Too tasty.
And too strong.
But she kept taking sips every time the flask came around to her.
When her vision began to blur a bit, Quinn excused herself to go up on deck.
The cold sea air had a way of revitalizing her. It was, she believed, how pirates were able to drink so much at night and still be able to function during the day. The salt air was medicinal to them on many levels. Quinn inhaled a lungful as she steadied herself by holding the railing.
Looking up at the moons, Quinn chuckled.
Two moons.
She’d never been this drunk before and could only hope the effects of the whisky would wear off before morning, when she would make the last leg to Scotland. Grace would have that telescope to her face at first light to make certain all was well in the two trailing ships. If she felt Quinn wasn’t up to snuff, her anger would be felt across the water.
Her anger.
Funny that Quinn was far more concerned about Grace’s anger than Fiona’s. Maybe Fiona was partially right. Maybe Quinn did choose Grace and the crew over her. Maybe she always had and always would.
Damn.
If Fiona was right, then Quinn would have to walk away and allow Fiona the space to live a life without her. If Fiona was wrong, then Quinn would need to step away from her pirate life and relearn how to live on the land once more.
Closing her eyes and steadying herself on the deck, Quinn let the alcohol take over.
“Storm’s comin’, Captain.”
Opening her eyes, Quinn tried to focus on Kwame’s dark face. All she could see was his teeth.
“Some captain I am, Kwame. I should have smelled it.”
“You’re drunk. Nothing works right when you’re drunk. I’ll keep at the helm if you’d rather.”
Quinn nodded. “I’d appreciate it.”
“Are you all right? You’ve not been the same since you returned from Fiona’s.”
Quinn inhaled another deep breath of salty air. Yes. A storm was imminent. She should have seen as much. Grace surely had. The woman had the uncanny ability of predicting the weather. “Women troubles is all.”
Kwame chuckled. “Women are trouble, Callaghan. There may be moments in a day when they are not, but that is usually because they are getting their way.”
Quinn laughed. “I suppose if it weren’t for sex––”
“We’d have little to do with them.”
“Funny, though, how they rule the world.”
The ship lurched and dipped, causing Quinn to rock backwards. She’d have fallen completely over had someone not caught her from behind.
“Easy there, Captain.”
Straightening up, Quinn turned to see who’d caught her.
It was the diminutive Evan.
“Evan! Watch out. Wouldn’t want ya fallin’ overboard.”
Kwame placed Quinn’s hands back on the railing. “I’d best stay at the wheel, Captain, and I think you’d be safer in your quarters.”
Quinn’s head felt heavy, and she couldn’t see a damn thing unless she saw it twice.
“I’ll take ya to yer quarters, Cap. These waters are feelin’ awfully rough.”
“I can handle rough seas, little laoch cuidich! I’m a goddamned pirate!”
Kwame turned Quinn around and placed Evan’s hand on her arm. “Yes, you are... a very drunk goddamned pirate. Now, off you go.”
Evan held firm to Quinn’s arm. “Come on, Cap. I’ve never seen a real pirate captain’s quarters.”
“Of course you haven’t. You have land legs. Wanna see mine?” Quinn chuckled. “My quarters. Not my legs. That would be silly.”
Kwame nodded once to Evan, who escorted Quinn to her cabin.
“I would like that, sir.”
Quinn half walked, half stumbled to her small quarters with Evan never once releasing his grip.
Once the door was opened, Quinn stood in the doorway. “There’s a lantern hangin’ on this wall somewhere.”
“I’ll find it. Just stay in the doorway.”
“I’m a captain, you know?”
Evan chuckled. “I ken. Please stay in the doorway. How’s that?”
“Better. You know... captaining is harder than it looks. I never realized how hard Grace works to make it all look so easy. It’s not.”
Evan found the lantern and lit it, illuminating the bare room. There was a bed, a tiny table and two wooden chairs that had seen better days. Nothing else was in the barren room. “I take it ya doona sail this ship verra often.”
“Often? Ha! Never. This is my first time as captain, but shh... don’t tell ennaone.”
