The Devil's Fire (11 page)

The silence was finally broken when Livingston appeared. "Keep your hands from them cutlasses, the both of you. What be this? A quarrel and no one tells me?"

"Doesn't need to be a quarrel," Griffith said.

"Aye," Magellan agreed, smiling suggestively.

"Hold on!" Livingston interjected. "What the bloody hell are you talking about? Of course it needs to be a quarrel! Without quarrel, I’d question the necessity of me job. I’ll have this done proper. We wait till morning so as everyone can see, per the usual rules."

"Not till we settle the terms," Magellan said.

Livingston threw his hands in the air. "Terms? A thousand hells! Name your bloody terms."

"I get a go with the girl after I kill the Cap'n."

Griffith shrugged. "If you kill me, she's all yours, though it's certain you'll be in for a few surprises once you have her. She bites."

The tall man grinned. "I'll cover me ears."

Griffith smirked. "That's not all she bites, I'm sure."

"At least I have the guts to find out."

"It's set then," Livingston said, clapping his hands. "Tomorrow morning."

Magellan smiled politely at Griffith and started on his way back to the celebration. The shorter men followed after him, glancing over their shoulders. When they were a good distance away, they broke into another fit of giggles.

Griffith smiled reassuringly to Katherine. "He won't kill me."

She shrugged. "Shame."

Livingston spat in disgust. "You’ll die for this bitch?"

"I won’t die," Griffith replied. "You know that."

"Aye, I know that. I was talking to Nathan."

Nathan looked up. "Me?"

"Never come between a pirate and his prey," Livingston said. "That man would have killed you."

Nathan looked at Katherine. Her eyes flickered toward him, and her lips vaguely curved into what might have been the hint of a smile.

"You did the right thing," Griffith said. He gave a nod of thanks before starting back up the beach. Livingston followed after him, sparing Nathan with a quick disapproving scowl.

"I hope he loses," Katherine muttered under her breath.

"It’s in your best interests that he doesn’t," Nathan replied.

She laughed bitterly. "My interests are no longer my own."

The next morning, the duel was the first order of business, and Nathan made certain that he had a place in the frontlines of the crowd.

Every pirate that had traveled to shore the prior night gathered round as Livingston informed the two participants of the regulations, though neither man needed any introduction. The quartermaster handed them their pistols and allowed them a moment to inspect their weapons. Magellan scrutinized his thoroughly, squeezing one eye shut and peering down the muzzle, checking the trigger and hammer, and finally nodding his approval. Griffith didn't spare his weapon with as much as a glance. Livingston positioned the two men with their backs to one another and instructed each to walk ten paces, turn, and discharge his weapon. The quartermaster then took a step back and shouted, "Go!"

The crowd held its collective breath as the two men steadily paced, neither seeming the slightest bit nervous. At ten paces they spun and aimed. Griffith's gun discharged with an ear-shattering crack, billowing white smoke. Magellan's pistol exploded in his hand, snapping out of his grasp and spiraling away. He yelped pitifully.

Griffith drew his cutlass and lunged forward, growling like an animal. Magellan took notice and raised his damaged hand in protest. When that failed to stop Griffith's charge, he went for his cutlass. Before he could pry it free of the sheath, Griffith was on him with his sword raised high. Magellan's high-pitched shriek ended abruptly as the cutlass's blade parted his head from his neck.

"It's six hundred pieces of eight for a lost right arm," Griffith yelled to the crowd. "It's a shame we never figured compensation for the head." He then kicked the decapitated head to the oncoming tide, blooding spurting from the neck in a morbid spiral.

The crowd's cheer was deafening.

Katherine watched through a foggy window in the captain's cabin as the shore tapered to a thin line, barely distinguishable along the horizon. Her journey had brought her to America as promised, though not in the company she would have liked, and now she was being whisked away from the New World just as swiftly as she had arrived. The experience was far too ephemeral for her to derive any lasting impressions.

She left the window and moved to the bed, soreness echoing throughout her limbs. The ache wasn't entirely unpleasant; her muscles felt taut, as though she had never used them to their full potential.

