by Ruth Kaufman
She drew her sword from her waist belt and held the tip to his throat.
“You are not goin’ anywhere, ye rot-gut maggot.”
He held up his hands in a mock surrender. “Take it easy,” he told her, “and watch the language. Echo,” he added. “That is what your father called you now, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t need te tell ye nothin’ so how about ye jest tell me about this man named Madoc that me father was searchin’ for instead.”
“So is that what this is all about?” He lightly touched the flat end of the sword and nodded toward her. “If you don’t mind?” He moved it to the side and she glared at him suspiciously, then slowly lowered her weapon. “If you don’t mind me saying, I’ve never seen . . . the likes of you . . . ever before.”
He surveyed the woman standing in front of him, sword balanced in one hand at the ready, and the other firmly planted upon her hip. She’d removed her outerwear and a layered white tunic over another brown one took its place. Her clothes were soaked and clung to her skin, and without the stiff gambeson he could see her slight swells beneath the fabric. She wore a beaded necklace with a large silver disk attached, holding a small clear stone encircled by an embedded gold ring.
Her ebony hair hung wet and long past her shoulders, drenched from the rain as well. Now that the water had cleansed her, he could see through the dirt and grime to a very comely face. Her lips were full and her nose dainty. And her eyes were a dark sapphire blue, alert but intense at the same time. She looked at him cautiously, her lithe body moving in rhythm with the rocking of the boat.
“Well, I have seen th’ likes of ye,” she said. “And I’d be willin’ te bet yer some noble.”
“A baron,” he told her. “A baron of the Cinque Ports.”
“A captured baron,” she commented with a cocky smile. “Yer title means naught aboard the Seahawk.”
A piece of hair fell over her eye and Garrett instinctively reached forward to remove it.
Her sword was at his throat again instantly.
“Relax, sweetheart,” he told her, showing his empty hands. She lowered the sword slightly, and he reached over to gently brush the hair from her eye.
Echo let the man sweep her hair from her face, his palm brushing against her cheek slightly in the process like a caress from a secret lover. She felt a warmth rush through her body tho she was all but shivering from her cold, wet clothes. She remembered the touches of Edgar five years ago as she ignorantly mated with him out of naught more than curiosity. It had been her first experience, and she’d been scared for the first time in her life. Edgar had been gentle and kind to her even tho she was his captor, but she didn’t feel the same kind of warmth as she’d felt just now.
“What is your name?” she asked in a whisper, feeling the breath rush from her at the mere brush of his hand. What the hell was the matter with her? He was her enemy – and only a man.
“Sir Garrett of Hythe,” he answered. “Formally of Blackmore,” he added.
Her eyes sprang open at the latter of his proclamation. Had she heard him correctly?
“Blackmore?” she asked. “Did you know a man named Sir Edgar of Blackmore?”
His face froze and his eyes narrowed. She could see that this name meant something to this man after all.
“Sir Edgar is my brother,” came his answer.
Her heart just about stopped in her chest. What were the odds of this happening?
“Do you know him or perhaps have you seen him?” he asked. “I have been searching for him for the past five years after his disappearance at sea.”
She knew him all right. And she also knew where he could be found. Swimming among the fish at the bottom of the sea, thanks to her father. She couldn’t tell him this information. Not yet.
She lowered her sword to her side. She felt a sadness for him because of the loss of his brother, even though she couldn’t fully understand what he felt, having no siblings of her own. She’d never gotten used to the fact pirates killed – sometimes just for sport. She knew it was a way of life for her father and he expected her to do it as well. Though she’d fought many a man, she’d never killed a one.
“You remind me of him,” was all she said, then when she saw the hope in his eyes, she wished she could retract her statement.
“So you know him?” he asked anxiously, taking a step forward. “Tell me, where is he?” He put his hands on her shoulders and this time she brushed them off and walked behind him, using the tip of her sword to open one of the storage barrels. She didn’t want to be feeling the tenderness of his touch when she had information that would ram a blade right through his heart.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Garrett’s hard accusation was heard from behind her, yet she couldn’t bring herself to turn around. “You said, did I know him,” he pointed out. “Tell me!” He grabbed her by the arm and swung her around forcefully, not even caring that she still had a weapon in her grip.
“Tell me why my father was looking for a man named Madoc and I’ll tell you what you want to know,” she rallied.
His eyes studied her in a way that made her feel naked. She lifted her chin and matched his daring perusal.
“Alright,” he said softly, dropping her arm. “I’ll tell you what I know. I was imprisoned in the dungeon of Shrewsbury for over a year for trying to kill their lord. A man named Madoc helped me escape and ended up marrying my sister. When Gruffydd and his men showed up to claim him, I fought them off and got this.” He turned his head so she could see the length of the scar that ran from behind his ear to his chin. “That’s all I know.”
“Why was my father sending his men to look for him?”
“I don’t know. Now tell me how you know my brother and where he is.”
She stabbed the tip of her sword into the barrel, half full of apples. She pulled one off the end of the sword and rubbed the fruit against her chest to shine it. “I think you’re lying. I think you know more than you are telling me.”
