Pirate Wolf Trilogy

by Canham, Marsha

  “If we were to succeed, however,” Dante said, “we would stand a damned good chance of breaking up the convoy, of driving some of the ships into taking cover behind the islands where they would sail right into the waiting hands and guns of our fellow brethren.”

  Once again Varian was struck by the penetrating intensity of the silver eyes. It was the same look he had seen in Juliet’s eyes on the deck of the Santo Domingo when she had been fighting the Spaniards, and it was the same intoxicating power he had seen in her eyes when they had climbed the summit and she had spread her arms wide to catch the wind.

  Beyond this place there be dragons.

  The whispered echo of Juliet’s words came to him with a shiver of understanding. The ancient mapmakers had known more than they suspected, for he had indeed arrived at the edge of the world he knew and understood. Beyond this room, beyond the boundaries of this island paradise there were dragons waiting, too numerous to even begin to count. The next step he took would decide his course. To go forward was to step over the edge of the horizon and risk whatever perils lay waiting there. To step back was to retreat to where things were rational, orderly, and safe and where risks were only taken by others more suited to the task. It was his decision to make and he knew that once he was caught up in the current, there would be no turning back.

  Varian looked from Simon Dante to Geoffrey Pitt to the silent, watchful figure standing in the shadows. The tightness in his chest grew until he was almost light-headed from the pressure and without even glancing down to see how steep a drop it was, he felt himself starting to pitch forward over the edge of the cliff.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Run out the guns, Mr. Crisp. We’ll fire three rounds with an extra ration of rum for the quickest crew.”

  “Aye Captain.” A grin put Nathan at the rail looking down over the waist of the ship. The men had anticipated the order and had their faces tilted expectantly up toward the quarterdeck. They had cleared the jagged teeth of the coral reef and would have to pile on sail to catch up to the five regal pyramids of canvas ahead of them, but there could be nothing left to chance on this voyage. After sitting in port for eight days, Juliet wanted all the guns to be fired, swabbed, and packed with fresh loads. There was nothing more damning than a cannon that had sat unused in the tropical heat and dampness. Despite wax plugs, moisture from rain and dew could have seeped into the touch holes and degraded the powder, making it merely pop and fizzle when a match was applied. Her father and brothers had taken similar precautions, as had Geoffrey Pitt, who had brought his sleek Christiana out for her maiden voyage.

  Lucifer had been placed in command of the Santo Domingo, the crew once again supplemented by Lieutenant Beck and his Englishmen. In truth, if not for Beck presenting himself before her with a smart salute and an offer to help sail the galleon, she was not sure the Domingo would have left Pigeon Cay. Beck had admitted that the idea was not his. It was Varian St. Clare who had approached him, advised him of the situation they were in regarding Spain’s intentions to amass another invasion fleet, and left it to Beck’s conscience as to whether he wanted to take a fast ship home with the news or stay and fight.

  Beacom, faced with a similar choice, stood pale and withering beside Varian, his hands clapped over his ears as the orders were relayed to open the ports and make ready to roll out the heavy guns.

  On Nathan’s command, the gunners opened the ports, knocked out the wedges that blocked the wheels of the gun carriages, and heaved on the breeching tackle. The eight twenty-four-pounder demi-culverins on the main deck were run out as were the twelve thirty-two-pounder culverins on the lower deck. The chief gunner for the starboard battery walked quickly down the line checking the lay of the guns and the readiness of the men, passing out glowing linstocks to each crew as he passed. The chief gunner for the larboard side did the same, pausing once to kick the backside of a man who had allowed one of the cables to go slack.

  “Larboard ready!”

  “Starboard ready!”

  “Three rounds hot, gentlemen. Fire at will.”

  The words were not out of Nathan’s mouth when the roar from twenty exploding guns swept along both decks. The sound travelled through the planking and trembled up the masts. It was followed by clouds of dense white smoke that boiled from the snouts of the guns and brought the harsh stink of sulphur and cordite creaming back over the decks.