Evan gently moved Quinn to the bed, where she sat down, her hands in her lap while Evan pulled out one of the wooden chairs and sat across from her.
“Yer secret is safe with me, Cap. How are ya feelin’?”
Quinn looked up at Evan’s face—two faces, mostly a blur. “Goddamn motherfucking Scottish whisky.”
Evan chuckled. “Yeah, it’s the whisky’s fault.”
Quinn squinted and tried to focus the two faces into one. He truly was almost pretty with his full lips and prominent cheekbones. His lack of red hair or green eyes told her one parent was not Celtic. His size told her one was not Nordic or Highlander.
“What’s your lineage, little Evan?”
Evan smiled softly. “My da was a Highlander––a warrior, a galloglaigh. My ma was French.”
“Both dead?”
Evan nodded. “Kilt by Spaniards as we waited fer a ship off Southern France.”
“You saw them murdered?”
Evan nodded sadly. “Aye. I was only nine years old. I managed to stow away on a boat that came to Ireland. I was stealin’ from Lake’s camp one night when he caught me. He didna hurt me but gave me food and water. His parents, the MacLeod family, raised me.”
“How old was Lake?”
“He was twenty at the time and was already a great fighter. His da said he would need a laoch cuidich he could trust, so they taught me––trained me––and when I turned twelve, I became his.”
“Have you traveled much?”
“Oh, aye. Lake and his men have been hired by the French, the Italians, the Greeks, the Portuguese, even the Turks.”
“And now the Scots.”
He grinned. “Aye. The circle of life, eh? What aboot ya, Cap? How did ya wind up a pirate?”
Quinn leaned forward, hoping the keep the room from spinning. “My best friend is Black Irish and was mistaken fer a slave. She was stolen from our village and so I went after her.”
Evan cocked his head. “Yer best friend was a girl?”
Quinn nodded. “A very fine, very sophisticated young woman I’d sworn to protect.”
“So ya became a pirate to save a friend. When was that?”
“Six years ago.”
“Did ya ever find her?”
“Indeed I did. By then, I’d fallen in love with the sea and have been with Grace O’Malley’s crew ever since.”
“Are the tales of her exploits true? We hear so many rumors on the road.”
Quinn nodded. “Every last one of them. She is everything people write about and more. She is what the we Irish are about––courageous, strong, fierce, independent.”
“Ah. I see. Ya speak as if ya were in love with her.”
Quinn laughed. “Admiration and respect combined still do not equal love. She’s my captain, my friend, my leader, but nothing more.”
“I would imagine it is difficult to love a woman when one is a pirate at sea.”
Leaning back, Quinn sighed as the room spun around her. “Women are difficult to love no matter where you are or what you do. What about you? Is it difficult to love a woman when you are first mate to a warrior?”
“Not difficult. Impossible. Lake goes where the battles are. No woman wants to spend her days worryin’ whether or not her man is comin’ back.”
“Exactly. Do you ever get lonely then?”
Evan moved closer. “I do not. A woman’s comfort is a temporary experience. I willna settle down until the blood of those who kilt my parents is on my hands. It is why I do this. I want vengeance.”
Quinn leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Her stomach turned from ally to foe. “So revenge is your mistress.”
“Aye.”
“And you think you’d recognize them after all these years?”
“It would be impossible not to. The Spaniard who kilt my mother had only two fingers on his left hand. The bastard who cut my father down had a scar in the shape of a cross on his left cheek. I see their bloody faces everra night before I go to sleep. I’ll ken them the moment I see them.”
“Then I am sorry I’ve pulled you away from your retribution.”
Lake’s voice cut through the night air calling for Evan.
Evan rose. “No need. Mary is still, in many ways, the queen of my family. She was in French court when we were there. My parents would have supported this.” Evan paused at the door. “I take it ya can get yerself undressed.”
Quinn nodded, rose, and stood up.
She immediately regretted doing so and vomited all over Evan’s boots before dropping to her hands and knees. “Oh... shite.”