His fist slammed down against the top of a closed barrel. “Dammit, we had a deal, now tell me what you know.” His eyes grew angry like the storm that brewed earlier on the sea. His brows furrowed and the tips of his mouth turned down into a frown.
She took a bite of the apple and chewed slowly. “I – don’t really know him, I jest said that to get information out of ye,” she lied.
“You lying bitch! Why did I think I could trust a cutthroat anyway?”
Before she had a chance to react, he reached out and confiscated her sword. Then he pulled her backwards against his chest and held the blade to her throat. As her back slammed into his hard body, the apple fell from her hand and splashed into the water at her feet.
“Now you’re going to help me escape. I think taking the captain’s daughter hostage should make the crew bend to my ways.”
“If ye really think these murderous men would go fer that, ye’ve a lot to learn. Most of ’em would slit their own mothers’ throats before breakfast and still be able te sleep like a babe that night.”
“We’ll just see about that, won’t we?”
He hauled her to the stairs and up onto the deck. The skies had cleared and the rain stopped. A sun’s ray poked through the clouds and lit up a spot on the railing where her sea hawk perched. As soon as the men saw him, they jumped to their feet, dropping their food and grabbing for their weapons.
“One move towards me and the girl dies,” he said.
The pirates stopped in their tracks, but the captain sauntered up to him with a bottle of rum in his hand. “Kill her then,” he said, not a care in his voice. Then he turned to the crew and started laughing, and one by one the crew joined in.
“Father! How could you say that?” she shouted.
Her father turned back toward Garrett and raising his fist, slammed the bottle of rum down upon his head. Glass shattered, almost cutting her in the process. Garrett’s hold on her released as he dropped the sword and fell to the ground unconscious.
/> “A damned waste of good rum,” the captain muttered.
She stepped back and looked at Garrett lying at her feet with his eyes closed. He looked so innocent and harmless like this, though she knew he was just as dangerous as any of her father’s men. He also looked a lot like her little boy Edgar right now. Something she wished she hadn’t noticed, since what he’d just done was probably going to get him killed.
“How the hell did he get out o’ the barrel, Echo?” Her father stood with his hands on his hips, knowing full well it was her fault.
“She’s just curious, Cap’n,” said Sebastian stepping between them, coming to her rescue.
“Get the hell away from me right now b’fore I hurt ye,” warned the captain. Echo wasn’t sure if he meant her or Sebastian, but she wasn’t going to wait to find out.
“C’mon, Skye,” she called to her pet as she grabbed hold of the rigging and started to climb.
“Ye can’t hide up in the bird’s nest forever,” he told her.
She ignored him and kept on climbing. She had to get away and think. Mayhap she should have told Garrett about his brother, but she hadn’t. She wasn’t sure if she did it to spite him or because she’d been ashamed of what she’d done with the man. Either way, it didn’t matter. This man meant naught to her and never would.
She settled herself into the wet basket, loving the feel of the hot sun now shining down on her head. Skye landed on the basket’s edge and she ran a hand over the bird’s head. “I am sorry about yer mate,” she said. Then looking down to the deck she saw her father’s crew tying Garrett to the center post to bake in the sun. It was promising to be very hot day already. The mist on the water turned to steam and the fog around the ship gradually disappeared.
“There’s the murderer,” Echo told her bird, nodding her head in Garrett’s direction. “But don’t worry, cuz he’s about to pay for any wrongs he’s done, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.”
Chapter 5
Echo watched from above as the crewmen took turns taunting the prisoner. Tied to the center post with his hands secured in front of him, Garrett turned his head each time they spit in his face or threw broken glass at him. She hated when they acted like this. It wasn’t much different than what they’d done to the man’s brother. She was unable to stop it then, and history was repeating itself now.
“I don’t like it,” she spoke to her bird now sitting on her shoulder. “There is no need fer that.”
Then her father approached the man and ordered for him to be untied. She smiled until she saw the whip in his hand.
“Nay!” She stood upright and Skye took off in flight, heading toward the water to fish.
She hoisted herself over the edge of the basket and all but slid down the rigging to get to the bottom quickly.
“Father, what are you goin’ te do?” she asked.
Two men held Garrett with his back toward the captain. Her father ignored her and reached out and tore Garrett’s tunic down the back.
She gasped in horror, seeing the scars that already marked him from a previous whipping of another time. She noticed Garrett’s jaw clench but he didn’t say a word. Her father raised the whip.
“Nay!” she said, reaching out to still his hand. “The man’s already been whipped, don’t do it again.”
“What’s th’ matter?” asked the young boy, Lank. “Takin’ a fancy te th’ king’s dog?”
“Aye, wasn’t one of them enough fer yer womanly cravin’s?” asked Filtch.
They all laughed at her expense. Garrett turned his head when he heard this, and looked directly at her.
“What did you do to Edgar?” he asked her. “That is who they’re talking about, isn’t it?”
“Edgar?” asked her father.
“Aye,” laughed Drogo, one of the bigger men of the crew. “Ye know – the cur she saw te breed wit’.”
“The respectable nobleman who rogered her in the brig,” added Filtch.
“What?” Garrett looked directly into her soul. “So is that why you couldn’t tell me? How could you do it?”
