Beloved Warrior (6 page)

She had dreaded every moment of this journey to wed a man she did not know, but even that was preferable to what she knew must be coming.

Still, she tried again. “They cannot know how to sail a ship. They need you.”

“I doubt they care about that,” he said, stiffly, and she saw her father’s pride in him. Pride and arrogance. Pride and arrogance that would kill them both. He buttoned up his coat and looked in a mirror. He carefully placed a captain’s hat on his head.

“They are not breaking down the door,” she ventured hopefully.

He lowered his voice, the pride dropping away. “They are in no hurry. There is no place for me to go.”

The new silence was as frightening as the shouts outside the door.

He touched her face. It was the first sign of affection he’d ever shown. “Say your prayers,” he said. “I intend to say mine.” He lowered his sword to the floor, knelt and crossed himself.

It was the first time she had seen his arrogance slip from his face.

She knelt next to him. Carmita joined them, tears flowing down her face.

It seemed irreverent to pray with a dagger clutched in her fingers. Instead, she made a vow. She would use the dagger on someone else before herself.

 
As Patrick made his way along the corridor of the ship, the elation of being free from his fetters warred with his need for retribution. He felt nothing but contempt for a captain who had hidden while his crew was being slaughtered. Neither he nor any of the oarsmen had seen Mendoza during the fighting.

Patrick wanted to be the one to kill him.

Three oarsmen stood outside the cabin, their nearly naked bodies covered with blood, their hands holding clubs. Ready—nay, desperately wanting—to do what he planned to do. It was a good sign that they had obeyed him in this one thing.

“He is mine,” he said.

Manuel held a sword nearly as tall as he was, and stood, rocking on his feet. He flashed a quick, feral grin. “I thought we would die.”

“We may still do that,” Patrick said grimly. Unlike the others, he knew the dangers that lay ahead. He’d been thinking of them ever since Manuel had given him the nod that started it all.

Scotland.
They had to go to Scotland. He had to go home. Once there, he could help the others return to their homes.

That meant sailing hundreds of miles with men who knew nothing about sailing a ship, and himself with hell-ishly little knowledge. Now he wished he had paid more attention when his father sent him with one of his ship’s captains to learn about the sea. He had resisted every moment of it. He’d wanted to be a soldier, not a trader.

Now he was about to be the sailor he’d never wanted to be.

He pounded at the door and shouted through it. “Open or we will break down the door.”

Silence.

Then he heard the sound of a bolt sliding from inside, and the door opened.

Mendoza appeared, arrayed in an elaborate uniform, defiance in his eyes, but fear was there as well. He moved out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

“Aha, the captain of murderers,” he said.

Patrick almost admired his bravado. But he remembered the times Mendoza walked above them, seeing the welts and rips on men’s skin, the bodies that were far too thin to drive his ship.

Familiar hatred welled in him.

Particularly when Mendoza glanced around with the same contempt he had shown the oarsmen before.

“My crew?”

“Muerto,”
Patrick said coldly.

“You will all hang,” Mendoza said viciously.

“You will not be around to see.”

Mendoza looked at the sword in Patrick’s hand, then raised his own. If he’d been a coward earlier, he obviously intended to fight now that he had no choice. He knew he was going to die today, either by Patrick’s hand or by that of the bloodstained and bloodthirsty men behind him.

Patrick stared at the man he hated above all others, then parried the man’s first stroke of the sword. He had no shield. Nor did his opponent. It was metal against metal, skill against skill, and Patrick knew instantly from the way Mendoza moved and held his sword that the Spaniard had the advantage. Mendoza had not been in chains for six years, did not have the stiffness of movement. Patrick, though, had the will.

Patrick was aware of the gathering number of oarsmen watching him, daggers or clubs in their hand, ready to finish the job if Patrick couldn’t. But Patrick also knew he had to win to keep the confidence of a crew made up of thieves and murderers as well as prisoners of war. He had to have that confidence to get home.