“Cap?” Evan helped Quinn out of the room and up to the open edge of the deck, where she continued to vomit over the side of the ship. The winds were so strong, some of it blew back in her face, and the last thing she remembered was Evan dragging her back to her quarters and saying, “Let’s get ya out of these vomit-drenched clothes.”
* * *
Quinn woke up when the ship lurched so hard it threw her against the nearest wall. “Mother of god,” she moaned, holding her forehead as she slid out of bed still fully clothed. She took one step but stopped as the pounding in her skull nearly incapacitated her.
The next dip in the sea tossed her over the table and then back against the far wall.
Pounding head or not, she had to get to the helm. Flinging her door open, she was met with a face full of water and the rumbling of thunder. The wind tried to keep her immobile in the doorway, but she doggedly pushed through it until she was on the deck.
What she saw made the pounding of her head irrelevant.
Two of the masts had splintered and broken, and only one of the sails hadn’t been torn from the holding. Her crew scurried around trying to bring the torn sails to rest, but the wind proved a worthy opponent.
“Get that sail down!” Tavish yelled as he fought with both hands to keep the wheel steady.
Quinn knew the galley ship well enough to know if they couldn’t get that mainsail down, it would either rip off the mast or drive them nose first into the sea.
She could only wish she was feeling in tip-top shape, but she wasn’t. At least she was no longer drunk, but her head reminded her why she typically did not try to keep up with her friends when drinking.
Spinning to her left, she grabbed the first galloglaigh she came to and commanded him and his warriors to head to the oars. Then she fought her way against wind and rain up to Kwame who, with four of her men, were trying to untie the fallen sail from the splintered mast.
“Throw nothin’ overboard!” she yelled above the pounding rain. “Collect both sails and repair them below!”
“Aye, Captain,” Kwame yelled.
As the sea hurled itself over the sides of the ship, Quinn withdrew her knife and clamped the blade between her teeth. Then she grabbed the netting leading to the crow’s nest and started climbing with the intention of cutting the sail from the mast.
The ship dipped, took on water, and then bucked backwards as the sea churned and roiled against the hull. The rain came in sheets on the back of a wind, threatening to knock her off the net ladder she scaled as she tried to reach the mainsail.
She could hear nothing below, only the savage and raw power of the wind as it pressed against her ears. When she reached the cross mast, she pulled the blade from her teeth and began cutting away at the thick rope.
One by one, she cut the ropes while her quivering legs fought to maintain purchase on the large crossbeam. The sea and the weather seemed determined to shake her from her roost high above the deck as the bow dipped, rose, bucked, and then slammed back into the white caps insistent on pouring over the port railing. As she reached for the next rope, one of the men lost control of the block and pulley of the remaining mast, and it swung wide, like a club, right toward Quinn, who never saw it coming.
The crossbeam of the broken mast caught her square across the shoulders, knocking her completely off the crossbeam she’d been perched on. Had it not been for one of the ropes tangled around her calf, she surely would have plummeted to her death. Instead, she swung like a human pendulum in the angry wind, dozens of feet above the deck.
Tavish was yelling something to her, yelling and gesticulating wildly.
Quinn tried to see what he was pointing to, but she had no control over her movements. She was a marionette dangling by a thread.
When the wind blew her around, she caught sight of what Tavish had been pointing to: the rope that held her swung back and forth against the mast, wearing thinner and thinner each time it scraped across the wood.
Quinn took assessment of her position.
It did not look good.
The fraying rope would soon break from her weight and she would land, head first, into the churning water. She tried to get her hands to her ankle in an effort to––
“Hold on, Cap!” came the now-familiar voice of the warrior’s lad, Evan.
Twisting toward the netting, Quinn was stunned to find Evan hanging onto the netting at the very top, holding one of Lake’s sparth axes in his hands.
“Grab hold of the end!” Evan yelled, sticking the six-foot pole out to her, handle first. Looking up at the swinging rope, he yelled, “Ya got one chance at her, Cap! Next dip and roll, grab the handle!”
