Pirate Wolf Trilogy

by Canham, Marsha

  “Then you’re as daft as yer mam an’ it’ll be up to the saints to save yer soul.”

  “Are you implying that Mother’s soul needs saving?”

  “Nay. She has yer father to keep her honest. Though, on a second thought, he’s as daft as her so the pair are both doomed.”

  She laughed. “I hope you are not suggesting that a good man would save me?”

  “No.” Crisp snorted. “It’d take a hellish good man to do that. And like as not, he’d lose his own soul in the bargain. Like Addle-Brain there—” he raised his unlit pipe to indicate the carpenter. “He’s been lustin’ after ye for years an’ look at the state he’s in. Can’t even manage to piss on a downdraft after ye’ve said a kind word to ‘im. I warrant he’ll be walkin’ around on three legs all night long now at the thought of ye roastin’ an’ eatin’ his ballocks.”

  Unlike Kelly, Nathan’s tongue rarely tied in knots, regardless of the subject.

  “Since we are speaking of ballocks,” she said, “what do you think of the duke’s?”

  He scratched the stubble on his chin. “Well now, I didn’t have as good a look as ye did, but I’ll wager they’re as big as the rest of him.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” she said on a sigh.

  Crisp snickered. “No? Then I’m thinkin’ he’ll be trouble all the same. His tongue is too smooth an’ his answers come too quick. Glib, he is. An’ up to no good where ye’re father is concerned, mark my words. Cap’n Simon won’t be thankin’ ye for bringin’ him back to the Cay.” He leaned over the rail and spat. “I’m also thinkin’ he’ll lay a few stripes across yer rump for goin’ up against a prime warship by yerself.”

  The silence stretched for a full count of ten before the sense of triumph they had managed to keep under tight rein for the past several hours finally exploded. Juliet burst out laughing only a second or two before Crisp snatched off his cap and beat in on the rail in keeping with his hoots and hee-haws.

  “Can ye believe it, lass? The farkin’ Santo Domingo! The supposed Terror of the High Seas an’ we took her! By Christ’s own cross, it won’t just be the almirante of the fleet an’ his fancy dons ye’ve aggravated. I warrant His Catholic Majesty Phillip of farkin’ Spain will throw fits an’ open up his Court of Inquisition again.”

  “Yes, but do you think Father will be pleased?”

  “Pleased?” Crisp paused to reflect over the word. “He’ll be tickled enough he might just let ye sail off his starboard beam the next time he goes on a hunt.”

  “Do you really think so?” Juliet’s pleasure could not be contained and this time when she laughed, the entire composition of her face changed. The stern set to her jaw softened and her eyes sparkled with the moonlight. Her lips took on a gentle fullness that was not often conducive to barking orders and having them obeyed.

  She would have liked to fling her arms wide and take Crisp into a bear hug, but she knew their easy friendship had its boundaries. Instead, she looked forward to seeing the startled and much aggrieved expressions on her brothers’ faces. The best they had managed on their own hunts were a brace of carracks full of reeking boucan-eaters off the coast of Columbia.

  “Jonas and Gabriel will be green with envy. Positively green.”

  “Aye, they’ll not take it kindly that their sister captured the biggest prize in the Caribbee. Ye’ll have to watch yer back an’ have a care not to walk out alone at night.”

  Juliet sobered a moment and frowned. “You don’t think they would—?”

  “Praemonitus, praemunitus. Forewarned is forearmed.”

  Juliet dismissed the admonishment with a wave of her hand. “With hunting season about to begin, they’ll be too busy for childish pranks.”

  “They painted ye blue the last time ye vexed them. That pair is never too busy for pranks, an’ well ye know it.”

  She studied Crisp’s face through the eerie glow of moonlight. “You realize that with the Santo Domingo, we now have six ships. It would not just be the plate fleets that would sail in fear of the Pirate Wolf, for we now have the firepower to attack Cartagena, Maracaibo, even Panama itself.”

  “Ho, there lass. Ye’ve set yer sights a mite high, have ye not? Maracaibo? Cartagena? Panama?”

