Seize the Fire (25 page)

"What's wrong?" she hissed.

"Democracy at work," he said sourly. "We're voting on whether or not to break off our anchor and drift onto those rocks."

She turned an appalled glance in the direction he indicated. Downwind of them, the surf smashed in white explosions against the barren shore. She stared back up at him. "Is that a joke?"

He ignored her, watching the argument keenly. A few spoke up in favor of Sheridan's assessment, but no one held onto that opinion for long in the face of Buckhorse's reloaded pistol. In a few moments, it was unanimous: Sheridan was wrong.

"Goddamned terrific," he said under his breath.

"What's 'at, Drake?" Buckhorse demanded. "You got a word for the rest of us t' hear?"

Sheridan smiled gloomily. "Just voicing a small personal aversion to shipwreck twice in one voyage. Since we all seem entitled to an opinion."

"O-pinion, says 'e. I ain't all that worrit 'bout yer o-pinion. Makes me suspicious, then, that ye got a maggot fer messin' wiv this 'ere ship so prompt-like an' all." He waved the gun. "T' rest o' ye—get that boat back in t' water. Mr. Gennelman Drake's got somethin' important to show us that I reckon 'e ain't all that anxious t' show."

It took three times as long to lower the pinnace as it should have. Sheridan sat down on a hatch cover and kept his mouth shut concerning the various blunders, partly out of bad temper but mostly out of self-preservation. When the boat was riding empty and reckless on the heavy sea, pounding into the hull with every wave, Buckhorse stepped back and gestured toward the ladder.

"You first, Drake. Then yer sister."

Sheridan glanced at him in consternation. Bringing Olympia along, and all the reasons for it, was an ominous sign indeed. But Cal shoved him in the back, sending a shaft of pain through Sheridan's ribs. He nodded and went while Buckhorse was busy arming Cal and himself with ammunition and three extra pistols apiece—enough firepower to kill a round dozen of inconvenient comrades.

Climbing down the Jacob's ladder and into the wildly sawing boat was no casual effort. With spray splattering his face and green water washing past, Sheridan gauged his moment and leapt, landing with a jolt that paralyzed him for an instant of sharp misery before he caught his balance against the gunwale and glanced up.

Olympia was leaning over the rail, looking terrified. Cal and Buckhorse didn't appear much happier about the prospect of going over the side on a hemp ladder into a boat that was swaying outward a full man's height with every rise and fall. But Buckhorse was prodding at Olympia. With one petrified glance at him, she gathered her cloak around her and scrambled out over the rail as Sheridan had done, clinging to the comforting web of shrouds that descended from the mast above. His heart rose in his throat as he saw her tilt backward when the ship rolled. Buckhorse was covering his own apprehension by yelling at her, reaching as if to push her hands off the safety of the shrouds.

"Avaaast there!"
Sheridan's roar of command could have carried from stem to bow of a triple-decked ship of the line. It sent Buckhorse flinching back.
"Don't you touch her!"
Sheridan's ribs protested with piercing agony as he bellowed, but he had no time to think of that. He began working to ship the rudder, lashing it to one side. "You frigging bastard," he muttered. "You bloody damn bastard." He looked up and cupped his hand around his mouth.
"Olympia.! Listen to me! Listen!"

She gave no sign in reply, only clung there riding the slick platform of the shroud channel, with her cloak whipping in the wind.

"Nod!" He kept his voice strong and steady, absolutely confident—the only way to deal with white-faced midshipmen and panicked princesses. "Nod your head twice."

She made two quick jerks, her hair straggling in spray-darkened strands around her.

"What d'ye think—"

"Silence!"
The command cut across Buckhorse's objection, as cocksure as if there'd been a bos'n with a rattan cane standing behind the convict to back it up with painful clarity. "Olympia," Sheridan barked. He was working frantically to lengthen the painter and hoist the lagsail. "When I say
step,"
he shouted over the flapping of the sail, "you take one. Down. Not one instant before or one second late. Understand?"

She didn't move.

"Understand, mister?"
he roared.

She made a quick nod.

"Step!"

She put one foot gingerly on the first rung. Sheridan threw himself into the stem sheets, pulling the tiller free with one hand and handling the line from the madly cracking sail with the other. The boat fell back, canvas filling.