  Taking advantage of the recoil, the crews heaved on the tackling lines again, hauling the beasts inboard. While one man swabbed the barrel with a sponge and water, another stood waiting with a charge of powder and a ladle. A third was ready with the rammer and cloth wadding, a fourth with a ball of cast iron shot. Another pricked the powder charge through the touch hole and added a measure of fine ignition powder from a horn. When the crew was clear, the gun was run out again and the glowing end of the linstock applied to the primer.

  Juliet was justifiably proud of her crew. They could fire two rounds in under three minutes. Each man knew how to lay a charge so that if any one man fell in action, another could step up and sight the gun, adjust the elevation wedges and training tackle, load and fire. That was something her father insisted upon after witnessing the confusion caused in battle when the lack of knowledge and training resulted in guns falling silent.

  The three rounds were fired and ended in a draw between four crews. Juliet happily allowed full measures of rum for all then ordered fresh charges loaded and the guns secured from the ports. Men were sent into the tops to add more canvas and within the hour, they had closed the gap between the Iron Rose and her brothers' ships, the Valor and the Tribute to a few hundred yards. It looked strange to see the Spanish galleon sailing in their midst but Juliet was pleased to see that the changes Nog had made on board had increased her speed considerably. She could keep apace at a steady eight knots and as long as the wind did not take a drastic shift in direction, the new sails and rigging would allow for better maneuverability. More than twenty carpenters had swarmed over her from stem to stern, sawing away unnecessary bulkheads, stripping the fancy panelling from her cabins, banging away the cabins themselves. They had cannibalised the two castles fore and aft so that from a distance she gave the silhouette of a top-heavy galleon, but up close it was a mere shell with catwalks built around the upper bulwarks to give the impression of a full deck. The renovations were continuing while she was under sail, for hardly a league passed where there was not discarded sheets of planking floating in her wake.

  A sharp clash of metal brought Juliet's attention back to the main deck. She moved slowly to the rail, knowing what she would see before she got there. Simon Dante may have used his powers of persuasion to coax the Duke of Harrow into accompanying them to New Providence, but he had also informed her that Varian St. Clare was still her responsibility.

  It had been Nathan’s suggestion that they assign him something to do on board and overseeing the daily practise with swords and pistols seemed a likely choice. He hadn’t balked at the notion, and by the way he slashed through the first five men who ventured into the fighting circle, he looked like he had been craving the exercise.

  After leaving the chart room that evening, Juliet had returned to the Iron Rose. She had spent nearly every day and night since then on board, supervising the repairs here and on the Santo Domingo. She had kept herself too busy to think about Varian St. Clare, had barely said more than two words to him in passing and had made a point never to be alone with him at any time.

  It was not that she feared what would happen. She had no doubt they would come together like two oiled snakes given half the opportunity. It was more a matter of proving to herself that she had the willpower to stay away, that she could remain detached and observe him from the rail of the quarterdeck just as she observed every other member of her crew—with an impartial, critical eye.

  Each of the first two opponents who faced him managed a half dozen strokes before a twist of St Clare’s wrist sent their blades spinning out of their han
ds. The third made but one clumsy lunge before he was sprawling, red-faced on the deck, a ducal foot planted solidly on his backside. The fourth and fifth lasted slightly longer but they were clearly no match for St. Clare’s expertise and again, their blades fell victim to the slight twist and spiral that saw their weapons somersaulting over their heads.

  One by one he went through the ranks. The circle was thickening, the combatants attracting more and more onlookers, some of whom began to grow resentful as each of their mates fell victim to one trick or other that saw them disarmed and chased away at the point of the duke’s elegant rapier.

  “It could get ugly down there, lass,” Nathan murmured, standing by her shoulder.

  “It could,” she agreed.

  The crowd parted to a rousing cheer and Juliet smiled. Big Alf had been fetched from the lower deck, undoubtedly dragged away from his regular duties in order to have him teach a lesson to the pretty duke. Big Alf was deserving of his name, for he was a tower of bulging muscle with hair sprouting from every conceivable pore on his arms, back, and shoulders. His favored weapon was the short, broad-bladed cutlass, and every man on board had seen him take the head off an opponent with one effortless swing.