  “The whole of the Spanish Main would be ours for the taking. Jonas and Gabriel would be the first to agree—”

  Crisp interrupted with an expletive. “Aye, an’ stab my liver with a spoon if I’m surprised yer brothers would be game for such lunacy. As for the Spanish, d’ye think they’ve run out of ships to send after us?”

  “Perhaps if they would just stop hunting Father like a dog—”

  “Simon Dante would not return the favor an’ well ye know it. It were a Spaniard what put the scars on his back, an’ it were a bloody papist Spaniard what cost yer mother her arm. Nay, he has a long list of reasons to keep hatin’ the dons, but there’s a devil of a difference between attackin’ ships on the open water an’ formin’ up a fleet to raid a well-protected port.” He paused long enough to thrust his empty pipe into his mouth. “Such a thing hasn’t been done since Drake attacked Maracaibo near forty years ago an’ since then they’ve reinforced their land defences, increased their garrisons by a few hundred thousand soldiers, an’ built ships like the Santo Domingo to patrol the sea lanes an’ keep ‘em clear of dogs like us.”

  Juliet knew better than to argue with Crisp, especially when his teeth were clamping down on his pipe hard enough to snap the stem. In truth, there was little to argue. Simon Dante had spent five years chained to the oars of a Spanish galleyass, and if the scars were not enough of a reminder of the hatred he bore the Spaniards, he needed only to see the empty sleeve that hung below his wife’s left elbow.

  It had happened almost five years ago. Simon Dante had taken his ships, the Avenger and the Black Swan on a hunt off the Florida Straits. With Isabeau assuming her usual command at the helm of the Swan, they had stalked the galleons of the plate fleet and set their sights on two smaller ships that moved slower than the rest of the pack. A third galleon sailed protectively in their shadow, one of the India guards, and at first glance, it seemed to be wallowing as if it was suffering steerage problems.

  If the warship appeared to lumber, however, it was because of the weight of the sixty-four guns she carried on three decks, the lowest painted a dull black to disguise the row of closed gunports. If she seemed to have a foolish captain who steered her away from the main fleet, it was because she was eager to lure each of the privateers into a confrontation, beginning with the smallest of the raiders: the Black Swan.

  Never one to balk from a fight, and knowing Dante’s Avenger was circling around to attack the galleon’s stern, Isabeau had sallied forth to answer the challenge. It was not until they were well within range of the Spaniard’s guns that the ports on the lower deck opened and Isabeau saw the trap for what it was. Before she could break away the gunners unleashed a horrendous broadside that blew away most of the Swan’s main sails, the tops of two masts, and raked her upper deck with terrible results. Standing helpless in the water, she could only watch as the great galleon bore down with the intent to ram her amidships.

  Simon Dante had come beating in with moments to spare, the Avenger’s guns blasting the Spaniard with unrelenting broadsides as he placed himself as a shield between the galleon and the wounded Swan. Round after blistering round discouraged the Spanish captain from pursuing his advantage and allowed the Black Swan to limp out of range. Suffering heavy damage himself, Simon broke off and escorted Isabeau into safer waters, but it was not until several hours later that the two ships were able to come alongside one another and exchange hails.

  That was when Simon learned his wife had been gravely injured. A round of Spanish shot—rendered inferior by the practise of cooling the iron too quickly—had disintegrated on impact, the pieces of exploding metal had swept the forecastle deck, killing three crewmen and nearly taking Isabeau’s forearm off at the elbow. Despite the best efforts o
f both ships’ surgeons, it had been necessary to remove the damaged bone and flesh before the threat of gangrene finished the Spaniard’s bloody work. To add further insult, the Black Swan’s wounds proved fatal and she had to be abandoned before the day was out.

  The loss of her ship had affected Isabeau almost more than the loss of her arm, and while she had never shown any outward reluctance to take to the sea again, she had not sought the command of another ship. Indeed, it was Isabeau Dante who had insisted the Iron Rose be given to Juliet, and not a day passed that Juliet did not do everything in her power to justify her mother’s faith. Simon’s had been harder to earn, for each time she took the Iron Rose out of port she could see, deep in his eyes, a little of the unutterable horror that had been on his face when he had brought his injured wife home.