"Step!"

She obeyed him. Sheridan gauged the pinnace's roll, which was considerably stabilized by the sail.

"Step!"

She did it, low enough now that foam splashed her feet when the ship wallowed down in a wave. He sent the helm hard over, took a fast turn to lash it and stood up as the pinnace's stern worked in toward the hull.

A wave lifted the boat.
"Step!"
Sheridan reached for her.
"Now! All the way!"
His shoulder seams ripped as he flung his arm around her. He stumbled back, hauling her with him, a killing crack in the ribs as they collapsed together on the thwart. "Good girl!" he shouted, and buried his face in her neck. "You did it, you did it—you're a hell of a princess." He kept the last words between his teeth, with her wet hair whipping in his face, her body shaking and trembling in his lap. He gave her an instant's elated squeeze and pushed her off.

Buckhorse had gotten himself over the rail and halfway down the oscillating ladder. Sheridan looked up and felt a sudden devil take hold of his soul.

With a vicious grin, he freed the tiller and deliberately sent the boat swaying out away from the ladder. Buckhorse was fumbling at the next rung, looking over his shoulder. He yelled angrily and Cal pointed a pistol at them over the rail.

Sheridan reconsidered, having done it out of nothing but sheer malice and the tumult of the moment—but in the instant the pinnace began to swing inward, a bloodcurdling report cracked through the air as anchor cable three inches thick fractured under intolerable strain. The ship lurched. The ladder snapped sideways. Buckhorse grappled wildly, lost his footing and hung screeching and twisting from the rope.

"Cast off!" Sheridan shouted. He sprang past Olympia and threw off the painter. The pinnace slewed, fell away from the massive hull that bore down on them, then steadied and plunged ahead under his hand while
Phaedra
slid rapidly astern. Sheridan looked back to see Buckhorse still twisting frantically, with Cal hauling at the ladder and the rest of the crew scattering to man the yards as the ship drifted backward with the sundered end of her anchor chain dangling a foot out of the hawsehole.

There was one faint pop above the wind and waves: a pistol report, but the bullet never came near them.

"I knew it!" Sheridan howled. "God, I knew she'd break loose. Serves 'em right." He pulled a bucket from beneath his feet, where three inches of frigid water sloshed briskly as they rode the waves, and tossed the thing toward Olympia. "Here's to anarchy, Princess. Bail!"

Where are we going?" Olympia cried. "Aren't we going back?"

"To those hellhounds?" Sheridan leaned out over the side of the boat, weighting it down against the wind. "Get up on this side. Bail, damn it."

She splashed water overboard with the bucket. Her fingers were numb already, her arms shaking with fear and cold. It was one more terror on top of all the others, to be suddenly down at the level of the waves where the crests rose like living things and broke at a height with her head, splattering her cloak with foam.

"Are we going to land?" she called desperately. "What are you
doing?
"

He glanced back at
Phaedra.
The wind plastered his hair against his woolen cap. When he turned forward again he seemed to Olympia like some mad sea devil, laughing amid this chaos, his eyes the color of the sliding shadow in each wave trough. "God knows," he yelled. "But at least we won't be shot in cold blood by the likes of Mr. Buckhorse."

Olympia bailed, looking over her shoulder at the ship's tall form. Only her tall masts were clearly visible now from the boat's perspective down among the tossing waves. Some of the sails had broken free, pale blossoms against the gray sky. "But
Phaedra!
Will she go on the rocks?"

"How should I know? They're probably still voting on it."

Olympia pressed her lips together. The spray-laden wind stung her cheeks. Between buckets, she kept straining to look over her shoulder. More sail came free, clothing
Phaedra's
masts. "What if she does? What about Mustafa?"

He only tilted back his head to check the sail, wiping water from his face with one arm without answering.

"Are you just going to abandon him?" she cried.

"Certainly. But I daresay it won't work."

"We have to go back! We can fight Buckhorse."

"Are you crazy?" He ducked spray from a wave. It splattered onto his trousers and boots. "Just who do you propose to fight him?"

Olympia glared at him. "Not
you,
of course—you cowardly blackguard!"

"Right-ho. If I could get a good, clear shot at his back, I might have a go, but there's not much chance of that."

"You can't leave Mustafa," she wailed.

