Pirate Wolf Trilogy (68 page)

A lamp outside
the window cast a ring of distilled light on the side of the
carriage, swaying as the branch it hung on was moved by the breeze.
The light touched her eyes then receded, touched again and held
until she turned her face away.

“In truth,
there are times I don’t understand it myself,” she admitted
finally, “But then I look at my mother’s empty sleeve and the empty
seat at the dinner table where my grandfather used to sit, and I
don’t have to think about it. That is all the justification I
need.”

Varian studied
her in silence, his hands clasped together, his forefingers
steepled under his chin.

“So now you
have your explanation,” she said. “You can see why you have been
sent on a fool’s errand.”

“Would it make
a difference if I said the king and his ministers intend to rescind
all letters of marque, and that to refuse to obey the king’s orders
will result in charges of piracy and treason being levied against
your entire family and all those who sail on account with you? It
would mean that your father would be hung like a common seadog if
he was caught.”

Juliet smiled.
“They would have to catch him first, would they not?”

“Might I remind
you,” he said softly, “that everyone is fallible?”

“
And
might I remind
you
that you are
in no position to issue threats or point out fallibilities. We
could as easily have marooned you with the Spaniards.”

“Yet you took
me on board, you kept me—” his chin came slowly off his fingers—
“as a prisoner? Or as a hostage?”

She
shrugged. “Either way,
your grace
, you may consider whatever business you have brought from
the king to have been lost at the bottom of the sea with the
Argus
.”

She raised a
hand and passed a signal out the carriage window. Varian heard
footsteps on the stone again, and a moment later, two burly men
were standing at the door.

“I would not
advise you to do anything foolish. You are here under my protection
and as such you will be treated with any respect you are due. But
you are on an island, there is absolutely no escape, and make no
mistake, these men will kill you at the snap of a finger.”

The door
opened.

Juliet
disembarked first and, after murmuring orders to the two men,
strode into the house without a backward glance.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Juliet
walked unaccompanied into the house, her sword slapping the heel of
her boot with each angry step. The family was gathered in the great
room; she could hear them before she could see them and she forced
herself to slow down, to relax her face into a more pleasant
expression. This was, after all, a night for celebrations. She had
almost forgotten all about the damned rudder design, something she
and Nog had been tinkering with for some months, but its success
was indisputable. The increased speed and maneuverability had
allowed her to cut in much closer and faster to the
Santo
Domingo
, bringing
the
Iron
Rose
under the arc of
the Spaniard’s heavy guns before they could be put to good
use.

Juliet arrived
at the great room and stood on the threshold a moment while the
warm familiarity of one world replaced the salty exhilaration of
another. The musky taint of leather books and a crackling fire
reminded her of the hours spent pouring over lessons, learning how
to chart the sea and stars, how to calculate wind speed and
currents, how to mix and measure a prime charge of gunpowder.

At ten
years of age, her classroom learning had been supplemented serving
time on board the
Avenger
where
she had learned how to translate the practical knowledge found in
textbooks into common good sense. When she turned sixteen, she
could plot a course and navigate a ship from point to point within
a few leagues of error. When she was eighteen, she had proved her
mettle during battle by stepping over a crush of dead bodies to
take command of one of the heavy thirty-two pounders.

Two years
later, she stood at the helm of her own ship, the
Iron
Rose
.

Jonas had
served his apprenticeship on the
Black Swan
. While he had mostly learned to control his
violent urges under their mother’s watchful eye, he was too much
like his grandfather and given to magnificent rages passed down
through the Spence bloodline. Gabriel, on the other hand,
had
benefited
from the
tutelage of Geoffrey Pitt and therefore had come to appreciate the
lethal difference a rational, clear-thinking head could
make.

Her father
stood with Pitt by the unlit fire in the hearth, the two men
speculating, no doubt, on the stir it would cause up and down the
Spanish Main when it became known a Dante had captured one of
Spain’s most celebrated warships.

Isabeau,
Gabriel, and Pitt’s wife Christiana sat together by the open french
doors that led to the veranda. In all her life, Juliet could have
counted on the fingers of one hand the number of times her mother
had voluntarily shed her breeches and doublet for the more feminine
trappings of a skirt and bodice. The surprise of seeing her dressed
tonight in a gown of pale blue silk was surpassed only by the
pleasure of seeing her father in full court regalia, complete with
the decorative, gold-embossed baldric and the sword Gloriana had
presented him following the demise of the Spanish Armada.

Gabriel was his
usual cool and fashionable self, his hair curling in glossy waves
over his collar, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the
ankles. Jonas had changed into dry clothes, but since his wardrobe
rarely varied from brown breeches, leather doublet, and billowing
white camlet shirt, there was little difference in his
appearance.

The last
familiar face able to put a faint smile on Juliet’s face was
Lucifer who, after all these years, had still not acquired a liking
for more clothes than he could remove with a flick of the wrist. He
stood behind Simon Dante like a glowering watchdog, black as sin,
dressed in half breeches and a striped doublet. He had been
guarding the pirate wolf’s back for three decades and it was his
bald head that turned now, his gaze drawn to where Juliet stood
unobserved in the doorway.

Though his face
seemed not to have aged in all the years she had known him, the
patterns and whorls of dotted tattoos had grown and spread. From
the earliest markings that had pinwheeled across his cheeks, the
inkings had spread down his throat and across the gleaming black
marble of his chest and shoulders. There were even characters
etched on the pendulous bulk of his sex—a testament to his
threshold for pain—a cobra’s head whose body swelled and stretched
into layers of gleaming scales when roused.

