Her Pirate Master (2 page)

“You go nowhere without my leave.” He said it in an almost–kindly way.

“With . . . without . . . “ she sputtered. Did this infuriating man have any idea how he disrupted her plans? The captain of the ship on which Lucius had booked their passage would not wait overlong for them. How dare this man think he could hold her? Was he having some sort of fun at her expense? Surely he didn’t think he could just pick her up off the road and keep her against her will. She was about to give him a piece of her mind when she thought better of it. She observed him carefully. He wore a woolen tunic like any other Roman man, but his was belted in the style of foreigners from the south. More telling, he carried a dagger, its sheath ornately carved and bejeweled with pearls and rubies, at his waist. She had to tread carefully. If he was a temple guard or someone sent by the priests, then he already had all the evidence he needed of her guilt. There the sacred objects rested in the small box the Ephesian high priest had given her. And here she was, a woman with no authority to have them in her possession. No authority, that is, that came from their previous possessors. Worse, if he was in Cleopatra’s employ and not connected to the temple at all, then he already knew everything and she was lost.

Imi’s chin rose. She needed to bluff her way out. It was the only way.

“Take me to Lucius at once,” she said, injecting her tone with all the authority she could muster. “He is my assistant, and I have need of him.”

The man’s lips twitched, and his eyes glinted as if he suppressed a laugh.

“Even if it were possible for me to do so now, I think I would not,” he said. He took a step toward her, and Imi became conscious of just how small the room was. Hard on the heels of that thought came another.

“I’m on a ship,” she blurted in surprise. How could she not have realized it before? Her unsteadiness, the swaying sensation, she’d put them down to the after–effects of her accident, but now other senses came into play. She could smell the salt air and hear the creaking of a sail being raised. A sail! Suddenly, she understood. This man was a pirate, one of the raiders of the coasts who took what was not theirs and lived high off their ill–gotten gains. Her father had hated to hear the very name of them.

“No!” She tried to push past him, but he blocked her. “I cannot stay here. Let me go. You must let me go or . . . “

“Or what, lady?”

“Nothing. Please.” She tried to dive past him and grab her box to make her escape, but he gripped her by the arms. “I must get off this ship. You don’t understand.”

“Explain it to me then.”

Imi raised her knee to hit him in the groin, but, anticipating her, he twisted her around, his arms across her body, holding her in a vise.

“Goddess, goddess,” she cried. “Have you forsaken me?” She tried to wriggle free, but he wouldn’t release her. Without thinking she reared back and bit him on the ear. Startled, he hurled her from him and pressed a hand to the wound. Seizing her chance, Imi lunged for the chest and would have made it through the door if another man, a Hittite by the look of him, had not blocked her way. She tried to duck past him, but he caught her easily and pushed her back inside, seizing her wrists behind her.

“A little trouble, captain?” the newcomer asked her dark abductor.

“Nothing I can’t handle, Sahman.” As if to prove it, he slapped her across her cheek. “That was for biting me.”

Tears sprang to Imi’s eyes, but she fought them back as she cursed her inability to strike him. She would not let him see her cry. As angry as she was, she noted that the Hittite had called him ‘captain.’ Perhaps, perhaps, he wasn’t in the queen’s employ or even the temple’s. It could mean she still had a chance then. So much hung in the balance, but who was he? Was he here to help or thwart her?

Staring her in the eye as if daring her to stop him, the captain pulled the box out of her hands and deposited it on the table. Imi struggled to make her face as expressionless as possible. He must not guess how important its contents were. Until she knew who this Cilician was and the role the gods had set for him, she would strive to give away as little information as possible.

“We are almost out of the harbor,” Sahman said, his voice carefully neutral though his curiosity rolled off him in waves. “Soon we will leave Anxur behind. Everything is as you wish it.”

“Good,” the captain replied, crossing to his mirror and craning his neck to better see his ear in the burnished bronze. “Return to deck, and I will be with you shortly.”

The sailor pushed her away from him and left.

“You tore my ear,” the captain accused as soon as they were alone again.