  As solidly built as Varian was, he still could have fit three of himself inside Big Alf’s galligaskins and canvas pinafore with room to spare. And no sooner had Big Alf appeared at the edge of the circle than the glowerings and grumblings turned to excited laughter. Here, then, was someone who would show this lubber the color of his flag!

  Varian merely took the measure of his opponent for a moment, then walked to where Beacom was sweating himself into a puddle. He exchanged his elegant rapier for a thicker, flat-bladed cutlass and returned to his quadrant, working his wrist back and forth as if to accustom himself to the heavier weight.

  To the encouraging whistles and hoots from his mates, Big Alf lunged forward. He had a grin on his wide, hairy face as his first few hacking slashes forced St. Clare into a defensive stance, but the grin quickly turned into a grimace as the duke held off every blow, deflected every strike that would have sent any other normal man scrambling for cover. Alf’s face turned red and his swings became broader. It was only practise and the intent was not to kill or maim, but it was a fine line that marked the difference.

  Not that it mattered in the end, for within four more strikes, Big Alf’s blade was slicing through the thin air where Varian’s head should have been and was buried instead into two inches of solid oak. It bit deep and stuck fast but before he could pull it free, the edge of Varian’s blade was lying along Alf’s jugular.

  The men fell instantly silent, their champion defeated.

  Up on the quarterdeck, Nathan read the expressions on their faces and his warning came out like a low growl. “Lass... ”

  “Wait,” she whispered. She was watching Varian; his mouth was an inch from Big Alf’s ear and his lips were moving, so slightly she almost missed it herself.

  “Ye say what?” Alf perked his head up, then to everyone’s surprise, began to roar with laughter. He dropped his hands from the blade he was trying to extricate from the mast and doubled over, slapping the tops of his thighs as if the joke was the best he had ever heard. Varian was grinning as well. He stepped back and ran a thumb along the edge of the cutlass. He turned to hand it to Beacom, who had fainted, and tossed it instead to Johnny Boy who was as owl-eyed and dumbstruck as the others.

  When Alf stopped laughing, he straightened and wiped his hands across his eyes to catch the streaming wetness. He clapped the duke soundly on the shoulder, which very nearly accomplished what the bout of swordplay could not, then glared a challenge around the circle.

  “Aye, then. Who’s next? A doubloon from me own pocket to the man who can at least make the bastard break into a sweat!”

  “I’ll take your doubloon. And two more from the duke for my trouble.”

  Varian turned to track the source of the voice. Juliet stood at the edge of the circle, her hands on her hips, her legs braced firmly apart.

  “Well sir? Will you make it worth my while?”

  “Only if you make it worth mine,” he countered smoothly.

  Juliet’s slow smile caused some of the men to chuckle in anticipation. “If you get the best of me, your grace, your pockets will be heavier by a hundred gold doubloons... nay, two hundred. But for that much, I’ll want to see the weight of your wager beforehand.”

  Varian smiled. “As you well know, Captain, my pockets are empty. You will have to trust me for the amount, which I will be happy to deduct from the two hundred you will owe when we are done.”

  A murmur rippled through the men, some of them laughing, some of the more enterprising among them beginning a hot exchange of private wagers.

  “I’ll take it out in trade instead,” she said with narrowed eyes. “You lose and you’ll fetch and carry like a cabin boy for the rest of the voyage. You will go barefoot and scrub the decks alongside the rest of the crew, and you’ll learn how to set a sail, how to tie off a reef, how to boil up a pot of burgoo to the crew’s liking.”

  Varian took his rapier back from Johnny Boy and raised the blade in a salute to accept the terms.

  The men raised a cheer and some spread their arms to usher the others back and widen the circle. Juliet drew her sword and flexed the thin, tempered steel once before slashing it down in a glittering arc and touching the point to the deck.

  Varian assumed a similar stance, then after exchanging a nod with Juliet, both blades came up and tapped lightly together to start the flirtation.

