Pirate Wolf Trilogy (67 page)

As soon
as Beacom and Varian were settled, one of the oarsmen used his
paddle to push away from the side of the
Iron Rose
. It presented an odd perspective, gazing up from
the water, and Varian felt dwarfed by the enormous bulk of timber,
the towering masts that rose high into the night sky. He could see
gouges in the wood, scars from past conflicts. He also counted the
gun ports and realized what a truly powerful, deadly vessel he had
been aboard.

When they
pulled around the bow, his attention was caught by the carved
figurehead. It was a woman, naked but for a ripple of linen lying
on a diagonal across her groin. Her hands were reaching forward as
if to support the thick arm of the bowsprit, her legs were straight
and shapely, the feet pointed down like those of a ballerina.

They
reached the towering hull of the
Santo Domingo
and waited but a moment for Nathan Crisp and
Lieutenant Jonathan Beck to clamber down the side. The two men were
sharing a laugh over something the crusty old seadog had said, but
when Beck saw Varian sitting in the longboat, he sobered at once
and extended a polite bow.

“Your Grace. I
had heard you were recovered from your wounds and was pleased to
learn they were not fatal.”

“No more so
than I, Lieutenant. We have not had an opportunity to speak since
the incident, but please accept my condolences over the loss of
your ship and the brave men in your crew.”

“Thank you,
sir. Captain Macleod was a good man, a fine sailor, and will be
sorely missed.”

“
He
trained his men well, at any rate,” Crisp announced for Juliet’s
benefit. “Loftus tells me if it weren’t for the crew of the
Argus
manning the lines, she would
have floundered in the storm and been driven out into the Atlantic.
As for the lieutenant here, it’s a shame he hasn’t a larcenous
nature. I’d put him at the helm any day. He maneuvered that bitch
through the reef like he’d done it a hundred times.”

“I was raised
in Cornwall, sir, where the currents and breakers have cracked the
spines of many a fine ship.”

“Take the
compliment in the spirit it was given, Mr. Beck,” said Juliet. “Mr.
Crisp hoards them like a spinster does her kisses.”

The oarsmen
took up the stroke again and within minutes they had cut across the
bay and were approaching the lights along shore. Higher up on the
slope, the huge white house glittered like a cluster of jewels.
When the longboat bumped into the dock, Juliet and Crisp leaped out
first and while the others disembarked, they stood together talking
in low voices.

Varian, after
the first few steps on solid ground, was surprised to discover he
was as queasy and unsteady in the knees as he had been the during
his first days at sea. To his quiet disgust, he recalled he had
spent some of that time with his head bowed over a slops pail and
it was no comfort to know he was susceptible to the same weakness
going from the sea to land.

A carriage was
waiting to take them up to the big house. It rattled like the bones
of a skeleton over the rough road and Varian’s teeth nearly snapped
off at the gums with the effort it took to bear the renewed
hammering in his head as well as his hip and shoulder. By the time
they rolled to a halt, he was ready to throw his body out the door
and hug the closest tree.

“I would like a
moment alone to speak to the duke,” Juliet said, waving for the
others to step down. “Take these inside for me,” she handed Crisp
the sack of charts and manifests that had ridden beside her on the
seat. “Have someone show the lieutenant and Mr. Beacom to rooms
with clean sheets and hot baths.”

The carriage
had stopped in front of the big house. Lamps hung from every pillar
and post along the hundred foot length of the wide veranda; every
window on both stories blazed. There was only one corner of the
coach where the shadows had not been chased away and while Juliet
Dante had the advantage of being able to see every crease on
Varian’s face, every hair on his head, she remained for the most
part in darkness save for the spill of white lace at her
throat.

The irony of
her wearing lace and velvet was not lost on him. At the same time,
he had to admit the black and crimson suited her nature, worn not
out of any need to comply with fashion, but simply because it
reflected her power, her confidence, her lethal grace.

She sat with
her hands tapping lightly together on her lap for a few moments
then, seeking some way to occupy them, began stripping off her
leather gloves, one finger at a time.

