Running feet approached the hold. Eregard wished he could disappear, the way the warrior priests of the Redai were said to do.
“The captain’s manifest lists a cargo of Pelanese sherry!”
one loud voice said. Even though he could not see them, Eregard could tell they were now in the hold itself, from the way their voices echoed.
“Good, we’ll have one tonight to celebrate taking this fine prize,” was the gruff reply. “There are rats in this hold, Laston. Rats. Big ones.”
“Really?” Laston finally caught the joke and guffawed.
“Oh, of a certainty, rats! Well, we have no cat, so we shall have to turn ratter ourselves!”
Footsteps, more footsteps, then the sound of a bale being shoved aside. A woman’s terrified cry.
“Found one, sir!” another voice whooped. “A big fat one!”
Dame Alendar!
Eregard thought, feeling a wave of sick horror.
I should do something!
But what could he do? From the sound of them, there were at least three or four pirates in the hold.
The dame was sobbing now. Her captors ridiculed her, hooting and making vulgar sounds. Eregard heard smacks and the sound of ripping cloth.
They’re toying with her, as
though they were indeed cats and she a mouse …
Another bale moved. He heard a bitten-off scream, then a child’s querulous, pleading voice.
Eregard clamped his teeth into this lower lip and tried not to hear.
“Another one, sir!”
For the next few minutes pirates rousted terrified passengers from their hiding places. Footsteps passed their spot
several times, but, for a miracle, they were not discovered.
The hold was now filled with wails and sobs from the unhappy passengers. The captives pleaded, telling of those who would ransom them back on Pela.
Eregard lay still as the pirates passed his hiding place again. There was the sound of bales moving, then a muffled shriek.
“Sir, sir! Here we have a pretty one!” The sobbing girl stumbled past their refuge, dragged by two pirates. “Sir, she’s prime! We can have our sport now, afore we take her to the captain!”
There was the sound of ripping cloth, a shriek of terror, then the sound of a blow. Laston cursed. The pirate officer’s voice was cold. “Leave her be, Laston. She’s young, and likely a maiden. She’ll fetch more on the block intact—and don’t you forget it!”
A shrill scream, and loud sobbing. “No! No!”
Ripping cloth, then the officer spoke again. “Here! This one is no maiden, and she’s round enough to make any seaman a comfy couch, Laston. Look at those udders, why, a cow might envy her. You can have this one.”
Wails and babbled protests from Dame Alendar. “No!
Please, please no, my husband, he’s in the colonies, he’ll pay, please …”
The sound of ripping cloth again, then Alendar began shrieking in earnest.
Beside Eregard, Regen moved. Before the Prince could do more than gasp, the manservant slithered out of hiding in one smooth motion. Eregard crawled after him and caught just a glimpse of Regen’s feet and legs, then the older man strode out of his range of vision.
The report of the pistol was shockingly loud in the confines of the hold.
Before Eregard was even sure that he was moving, he found himself halfway out of the hiding place. He staggered to his feet, then stood there, gaping. Dame Alendar, her gown ripped from bodice to crotch, screamed mindlessly as she lay back against a bale of cloth, her lower body pinned by the still-twitching body of a pirate. Regen had shot the man in the back of the head. The manservant stood proudly, head up, not even trying to reload. At a gesture from the officer, two other pirates raced forward.
“Well, here we have a brave old geezer,” the pirate officer, a short, strong-looking man with a horseman’s bowed legs said. “You just deprived me of a good cooper, sirrah. Unless you can take his place, I’m going to have to punish you in like manner as you punished him.”
Regen did not move as the two armed pirates grabbed him and marched him over until he stood before the pirate officer. “Are you a cooper, then? Or something equally as useful? You may join us if you’ve a skill we need,” the pirate said, cleaning his nails with the point of his dagger. “ ’Tis a rarity to find a codger so brave, who can shoot straight.”
“Regen—” Eregard said, trying to reach him. He was grabbed from behind and halted; the grip on his arm felt like an iron manacle.
Regen did not look over at the Prince. He stared down his prominent nose at the pirate. “I have many skills, but I would rather die than turn pirate,” he said disdainfully.
The officer shrugged. “Fine.” He nodded at the man on Regen’s right, and, with no more care than Eregard would have given to squashing a flea, the man’s hand rose and whipped across Regen’s throat in a blur of steel and flesh.
