“You would see men die in agony because they did not embrace the same religion as you?”
She shook her head.
“It was battle. Our lives against theirs,” he said, wondering why he was trying to justify his actions. “I fought for the French and was taken prisoner by a Spanish nobleman. He sold me to your uncle when ransom was not paid.”
Her unusual eyes searched his for the truth.
“Over half the oarsmen are prisoners of war sold for coin to your uncle,” he continued. “Honorable men, many of them, but made into animals by your uncle. Expect little mercy from them.”
Her face looked stricken.
“We need help with some injured men,” he said. “You did well enough with me yesterday.”
“Is that a request or an order?”
“I do not make requests.”
“I will do it.” Her fingers knotted into a fist. “
For them.
Not because you ordered it.”
“Aye, you will,” he said. “You owe every man here. You and your family. We were rowing because you were hurrying to a rich marriage,” he mocked. “You and your fine clothing.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice as he remembered those last strokes of the whip. On both Denny and himself.
He had to maintain that anger. She was entirely too appealing, despite being Mendoza’s niece. He did not want to admire her. He did not want his body to react in treacherous ways, nor to feel the hot stirrings he had suppressed these past years.
Too long without a woman’s body
.
She stepped back from him. He wasn’t sure whether it had been his words or something in his eyes. “I had no choice in the matter. I did not wish to go to England. I was forced ...”
He stared at her for a moment, looking for the truth, but then it really did not matter. The only thing that mattered at the moment was keeping her alive. Getting more of the crew on her side. “Manuel will take you to where the injured are.”
“Carmita is coming with me? I . . . I do not want to leave her alone.”
“She can go. Manuel will stay with you. If there is any trouble he will come for me.”
Her eyes closed for a moment.
“Gracias.”
“Do not thank me,” he said shortly. “You should not have been aboard this ship. You are a complication. Try not to make yourself more of one.”
He had turned to go when she asked, “Who are you?”
He turned back to her. “On the ship? I was One. That means I lasted longer than anyone else. After me there is Two, Three . . . One Hundred arrived the same day you did. He might have lasted longer than the man he replaced, which was a little less than a month.”
Shock filled her face, widened her eyes. He wondered whether she believed him or not.
It doesn’t matter,
he told himself.
“You are a Scot,” she said.
“Aye.”
“How . . . long to be . . . One?”
“Nearly six years to my count,” he said. “Before that I rotted in a Spanish dungeon for a year.”
“I cannot do anything about that,” she said softly. “I wish I could. Words mean nothing, I know. I will try to help where I can.”
Regret in the soft voice sent frissions of heat through him. He did not see a lie in her eyes. He wanted to touch her cheek. It looked soft. It had been so long since he had touched anything soft. . . .
He fisted his hands into a fist.
They
weren’t soft. They were knotted with calluses.
Bloody hell, but he was going weak. The worst thing he could do was to touch her. He had forbidden her to the rest of the crew. He would lose any control if they thought . . .
He turned toward the door. “Manuel will be outside. We have a shortage of clean cloth to bind the injuries. Tear your chemises and bring them with you.”
Her face flared red.
“And anything else we can use,” he added. “I will be making sure that you do.” He purposely made his voice harsh. Bloody hell, but he wanted her terrified of him. He wanted her to do exactly as she was told. It might be the only way to save her.
It astounded him how she stood up to him, asked so many questions. She was intelligent enough to want to know her enemy. Or was she just waiting for a chance to take his dagger, to try again to plunge it into him?
“How many are injured?” she asked.
“Ten.”
“Does that include you?”
“Nay.”
Her gaze went down to his shirt that had turned pink from blood and rain.
“Will you be there?”
He shrugged. “Mayhap.”
He turned around and went out the door. He’d wanted to linger much too badly. To erase the memory of the stench of the rowing deck by smelling the rose scent of her. Even more, he wanted to ease his sore body into hers.
Manuel was waiting by the door.
“Take both of them to the surgery,” he said. “They will help the injured.”
“Si,”
the lad said. He looked as weary as Patrick felt, but he knew there would be precious little sleep for any of them in the next ten or twelve days.
“Stay with them. If there is any trouble, come for me.”
“There will be trouble,” the lad predicted.
Patrick knew he was right. There would be trouble, and he wasn’t sure whether his plan to alleviate some of the hatred against Mendoza and his family would work. Was he wrong in thrusting the women among them, hoping that some of the crew would see them differently?
If not, he would soon have another rebellion on his hands. He didn’t even know how far he could trust Diego and MacDonald.
His hold was tenuous at best. If the crew felt they could sail the ship, they might go with the Moors who were urging them to turn to piracy. If they didn’t learn, then another storm might well kill them all.
This one nearly did.
Inverleith.
It seemed as far away as ever.
Chapter 11
JULIANA was able to breathe again as the door shut behind the Scotsman.
His presence filled the room. Even after he left.
The anger was all too obvious in his reply when she’d asked who he was.
Just “One.”
But everything about him screamed he was far more than an ordinary Scot. From his speech and obvious natural leadership, he was probably a noble. And he’d said a ransom had been asked. That meant his family was known to have wealth.
Why hadn’t they paid the ransom?
A shudder ripped through her as she relived the quiet rage and barely suppressed violence in his voice.
She’d expected the worst when he’d entered. Sweet Mary, she’d expected the worst from the moment the mutineers took over the ship. She thought she would die during the storm, knowing that the ship was in the hands of slaves.
Surprisingly, she and Carmita were still alive. Still untouched. She didn’t know how long that would last, but she would grab every moment she could.
She also welcomed the idea of keeping occupied rather than waiting in this cabin for whatever fate awaited them. If she and Carmita proved their worth, then perhaps they would be set ashore somewhere.
