Love's Odyssey (27 page)

He stared down at her, his eyes traveling over her body, lingering at her breasts, her thighs. When he slid his robe from his shoulders and began to lower himself onto her, his sex red and distended, she felt an uncontrollable wave of disgust and panic. Unable any longer to be an active participant, to tease even to ensure her safety, Romell tensed and lay motionless.

Nicholas thrust his hands under her buttocks, and raised her to meet his hard sex. His probing, heavy and slow, never varied or shifted. Unlike the Raden, a playful experimenter, Nicholas seemed bent on silent domination.

Just as she decided she could stand it no longer without resisting or fighting, he groaned in release and he felt his full weight collapse on her. A moment later, he rolled off to lie on the rug next to her. She turned her head so she could see his face. Nicholas was watching her. When their eyes met, he smiled complacently, as if to say: You see, I am always the victor.

She shut her eyes so as not to see his triumph. I'll show him, she told herself grimly. I won't lose the next battle. Opening her eyes a mere slit, she watched him in secret until she was certain he slept. Then she waited awhile longer, wanting his slumber to be deep before she acted.

Shifting her body slowly and carefully, Romell eased herself into the right position. Lifting one foot, she touched his limp sex lightly with her toes, then began to rub back and forth, speeding up the rhythm as she felt him harden. When he was fully aroused, she brought her other foot up and caught his sex between her feet, squeezing.

His eyes opened; his head rose. When he saw what she was doing a flash of revulsion, quickly masked, crossed his face, and he jerked himself away from her. She met the full impact of his glare with a defiant smile.

For a moment, Romell thought he was going to strike her, but she kept the smile in place, unflinching. At last Nicholas threw his head back and began to laugh. He was still chuckling when he reached out and pulled her to him.

"I see you will make an interesting adversary in bed."

Chapter 27

Adrien ran his fingers through the short beard he still wasn't accustomed to, then fingered the hilt of his sword. God's good fortune had favored him so far, but it was best not to count on its continuing. He listened to the creak of the rigging as the junk plowed stolidly through the green water and thought what a sturdy and seaworthy little craft she was.

Chi, the villainous-looking Chinese captain, came around the side of the bamboo cabin and spoke a few words in broken Portuguese, grinning at Adrien. "You lose sword soon, Drin. Maybe head, too."

Adrien shrugged. Chi had been anticipating what would happen when they got to Amoy ever since they'd left Manila, and enjoyed taunting Adrien. He didn't think the crew hated him—he knew Chi did not—it was just that they relished the notion of a fan-qui's defeat. 

If he pirated with them until he was a hundred, he'd still be the foreign devil Drin. I hope to God there's not another sea battle before we reach Amoy, he thought.

Killing that poor bastard of a Portuguese sailor will give me nightmares for years to come. He'd have done for me if I hadn't, so there really wasn't much choice. Still, I've no liking for such killing.

The fight with the Portuguese caravel had strengthened his position with the pirates, there was no doubt of that, but the bloody battle and subsequent murder of the surviving crewmen had sickened Adrien even after he'd discovered that the Portuguese had been rival pirates.

How could Raleigh have stomached such a career? It sounded noble and fine when told at court, but the reality was outright theft and brutal murder.

But it was the only way to find Romell and find her he would, if he had to search for the rest of his life. The Javanese guide, Sito, had got wind of a nonee with fire hair at a prince's palace, but by the time Adrien managed to locate the kraton, the pirates had been there before him and Romell had gone.

"Taken to Amoy, I suspect," the Raden had told Adrien, "as a prize for their leader Nicholas. You'll never be able to retrieve her from Nicholas. The pirates completely control Amoy, as well as the China Sea. You'll be killed on sight."

"I'll find a way."

"You are very foolish, but brave—as the nonee is brave. In the jungle, she survived the tiger who attacked the man she was with. Lord Tiger died, the man died, but she went on alone. Remarkable in a woman, especially a white woman. She also saved my wives from capture. Yes, a brave and unusual woman."

The Raden stared at Adrien for some time, then seemed to reach a decision. "Come with me," he ordered.

Adrien followed the Raden along a corridor where, behind a tapestry of Mohammedan gods, the prince unlocked a hidden door and led the way into a small room with no windows.

Inside the room a candle flickered in a bronze lantern.

"When I am in the kraton this light never dies," the prince said.

On silk-lined shelves above the lantern, Adrien could see the hilts of at least ten sheathed swords and daggers.

"The weapons of my ancestors," the Raden said. "Pusaka. Holy. When I spoke to you of the nonee, I felt one of these call to me. We shall see which one it was."