Both pirates stood back as the old man turned, grabbing at his throat, his eyes bulging. Regen gave a strangling, bubbling gasp, then his crimsoned hands fell away and his knees buckled. Hot blood sprayed out, catching Eregard and his captor across the face.
Regen fell, twitched once, then lay still. The flow of blood across the deck spread, slowed, and finally stopped.
Eregard stood there in shock, then his stomach revolted and he fell to his knees, retching.
“Boq’urak’s balls!” his captor swore, dancing out of the way so his boots would remain unsmirched. “Get up, you!”
Eregard knelt there, his mouth hanging open, a rope of
vile spittle spinning its way down from his lower lip. He stared at Regen and could not believe that he was dead.
This
is a nightmare,
he thought.
It can’t be happening. It can’t
be …
With all the will that was in him, he tried to wake up.
Instead of opening his eyes back in the palace in Minoma, however, the Prince was seized again and dragged to his feet.
“What shall I do with this one, sir?”
“Take them all up on deck,” the pirate officer decided. “And take the guts up, too, and toss them to the fishes. We’re taking the prize back with us, and we don’t want the hold to stink.”
“Aye, sir.”
Eregard felt the pirate reach around him and relieve him of the small dagger he wore on his belt, then a hard hand shoved him toward the ladder. He staggered forward, then found himself climbing.
Moments later he stood blinking in the light of day, staring in shock at the carnage all around him. The
Lass
’s crew had fought bravely, and the angry pirates had given no quarter indeed. In places, the deck was awash with blood, and when Eregard’s captor pushed him forward, the Prince skidded in one congealing mess and nearly fell. “Move!” his captor barked, shoving him again.
This time he did lose his balance, and fell jarringly onto his hands and knees. When he stood again, his hands were red and sticky. Eregard gagged and retched again, but his stomach was already empty.
He glanced up at the position of the Sun and realized that only an hour or so had gone by since they’d seen the pirate signal. Eregard stumbled forward under his captor’s prodding.
The pirates had gathered all the captives on the foredeck, separated into two groups—the passengers who were to be ransomed, and those who would be sold as slaves. Dame Alendar was sobbing as she clutched the rags of her dress around her. Her face was bruised and blood trickled from a torn lip. Yet she was one of the lucky ones, for she was with the prisoners who would be ransomed by their loved ones.
The younger, stronger passengers, especially the servants, were in a second group, and it was there that Eregard’s captor took him.
Pirates paced around the passengers like wolves scenting wounded prey. Every so often one would pounce, then retreat with a bauble torn from a woman’s ear or a ring yanked from a trembling hand.
Eregard saw one man, not tall, but still imposing, who had a shaven head and wore an expensive silk dressing gown over his bare and muscled torso. His cutlass was a fine one, with a gold-chased guard and grip. The captain, he guessed.
The man strutted up to the cringing slave-captives and looked them over. “Cap’n!” the man behind Eregard said.
“Can’t we have some fun wi’ ’em? We ain’t had no fresh arse in a long time. Them whores in Cape Raldi is all startin’
t’look alike!”
The captain regarded the two captive serving girls, who cowered back under his gaze. “Not those two,” he said. “If they’re maids, they’ll fetch a fine price. Have your fun with yon dame,” he said, jerking his head at Alendar.
Several of the sailors approached the dame with purposeful strides, grinning like fiends from some foul netherworld.
Eregard turned his head away when the screams began.
Someone must have gagged the woman at some point, because they stopped after a few minutes. There was only the grunting and gasping from the pirates.
Eregard swayed on his feet as spots danced before his eyes. He was beyond horror, beyond terror.
“Aw, Captain,” Eregard’s captor complained, “I don’t want t’stand in line, and I surely don’t want
her
. She’s too old and fat for sport. Let me have one of the young’uns.”
“Use the lads if you want,” the pirate officer said. “But no touching the maids, Drenn.”
Drenn chuckled, and the Prince found himself seized from behind again. “You heard the captain. How about this one, lads? He ain’t pretty, but he’s young, and I’ll bet his butt’s virgin and tight! Let’s ’ave a look at ye, lad!”