He tried an experimental thrust. Mendoza skillfully parried it and lunged at him. Patrick parried that stroke, moving backward until he felt the wall blocking farther motion in that direction. He moved to the side as he feinted and lunged. Sheer will fueled his weakened body.

Mendoza defended against the attack easily enough, but Patrick saw surprise on his face. It was obvious that Mendoza had expected a fast kill against a slave.

Patrick tried a riposte. He was weak but he felt a surge of strength as Mendoza was forced back. The retreat lasted only a second before the Spaniard lunged at him. Patrick sidestepped, but not quite quickly enough. Mendoza’s blade caught his forearm just above the knife wound he suffered on deck. A fresh trickle of blood mingled with his sweat. It enraged him that the captain fought as if he were the man being wronged. This man, this captain, had wronged every man aboard this ship.

Their swords clashed, then disengaged, and Patrick’s breath became labored. His steps slowed. Mendoza met his every move with skill, and Patrick couldn’t find an opening. One small mistake would mean his life. He saw the desperation in Mendoza’s eyes, the hate that equaled his own. Patrick knew anger would affect Mendoza’s abilities. It would cause him to make a mistake. Survival, more than anger, was Patrick’s goal.

An opening! He thrust once more, but Mendoza blocked it with his sword and with a sudden movement knocked Patrick’s sword from his hand. Patrick dived after it, rolling on the ground to avoid Mendoza’s blade as he grabbed the hilt and sprang to his feet.

Mendoza looked startled, giving Patrick time to balance on his feet. Patrick feinted, then sprang forward suddenly, only to find his rapier parried once more.

Mendoza was trying to wear him down, his fury directed at the man he obviously held responsible for taking his ship. Patrick was sustained by another kind of outrage, one built over months and years.

Mendoza, obviously tired of taunting his opponent, wielded the blade as if it were a part of him, driving in. Patrick danced away from the sword and saw that his opponent was angered enough to make a misjudgment. Patrick sprang forward suddenly, his sword driving toward Mendoza’s heart. He felt it go into his enemy, and the man started to fall, a surprised look on his face.

Patrick pulled the blade out as Mendoza landed on the floor of the deck. There was a moan. The captain tried to say something, but blood bubbled from his mouth. Then he stilled.

Shouts came up from the men around him.

Several took Mendoza’s body.

“Overboard,” yelled one.

Four of them headed toward the steep stairs up to the main deck, each carrying an arm or leg. The clanking of chains accompanied their every step.

Others started into the cabin, grabbing anything they could.

He wanted nothing more from Mendoza. He had everything he wanted. He started toward the hatch of the main deck, then turned back. There would be maps in the captain’s cabin. Maps he had to have.

Just as reached the door, he heard a scream.

A woman’s scream.

HER heart pounding in fear, Juliana waited inside the cabin as her uncle stepped outside and closed the door behind him. She held Carmita’s hand.

“All will be well,” she tried to soothe the terrified girl, knowing her words were lies. Nothing would be well again. Although she tried to hide her own terror, she realized they had no hope. She also realized her uncle was probably going to his death, hoping he might divert the mutineers’ interest to himself and that Juliana might in some way be overlooked. At least, she wanted to think that of him. If she could avoid detection, perhaps she could later steal down to the hold.

Illogical,
si.
Impossible,
si.
But she had seen in
Tio
’s face that there was nothing else. A thin hope, indeed, against rape and pain and death.

She’d never really cared for him, and she was certainly angry with him since she saw her uncle as the architect of this marriage, but sorrow mixed with terror as her uncle stepped out of the cabin and closed the door behind him. She left Carmita kneeling next to the bed and praying in quiet earnest. Leaning against the door, she listened, hoping that those on the other side could not hear her heart pounding.

She heard her uncle’s angry words, the clash of swords, the grunts of men engaged in mortal battle.

Then she heard the shouts of elation and knew her uncle was dead. Elation for a man’s death! She was sickened by it.