"I won't go back!" he shouted. "They were going to kill us, blast you! We'll drown anyway if you don't move that bucket with some sign of enthusiasm."

"He's your friend! Your comrade! If you were any kind of a man—" Olympia broke off and bailed water madly. "What if the ship wrecks?"

"Well, I can't help the damned ship—" He broke off, doubled over in a cough and then caught his breath. "Greedy…bastards. They wrote their own death warrant on that. Just couldn't spare half an hour to clear the cable before they got to their bleeding jewels."

"My
jewels! And it wasn't Mustafa's fault. Or my maid's."

"Did you hear what I said?" he yelled. "They—" He lost his voice in another choking cough, gripped the tiller with both hands and added hoarsely, "They were going to kill us! I got a chance and I took it." He gulped a shuddering breath. "I'm not going back and risk my neck on some bleeding-heart…charity mission for that lot. Mustafa didn't have to come after me, and he knows it. Neither did you, or that skinny little…baggage who tried to tell Buckhorse you weren't my sister." His face looked demoniac. "That bitch can drown and be damned to 'er."

"You…are…despicable." She tossed water with savage fervor. "Despicable!"

"Fine. And you're alive. Stick with me, and maybe you'll stay that way."

"Coward! Craven swine! I wish I'd never laid eyes on you." She dropped the bucket and wrung her freezing fingers together. "I wish—" A sudden harsh sob shook her. She turned away from him, facing the wind. "Oh, God."

"Ditto," he snapped. "Bail."

In spite of his declaration, Sheridan kept the pinnace within sight of
Phaedra.
Not because he gave a damn about anybody else's neck, of course, but because he'd told his princess the ugly truth: he really didn't know what he was going to do.

Landing on the island was out of the question. There were still a dozen desperate convicts ashore, and if they saw
Phaedra
go down, they'd be in a killing mood. If the ship managed to escape, Buckhorse—or Cal, if Buckhorse had by some divine providence lost his hold on the ladder and fallen in—would be all over that rock looking for the jewels. And for Sheridan.

He was utterly certain that they'd planned a mass execution. He'd seen the extra pistols Cal and Buckhorse had stuffed in their pants. Not that Sheridan could blame them; it made perfect sense from a blackguard's point of view. They could get rid of all witnesses and claim they'd never found any jewels when they got aboard again. Just good business. Why split the loot any further than it had to go?

That was the one redeeming thing about brutes like Buckhorse. They were so wonderfully predictable.

The weather was thickening, gray showers moving across the tossing desolation, pelting sleet against his face—a new misery added to his list of woes. He snarled a directive at Olympia and came about, using
Phaedra's
sails as a heading. The merchant ship was backed under her forecourse and falling off the wind. They'd either found a real sailor somewhere or gotten luck they didn't deserve. As he watched,
Phaedra
braced up sharp and began slowly to move, under control and off the rocks.

He chewed his frozen lip. It was too numb to hurt, but he drew blood. He could taste it.

For a long minute he stared with narrowed eyes—not at
Phaedra,
but at the figure huddled with him in the boat. She was still bailing. Between buckets, she put her fingers to her mouth, sucking to warm them.

Not exactly the companion he would have chosen for this—but he had run out of choices.

"Look lively," he said. "We have an appointment on the other side of town."

Bracing his leg on the rudder, he gritted his teeth against the host of reawakened cramps and bruises and hauled on the mainsheet. The pinnace bounced and took a cold drenching, nosing up close to the wind, turning away from
Phaedra
toward thirty miles of riptide, open sea and forbidding weather; heading—Sheridan very sincerely hoped—for the invisible shore of English Maloon.

After hours, Olympia's jaw no longer hurt from clenching it against the cold. She simply couldn't feel it at all.

It was snowing now, the flakes blurring her vision as they clung to her eyelashes. Her feet had gone to aching numbness long ago, her shoes and stockings were soaked in the frigid water that sloshed in the bottom of the boat.

But she kept bailing. It seemed the only thing to do. Her fingers were so stiff she could hardly hold the bucket, but always there were the waves, breaking again and again into the boat. She'd come to think of them as personal enemies, as malevolent sly beasts, that waited until she had nearly cleared the bilge and then rushed to swamp it again in a freezing torrent of white and green.