“I did not,” she said sourly, rubbing her wrists where Sahman had gripped them. From where she stood she could see that while the man’s ear still dribbled blood, his lobe was intact.

“Are you some kind of Amazon who abhors the touch of a man?”

“You are detaining me against my will. I am a freeborn woman of rank.” She could also have explained about her oath but she saw no reason to do so. She doubted men like him could understand such things. Men like him just took what they wanted without caring about the consequences or the effect on others. “You have no right to hold me or to keep me on your ship.”

“It’s my ship, and I can do as I please. The only rank that counts here and now is mine.”

Imi wondered why the goddess didn’t hurl a thunderbolt at the arrogant man, right where he stood. Did she sleep? Imi’s mission had been blessed by both the high priest and the high priestess of the Great Mother, she who was known as Isis to Imi and her people and as Artemis to the Ephesians. The priest and priestess were the protectors of Arsinoe, the rightful queen of Egypt whom Imi served and on whose behalf she’d gone to Rome to retrieve the sacred artifacts. Arsinoe’s restoration to the throne depended on the success of Imi’s mission just as surely as Egypt’s freedom from Roman control depended on Arsinoe. Surely the goddess wished her to succeed for Egypt, if not for the rightful queen, Arsinoe, herself.

“Are you one of Cleopatra’s assassins? Did she send you to kill me?” But even as she spoke she realized she had miscalculated. There would have been no point in bringing her to the ship if he meant to kill her. He could simply have murdered her on the road if that was his intent. Unless, of course, he meant to put her to the question, to make her divulge Arsinoe’s plans, the names of her supporters.

He frowned at her.

“I am no assassin. People are pleased to call me a pirate or a brigand, but none can say I kill people for pay or sport.” He smiled slyly. “You must be an important person. More important than I can tell by your dress if you have such enemies as would send murderers after you.”

Curses! She had certainly made a mistake. She should have held her stupid, blabbing tongue.

“I will give you and your men a rich reward if you’ll take me to my destination,” she said, changing tack. He must not suspect who she was or guess the importance of her mission. Even if he did not work for the queen, Cleopatra’s spies were everywhere.

“I can get a rich reward by selling both you and the treasure in your box,” he responded. “In fact, that’s precisely what I plan to do.”

“Sell me?!” She was horrified. “No. No. You cannot.” It couldn’t end like this. Not the hope of all their dreams. Not after her successful execution of the theft from the Temple of Venus.

“I . . . I’ll give you fifty talents if you’ll free me.”

“That’s as much as Rome paid to ransom Caesar from my Cilician brethren.” He rubbed his chin. “Do you have such a sum?”

“I can get it.”

“You mean you don’t have it on you? The box you guard so jealously clinks only weakly, but you would not release it even during your faint.”

“If you take me where I want to go . . . where I need to be . . . you will be well rewarded. I can promise you that.”

“And where would that be?”

Imi frowned at him. If she told him that much, would he be able to guess the rest? But no, he was just a pirate, what could he know of the political strategies of queens?

“Ephesus,” she said as she watched him carefully to see what effect the name of the city had on him. It was one she didn’t expect.

“Ha.” He threw his head back and laughed, a deep, throaty sound. “So, you think to lay a trap for me, beautiful lady?”

“A trap?”

“It is known that Marc Antony prepares to go there, and he is no friend to me or my kind. Do you hope to lead me like a lamb into the lion’s jaws?”

This was news, indeed. Wild joy surged through her. Marc Antony going to Ephesus! Her mistress would be well pleased. They had not dared to hope for such a thing. But if Imi didn’t get there before him or at least hard on his heels, everything would still be for naught. The stubborn pirate captain had to take her there. He had to.

“A hundred talents!”

“A hundred?” This time he laughed so hard, tears came to his eyes. “You have not even fifty,” he gasped, “but you offer me a hundred. You are utterly charming. I will certainly get a good price for you at Delos.”

“No.” The very thought of it chilled her to the bone. “You can’t sell me. I am no slave. Please. Oh, goddess, how have I found myself in this?” She sank to her knees, covering her face with her hands. “Please, I beg of you. Anything but this. If you don’t want to take me to Ephesus, I will not ask it of you. You can leave me at any port. I will make my way to Ephesus on my own, and I will get the talents and give them to you in exchange for my freedom.”

