the fisherman clutched Quint’s arm. “Leviathan.” Panic rushed his single word.

  “Ah hell,” Henri muttered. “Not Leviathan.”

  Just the mention of the sea demon had Henri, whiter than a bleached fishbone, fumbling for the flask in his vest with his cane tucked under his arm. An eerie feeling spiraled in his chest, and though Ricker didn’t believe in such things,’twas hard to ignore the sense that death’s wraith hovered near.

  * * *

  “She’s Andrew, Capt’n,” the lookout called. “She flies the Union Jack.”

  Joelle shot to her feet. “The Royal Navy,” she hissed.

  “She’s comin’ in fast,” he added.

  She marched to the gunwale and opened her spyglass. Watson. Just grand. Engagement with the tenacious captain was inevitable.

  “Get that longboat out of the water! Clear the deck for action!”

  The ship became a flurry of action. Everyone bustled with an uncanny precision, all working parts moving in unison. ’twas a thing of beauty. Like the sweet melody of a quartet, or the firing mechanisms of a flintlock. Even Ricker folded into the haste, taking charge without instruction, helping stow gear and roll out the guns, as if he’d been a part of the crew for ages. And the crew accepted his help eagerly.

  “That who I think it is?” Valeryn propped a musket against the railing and handed Joelle her personal long-arm.

  “Aye.” She took one more look through the scope.

  Captain Watson, dressed in full uniform, stood on the bow of the HMS Expedition, hands locked behind his back. Watson had been a real splinter in Joelle’s arse for the last two years. He was a cunning bastard, but a man without forbearance in patience.

  “Don’t look good, Jo.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Watson catching Joelle next to a boat full of corpses was reason enough for the naval captain to wage battle. “I’m not anxious enough to wait for him to get within range to find out his intentions.”

  Valeryn chuckled. “I don’t reckon he’s coming to our aid.”

  “Nor do I.” No frigate under His Royal Majesty would let an opportunity to take down the Rissa slip by. Most especially Captain Watson. He was sent to this part of the Caribbean to eradicate pirates. To date, he’d failed.

  Several jacks pulled the longboat over the bulwark, spurring her to action. “Willie, get us the hell out of here. Listen for my orders!”

  Rissa lurched forward but it would take precious minutes for her to be under full sail. The Expedition was already maneuvering into a favorable position to attack.

  Joelle was going to have to get creative in their escape.

  “We’re not going to be caught and tried without having a splendid reason,” she said. ’twas more an affirmation to herself than for Valeryn.

  “I’ll take a few navy scugs to hell with me first.” Valeryn grinned.

  “So would most of the crew.” Of that, she was certain. “Gunner! Wait for my command!”

  Watson was an over-ambitious man. ’Twasn’t a matter of if, but when he fired upon the Rissa. Joelle had once lost a ship to him. Burned it by her own hand in an escape when he trapped her in an archipelago.

  Damn near killed her to destroy Red Maiden, her first ship to captain as a pirate. Saving her crew from capture and death made it a necessity, gaining her notoriety among pirates and the Royal Navy alike for her extreme measures.

  ’Twas an honor she, as a woman, needed to maintain.

  She was without a ship and crew for months before happenstance had brought her to Captain Thayer Drake and Valeryn. A harrowing rescue of Drake’s woman and her diamonds left Drake injured and led to his decision to retire from pirating to take the beauty as his wife. By way of gratitude, Drake gave Joelle Rissa and the crew voted her in as their captain. She could only assume ’twas based, in part, thanks to Watson, on that notoriety.

  Watson had attacked her at every chance encounter. Today would be no different. Just as always, she would glory in besting him.

  The Rissa held her breath as her crew waited, poised for the fight to come. Slow matches on the lintstocks hovered above gun touchholes. It was that grotesque moment in time before battle, battle that could end lives.

  Expedition gained on Rissa’s starboard aft. “Bear starboard,” she called to Willie. “Cut him
off.”

  Men working the sails pulled the sheets. The sails flapped and stuttered, catching the crosswinds. Watson had enough stretch of water to pull right, as well.

  “Tack portside. Portside!”

  Rissa leveled left. As Joelle expected, a blast quaked through the tension. A cannonball whirled past Rissa’s starboard side, plunking into the water ahead.

  The first shot fired. She smiled. ’twas all she needed. Now it was self-preservation.