“I was burned
once,” she said as a casual matter of fact. “My shirt caught fire
and I lost a few layers of skin before the men could douse me.
Since then, I’ve had cuts and musket holes that have not hurt half
so much. I admire the lieutenant’s fortitude; he must have suffered
immeasurably. Do you know how it happened?”

“I am afraid I
was not made privy to the information.”

“You were at
sea with him for six weeks and never thought to ask?”

“One simply
does not ask a man outright how he burned his face.”

“One doesn’t?
Plague take my manners then, because I did. It seems he was
betrothed and—much like yourself—eagerly returning home to marry
his sweetheart when his ship encountered a Dutchman off the
Canaries. Shots were exchanged and one of the sails came down in
flames. He had powder on his cheek from having discharged his
musket several times and the fire caught his shirt, his hair, his
face. When he arrived back in England, his sweetheart took one look
at him and screamed in horror. He returned immediately to the navy,
where he knew life was more tolerant away from the vulgar niceties
of a well bred society.”

“I will own
that there are those who judge their fellow man more harshly than
others, but to say that all of English society as a whole is
vulgar—”

“Am I so wrong?
Do you really believe my mother would be well received at court?
Would she be invited to dance a galliard, to play a game of bowls
on the green? Would she find no lack of partners willing to sit
next to her at a dinner party when she uses her stump to hold the
meat for cutting?”

He searched the
shadows. “Are you deliberately trying to shock me, Captain, or are
you simply trying to get me to admit that we are all conceited
boors? If so, then yes, I will admit it ... if you will admit that
you hold a similar degree of conceit—it is merely seen from the
opposite side of the mirror. You wear your scars and ferocious
nature proudly, and you scorn any man with uncallused hands and
silver buckles in his shoes. As you say, it is not likely that the
one-armed wife of a pirate lord would be made lady in waiting to
the queen, yet how likely would it be for men like Beacom and
myself to be treated as equals at your dining table? The very first
time we spoke, you insisted I address you as ‘captain’, yet you
mock my own rank at every turn. You cannot have it both ways,
Juliet. You cannot cry foul when you are guilty of the same
crimes.”

She was so
still and so quiet he could almost hear her lashes blinking
together. It was the first time he had used her proper name and he
suspected it did not sit well.

“
I did
not hold you back to receive a lecture on social conceits,
your
grace
.
I thought only
to save you from further embarrassment by advising you, in all good
faith, against going inside that house and spouting your directives
and demands from the king. They will not be happily
met.”

“You have yet
to tell me why.”

She responded
with a shallow puff of disdain and he spread his hands to show he
had won his point. “You chastise me for not asking the lieutenant a
simple question, yet when I attempt to do the same with you, you
stab me with a blade.”

“I have stabbed
you with nothing, sir.”

“You think not?
If your eyes were weapons, madam, I would have been bloodied from
head to toe a dozen times over.”

She drummed her
fingers again. She turned her head when she heard footsteps outside
on the crushed stones, but her glare sent whoever it was into a
hasty retreat.

Her fingers
stopped. Her hands curled around her gloves, and she turned to look
at him again.

“
Our
grandfather was killed on board the
Black Swan
, in the same battle that cost my mother her arm.
After fifty years at sea, he had few of the original appendages he
was born with. He had but one leg, one arm, his body was a map of
scars and deformations that would have made Lieutenant Beck seem
positively handsome by comparison, yet he never once chose to
remain behind when there were adventures to be had. He never balked
from a fight, never ran from an enemy, never took a half measure
when the whole was required. Jonas was always by his side,
mimicking his great lusty laugh, catching him when he tipped over
from too much rum.” She stopped, thinking perhaps she had said too
much already, and finished with an edge of impatience in her voice.
“Had you seen the look on my brother’s face when he carried
Grandfather’s body off the ship, you would not have to ask why he
would never abide by any edict for peace with the Spanish. Neither
would my father, or my mother. Or me, for that matter.”

He shook his
head. “Would that not make you hunger for peace even more?”

