The Pirate Captain (13 page)

She paced in circles, each pass a bit closer to the door. Nothing was said. No one seemed to notice. Steeling her nerve, she stepped over the coaming and waited in the shadow of the afterdeck’s overhang.

Nothing.

She inched further. A few of the hands nodded as they passed, casual and noncommittal. A few inches further brought notice in the way of raised eyebrows and men elbowing each other to exchange significant looks. Pirates they might be, but they were still sufficient creatures of tradition to stare at the scandalous sight of a woman in pants. It made her even more aware of her bare calves, the visible division of her legs and her rear for all to see.

This is going to be more difficult that I thought.

She was instantly struck by a difference in atmosphere. Captain Chambers’ deck had been a quiet deck, “Silence fore and aft!” a common cry. The
Constancy
hadn’t been a tyrannical vessel, although more than once she had seen a man started with the same bludgeon Mastiff had brandished at her. Compared to
Constancy
’s guarded reserve, this was cheerier, a chatty ship. For such a barbarous rabble, to find slovenly disorder on the verge of mayhem would have been no surprise. Instead, the decks were scrubbed to whiteness, the smell of fresh paint wafting in the air. Brass, or any other surface which could be induced to shine, gleamed. The sheets hung on their pins or kevels in close-ordered ranks.

Alert for any sight or sound of Scarface, who had attacked her yesterday, she glanced about, hoping to see Nathan. From overhead came Nathan’s voice, ragged and torn, like someone just awakened from a deep sleep. Inching further took her into the blaze and warmth of the sun. She shaded her eyes and saw him on the quarterdeck. In essence the roof of the Great Cabin, the afterdeck was bracketed by a pair of elegantly curved stairs with scrolled rails and balustrades. With as much dignity as could be gathered, all the while expecting to be sent back like a recalcitrant pup, she mounted the steps.

At the top, her step slowed. A twitch of Nathan’s brow and quirk of his mustache acknowledged her presence, but he left her to stand for some moments, his version of a reprimand. The space was populated with several more crewmen, going about their duties. At her arrival, most either left or moved further aft, leaving she and Nathan alone, or as much so as could be managed on a ship.

“Do…you…mind…?” she asked.

One eye narrowed in suspicion as she sidled closer. “Do…you…plan…to…take the ship?” he asked, mimicking her halting query.

“Hardly. I was unsure if I was to be allowed…out.”

“If you weren’t, you would have known,” Blackthorne said with a severe look. “Shackles are blessedly difficult to overlook.”

Something had been bothering her about him from the moment she had topped the steps. It finally struck her.

“You shaved!”

The abundant beard was gone, a swatch of newly exposed and shockingly pale jaw in its place. The only remnants were a spade-shaped beard over a strong chin and a mustache, its silver bells still in place. With a long sweep of bold jaw and high cheekbones, under all that hair had lurked a very comely face.

“Did I?” He feigned astonishment as he passed a hand along his now-smooth jaw. “Ah, yes, I recall now: Navy Sunday.”

“It isn’t Sunday, is it?” If so, being captured had disoriented her worse than previously suspected.

He scowled. “Of course not; Navy Sunday is on Wednesday.”

“So, today’s Wednesday?”

“No, goose. ’Tis Tuesday.”

Cate pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose.

“…a day of washing hammocks, bathing and laundry and such,” he was saying. “A high holy day for you, to be sure,” he added with a dramatic roll of the eyes. “Navy Sunday; you’ll love it.”

“But you said today is Tuesday.”

“Is it?” Touching a finger to his chin, he struck a thoughtful pose. “Oh, aye. So it ’tis. Just setting an example: cleanliness is next to holiness—”

“Godliness.”

“Eh? Oh, whatever.” Blackthorne ended with a broad sweep of his hand, and then added with a suffering air. “Leadership is an ever-pressing burden.”

Between his grimed shirt, tattered collar and cuffs, worn pants missing buttons at the knees, and tar-stained fingers, she had a strong sense his personal grooming was far from burdensome.

He again took his eyes from the horizon to regard her shrewdly. “With all due respect, you make a better woman than you do a lad.”

“Thank you…I think.”

Still staring at his transformation, it was easier to see that he was jesting. His smile was broad, brilliant, and quite charming.

