Princess at Sea

by Dawn Cook

  The last of my will to live turned to ash as they coated the decks and sails with oil. They were going to burn my boat—my beautiful, beautiful boat—with Jeck aboard it. My head slumped, and my hair swung to hide my vision. I couldn’t bear to watch.

  “The whore!” an excited voice called out, and I looked up. “Put her with him!”

  My pulse swung back into full play, making my blood pound in my head and bound wrists. I scanned the deck, finding Duncan white-faced and standing with a paralyzed stillness. He looked from me to Captain Rylan, his mouth open but nothing coming out.

  “Burn the whore!” the call went up and down the deck. “Her soul can’t find us if it’s been turned to smoke. Burn her!”

  I held my breath as Duncan strode across the deck to the captain. The man in his faded clothes of past wealth pushed him away in disgust. “It’s for your own good, boy,” I heard over the calls to leave me on the deck of my burning boat. “She’ll bring you down. Shut up, or I’ll make you drop the torch.”

  Duncan persisted, his back to me as he gestured wildly. Captain Rylan scowled at Mr. Smitty, and the dour man barked an order. Two crewmen pulled Duncan from the captain and yanked him belowdecks.

  “Tess!” I heard him shout as he disappeared. “Tess! I didn’t mean this to happen. God help you. I didn’t mean for this to happen!”

  I clenched my jaw and tried to keep the air moving in and out of my lungs. I didn’t protest when rough hands cut my bonds and pulled me to a stand. The pain in my arms and knees meant nothing. I hung in their grip when the pain of returning circulation brought a moan from me. Everything had been taken from me. I had lost. I had lost everything. And now I was going to lose my life.

  The pirates were a slurry of color and noise. Faces came and went. Insults were layered upon me, each bending my head closer to the earth though I heard none of them. I went where they pushed me, numb and uncaring.

  I felt the rocking of the ship cease and realized I was on the plank connecting the two. Self-preservation brought my head up. The smell of oil caught at my throat. A sheet of tossed oil slapped into me, and I stumbled, the sudden, shocking weight of it pulling me to the slippery deck of the Sandpiper.

  Sprawled on the planking, I was suddenly aware I was covered in oil and my dress was all but falling off me. The pirates lined the railing, shouting and gesturing. My eyes fixed upon the one with the torch. He was waiting for the order, an ugly grin on him as he threatened to drop it early.

  I scrambled up, and Mr. Smitty gave the call for the lines to be struck. I stumbled, my balance chancy with my hands bound behind me though the boat was still aground and unmoving. My legs were starting to work again, my knees protesting and aching.

  “Here,” Jeck said from behind me, and I spun. “Let me get your hands free.”

  My heart pounded as he took a knife gained from one of the downed men and sawed through my bonds. They fell away, and I swung at him.

  “You chull!” I exclaimed as the watching men roared when Jeck easily caught my wrist. “How could you just leave me like that!”

  I twisted, and Jeck pulled me closer until I was unmoving against his chest. “I never lied to you,” he said, voice low and what looked like guilt in his eyes. “You made a bad assumption.”

  He was right, and realizing that the only way even to have a chance at surviving would be to work together, I stopped fighting him. He felt it and let go. I fell back several steps, not knowing what would happen next.

  “Captain Jeck!” came Captain Rylan’s merry voice, and both our heads turned. He was atop the wheel deck with his hands on his hips and his hat shifted jauntily. “Don’t worry about the whore’s temper,” the man said with a smirk. “The last man she went after like that, she rolled around in the sand with.”

  Jeck’s breath came in a questioning sound, and the watching men hollered. One made kissing noises, hips gyrating suggestively, and I warmed. “Did you and your cheat—” Jeck started, his usually stoic face full of shock. If I didn’t know better, I would think it bothered him.

  “I had to find some reason to be on an abandoned beach with you sailing away,” I snapped.

  A whoosh of sound brought me spinning around. Heat slammed into me, warmer than the sun. The deck was on fire. My gaze went to the pirate ship. The torch was gone. It was on my deck. We were on fire. God save me. I’m covered in oil.