“Peace, aye.
Capitulation... never.”

“No one is
asking you to capitulate.”

“Are they not?
The Spaniards will never honor a peace treaty that allows foreign
ships to sail these waters. They have too much at stake. They have
an entire New World at their command for heaven’s sake, and as long
as they hold it, they maintain their supremacy on the sea. While
The Virgin was on the throne, Father used to receive official
missives demanding he return to England for an audience with his
sovereign, insisting he cease his attacks on Spanish shipping,
scolding him, threatening him with all manner of repercussions if
he disobeyed. Yet there were other communications, delivered
secretly and often encoded so that they made sense to Father’s eyes
only. They praised him for his successes, they encouraged him to
increase his attacks, to do everything in his power to disrupt the
trade routes and strike the Spaniards where it hurt most: in their
treasury. The old queen understood that if you stop the flow of
gold and silver from the Main, the Spanish king would have no money
to build ships, to pay his armies, to garrison ports a thousand
miles away from Seville. There were dozens of privateers in these
waters, most of whom received the same veiled winks from Elizabeth
as my father, and their efforts had results. While Spain’s coffers
emptied, England’s filled with the one tenth share of the treasure
taken from every captured ship. A good part of England’s navy was
built with the ill-gotten gains of Elizabeth’s seahawks.

“But then she
died and James Stuart took the throne. He had no knowledge of the
queen’s private dealings with men half a world away, or if he did
he chose to ignore it. He had his navy, his treasure chest was
full, and it was time to woo the Spanish monarch with his good
intentions and order men like Father to haul in their guns. He had
no control over the Dutch or the Portuguese, of course, but most of
the English privateers drew back rather than risk being branded as
pirates. They were wealthy, they had lived their adventures. A good
many of them returned to England as ordered and retired to their
country estates to grow fat and raise sheep.”

“But your
father refused.”

She sighed. “He
refused to walk away from everything he had fought so hard to win.
This is our home now. Are we not supposed to defend it?”

“Defend it,
yes, but—”

“Have you heard
the phrase ‘no peace beyond the line’?”

“You refer to
the imaginary line drawn by Pope Alexander VI that runs down the
middle of the Atlantic and divides the world’s territories between
Spain and Portugal?”

Juliet nodded.
“It was drawn the year after Columbus discovered the New World, at
a time when England barely knew how to navigate across the Channel,
yet these are the boundaries Spain insists we must all uphold. It
is the treaty Spain uses to defend their actions each time they
attack and destroy one of our ships, regardless if that ship is
engaged in lawful trade or simple exploration.”

“The kings of
England, France, and the Netherlands are trying to change that, as
is Phillip III of Spain,” Varian said. “But the negotiations for
peace and open trade will not, cannot be successful unless the guns
on both sides are silent.”

“
I am
surprised you can even say those words with any measure of
conviction after what happened to the
Argus
. To be sure, Father will never acknowledge them or the
notion of peace with Spain.”

He leaned
forward, the leather on the seat creaking softly as he did so. “I
am more than just a little aware that I am well out of my depths
here, Juliet. I admit freely that I do not understand your way of
life, that I would likely be dead within a week if you were to set
me adrift on an island where you, under similar conditions, could
probably survive for a year. By the same token, I am a soldier—a
damned good one—and I resent the implication that I would rather
fight with words than deeds. Put me on a battlefield with artillery
and cavalry, and I’ll fight your battles and I’ll win your wars.
But set those battles at sea and frankly ... it changes all the
rules I know, all the certainties I have come to expect. There is
no room for error. You attempt to surrender honorably and your
enemy sinks you anyway. You lose a battle and you do not live to
fight another day, you drown. In that respect alone, I cannot even
begin to comprehend the strength and courage it takes to sail out
of this harbor and know that there are bigger ships with bigger
guns waiting just over the horizon to smash you to bits. Nor can I
conceive of any reason why you would not support the king’s efforts
to negotiate a peace.” He paused and sat back again. “As I said, I
am trying to understand, but you make it difficult to say the
least.”