“Filtch, shut yer damn mouth,” she warned, pushing the man out of the way to get closer to the captain.
Filtch went to push her back til a look from the captain had him stopping in his tracks.
“Father, what do you plan on doing to him?” she asked.
“Well now, daughter. I can see ye don’t like the idea of me givin’ him a whippin’.”
“I don’t,” she said.
“Then I won’t.” Shouts of disappointment went up from the crowd and in unison they all started chanting, “Keelhaul, keelhaul, keelhaul!”
“Sounds like an idea te me – tie ’im te a rope and let’s have some fun.”
“Father, nay! Leave him be,” she begged him.
“What’s the matter with ye, Echo?” he growled. “Where’s the warrior I raised?”
“You mean where’s the son ye raised? Well I am not yer son and will never be, so jest get used te havin’ a daughter.”
He shook his head in disappointment and motioned with his hand to his men. “Throw ’im overboard.”
“Nay!” She watched in horror as they took Garrett, struggling and tied to a long rope, and threw him over the larboard, or port, side of the bow of the ship. She heard the sickening thud against the water and the splash that followed.
“Pull ’im te the keel,” shouted one man.
“Yank ’im hard,” said another.
She ran to the side of the ship and watched anxiously as they dragged Garrett, hands still tied in front of him, through the water. He surfaced once, sputtering, trying to catch a breath, then disappeared again as the ship moved forward over the rope. Then they yanked the rope from over on the starboard side, pulling him under the Seahawk. Finally, they tugged and tugged until she saw his body surface on the other side.
He surfaced, but his face remained downward in the water and he wasn’t moving.
“You killed him!” she shouted, furiously beating her fists against her father’s chest. “Look what ye’ve done.”
“Arrrgh, Echo what’s the matter wi’ ye?” He pushed her away from him and gave a command to his men.
“Haul ’im up b’fore Echo has another fit.”
They brought him up out of the water and threw him down on the deck. His eyes were closed and hands still tied. His face was pale and he wasn’t moving.
She rushed forward, ripping her dagger from her belt and severing the rope that bound his hands. She rolled him onto his stomach, his face now turning blue. He wasn’t breathing. She pounded her fist against his back. “Breathe,” she shouted, “breathe.”
“Echo, step away,” warned her father. “He’s only a prisoner, it doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t obey him. She couldn’t. She’d seen one innocent man go to his death already and wasn’t about to watch the man’s brother meet the same fate. Hurriedly, she rolled him back over, straddling her legs around him to sit on his stomach, trying to pump the water from him. Water spurted from his mouth and he coughed, then stopped. She leaned forward atop his body, placing her ear very close to his nose and mouth to see if he was breathing.
Garrett felt the softest lips against his cheek and the tickle of a brush of hair against his mouth. Then he felt legs straddling his groin, strong and forceful, and hands caressing his chest. His eyes flickered open to bright sunlight and the face of Echo so close to his own that he thought she was about to kiss him.
That’s when he felt the water burning his lungs. He coughed and gagged, fighting for breath, and she pulled away. Then she flipped him onto his stomach and mounted his body, with her thighs straddling him again as her hands pushed against the back of his ribs, pumping the water from him.
He choked and coughed and half the sea came forth from his mouth. Then, finally able to breath, he tried his best to speak.
“All right . . . stop beating on me already,” he instructed.
She scooted off his body an
d flipped him over, bright sun blinding him once again. She leaned over, her hair hanging down forming a tent around them.
“Ye’re alive?” she asked, so innocently, cutting the rope from the keelhaul from his body.
“Aye, but barely, no thanks to your father and crew.”
“Enough already. Get away from him,” demanded her father, pulling her off him. “Me head still aches and the day has already been too long. I need rum.”
“Aye,” came the cheers from around him, and Garrett was glad that rum would be taking the attention and abuse away from him.
“Oh what the hell, bring the prisoner, he’ll join us,” instructed the captain.
Just like her father. Ready to kill a man for a bit of fun one moment, and then wanting to drink with him the next. These men were so bored at sea that they would do anything for entertainment.
Garrett was dragged to his feet, barely able to stand. His back stung like crazy and he knew ’twas from being dragged along the sharp barnacles on the bottom of the boat.
“He’s bleeding and wounded,” said Echo. “Let me tend to his wounds first.”
“Suit yerself,” said her father, “but don’t be long.” He looked over to Lank. “The winds have died, now start a cook fire for some fish. I’m hungry enough te eat a whale.”
Garrett felt like death itself, having little fight left in him. When he’d started out this morning, his destination was a herring fair, not the end of a sword, whip, or rope.
“Follow me,” Echo told him, ordering, not asking.
He followed her to the front of the ship under the forecastle, going down a few stairs to an enclosed small space that he figured was the captain’s quarters. He ducked to get through the door and she closed it behind them.
“So I’m no longer to be tied up?” he asked.
“They know there’s nowhere for ye to go,” she commented, pointing to a small bed against the wall. “Sit, and I’ll tend to yer wounds.”
“Such hospitality from a pirate.” He sat on the bed and winched in pain. There wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t hurt.