  “Fill sails!” I heard Mr. Smitty shout. “All able men line up! I want a head count.”

  I stood blinking stupidly. They had set my boat on fire and were sailing away.

  “Wake up, princess!” Jeck shouted, snapping me out of my stupor.

  Tension slammed into me, and I reached for something to beat out the flames.

  “No!” Jeck shouted, pressing a coil of rope into my hands. “She’s going up. We can’t stop her, and even if we could, it takes four men to raise a sail. Throw anything we can use overboard. And be careful!” he added, as I hunched into a fit of coughing when the black smoke took us. “You’re covered in oil.”

  Jeck’s hunched form vanished down the nearest hatch. A cask of water rolled out. I didn’t know what else to do, so I pushed it to the railing, watching it almost sink as the flames grew closer and hotter.

  “Jeck!” I shouted, as a wave of smoke rolled over me, turning the sunlight dim. “Hurry! It’s getting hot!”

  His head poked out, his bearded face wild as he took everything in and vanished. The end of one of Captain Borlett’s old - square-rigged sails appeared. “Jeck! There’s no time!” I cried.

  “Just pull it out!” he bellowed from below. “Get it in the water!”

  A crackling pulled my head up. I gasped when one of the stays snapped through. The mast creaked and groaned. “Jeck!” I shouted, my legs trembling as I gripped the sailcloth with my one good hand and tried to pull.

  “Move over,” he said from behind me, and I spun, surprised. He had come up the fore hatch. He roughly pushed me out of the way to reach around the wrapped wood and cloth. Muscles tightening, he pulled the heavy sail from the hatch. It was the smallest sail, but too much for most men. I took the end when it showed and probably was no help at all as I tried to carry the rope-bound bundle to the railing. It went over, and I looked at Jeck through the smoke, my arms shaking and my heart pounding as it slowly started to sink.

  “You’re next,” he said, and he picked me up and dropped me over.

  I barely had time to take a breath before I hit.

  Water rushed in, cooling my fire-warmed skin. I bobbed to the surface, hacking and coughing, struggling to stay afloat with my tattered dress pulling me down. Jeck hit the water beside me, and I sputtered on the splash he kicked up. “What now?” I called, when he came up, water streaming from his beard.

  He shook his head, sending beads of water flying in a shimmering spray. He glanced at the burning boat, then the nearby island. “Grab something and swim for shore,” he said.

  “Grab something and swim for shore,” I muttered. “Now, why didn’t I think of that?”

  “And princess?” he said as he tied the wrapped square sail to a bobbing crate. “Don’t ever go into my head again. Ever. Or so help me, I’ll kill you myself.”

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered, remembering the mindless savagery that had filled me, an echo of Jeck’s killing rage. “I won’t.”

  Fourteen

  “Come here and pull this rope,” Jeck said, jerking my attention up.

  His voice was soft, preoccupied. If it had been anywhere near demanding, I wouldn’t have moved. But as it was, I set my sewing aside on the sand and rose. Immediately, my eyes went beyond the surf to what was left of my boat, and I slumped. I’d been trying not to watch the Sandpiper’s slow demise, but it was hard not to.

  Most of the flames were gone since the rising tide had extinguished all but the highest. The tide had gone back out again, leaving the harsh black outlines of a broken boat and slumped canvas. The smoke had dwindled to a thin haze, and the rope
s and a single half-charred sail dropped ash as she lay on her side and smoldered. What we had saved was pulled up past the high-tide mark in the sun. Jeck had gone out after the worst of the flames had subsided, bringing back rope, crates, and a second cask of water, which was slowly leaking.

  My pace to join Jeck slowed, partially from the sand but mostly from my leg pulsing into a slow throb. The cold water had given me some relief, but my muscles had stiffened after sitting so long in the moving shade of the fronds.