Lucifer’s lips
parted around a murmured word to his captain before widening into
an enormous grin. It was a sight that normally sent grown men
cringing, for his huge white teeth had been filed into wickedly
sharp points. When she was a child, Jonas had told her he had
sharpened them for tearing his enemies apart and eating their
entrails. The truth was somewhat less dramatic, for the filings
were the mark of a great warrior in the village where he had been
born.

Some of
that warrior-like bloodlust came through in the snarl that brought
him striding to the doorway. There, he did something she had only
seen him do on very rare occasions: he offered a deep and formal
bow to salute the great victory of the
Iron Rose
and acknowledge the courage of her
captain.

“You have done
us proud, Little Jolly,” he said, addressing her by the nickname he
had used since she was a child. “You have learned well on the heels
of your brothers. So well they sulk and scowl now like mewling
chicks.”

“We are not
scowling,” Gabriel protested. “In fact, I stand in awe of our
little sister,” he added, rising to his feet, “and have no doubt
that in time, she will bring us back the entire Spanish fleet. By
hell’s burning flames, we could probably send her to Spain and she
would bring back Felipe himself, still seated on his throne.”

Geoffrey Pitt
came forward and took up her hand, bestowing a gallant kiss.
“Ignore the great buffoon. He is as jealous... and as proud... as
the rest of us. Fifty-two guns, by God, and you took her with
barely a scratch. The cannon alone are worth twice their weight in
silver bars for the Spanish are particular about the quality of
brass they use in the castings.”

“I understand
you deserve congratulations as well. Another boy, is it? You’ll
have enough soon to fill the crew of your new ship.”

Over his
blushes, she gave him an enormous hug and kiss then walked over to
Christiana. She was petite and dark haired, possessing the face of
a cherub and the body of a waif despite giving birth to thirteen
babes.

Juliet
reached into her doublet and drew out a small, satin-wrapped packet
which contained a large square cut emerald Nathan had found on
the
Santo
Domingo
.

“For the new
baby,” she said, kissing her aunt on both cheeks. “Have you named
him yet?”

Christiana
laughed and shook her head. “Alas no. We have run out of fathers,
grandfathers, uncles and cousins to honor, so now we must just wait
and see which name suits him.”

Juliet smiled,
but she was distracted by the fact they were the only two speaking.
Everyone’s eyes were on her, some more expectantly than others, all
of them tense with curiosity.

A further
glance noted that the sack Crisp had deposited inside the doorway
had not been opened yet.

“You show
amazing restraint, brothers dear,” she murmured, then added
casually: “Silver. There are more than fifty crates of bullion in
her hold, along with an equal number packed with gold, pearls,
spices, even a few hundredweight of copper plating. I’ve barely
scanned the manifests myself, but by all means, help yourself.”

Jonas and
Gabriel reached the sack in two strides. They had the neck open and
the contents spilled on the desk before their father’s laughter had
stopped echoing around the room.

The next hour
was spent pouring over the cargo manifest, toasting each new and
incredible discovery—some Juliet was not even aware of—and making
crude calculations as to the value of the prize. An accurate tally
would be impossible until each crate was unloaded, the contents
weighed and assayed, but as a general, extremely conservative
estimate, Geoffrey Pitt put the worth at well over two hundred
thousand English pounds, a staggering sum when held against the
normal cargo of a treasure galleon which averaged between thirty
and fifty thousand.

There was
silence again, as Pitt redid his sums, but even if he was generous
by half, which was not likely, it was easily the richest single
prize taken since Drake had raided the treasure train at Nombre de
Dios.

It was also the
practical side of Pitt that prompted him to refuse another refill
of wine and exchange a frown with Simon Dante. “Why would a warship
be carrying so much?”

“And of such
variety,” Juliet added, thankful she was not the only one who could
see past the dazzle of gold to question the nature of the treasure
itself. “The gold bars were minted at Baranquilla, the silver at
Vera Cruz, the emeralds from Margarite, and some of the spices are
clearly off the Manilla galleons. It’s almost as if she made a
circuit of the Main and took on all the extra cargo the other ships
could not hold.”

“What do we
know about the captain... Aquayo, was it?” Simon asked.

Pitt
searched a memory filled with countless volumes of facts and
figures. “Diego Flores Aquayo. He comes from Seville. His uncle was
the Duke of Medina Sidonia,
capitán
-
general
of
la
Invencible
Armada. A
galleon of the
Domingo’s
size
and worth would have been a plum appointment from the king, but I
agree he wouldn’t have taken on so much cargo unless he was
planning to return to Spain. I am somewhat surprised, however, that
he would have risked it by attacking an English merchant ship,
especially one that was not looking for a
confrontation.”

“
I
suspect the attack was more the initiative of his first officer,
the
capitán
del navio.
” Juliet said.
“He was definitely well seasoned. His name was Recalde,” she added,
looking at Pitt. “Don Cristobal Recalde.”

“The garrison
commander at Nombre de Dios?”

Juliet
nodded. “I didn’t realize it at the time, unfortunately, for we
were a little busy trying to manage three hundred prisoners, but he
seemed to know me—or at least
of
me.
He called me
la rosa de hierro
, and said I was a bitch, just like my mother. I took it as
a compliment,” she said, smiling at Isabeau.

Isabeau
frowned. “You said the
Argus
had already surrendered, yet this Captain Recalde was
continuing to hull her?”

Juliet
nodded again. “We didn’t see the opening salvos—there was a thick
haze that morning and a squall had just passed by, but the English
lieutenant said that the galleon had turned deliberately off her
course to give chase. By the time we closed, the
Argus
was in shambles, her crew was
screaming to surrender, and the Spaniard had arquebusiers in the
tops firing down on them like ducks in a pond. They were not
intending to take any prisoners, and we found incendiary loads in
some of the cannon, suggesting they were going to burn anything
left afloat. It was almost as if... ”