Quinn could not reach the handle where she was now. The ship would need to pitch and lean one more time and swing her closer to the ax handle for her to grab it.
Evan was right.
She had just one shot.
With the wind and the rain in her face, she waited for the pitch and roll, wondering if she was strong enough to hold on to the ax pole.
The ship dipped low into the water, rose and leaned, swinging Quinn close enough to the handle so she could grab it.
But she missed. There simply wasn’t enough there for her to grab. As she swung away from Evan, she kept her eyes on him and watched with curiosity as he dropped the sparth to the deck and leaned as far out toward her as he could.
Surely he knew he was still too far to reach. No amount of stretching would help her reach him.
As she swung back toward him, she heard him yell, “Catch me!”
Catch. Him?
As Quinn swung back, Evan launched himself off the netting. In slow motion, he flew through the air toward her, his arm outstretched, his legs spread far apart. If she didn’t catch him, he would plummet to his death.
Before Quinn could catch him, he caught her, grabbing her around her waist. The force of this pushed them back out over the sea.
As they swung wide and over the hungry water, Evan slid down Quinn’s body until they held each other’s shoulders. Once there, he pulled back and grinned into her face. “I have a plan!” he yelled above the storm. “Yer gonna hafta trust me.”
Quinn nodded. “Don’t see I have much of a choice.”
“Rock back and forth with me. Then, when I yell now, swing me toward the nettin’!” Evan yelled, inches from Quinn’s ear. “Give me everrathin’ ya got, Cap, but doona let go!”
As the ship lurched back, they swung over the railing, over the deck, and toward the netting. Quinn used every ounce of her strength to swing Evan toward the net.
Evan’s legs dangled across the divide in what felt like slow motion until the net blew back toward the young laoch cuidich.
As Evan clung on to Quinn, he whi
pped his legs toward the netting and managed to hook a foot through one of the squares. The moment he did, the rope holding them both above the deck frayed and broke, releasing Quinn from the crossbar she’d been hanging from. As she started to fall, she felt Evan’s grasp tighten. She did the same and squeezed him as tightly as she could, knowing that if either of them weakened, she would fall to her death.
With one leg caught in the netting, Evan remained stable and held onto her tightly.
Instead of plummeting to her death, she smacked into the netting with the front of her body while Evan kept them attached to the netting by a single leg. For a moment, neither moved as Evan hung from the netting and Quinn hung from Evan.
“I gotcha, Cap!” Evan yelled. “Wrap yer legs through the nettin’—I doona ken how much longer I can hold ya.”
Quinn pushed one leg, then the other, through the net until she was in a sitting position, her arms still wrapped around Evan.
“I got it, Evan. Ya can let go now.”
“Ya sure, Cap? I’d hate to lose ya now!”
Quinn nodded and reached for the netting with one hand. When she found it, she grabbed it with the other hand so Evan no longer had to hold up both their weight.
Above the rain, above the wind, above the loud and miserable sea, Quinn heard the cheers of her crew. Still hanging by one leg, Evan grinned into her face. “Think I’d make a pretty damn fine pirate.”
Shaking her head and feeling the pounding of her heart inside her chest, Quinn replied, “Better than damn fine. Much better.”
* * *
When the storm passed and Quinn had assessed the damages to her ship on wobbly legs and sore shoulders, Tavish made her sit down and drink a lot of water.
“What ya did, lad, was both brilliant and crazy, and I have no doubt Captain O’Malley will both hug ya and kick yer everlovin’ arse.”
Quinn handed the water back to Tavish. “Any sight of her yet?”
He shook his head. “We’re not gonna stop lookin’, but right now, ya need to rest. That little stunt ya pulled saved us fer the moment. Once we get some of the oars repaired and the mainsail back up, we’ll continue northward to Scotland.”
“Where is Evan?”
“Lake is carin’ fer him. One of his shoulders came out of whack, and they are puttin’ it back in place. Brave young lad, that one.”
Shiver Her Timbers: The Plundered Chronicles Page 16