  Juliet’s navigational skills, her fighting spirit, her seamanship was the equal of any man. If her father needed any further proof that he had taught her well, it was sailing behind her now, docile and subdued and flying the British flag on her foremast.

  “The Spaniard—Aquayo,” she murmured through a frown. “He praised us for being so well informed.”

  “Aye,” Crisp said. “What of it.”

  “The Santo Domingo was brought to the Indies to patrol the sea lanes between Cartagena and Havana, and to keep rogues like us at bay. Odd then,” she continued, thinking aloud, “that we found silver bars stamped by the mint in Vera Cruz in the same cargo bay as pearls from Margarite Island and emeralds from Baranquilla. Even odder that so much treasure should be packed on board a warship.”

  “Aye, well,” Crisp blew out a long breath. “If ye want to spend the next few hours pourin’ over the manifests, I’m sure ye’ll find an answer to the puzzle. Me? Since I can’t read that fancy Spanish bilge, I’d be no help, so I’m for a big plate of biscuits, a slab of cold mutton, an’ enough ale to set me on my arse till mornin’.”

  “You deserve it. All the men deserve it, and if you haven’t done so already, break out an extra ration of rum.”

  Crisp tugged a scruffy brown forelock. “I’ll do that, Cap’n. Right after I set the watches an’ trim the sails. Smells like a storm comin’ up, an’ if Loftus can’t squeeze more speed out o’ that sow, we’ll be waddlin’ right into it.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  An hour later, Juliet was still pouring over the manifests taken from the Santo Domingo. She had not found the answer as to why a warship would be carrying cargo from three very distinct regions of the Spanish Main. She did, however, find the name of the officer whose ears she had made a little shorter and the discovery made her own ears perk a little higher. Capitán Cristobal Nufio Espinosa y Recalde. He was listed in the crew manifest as the capitán del navio, the military commander on board the ship, second only in importance to the capitán de mar, Diego Flores de Aquayo.

  What triggered Juliet’s intrigue, was that up to a month ago—and she had no reason to doubt the accuracy of the reports her father’s partner of thirty years, Geoffrey Pitt, gleaned from his legion of spies along the Main—Recalde had been the commander of the military garrison at Nombre de Dios. It was the main port for Panama and Peru, sited near a huge, festering swamp that was almost impossible to fortify by normal methods. Francis Drake had plundered it twice in his seafaring days, once in 1572 when he took over the governor’s house for a week while his men sacked and burned the city. The second time, less than a year later, he ambushed the treasure train coming across the isthmus from Peru, but there was so much silver and gold on the mules, he had to leave half of it in the swamp.

  Since then, the viceroy of Nuevo España had insisted on having the best, most vicious and tyrannical officers posted at Nombre de Dios. They were placed in charge of the misfits and miscreants culled from garrisons elsewhere along the Main, the more brutal and bloodthirsty the better.

  As the capitán del navio, Recalde would have been in charge of the attack on the Argus. Aquayo was little more than a figurehead, a nobleman who had been rewarded with a prestigious command as a show of favor by the Spanish king, but Recalde had chosen his profession and he obviously excelled in his work if he had been in command at Nombre de Dios.

  Nathan might have been right. It might have been better had she been as cold-blooded as her brother Jonas, who would have placed the two shots right through Recalde’s eyes without troubling to wait for any justification.

  Sighing, rubbing her temple with a weary hand, Juliet removed her bandanna and used it to swab the dampness on the back of her neck. The air in the cabin was stifling. She frowned at the blackened tarps, then at the shadowy outline in her berth. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t made a sound since she had returned to the cabin.

  She filled her goblet with the last of the rumbustion in the bottle and glanced over at the second body. Beacom was stretched out on the floor like a corpse, his hands folded over his chest, the heels of his shoes touching together, the toes pointing straight up.

  “Damned Englishmen,” she muttered.

  Taking the goblet with her, she pulled aside the section of tarp that covered the narrow door to the gallery and opened it. Almost instantly, she could feel the heat being sucked out of the cabin and she opened it wider, listening to the sound of the wake curling out behind her ship. The clouds were thicker, completely blanketing the sky, and the wind had picked up considerably, tugging peevishly at the loose threads of her hair. The darkness made it more difficult to see the Santo Domingo riding off their stern, but she was there, a dark shape against a smothered sky.