The Raden picked up the first weapon and held it, still sheathed, pointed toward Adrien. After a moment he replaced it, picked up the next, and repeated the performance. When he came to the seventh, he paused, the sheathed weapon still pointed at Adrien.

"Ah," he said. "I believe this is the voice I heard." Slowly he pulled the serpentine blade from its gold-embossed sheath.

As the wavy blade gleamed in the candlelight, a tingle ran along Adrien's back and his heart beat faster—not from fear but from eagerness to hold the kris in his hand.

"I see you hear the spirit of the kris call to you," the Raden said. "This pusaka kris is yours." He resheathed the dagger and handed it to Adrien.

The hilt was decorated with gold, diamonds, and sapphires which glittered in the light, but Adrien had no thought for the value of the gold and jewels. The hilt fit into his palm like the hand of a friend.

"The kris wants to come with you," the Raden said. "It will help you."

Adrien tore his eyes away from the dagger and looked at the prince. "Thank you," he said simply. "I believe you're right."

The Raden shrugged. "I do what the spirits tell me."

He also helped Adrien get aboard a native trading boat heading for Manila in the Philippine Islands. "The Chinese pirates spend much time around Manila," he said.

Adrien, set ashore in Manila early one evening, came upon three men attacking a fourth with fists and clubs. Since the odds seemed so unequal, he went to the lone man's aid and was forced to use the pusaka kris to save his life. When the attackers saw their leader mortally wounded, they fled, abandoning their dying leader and their now unconscious intended victim.

Adrien dragged the man he'd rescued into an area between two warehouses and brought water to wash his bleeding wounds, then crouched beside the man all night. In the early dawn, when the badly beaten man came to, Adrien discovered he had saved the life of a Chinese pirate, the captain of a junk, one Chi Lung. Adrien rowed Chi out to his junk, and the grateful Chi took him aboard.

Not that Chi completely trusted Adrien—Chi wouldn't trust his own grandfather. But he pretended to believe Adrien's story, about fleeing the wrath of the English king and wanting to amass a fortune, no matter how. When Adrien won the mock sword fight between them by disarming Chi, that decided the matter.

"Nicholas likes good fighters. I take you with me," Chi had told him.

Now Chi taunted him daily with tales of great swordsmen among the pirate company, swordsmen that Nicholas would have Adrien face sooner or later.

Besides his sword, Adrien wore the pusaka kris strapped inside his shirt, for he trusted no one. But Chi’s crewmen didn’t try to surprise him, and his killing of the Portuguese sailor gave him status among them.

Adrian stared at the green China Sea and wondered how Romell fared. She had every reason to despair, surviving the terrors of the jungle only to face the most deadly beast of all: man. Nicholas.

Every new story Chi told about the pirate leader made Adrien more apprehensive.

"So Nicholas find his concubine with lover and what you think?" Chi laughed. "He bring them into throne room and take Great Sword from wall and— " Chi made the universally understood gesture of fingers across his throat. "Both at one swing." Chi grinned in admiring recollection.

"Nicholas put heads in vinegar and hang in women's quarters so everyone take heed." Chi spat over the rail. "Women. Good but for two things—to lie with and to make boy babies."

"Does Nicholas have a wife?" Adrien asked. "Children?"

"No wife at Anhai palace. Nicholas have number one son with him, but wife in Japan."

"But Nicholas does have concubines at the palace?"

"Always they change. He get tired. You good with sword he maybe give you one he don't want."

If Romell was alive, had Nicholas forced her to be his concubine? Or worse, was she being passed from man to man? Adrien kicked viciously at a stanchion.

Under different circumstances he might have enjoyed the voyage. The junk with its high stern, tilting masts, and ragtag sails was a surprisingly seaworthy vessel for all its clumsy appearance. He commented on the efficiency of the bamboo-battened triangular sails to Chi.

"My sails are like ears," Chi said. "Always listening for the wind."

That afternoon they sighted a sail, and Adrien breathed a sigh of relief when it proved to be a fellow pirate and not a prize to be attacked. The other junk was also headed for Amoy.

"Soon there," Chi said. "Good trip, no storm, none dead. Come back with fan-qui swordsman."

"What is the season for typhoons?" Adrien asked.

"Summer and fall. Almost over now. Maybe no more this year."

Before dusk, the lookout spotted land. Adrien watched as the green tinge on the horizon spread and became hills. "Amoy?" he asked.

"No, Formosa. Big island across strait from Amoy. You see."