Drenn grabbed the Prince’s jacket, then fingered the material. “Nice! That’ll look just fine on me.” He began dragging the garment off over Eregard’s arm.
“No!” The threat roused Eregard from his daze. He swung at Drenn with his unencumbered arm, driving his fist into the pirate’s eye. The pirate’s head snapped back with the blow, and he howled with rage and pain.
Eregard backed away, but he was surrounded by a circle of pirates, laughing with coarse good humor. One grabbed him and shoved him staggering back into Drenn’s reach.
The pirate was an experienced brawler, and Eregard had never exchanged blows except with the court boxing instructor. The Prince put up his fists and tried to defend himself, but he was lost from the first.
Three hard left jabs that moved with blurring speed split both lips, bloodied his nose, then opened his left cheekbone.
The pain was blinding. Eregard staggered back, his hands going up to his face, tears of pain flooding his eyes. A hard right was driven deep into his gut, and he could no longer breathe. He hadn’t even known he was falling until he crashed to the deck.
He lay there, gasping like a sea creature stranded on a rock, struggling for air. Finally his lungs filled again, and it was bliss simply to breathe.
He lay there unresisting as Drenn came over, yanked off his jacket and appropriated it, then dragged off his loose linen tunic. “Fine stuff!” the brigand crowed.
Hauling the dazed Prince to his feet, the pirate dragged him over to one of the barrels of cargo that had fallen on its side, then pushed the younger man down until he was lying over it. Eregard tried to struggle, but it was all he could do to breathe. Blood choked him, flooding his mouth.
He felt the man’s hands reach beneath him, grab at his trousers, yanking them open, then pulling them down. The breeze touched his buttocks with gentle coolness.
“All right, lads, line up!” Drenn shouted.
Eregard thrashed in mindless terror.
“Hey, Drenn, sure you want to do that?” one of the pirates hooted, laughing. “That lad’s so terrified that he’ll let ’is bowels fly loose all over you, see if he doesn’t!”
Another pirate hooted. “You want a dirty cock, Drenn?
Didn’t know that was your fancy!”
More laughter. “Just look at that fat arse of his a’quivering!”
Drenn hesitated, then stepped back. “You’re right, lads.
I’m not riskin’ it. Ugly fat bugger, anyhow. But I’m not lettin’ him off with no punishment for givin’ me this shiner.
Here, hand me that sword.”
The Prince heard the ring of steel being drawn from a sheath, then a line of white-hot pain lanced across his rear, accompanied by a resounding smack. The pirates hooted encouragement as Drenn’s blows landed again and again.
Finally, whether by accident or design, Eregard did not know, the edge caught him and he felt the blade slice his flesh.
“Damn it, Drenn, enough!” the captain roared. “You’ve marked him but good, he’ll have a scar to the end of his days. I want him
salable
, rot you!”
The slapping blows ceased. Eregard slumped over the barrel, his head swimming with pain and fear.
Drenn kicked his thigh. “Pull up your pants, lad. And don’t ever swing on me again.”
Eregard pushed himself up to his knees, then managed to yank his pants up. “Get up!” Drenn ordered.
The Prince tried to comply, but his knees buckled. The roaring in his ears was louder than ever, and he could not tell whether it was the pirates, or the blackness that was pressing him down, engulfing him, sending him into blessed oblivion …
The next few days passed in a blur of misery, hunger, and pain. The captives were herded onto one of the pirate ships, chained together on deck, then
The Merry Widow
set sail for the northwest.
At first Eregard was barely conscious and could hardly see out of his swollen eyes. His backside throbbed so horribly that
he could not sit up, even if he had been strong enough to do it.
He lay on his side, or on his stomach, eyes shut, huddled under the scrap of blanket that was his only protection from the chill night air. Days and nights passed in a blur of feverish misery, and he scarcely knew where he was or what was happening.
On the morning of the fourth day he awoke, clear-headed, to find himself shackled at the end of the line of captives. He was hooked to a dark-skinned young man in his thirties who wore his hair cropped, as house servants did in the colonies.
Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself up until he was kneeling on the deck. His buttocks were still sore, but no longer throbbing with heat. “Where are they taking us?” the Prince whispered, his voice emerging as a hoarse croak. He hadn’t spoken to anyone since the day they’d been captured.