A faint hope, but nonetheless a hope.
She wished she understood more of the tall Scot. She’d seen a flash of something like lust in his eyes, but he had not acted on it. Instead, it seemed to anger him.
“Carmita, help me sort what can be used as bandages,” she said to the girl.
“Do we have to leave the cabin, senorita?”
“I think we will be safer if we do. If we help . . .”
It was obvious from the look on Carmita’s face that she did not agree, but nonetheless she rose from the corner into which she’d tried to blend during the Scot’s presence and knelt next to the trunk.
Her new dresses spilled out. How enraged her father would be if he knew what had happened to the dresses he so hastily and at great expense had provided for her wedding.
He wouldn’t particularly care what happened to her, except for the loss of the union with the Earl of Chadwick’s son. But her mother . . .
The first tear fell down her cheeks. She had tried to hold them back. They would not accomplish anything but to give satisfaction to the barbarians who had murdered the entire crew. She thought of her mother and the fact that the woman would have no more hope; it was more than Juliana could bear. Would her
madre
ever know what became of her?
Juliana wiped the tear away and willed no others to follow. She saw Carmita’s quick glance and tried to explain. “I was thinking of
Madre
,” she said, trying to relieve Carmita’s new apprehensions. “I miss her.”
“
Si.
I, too.” She bit her lip. “There is no one to mourn me.”
“There will be no need to mourn,” Juliana said with more conviction than she felt. “If they were going to do anything, they would have done it. We must now make ourselves valuable to them.”
Carmita shuddered. “I do not know how.”
Juliana reached out and clasped her hand. “I do not, either, but we will learn together.”
Minutes later they had torn her five chemises and several underdresses into strips. She prayed it would be enough. Then she tried the door.
It was unlocked.
The boy, Manuel, stood straight against the opposite wall. Slight. Terribly young to have taken part in murder. But she knew he had. Just as all her captors had.
“The
capitán
said I was to take you to tend the injured,” Manuel said.
She didn’t try to argue that she knew little about tending wounds of any kind, much less challenge his description of the Scot as
capitán.
She followed him, Carmita at her side.
The surgery was crowded. It was little more than a large cabin. About the size of her uncle’s cabin. It had six cots, and now all were full, and several men were on the floor. A man splattered with blood seemed to be acting as a physician.
He was olive-skinned. A Moor, she knew instantly.
He regarded her with open curiosity.
“I . . . the Scot thought I could help,” she said.
“Any are welcome,” he said.
“Are you a physician?”
His smile was thin. “No. But I have experience with wounds.” He spoke in heavily accented Spanish. He paused. “Do you?”
“No. I can stitch, though, and I learn fast.”
“Then we begin.”
“I am Juliana,” she said. “This is Carmita.”
“My name is Kilil,” he said. His eyes were dark and unreadable. Neither friendly, nor hostile. Just . . . hard.
“What can we do?”
“A leg is smashed. I must cut it off and burn it. The upper leg should be tied off as I cut so he will not bleed to death.” His gaze never left her face, and she knew he was testing her.
She nodded, not knowing whether she could bear the man’s pain. But her life might well depend on it. As well as Carmita’s.
He nodded to two men who were in the background. They lifted a man onto a table. The wounded man moaned with pain as Kilil examined the mangled leg.
She winced. The leg was ripped open and a bone was protruding from a large gaping wound. Her legs barely held her. It was not the lack of courage on her part, at least she hoped not. It was the man’s agony.
Kilil gestured with his head toward a table. A box lay on its top as well as several bloody instruments. “Medicines.”
She opened the chest. Most of the bottles contained herbs she recognized. She knew herbs. Her mother loved gardening and had her own herb garden. There were also two bottles that contained a powder she did not recognize.
Opium
, according to piece of paper tied around the container.
Opium.
She had read about the powder. It came from the east and was rare but very valuable in Europe. It lessened pain. It was also said to destroy people.
The Moor looked at her with that inscrutable stare that was unsettling.
“There is opium here,” she said. “I have read about it. A very small amount can cut pain. And I can make a poultice for the wound.”
Kilil looked down at the man writhing on the table and nodded. “Make the mixtures,” he said.
Juliana found a jug of water and a tankard. She mixed a small amount of opium with water, then helped the injured man drink it as Carmita held his head. He tried to spit it back up.
“No,” she said softly. “It will help.”
He grabbed her hand. “Do not let the infidel take my leg,” he said.
She saw the Moor stiffen.
“He wishes to help you,” she said.
“I would not be a man.”
“Si,”
she said softly. “You will. Do you not have a family waiting for you? A wife? Children?”
The man quieted. Then she saw his eyes begin to close.
The Moor ran his fingers along a saw. The two men who had quietly watched now stepped up and grasped the injured man.
Then the Moor tied a piece of rope around the leg and showed her how to release and tighten the pressure.
Then he started to cut.
Despite the opium, the man bucked against the hold on him and screamed. Everything in her wanted to turn away and run. The sound of the saw on bone went straight through her, cutting a swath of pain as if she herself were feeling it. Every one of her nerves screamed with every crunch of bone.
“Loosen the rope,” the Moor said.
She did as he asked, even as the body on the table shuddered, trying to escape the pain.
Then he collapsed and went still.
The Moor, still emotionless, finished. Then he gestured toward a piece of linen on the table. He cut several pieces and pressed it against the wound, then gave a larger piece to Juliana. “Sew a cap around the stump,” he said.
He did not wait for an answer but went to the next man. Juliana fitted the linen around the pad and stump. To her surprise, Carmita was next to her, holding the cloth together as Juliana stitched.