“’Twould appear a belt might be in order,” he said, eyeing her judiciously.

Cate gave the sagging waistband a self-conscious tug. “I hesitated to ask for one. I was afraid you might use it on me first.”

A corner of his mouth twitched, but he was otherwise unresponsive.

“I thought I might ask leave to see to the injured?” she asked hesitantly.

“And what, pray tell, do you seek to gain from that?” His query was more in the way of wonderment than suspicion.

“To see how they do.”

He made a derisive noise in the back of his throat. “You were the one to attend them, ergo you, above all, should know. They’ve not been added to the Butcher’s Bill, so one will assume they
do
well enough.”

Cate flinched at his sarcasm. Just because a man hadn’t been listed as dead didn’t necessarily mean he was in the pink. Seeing her reaction, he relented to explain.

“Chin’s confined to his hammock on pain of being lashed in if he shows a leg. Three other names are on the binnacle list: one pukes every time he rises, another stove his ribs in—no need to risk putting one through a lung, eh?—and the last still can’t raise his arms, so he’s a worthless scug. The balance are to their duties on pain of being accused of malingering.”

Shouting on the forecastle distracted him. As he craned his head, the wind lifted the hair from his neck and she nearly gasped aloud. God knew she was familiar with scars, but this one was particularly grisly. Running just under the bold line of his jaw, it wasn’t the location so much as the nature of it: thick, curving gnarls of white against the tender skin of his throat. It was a wonder what horror could have inflicted such a thing. In morbid curiosity, she waited for his head to turn, to see if it continued to the other side.

It did.

In the absence of a beard, another tattoo was now visible, curving like a collar at the base of his neck. It was an interwoven, chain-like design, strongly suggestive of Highland designs. The woad-colored pattern was muted by his tan. Under the protection of shirt and hair, the blue was brilliant against the pale ivory of his skin.

Cate had stood on the
Constancy
’s quarterdeck many a time, but never did she experience what she did then. The difference between the two ships had been felt while lying in her cot, but there on the quarterdeck, it was even more pronounced. The
Morganse
sailed with an ardent zeal, a fine thoroughbred straining to run. Cate’s heart quickened and her breath came short with the same thrill as if she was riding that same horse, too spirited to be controlled, and yet racing too fast to jump off.

Chambers had spoken affectionately of his ship, but never had she seen him at the wheel, a point she made to Nathan.

“Ordinarily ’tis not the captain’s charge, but I can’t bear to be away from her for long,” Nathan said, lovingly stroking the wheel. “We belong together, she and I, I and she. Besides, it does the crew well to see the captain standing his watch, same as the rest.”

“It looks as if you’ve done this for ages.”

“Sailing, you mean? Went to sea at twelve.”

“No, I mean at the helm, with the
Morganse
.”

He gave her a tight-lipped smile. “All told, only a few years of late; lost her there for a bit, I did.”

“What happened?” Cate asked, bracing a hand on the binnacle against the roll of the swell.

“Mutiny.”

The word was uttered no differently than if it had been “ague” or “storm.”

Her face heated with embarrassment. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—”

“No worries, luv.” There was a reassuring flash of a gold and white smile. “A minor setback there just for a bit, but she’s mine now.” He stroked the wheel again, his fingertips tracing the curve of the worn-to-a-polish wood.

“
Ciara Morganse
,” she said, careful to pronounce it as closely as possible to the way Pryce had on the
Constancy,
a far cry from
Sara Morgan
. “It’s a bit of an odd name.”

“Aye,
Ciara Morganse,
” Blackthorne corrected. With a lilt reminiscent of the Highlands, it came out ‘
kee
-h-rah.’ “It’s Celt. It means ‘black blessing from the sea,’ roughly.”

“Was she a gift?”

He looked away, sobering. “Some would call her that.”

Cate took his abrupt change in demeanor as an indication of having reached the limit of what he was willing to discuss. As they talked, she noticed curious looks on the part of the crew. At first, she thought it was the shocking sight of her in pants, but gradually came to realize the gapes were aimed at their newly barbered captain.

“I’m ashamed to confess, this isn’t quite what I had expected,” Cate said looking down to the main deck.

“You were you expecting what: debauchery, rampant drunkenness, chests of gold, piked heads, and disemboweled bodies?”