  For the fleetest of moments, Juliet allowed her mind to reconstruct the picture of the Spanish warship closing on the crippled Argus, the monstrous cannon belching smoke and flame in such a continuous barrage the two ships had become engulfed in the sulphurous yellow clouds. Crisp had thought she was mad to take the Iron Rose in, but she had been flung back five years in her mind, imagining it to be similar to the predicament her mother had found herself in: a galleon bearing down, the valiant Black Swan in shambles, her decks on fire, her crew struggling to prevent the inevitable.

  Fate, in the form of a hideous boil on the bottom of her foot, had kept Juliet at home on Pigeon Cay otherwise she would have been on board the Swan during that doomed voyage. She knew... she knew there was little she could have done to affect the outcome one way or another, but it still weighed heavily on her mind and conscience that she had not been at her normal place on the Swan’s quarterdeck. Instead, she had been lying on a beach studying astral charts while her father kept a terrible vigil by his wife’s side.

  Juliet closed her eyes and concentrated on steadying her hands.

  Yes indeed, she had proved herself the equal of any man in the years that followed. Her crew deemed her fearless and looked to her to bring them victory and glory despite impossible odds, despite the clawing doubts that gripped her every time she gave the command that sent the gunners to their posts. They thought her iron-willed and iron-clad, afraid of nothing, never hesitating to answer a challenge with her sword or her ship.

  They never saw the aftermath, of course. The quiet hour when her hands shook and her bones shivered, when her chest felt so constricted she could scarcely catch a breath and hold it.

  She raised the goblet to her lips and managed to hold it steady enough to drink the rest of the rum. It was not enough—it was never enough to erase the taste of blood and gunpowder—and she returned to her desk in search of more. The bottle, when she tipped it, was empty. Cursing, she went to the bookcase for another and her knee caught the edge of the chair as she passed. She kicked it savagely out of the way and when it did not instantly break apart, she lifted it by the two hind legs and smashed it against the wall, splitting the backrest from the seat and sending pieces of wood flying across the cabin. In a fit of added temper, she scraped the Santo Domingo’s manifests and logbooks off her desk scattering papers into the air like snow.

  ~~~

  Varian had managed to drift in and out of a fitful sleep through most of t
he evening. He had come instantly awake when Juliet had first returned to the cabin, but since she chose to work quietly at her desk, he elected to remain quietly turned on his side away from her and pretend he was still asleep.

  It was impossible to ignore a breaking chair, however, or a woman who cursed like a London wharf rat.

  “If you plan to hurl more furniture, could you at least give me fair warning?”

  Juliet gasped and stared at the pale form on the bed. She stared for a full minute without speaking, which gave Varian time to roll onto his back without sending his head into another potentially fatal spin.

  “I... I thought you were asleep,” she stammered.

  “That should give me comfort?”

  “Your comfort,” she said with narrowed eyes, “is not my prime concern. And I suppose I’ve disturbed your rest as well?” she asked, glaring at Beacom.

  “Oh. Oh, no, madam. No, not at all.”

  “Good. Then you won’t mind fetching me another bottle of rum, since my supply seems to be sadly depleted.”

  Beacom scrambled to his feet. “Indeed, Captain. Where might I find one?”

  “In the galley. Ask for Johnny Boy, he’ll show you where I keep my private stores.”

  “Th-the galley?”

  “One deck down, in the stern.”

  Beacom looked to his master, who nodded imperceptibly and tipped his head toward the door. When it closed behind him, Varian glanced wryly at the shattered parts of chair that had flown all the way to land on the floor beside his berth.

  “Bravo, Captain. Most women claim not to have the strength to lift a chair, much less the ability to reduce it to kindling.”

  “I warrant I can meet my Maker happily now, knowing I am so set apart from the more dainty creatures of your acquaintance.”

  “My dear Captain Dante, you may believe you were set apart the instant I first glimpsed you on board the Santo Domingo.”