She propped herself upright on the mattress and crossed her legs under her petticoat, which spread out around her in a circle. She smoothed the ravaged skirt and plucked at loose strands of thread. Fancy dresses had no place on a pirate ship. If she continued at this rate, she would literally tear through her wardrobe in less than a month.

She examined her chest, noting that her skin had darkened to a fetching shade of copper, though there were still tinges of red here and there. She assumed that her face had taken on the same tone.

The wounds on her wrists were closing nicely, but they would leave scars. Her head no longer ached from the blow to her scalp, and the lesion seemed to be healing properly. She was thankful that the ghastly wound was cloaked by her thick hair.

The huskiness in her voice shocked her whenever she spoke, and she wasn't sure when, if ever, it would return to its original clarity. The water that the pirates had gathered from the estuary was a welcome change from rum, and it soothed her sore throat.

Her back throbbed where Griffith had stricken her with the oar, but that was a mere sting after hearing him utter her name. For the past several days her mind reeled over every conceivable possibility. The most horrible option she considered first and discarded swiftly thereafter; she would not entertain the notion that Thomas, her adoring husband, had surrendered her to this band of murderous thieves. Still, she had been puzzled from the beginning by Griffith's apparent knowledge of her hiding place prior to uncovering her. She recalled with a shudder the terrible moment he entered the room, and his deliberate footsteps toward the bed. Either this pirate was a remarkably deductive man, or he had been alerted to her hiding place beforehand. Neither accounted for him knowing her name. The ship was, of course, named
Lady Katherine
, but it had yet to be branded.

Inevitably, this process of thought led her back to her beloved Thomas. She remembered him conversing reasonably with the pirate captain. Surely he would not have spoken of his wife, as there was little reason for him to do so. He was not the type of man to prattle incessantly.

Her mind raced forward, feverishly scrolling through the blur of events that had transpired since her capture. Prior to speaking with the captain, she had only talked with one man: Nathan Adams. She had foolishly exchanged names with him, and of this she questioned him on the beach, but he denied giving her name to the captain. She didn't believe him. He seemed a nice enough boy, but she had to remind herself that he was a pirate, and lies came as naturally to a pirate as bad breath.

She sat in a bed for a long while, wondering what she might do to distract these lingering contemplations. Based on the steep angle of the sun's rays shining through the open windows, she guessed it was early afternoon. When her legs started to numb she crawled from the bed and paced round the room. Thanks to her time aboard
Lady Katherine
, she was no stranger to dawdling. She gradually made her way to the captain's desk and dropped into the chair.

A map of the West Indies was spread across the desk. She spent the remaining hours of daylight studying the map. She put her index finger to the east coast of Florida and slid it south, between Florida and the Bahamas. From there she curved westward and journeyed through the Straits of Florida. She trailed her finger over Havana and curved southward to hug the western corner of Cuba. She continued southeast along the Yucatan Channel and then passed beneath the Cayman Islands. She arrived on the southern side of Jamaica, halting to regard Port Royal.

She recalled a story she had heard in Lloyd's Coffee House on Lombard Street. She had accompanied Thomas there while he was on business. The proprietor of the coffeehouse, Edward Lloyd, published a shipping news for his patrons, and thus attracted many patrons of maritime interest. It was there that Katherine met a charismatic old-timer who told her a tale so biblical in proportion that she was inclined to disbelieve it, until Thomas confirmed it to be true. The old-timer claimed to have viewed the devastation firsthand, to which Thomas responded with a wry smirk, for it was unlikely. Port Royal, said the old-timer, was a bustling English colony that embraced piratical activity due to the profits it incurred. The governor wisely invited pirates to use the port as an unofficial base, thus sheltering the harbor with a fleet of dangerous ships that warded off Spanish and French attacks. Shopkeepers and merchants grew fat from the plunder that pirates brought them. In 1692 this errant prosperity came to a bloody end, seemingly by the hand of God Himself. A violent earthquake triggered a massive tidal wave that nearly swallowed the entire town, ending the lives of more than four thousand citizens.