  Jeck had stretched the sail he had saved between the trees as a canopy. Under it he was building a raft out of the conglomeration of planks, ropes, crates, empty ale barrels, and anything else he thought he might be able to use. I frowned at the door propped up and set aside to use as part of the deck, recognizing it from the venom-induced dream. I knew where this was heading, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  Jeck was bare to the waist, having carefully hung his ruined Misdev coat, black silk sash, and bloodstained, torn, white-linen shirt up in the shade. The cuffs of his trousers were rolled up in meticulous, even folds, coming to hang the same distance below his knees. Drying salt had stained the black wool of his uniform’s jacket, making ugly smears of uneven white he couldn’t brush out. I felt bad for him since he obviously took pride in his appearance.

  His bare feet shifting in the sand were big, ugly, and pale, and he had flushed the time he caught me looking at them. The deep cut he had received when I distracted him was red and sore-looking, making him wince when he thought I wasn’t watching. Seawater had cleansed his smaller cuts and nicks until they almost disappeared among the many old scars of his profession.

  The man was exhausted, and he still managed to look good. It wasn’t so much his appearance, though I’d be blind not to notice how his muscles moved under his sun-darkened skin, or how there was not an ounce of unneeded fat on him. No, it was his confidence, his methodical pace of action leading to a positive end, his ease with himself, almost. He didn’t need me to tell him he was doing well or look to me for encouragement. He didn’t care what I thought, and that was an odd feeling for me, one I found both irritating and intriguing.

  Sweat shone on his wide shoulders in the lowering sun as he dragged a tall beam to the block and pulley affair he had rigged under a bending tree. Below was his makeshift raft. I could feel his fatigue flow from him like a shadow as I stopped beside him, the smell of his sweat not entirely unpleasant. Not acknowledging me, he wrapped one end of the pulley’s rope around the top of the beam, tying it off. “Here,” he said, handing me the tail end of the rope.

  The rough rope scratching my fingers, I peered up at the block and tackle he had rigged to hoist the heavy beam upright so he could set it into place. A sigh sifted through me. It looked heavy, though the pulleys would lessen the work.

  Jeck gave me an inquiring look and wiped a hand across his forehead. “Can you do it?”

  Grimacing, I strengthened my grip, knowing my right hand was all but useless. I pulled, and with a sliding rattle, the rope ran through the pulleys and snugged up tight. I tightened my hold and pulled again. The end of the mast lifted. Jeck angled the lower end where he wanted it, so it would fall through the hole he had left in the raft if I managed to lift it high enough.

  My shoulder started to hurt, and I turned to put my back against the rope, leaning into it so I could use my body weight to lift it higher. Salt from the rope burned into my palms, but the end rose another foot. Pulse quickening, I strained to raise it farther, feeling my body rebel.

  “Let me help.” Jeck gave a strong pull on the rope. The cord ran through the pulleys, and I staggered backwards. The mast hung at an awkward angle, one end right above the hole. “Got it?” he asked, eying me as he easily held the rope taut as if it were a kite string.

  I snugged the rope over my backside and leaned back to use my weight instead of my muscle. He waited a moment after my nod to be sure, then gradually loosened his hold. The rope tightened against me, and I shifted my feet to counter its weight.

  Jeck turned to the mast. “Good. Lower it slowly, and I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  I inched my feet forward in the hot sand, and the mast eased into place.

  “Hold it there,” he said softly. Darting forward, he took a hammer and spikes, jamming wedges of wood between the makeshift mast and the edges of the hole.

  Squinting from the bright light, I watched the sun shift across his bare shoulders as he swung the hammer with rapid, precise motions. Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades and across the whip marks he had gotten when I escaped last spring while under his guard. They were white, now, and well healed. I wondered how much had been due to the salve I had put on him and how much had been from my magic spontaneously trying to heal him while I did it. The curious warm tingling had never happened again, even when I had willed it with all my being. It was something Kavenlow couldn’t teach me and Jeck wouldn’t unless I became his apprentice.

  It would never happen. I owed Kavenlow my life; Jeck had merely saved it.

  “Almost . . .” Jeck muttered, dropping the hammer and reaching for one of the ropes he had previously tied around the top, settling them in grooves in the deck of the raft that he had laboriously chiseled out earlier. My balance shifted as he tugged, knotting three ropes upon one side, equally spaced along the length of the raft, and three upon the other. The rude stays looked shaky, but they would be better than nothing.