  They started to move, taking deliberate, prowling steps clockwise around the circle. Their eyes were locked, their smiles fixed. The sun was almost directly overhead, eliminating any advantage to one opponent or the other. Similarly the wind was warm and steady, lacking any gusts that might cause a man to squint or a lock of hair to blow across the eyes.

  Juliet gave her wrist a small flick, scraping metal against metal. She saw his eyes flicker but his arm remained rocklike and steady, fully extended. A split second later, his blade was in motion, clipping hers through a volley of short thrusts that were so fast, the two lengths of steel moved in a blur. With his forward foot pacing out his attack, he came half way across the deck before she was able to reverse the momentum of the thrusts and drive him back to where he had begun. She did not let up, but continued to parry and thrust, lunging forward and back, to and fro, even leaping to the top of the capstan to deliver a flurry of ripostes from a superior angle.

  When she jumped down, she landed on soft knees and went into an immediate crouch, slicing her blade parallel to the deck and forcing him to leap like a scalded cat in order to avoid the cut.

  When the exchange ended, she strode back to take up her position in the first quadrant, her blade extended, the tip etching small circles in the air.

  Varian came away from the wall of grinning men and moved back into position. A glance down confirmed the source of the laughter, for the front of his shirt had been sliced open in half a dozen places. It was loose, but not overly so, yet she had cut the cloth without so much as scraping a pink line in his flesh.

  “My compliments, Captain,” he murmured. “You show a deft hand.”

  “Do I? Shall I show you another?”

  To his genuine and immense surprise, she tossed the blade from her right hand to her left and without waiting for him to recover his shock, came in on the attack again. Their blades clashed, thrusting and slashing, seeking openings to the left, then to the right. Both adversaries were leaping and weaving their way through the sea of parting men now. The fight carried unceasingly across the deck to the bottom step of the ladderway, then with a graceful, spinning leap, to the top of the quarterdeck and all the way to the crutch of the bowsprit before the tide turned and the aggressor was driven back to the opposite ladderway. Varian had his back to the stairs and knew they were close, but he dared not glance away for the smallest breadth of a second. It was time, he thought. Time to end
it while he still had the wits and wrist to do so.

  Juliet saw the small spark in the midnight eyes and knew it was coming. She had watched all of his previous matches, studied his wrist, his shoulder, his footwork, the muscles in his jaw—all points where a minute signal might betray what was coming next. And there it was. The slight downward twist of his wrist as he braced for the next lunge. With each and every challenger who had gone before, this slight bend had allowed him to cut the edge of his blade beneath theirs, then to run it the length of the steel while moving his own sword in a tight spiralling motion. The resulting pressure caused his opponent’s fingers to flex open and the hilt to fly out of the hand.

  Juliet saw his thumb slip back on the guard, a prelude to executing the ‘fillip’ as Gabriel had called it. There was not even a tenth of a heartbeat between the shift of the thumb and the bend of the wrist, but she used it to bring her sword up and snap it down hard when his balance was momentarily suspended. Instead of coming up beneath her blade, Varian’s was forced down with a sharp biting cut that brought the hilt springing forward out of his startled fingers and turning a silvery somersault before landing solidly in Juliet’s outstretched hand.

  There was a moment of deafening, awed silence before the crew broke out in a clamorous roar. She raised both swords in triumph to acknowledge their cheers, then drove Varian’s point down in a flare of sunlight, embedding the tip in the deck before releasing it so that the shaft quivered upright between them.

  The look of absolute astonishment on his face could not be feigned. His hand was poised in the air as if it still held the hilt, and the only thing that moved was the fat bead of sweat that rolled down his cheek.

  Juliet resheathed her sword. “I believe that gives me the win, sir.”

  Varian recovered enough to offer a deep bow. “Your servant, Captain.”

  “Indeed you shall be, sir. As for you,” she said and moved to the rail to address Big Alf. “Mr. Crisp will make a note to deduct the sum of one gold doubloon from your share of the profits before you drink and wench them away.”