As the ship tacked into the harbor, Adrien felt himself tense. It was not hard to fool Chi, who was obligated to him, but what would Nicholas think of an Englishman in his pirate crew?

By the time they lowered the small boat to row to shore, Adrien's thoughts were as gloomy as the night closing in around them.

"Tonight we drink, find women," Chi told him. "Tomorrow go to Anhai—to palace."

The next morning, Adrien woke with a vicious headache and only a blurred recollection of the night before. There'd been no way to avoid carousing with the pirates, and though he'd tried to stay alert, the mixture of rice wine and Portuguese brandy had been too much for him. He didn't remember a woman and he doubted there'd been one. Surely he'd recall that. He shook his head, then winced at the motion. His stomach lurched. He was in one hell of a condition to face Nicholas.

By noon, Chi had found horses and insisted on setting out immediately for Anhai. Although Adrien felt somewhat better, he viewed the prospect of riding to the palace with misgiving. If he should have to prove his swordsmanship today, he'd probably wind up dead, fulfilling Chi's prophecy.

The horses were small but sturdy and trotted stolidly, raising dust on the road as they passed rice paddies, then orange groves. Adrien saw the crests of mountains in the distance. The road followed a good-sized river winding through what was obviously a fertile valley. As they topped a rise, he saw the walls of a large compound. At this distance he could make out only a tile-roof tower rising above the white walls. He looked questioningly at Chi.

"The palace of Nicholas," Chi confirmed.

"Does he have a title?" Adrien asked.

"Some say the Ming Emperor will name him Count. He is already Commander of the Imperial Fleet—and a Mandarin."

The Ming Emperor knows what he's doing, Adrien thought cynically. Make a pirate head of the fleet and he can't very well pirate the ships he commands.

"So I must call Nicholas 'Your Excellency/ " Adrien said.

"As you wish. I think of him as when we met, Nicholas Iquan. Means eldest son." Chi grinned at Adrien. "But I bow and say, 'Lord,' for I am no fool. Nicholas has three hundred black men to punish those who presume."

"Black slaves?"

"No. These black men fled Portuguese slavery in Macao. Nicholas keeps them for bodyguards, not slaves. They fight to the death for Nicholas."

Adrien rode in brooding silence as they approached the palace walls. Three hundred loyal bodyguards and a fleet of a thousand junks, if Chi could be believed. Formidable! How could he possibly manage to escape with Romell?

One thing at a time, Montgomery, he admonished himself. First you have to survive the meeting with Nicholas. If your head remains on your shoulders after that, you still have to find Romell. You can make no plans until then.

Adrien took a deep breath and wished his head didn't ache so abominably. The air, though warm, wasn't heavy and hot like the Java coast and the countryside appealed to him: green hills backed by the dark peaks of the mountain range, the river rushing past the tilled ground, the fruit orchards. Nicholas had chosen well when he picked such a site for his palace, but perhaps his choice had been influenced by the fact that he'd been born poor in the village of Anhai.

Adrien half smiled. Had Commander Nicholas, the Mandarin, returned to show his fellow villagers how great he had become? With that thought, Adrien relaxed a trifle, realizing Nicholas was only human after all. And, if you were lucky and bided your time, any human could be thwarted.

Chi called in Portuguese to the giant black at the bronze gates. "Ho, Abba, how fare you?"

"We are happy you return safe, Captain Chi," the black, dressed in vermilion silk, replied in the same language. He stared curiously at Adrien.

"This fan-qui is for Lord Nicholas," Chi said, waving a hand toward Adrien.

The gates were opened and the two men rode through, pulling up inside to dismount and allow servants to lead away the horses. Adrien looked about and noted that the palace was a compound of buildings connected by covered passageways.

More brightly dressed black men led them inside. Adrien saw at once that Nicholas's wealth surpassed anything Adrien had imagined. Gold and precious stones were everywhere—garnishing ornaments, circling the necks of the black bodyguards, even decorating ceilings.

Intricately designed rugs, glowing colors set into a wine-rich background, partially covered the floors of white marble. In many of the rooms outer walls folded open to reveal courtyards, the lush greenery appearing to be part of the room. Spicy perfumes trailed them as they followed the guards.

When they reached the throne room, Adrien had been so numbed by the surfeit of splendor he could scarcely appreciate the gem-encrusted golden throne. He retained enough presence of mind to follow Chi's lead, and when the captain knelt and bowed his head, Adrien did the same.

Never mind that he was an Englishman--it wouldn't do for a pirate not to bow to his lord.