Katherine presently paid her respects to the small blotch of ink that was Port Royal and started southeast. She set out across the expansively vacant Caribbean Sea, traveling what she approximated to be three hundred leagues before coming to Island de Blanco. She curved northeast from there, grazed the Windward Islands, and tilted sharply to the west to sail beneath Puerto Rico. She passed under Hispaniola and neared Port Royal once again as she rode the Jamaica Channel into the northeastern slant of the Windward Passage. At the exit of the passage she turned northwest and continued until she reached the island of New Providence in the Bahamas.

Nassau was the second name that she recognized from memory. She'd heard many of the pirates speak this name with bated breath, and she guessed that it was
Harbinger
's ultimate destination. However, unlike Port Royal, she knew little of Nassau.

She would have continued her study of the map if not for the dimming light. Nevertheless, by time she was done, she had fashioned a near flawless mental picture of each island's name, location, and port. When finally she looked across the room, anything beyond three feet was blurred by her closely-focused vision. She blinked until it cleared.

The door swung open. Griffith entered with a candle that flooded the room with its dusky orange radiance. Katherine suppressed an urge to spring from the chair. She forced a nonchalant expression.

"Appointed yourself captain already, have you?" he said. When she didn't laugh, he gestured to the chart. "It's the Caribbean."

"I can read," she replied flatly. She had her elbows on the chart, chin resting atop interlocking fingers.

"Naturally." He lit candles around the cabin and then moved to the liquor cabinet. "I thought we might share some wine."

"Thinking doesn’t become you."

"Really? And what does become me?"

"Murder."

After lengthy deliberation he opened the cabinet and produced a bottle of red wine. "I approach with great anticipation the day we end these pointless banters."

She started to her feet. He motioned for her to stay in the chair. He uncorked the bottle of wine and tilted its long neck her way. She curtly shook her head. He shrugged and threw back his neck for a hefty swig. She glanced at the polished cutlass dangling from his belt. When he finished, he offered her the bottle a second time.

"Perhaps just a sip."

He grinned and handed her the bottle. She arched her neck and pursed her lips to prevent any wine from seeping through, but the taste was so sweet on her lips that she couldn't help but part them just a little. The wine was delicious, but she allowed no more than a few droplets to spill onto her tongue.

An hour later, she was engaged in rapturous mirth with the pirate captain. They passed the bottle back and forth and she lost count of how many intended sips had become mammoth gulps.

"You weren't meaning to take any," Griffith said between swigs.

"Not at all!" she shouted, thinking for no particular reason that she wouldn't be heard unless she raised her voice to deafening decibels. "In fact, I was meaning to get you perfectly drunk before stealing away your cutlass and," she burst into cackling laughter, "and impaling you right through your heart. Assuming you have one."

The spasms in his stomach nearly knocked Griffith from the desk.

"I'm serious!" she said, feigning offense.

"I believe you," he replied, indicating his mauled ear.

Her chest heaved as she broke into a fresh set of giggles. "I can't believe I did that."

"Well, the evidence is plain for all to see, save for me. And what I cannot see must not exist so long as I ignore all evidence to the contrary."

"I should've done worse."

"And you may yet have the chance."

She frowned vacantly. The room contorted and she felt as though she was moving in slow motion. The bobbing of the ship and all the creaks and groans that came with it took on a sluggish, somber quality. Rising clearly amidst this slow chaos, a single question formed. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why am I on this ship?"

He shrugged. "You're beautiful."

"So I've been told," she whispered, with a distant, cynical smile.

"You don't believe it?"

"If there's one thing that has been made abundantly clear over the course of my life, it's that it doesn't matter what I believe."

"Katherine," he said, "you must be delirious not to see it."

"Perhaps it's the world that suffers delirium."

"No doubt it does," he conceded. "But I know beauty when I see it."

She stood up too quickly; her head felt like a dead weight on her shoulders. She swayed dumbly, struggling to gather her solemnity. "And you steal whatever catches your fancy?"