  “Careful, now,” he said, straightening. “Let it go.”

  The pulley clattered as the weight of the rope slid through and it swung free. I watched the mast. It held firm. Jeck leaned his weight into it, then more. Giving it a final shove and seeing it hold, he smiled for the first time all day. “Thank you,” he said, and my lips parted at what he looked like smiling.

  “You’re welcome,” I said, but he had turned away before he could have possibly heard me. His lips pressed together as he eyed the canopy, probably estimating how much of it he would have to cut to make a proper sail. I waited a moment, then returned to my spot in the shade. I didn’t have anything to do and had been trying to mend my dress. It was likely going to be cold tonight, and I wanted it to be whole and dry if I could manage it.

  I was in my underthings right now. Jeck either didn’t know the white lightweight dress was really my underskirt and bodice—or he didn’t care. I’d be willing to wager it was the latter.

  Sitting back down under the trees, I tucked the braid I had made of my hair out of my way and finished sewing the torn side of my dress back together. My fingers felt thick and slow, but I refused to get depressed about it as I was lucky even to be alive. Taking a moment to stretch them in one of Duncan’s finger warm-up exercises, I watched Jeck putter with the ropes.

  I didn’t know what to think about Jeck anymore. I’d found him to be very quiet, reserved, and single-minded to the point of being rude. I wasn’t angry with him any longer since he seemed to know what he was doing better than I did. And he was a master player where I was a student—a student of a rival player, no less. I had no problem taking direction from someone I respected, and much as I hated to admit it, I was starting to respect Jeck for who he was and what he was capable of. I couldn’t make a raft.

  I dropped my attention to my stitching when Jeck poured salt water on the stays to tighten them. Finished, he straightened, stretched with a moan of exhaustion, and headed toward me and the shade. I said nothing as he sat, puffing from his exertions, but my pulse quickened.

  Seeing him wipe the sweat from his brow pinched with weariness, I dipped a shell of water out of the cistern he had put me in charge of and offered it to him.

  Jeck looked askance at me, still breathing hard. I could smell the sweat on him, and the ocean. “I’ve had my ration until the sun sets,” he said, the words leaving him in a breathy sound.

  “It’s my ration,” I said. “I’m not thirsty.”

  He wiped the back of his hand across his bearded chin and gazed at the Sandpip
er. “Drink it. It’s yours.”

  “I’m not thirsty,” I repeated. “And you’ve been doing most of the work.”

  “Princess, don’t try to soothe your conscience by giving me your water ration.”

  Affronted, I nevertheless kept my tone even. “My conscience is fine, Captain. It was your miscalculation that allowed them to catch my boat and burn her to the waterline, not mine. I’m not thirsty. You are. Take the damn water and drink it. We have two casks.”

  Face expressionless from behind his black beard and mustache, he took the shell from me. His hands were red from the sun, the knuckles starting to swell. He downed it in one gulp, handing me the shell back and looking out over the surf to the Sandpiper again. “Thank you.”

  I said nothing, feeling vindicated.

  He was silent, then, “My miscalculation?” he asked, his tone mild and slightly amused.

  I wasn’t angry; I wasn’t anything. “Yours.”

  Jeck didn’t seem upset as he stretched his legs out with a soft moan of ache. His eyes flicked to me and away as I sat cross-legged and finished my sewing. He had an entire beach to sit on. Did he have to sit this close?

  “I thought you were angry,” he said. “For my tricking you about the beach.”

  Tying a knot in my thread, I bit the needle free and replaced it in the damp sewing kit Jeck had rescued from Contessa’s things on his third trip back to the boat. “At the time I was so angry I could have tied my pillow in a knot,” I said. “But in hindsight, it was a good idea.”

  My eyes met his, holding them. “I’ve been a decoy before. Next time, I’d prefer to be told my place in the game. I’d have led them on a merry chase for you if you’d been honest with me. Given you time to put more distance between you and any pursuit. Perhaps enough that you wouldn’t have been caught in those shallows.” Idiot, I added in my thoughts, but I didn’t say it.