“How?” he said, dropping to his knees. He grabbed her wrists and pried her hands away from her face, a move that forced her to look at him. “How will you get them to me?”

“Tell me your name, and I will find you, I swear it. Only let me go. You do not know . . .” She stopped herself just in time. “Please,” she whispered.

“What don’t I know? What are you keeping from me?”

“I can’t tell you, just please, please release me.”

His eyes softened for a minute, and she thought she’d gotten through to him, but, in the next instant, he’d leaped to his feet and seized her box. Before she could pull him away or snatch it out of his hands, he’d opened the lid. Inside lay revealed the treasures she’d risked everything to obtain: the sacred gold sistrum, the loop rising over a carving of the great goddess, Isis; the small gold coffin no more than six inches long, also carved to depict Isis and covered in the secret writing of the priests; and the gold, jewel–studded snake diadem.

Imi glared at him. She wanted to take them back from him, but she gritted her teeth and bided her time. He seemed to believe they were playing some sort of childish game.

“I will not sail to Ephesus and place myself and my men in danger, but I will take these now as payment for your freedom,” he said, fingering the diadem. “You must—”

“No,” Imi wailed, not waiting for him to finish. He offered her Seth’s bargain. Without the articles, Arsinoe’s cause was lost. If she gave them up, her freedom would mean nothing because it would come at the expense of Egypt’s future. “I cannot.”

“Then I’ll just take them as my reward for seeing to your safety and sell you at Delos as I’d originally planned.” He balanced the little coffin in his hand, as if trying to assess its weight; with his thumb, he rubbed the sacred writing.

“What?”

“Had I left you on the road, brigands would surely have found you and your fate would probably be worse than whatever you will find at Delos.”

“No,” Imi cried. She dove for her things and grabbed them out of his hands before he could react.

“They are mine. You cannot have them,” she said, panting. “You should not even have touched them.” When she got to Ephesus, she would have to tell the high priest. They would need to perform some kind of purification rite on the sacred items.

“May I remind you, you are on my ship. I can touch anything I please.” As he said it, he drew his index finger along her jawline. Imi shivered at the contact but refused to shrink away from him as all her instincts demanded. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cower before him.

“Do you understand?” he asked, his voice grown suddenly raspier, more urgent. “My ship. And, until I sell you, you are mine, too, and whatever belongs to you belongs to me.”

Imi pressed her lips together and didn’t answer; her mind worked furiously. She had to escape.

“Go now.”

“What? Where?”

“On deck, wherever you wish.” He shrugged and turned away from her. “I gave you the comfort of my bed while you were asleep to the world, but now I have need of it.” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Unless you wish to stay and keep me company?” He sat down among his cushions and patted the bed beside him.

“I do not.”

“I thought so.” He threw himself backward, his eyes closed. “Leave the box here. It will be safer.”

So angry she could spit but knowing he was right, Imi rested the box back on the table and swept out.

When she was gone, Seleucus opened his eyes and stared hard at the wooden ceiling above him. He was even more puzzled by the young woman than he had been before.

He had kept his face expressionless, but he’d immediately recognized the importance of the articles in the ivory box. Almost every depiction of Isis that he’d ever seen showed her carrying the sistrum, while the uraeus, the snake on the bejeweled diadem, symbolized the power of Egyptian royalty. He remembered seeing the present queen’s father during his visit to Carthage. His mother had taken him to see Pharaoh Ptolemy’s procession, and he remembered that the pharaoh had worn a diadem very similar to the one his mysterious captive carried. How it had shone in the mid–day sun! Sweat beaded Seleucus’s forehead. Not just similar; it looked exactly like it. But how was that possible and how had it come into the possession of this slip of a woman?

Seleucus squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to put it all together. Hadn’t he heard some rumor while Caesar was alive that when Egypt’s queen went to Rome to be with him, she had taken certain of the royal family’s treasures with her? It was said she’d left them behind in the Temple of Venus for safe–keeping.