  “Hold it!” she commanded. “Hold it. Willie! Keep her steady.”

  The frigate righted herself and gave chase.

  “Wait for him to get closer, men.”

  “Jo.” There was an anxious edge to Valeryn’s tone.

  “Just a little closer.”

  “Jo. He’s going to fi—”

  “Not yet. Hooold it.”

  The Expedition rose on a swell. Perfect.

  “Fire!”

  A succession of booms erupted. Rissa’s gun carriages rocketed back from the force of the explosions. Chunks of Expedition’s bulwark shattered, but only two of her guns were rendered disabled. Almost instantly, with shivers raining down, the frigate returned fire just as Rissa’s lower deck guns ignited. Clouds of smoke billowed forth from both ships.

  Valeryn snapped up his musket and hopped to the main deck. Not to be an easy target, Joelle too headed for the lower deck.

  Gunners swabbed, loaded, rammed and fired repeatedly.

  Her ship rounded the bow of Expedition. Through the rising gun smoke, she ran the length of her ship. Small arms gunfire cracked and popped. Bullets whirred past her, fueling her excitability. The heat of battle made her feel alive, invincible. She took aim at a moving target and felled an enemy. Dropping below the rail, she reloaded, frequently glancing up and over her shoulder to maintain a visual on bearings and progress.

  “Bring her around!” she directed Willie. “Stay close to him.” Joelle would force Watson to turn as the Rissa did. ’twas risky. The frigate could ram into Rissa. The damage would be catastrophic. Lord, they were near enough she could grab a rope and swing over into the nest of ’em.

  Tiny shards of wood splintered off the mast from a barrage of bullets. The men working the sails ducked, except one. Hand over hand, Ricker pulled the rope, manipulating the sail to collect the wind needed to propel Rissa around. He seemed oblivious to the battle waging around him, save that the precision and success of the men working the sheets was imperative to make an escape. She admired his courage, but now wasn’t the time for praise. He glanced at her. She could swear those pale eyes smiled. Did he enjoy the heat of battle as much as she?

  She swung up, fired and reloaded again and again. “Bring her full circle, Willie!”

  The Expedition had less room to maneuver than her ship. Rissa distanced herself to an advantageous position. Facing opposite directions, the ships leveled nearly parallel, resulting in more cannon fire. A portion of the bulwark which Joelle hunched behind exploded beside her. Huge shivers of wood sliced her arm. Pain seared hot and sharp through her muscle.

  Damn me!

  Joelle took a moment to force out the sting, clenching the iron of her gun so tight she thought she might bend it. She shot up, aimed at a swabber leaning out to ram shot into a gun, and discharged. The flintlock mechanism crackled, smoke puffed from the pan, and the unfortunate fellow tumbled down into the water below.

  Dizzy from the burning pain, her weight brought her to the floorboards. A large chunk of wood remained skewered into her flesh, protruding several inches out of her arm. Ah, blast it!

  Ricker skidded down beside her. Concern—or maybe that was dogged determination—

  drew his brows together. He wrested open her sleeve to inspect the wound more closely.

  “Be still.” He clamped his thumb and knuckle over the shiver.

  “I don’t need yo—”

  Ricker yanked. Skin tore away with the wood. Pain blazed hotter than before. She sharply inhaled, biting down on a yelp. Joelle needed every bit of her senses to volley the string of curses she intended to give him.

  He ripped her sleeve from her arm and went about wrapping it around her bleeding wound. She watched him, his face. Just as much to take her mind off the pain as to try to figure him out. Who was this mysterious map reader coiled tight with defiance and resentment? Why did she want to know more about him? Why did he take it upon himself to help her?

  It hit her then. He had taken control of her injury. She didn’t relinquish control to anyone, damn it. And she certainly didn’t want anyone to tend to her. She could, and would, take care of herself. Vulnerability did not suit her. She hated to show the slightest hint of need. ’twas a sign of weakness. Never show weakness. Never.

  “Belay!” Her voice grated under the prominent throb as she tried to pull her arm away. “I don’t need your help.”

  Ricker yanked the knot tighter than necessary. “What’s done is done,” he growled.

  She glared at him, angry at his audacity, angry at her own moment of weakness. “So it is,” she replied, letting each syllable drop like hot pitch.

  They locked stares, a battle of wills. Who would look away first? Not her. She’d be damned. Not her.