She moved away from the door. There was no good place to hide. No room under the bed. No cupboard. Only two chairs, a trunk and a table overflowing with charts. She and Carmita looked at each other, and she saw her own fear reflected in the young girl’s eyes. She took Carmita in her arms, holding tight.

Fists pounded on the door, and she knew she had only seconds before it slammed open. She stiffened, the dagger her uncle had given her held tightly in her fingers. She may be cornered but she would not die like a rabbit.

She shoved Carmita down between the bed and the cabin wall. “Stay there,” she said. At least she might divert them from Carmita, as her uncle had tried to divert the mutineers from her.

Her blood froze as the door crashed open and blood-smeared bodies crowded inside, grabbing at whatever they could find.

Then one reached out for her, a blood-stained finger touching her hair.

She couldn’t stop a scream from rising in her throat and shattering the air. She clutched the knife, ready to thrust the blade into her heart. Then she hesitated.

Suddenly the man holding her was swept away, and another stood before her. A giant of a man, covered in blood, his eyes as cold and hard as any she had ever seen. Eyes she’d seen before. Eyes that had been filled with fury when he had looked up at her just a few days earlier. She remembered every feature of that face. It had haunted her.

She tried to hide the panic she felt. Though other oarsmen remained in the cabin, she could not take her eyes from him, nor from the blood dripping from two wounds in his arm.

From her uncle’s sword?

He was so dominant she was only slightly aware of other naked forms devouring her with angry, hungry eyes.

God help her, he looked like
el diablo
himself.

She forced her glance away and toward the door. Then she raised her eyes back to the savage before her, trying desperately to keep upright when her legs wanted to fold beneath her.

Fissions of pure terror ran through her. This was the end of her life. The only question was how she would die. And how soon.

She tried to control the trembling in her legs. In her hands.
Do not drop the dagger. Not now.
Show him that she could die as well as her uncle had. With a weapon in her hand.

He stepped closer, hard, cold eyes running over her as if she were a prize cow.

Then to her surprise, he asked, “Senora Mendoza?” His voice was hoarse and she heard a slight burr in it.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t want him to hear the tremor that undoubtedly would be in her voice.

Should she claim to be her uncle’s wife? Or daughter? Or just an innocent passenger? There were documents. She knew her uncle had the marriage contract with him. But would they find them? Read them?

She shook her head.

“Senorita?”

His eyes pinioned her against the wall. “Who are you?” he finally asked in Spanish. He spoke it well, but the burr in his voice was thick.

He took another step toward her, and instinctively her hand went up and she slashed out at him, striking his chest. Just as it did, his left hand caught her wrist, tightening around it, forcing her to drop the dagger.

Blood flowed from the gash on his chest.

He looked at it with surprise, his large hand holding her small one tightly.

She would die now.

Instead, he thrust her into the arms of another near-naked man. “Lock her in up in a mate’s cabin. Make sure she has no weapons.” There was a slight hint of wryness in his voice that startled her.

Another man shouted from behind him. “There is another one, Scot. Behind the bed.” Then the speaker grabbed Carmita. The girl fought back as the brigand leaned over and tried to kiss her.

“Stop,” said the Scot sharply, and to her surprise the man did.

Still another oarsman pushed to Juliana’s side. “I will take her, Scot. Teach her a lesson,” he said in bad Spanish.

“Nay,”
el diablo
said. “I will tend to her myself in good time.”

“We should share,” another man said in Spanish. “She is nothing but Mendoza’s whore.”

Others agreed vocally. Voices rose. They moved forward, almost as a whole.

The man she had wounded turned around and faced them. Blood dripped from him, from the wound she had made and another. He disregarded both.

“There will be but one leader here,” he said in Spanish and in a voice as cold as his eyes. “If you want to live to see your homes again, you will do as I say.”

“You cannot tell us what to do. We ’uns had enough of that,” said one man stepping forward. “We all fought. You have no right to take her for yourself.”