“Not the bodies.” Such a juvenile concept left her feeling quite foolish, the condition worsened by having to admit to it.

“Not the bodies,” Blackthorne muttered, both mystified and amused. He closed his eyes and gave his head a sharp shake. “For all our renown, a pirate ship is first and foremost a ship, and must be run as such.”

“You’re saying there is no difference between this and…say, the
Constancy
?”

He wagged an admonishing finger. “Nay. We are a ship, but we run things considerable different. Captains are elected, as are quartermaster, bosun, and such.”

“I thought pirates were free spirits, freedom of the seas, where the wind blows and such.”

“Oh, aye, we’re that to be sure, but one must have rules. Otherwise, ’tis all ahoo, from the f’c’stlemen to the boomtricers, or from the bracemen to captain of the crosstrees. Foredeck crew wouldn’t know what the afterguard is up to. Gun crews would be firing all willy-nilly without a master…” A flutter of hands and rings flashing in the sunlight embellished the chaotic picture he painted. “Nay, a chain of command is necessary, which Morgan and Bartholomew discovered directly.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Cate said slowly, struggling to recall the details from the conversations overheard on the
Constancy.

“Code of the Brethren. The Pirate’s Code. Code of the Coast. As I said, without rules there’s havoc, and in that they did abound. So, the two old walruses called a truce, sat down across from each other and wrote it out, a pistol in one hand and a bottle o’ rum in the other.”

“Rather civilized.”

He laughed grudgingly. “For an uncivilized lot, eh? Bear in mind, many of these men have lived under tyranny in the Royal Navy; they’ve seen the hell of the wrong person being the only one under God, and have assured it shan’t be suffered again. Matters of piracy—raids, ambushes, boardings and such—are a company decision. Piracy, however, requires stealth, and stealth requires a plan. The execution of said plan requires discipline on the part of everyone.”

“Other than electing the captain, what else does it include?”

“Bunch o’ things. You’ve heard most of it.”

She winced at recalling the induction of the Constancies overheard the day before. “I was distracted.” An understatement, to say the least; terrified was more the word.

Her excuse was met with skepticism, but Blackthorne didn’t press. “Each ship has its own terms; a man’s mark is his pledge to abide. I shipped on one what—other than the milk goat and a couple of chickens—no animals were allowed. The captain had a morbid fear of anything furred or feathered; thought they would suck the life from him as he slept.”

“And if they don’t abide?”

“On some ships, discipline is the quartermaster or bosun’s concern. As you just saw, we call a ship’s Company, the unfortunates meeting a court of their peers, and not the most forgiving lot they are.”

“Then where do the stories come from of the captain flogging and keelhauling?”

“Oh, aye, ’tis reserved for the merchants and Navy.” He chuckled dryly. “You’ll find no ropes, nor three sisters starting a man. Any pirate captain what orders such things on his own accord would stand a good chance of facing the same himself or worse.”

“There’s worse?”

“There’s no such thing as an ex-captain on board.” He paused, allowing the implications of that to sink in. “There’s but two choices: death or marooning.”

“Marooning?”

He nodded grimly, looking away. “Cast adrift or left on an island to die. In the spirit of human kindness, the soul is customarily given a water gourd and a pistol.” He held up a beringed index finger. “One shot.”

“One shot,” she echoed dully. Cate gulped at the implications of that: a slow death, suffering from heat, starvation, thirst, exposure, and loneliness, or use the pistol and end the misery. Mercy was provided, but by only one’s own hand. “You’ve…seen…this…?”

His mouth pressed in a grave line. “First hand.”

She braced against the binnacle. The move would have appeared to the idle bystander as a reaction to the pitching deck. The reality was her knees threatened to give way.

“What other rules are there?” she asked, desperate for a change of subject.

“In the Code or the Articles?”

“Articles, I suppose. I shouldn’t desire to inadvertently violate something.” Of greater importance, she thought, was the existence of rules regarding hostages.

Idly scratching an arm, he recited a list, many of what she had heard the day before. Most rules were based in common sense and efficiency. She found it difficult to concentrate on his words, distracted as she was at the sight of him handling his ship. With an unexpected pang of envy, she watched the long fingers skimming the wheel’s spokes. They were the hands of a man holding his beloved, pausing to caress a soft curve, seeking her needs, guiding her at his pleasure.