  Cheers erupted and they both turned to the celebrating crew. The fighting had ended. Joelle was relieved for the interruption from glowering into those blue bottomless eyes. Now they’d never know who would have broken away first. Thankfully.

  Rissa, sails fully opened and filling with the good wind, raced ahead before Expedition could tack around. Watson may give chase, but Rissa would have a helluva lead.

  Joelle pushed aside thoughts of her aching arm, picked herself up as Ricker backed away, and sought out the wounded fisherman. She knelt down next to the man propped against the quarterdeck wall. His slacken face was drained of color. Dead. She let out a hefty sigh. In their wake, the fishing boat burned. It would burn to the waterline and slip into the sea, taking with her clues to why she was attacked. ’Twasn’t her problem.

  Yet it was. Someone had the audacity to prey in brethren waters.

  They would need to be dealt with sooner or later. Preferably later. Joelle didn’t need a wayward murderer complicating her plans.

  She stood and gave the nearest deckhand directives. “Stevens. Prepare him for a proper burial.”

  “Aye, Capt’n,” he said. “Uh, Capt’n? May I have his belt?”

  She nodded. Clothing was always in demand for those who lived by the sea. She started to walk away, but turned in time to see Stevens trying to remove a necklace from the dead man’s neck. “Leave it,” she ordered. “He’ll need the gold for payment when he crosses over.” Stevens, ashamed he’d been caught, or perhaps for attempting to deny another seaman his passage, nodded and went to work.

  “Stay the original course,” she called out to Willie, and she sought out Valeryn.

  “What to bloody hell happened to you?” Valeryn gingerly twisted her arm.

  “Nearly made you captain by the starboard bow.”

  “Christ, woman.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “My arse. That bandage’s soaked through.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “I said I’m fine.”

  Valeryn grunted and let go.

  “What’s the damage?”

  “Aside from starboard bow?” His eyes slid back down to her aching arm. The dull pounding had become hard to ignore, especially with the rhythm it was keeping in her ears.

  “Another mid ship,” he continued. “Nothing we can’t patch until we land port for proper repairs. Hacker is tending the few injuries. You should have him look at that arm.”

  Joelle ignored his suggestion. “Good. Nothing to keep us from our commission.”

  “What of Captain Watson?”

  “He’s too fashioned by directives and his desire to become a commodore. ’tis apparent he is unaware of this arrangement with Lord English or the correspondence meant for his superior. That has me concerned.” She pac
ed the railing keeping an eye on the naval ship fast approaching, her sails full and foretelling. “The captain is determined, if nothing. I’ve slipped from his grasp time and again. Watson will go to great lengths to destroy us, me. He will continue to hunt us.” She smirked. “And we will continue to make him a fool.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Valeryn said. “What of this ship Leviathan?”

  Leviathan. She hadn’t heard the name in some years. Hearing it now set the hairs of her nape on end. “’Tis not a ship. Leviathan is a man. A very dangerous man.” A man she’d hoped to never cross paths with again. A man who’d swore on his woman’s dying breath he’d see Joelle dead. “Should we sail upon him, no quarter will be given.”

  Chapter Four

  Joelle dug the tip of her gulley knife deep into her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, holding her breath as the sharp pain sliced across her arm. Letting out a quick huff only to hold the next, she pried out the remnants of splinters from her flesh. Steadying herself, she doused the raw gash with a splash of rum and cursed something awful. When she was sure she wouldn’t lose consciousness, she pulled a healthy quaff of the liquor, the burn in her throat bringing tears to her eyes.

  A steady river of blood pooled on the table and she tried to staunch the flow with a wet rag. Joelle wrung out the rag in the bowl of red-tinted water then placed it back upon her arm. The cool rag felt good, but only for an entirely too short moment.

  She’d have to stop bleeding some time. The clean dressing would be useless otherwise. Joelle took a deep breath. Another drink was in order. Mayhap she’d drink till she was four sheets to the wind, with her face planted on her desk, before she bled to death. Hmm...not a bad idea, really.

  Mid-swig, someone knocked at the door.

  “Go away.”

  The door swung open. Damn, why hadn’t she locked it?

  “Damn it! Go away, Val—”

  Ricker entered her cabin carrying two chicken eggs and kicked the door shut behind him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Joelle was a little more than surprised to see him. Somehow, she couldn’t get over how small he made the room feel.