Beloved Warrior (8 page)

The Spaniard looked at him questioningly.

“I want to see how you handle her.”

Diego took the wheel.

“Feel it,” Patrick told him. It had taken all of Patrick’s strength to keep it on a steady course. The Spaniard was smaller than he was.

The Spaniard spread his feet, his linen shirt blowing against his back. Apparently the Spaniard had taken his garments from Mendoza’s cabin.

Diego handled the wheel well, if not masterfully, and Patrick wondered if the man was testing him as much as he was testing the Spaniard.

Satisfied the Spaniard could manage the ship, Patrick passed among the crew, grateful they were too busy enjoying their freedom to ask where they were going. He hadn’t had the heart to tell them they may have to take their places on the benches again if the wind died.

If the wind died . . .

T
HE more time passed, the more terror festered and grew.

Exhausted by weeping, Carmita slumped in a corner, her hands shaking and every word a wail.

Juliana had tried to comfort her, had held her in her arms for some time, then decided she was not going to surrender with a whimper.

She started to scour the cabin for a potential weapon. The Spaniard had done a very good job. She found little that could be used as a weapon.

There was no window toward the sea, even if she had been wont to throw herself out. But suicide under any circumstances was a sin. Would it be a sin to allow herself to be raped? She had few illusions that she would outlive this voyage unless the ship was engaged by either a Spanish or English warship. She was, in truth, surprised that she had not been immediately ravaged and killed.

Ravaged. She closed her eyes as fear renewed its hold on her.
I will tend to her myself,
the giant had said. A giant with a body covered with the blood of her uncle and countrymen. A man with a fearsome countenance and angry, contemptuous eyes that roamed over her as if she were a sow to be bought and butchered.

She shivered. Surely there was something she could do. She would hide behind the door and strike him with . . . something.

Only there didn’t seem to be
something
.

The Spaniard had taken everything that could possibly be turned into a weapon. The silver. Glass. The steel mirror. Even the chair. He had gone through her trunk, searching even through personal garments to her great humiliation. He had been thorough.

She was left with a bed nailed down and several pieces of clothing remaining in her trunk. Surprisingly, he had left her small box of jewels. He had seemed not to care about them. At least not now.

She sat on the bed. The cabin had been a refuge during the first days of the voyage when the first mate had eyed her with such open lust. Now it was a prison for the condemned.

Juliana tried to block her memory of the mutineer.
His eyes.
If they truly revealed the soul, she could not expect mercy. She’d been mesmerized by them days ago, much as she’d heard a person could be by a cobra. Now that she saw them more clearly, nothing dampened that fear. It was difficult to describe them by color. Light brown mixed with gray and a moss green. But the shades were eclipsed by an intensity that sent shivers down her spine.

How had he taken the ship? She didn’t doubt that he was responsible, that he was the leader. All had deferred to him despite the greed and lust in their faces. Even the Spaniard obeyed, and she doubted whether he bent to many men.

What crime had he committed to bring him to this ship?

She shuddered to guess. Her uncle had called them criminals, murderers and infidels. They had proved they were murderers. What else had they been? Or what had her uncle turned them into?

The last thought was truly chilling. She remembered the scarred backs, the thin, wiry bodies. They would have no pity for a Mendoza, not when no one had had any pity for them.

She knew only one thing. She would never see home again.

“Madre,”
she whispered. Would her mother ever learn what had happened to her?

She paced, then sat, then paced again.
Think.
There had to be something she could do.

Drunken laughter came from outside the cabin. The sounds sent new waves of terror through her, and she saw Carmita cower, a whimper coming from her mouth. With all her heart, Juliana wished she had brought someone else with her. Someone older who had already lived long years, someone who had known love.

If only she still had the dagger.

That thought led back to her thrust hours ago. How badly had she wounded the leader?

Would he want his revenge?

Could she use those to defend herself? Or would it serve only to infuriate the mutineers more?

Yet it was not in her nature to wait meekly. Her mother had submitted meekly. She would not. She rummaged in her trunk for her box of hair ornaments. She had placed the pins there last night when she had braided her hair for the night. She couldn’t remember the Spaniard taking them, but then she was comforting Carmita part of the time. She found the box and opened it. Jeweled combs lay on top of the pins.

She was puzzled that he had not taken the combs and the jewels, but perhaps that would come next.

It didn’t matter now. All that mattered was that he’d left the pins, probably thinking them innocent enough. A woman’s vanities. She took them out and laid them on her palm. Ten pins, half of them studded with tiny sapphires.

Long. Not very sharp. But better than nothing.

She looked down at her garments, aware again that she was still in the nightdress and robe she had donned when her uncle had fetched her a few hours ago.

A few hours?

More like a lifetime.

She undid her braid, and her hair fell around her face. She looked at Carmita. “I need your help.”

Carmita sniffed and stood.

“Arrange my hair so I can take out the pins easily,” she said.

Carmita’s eyes widened. “You would not attack them again?”

“I will do what I have to do,” she said.

Carmita’s hands shook as she took a comb and ran it through Juliana’s long hair, then started twisting it into a knot, using the pins to hold the heavy strands in place.

More than enough pins.

“Now help me dress,” Juliana said, glancing up at her young maid. The girl’s tears had dried.

“Which gown, senorita?” Carmita asked.

“The blue one.”

“The best one?” Carmita asked in a shocked voice. It was to be the one Juliana was to wear when meeting Viscount Kingsley and his father, the English earl.

“
Si.
I will show them no fear.”

“They will ravish us. Then kill us.” The tears were back.

Juliana put her arms around her. “God will protect us,” she whispered, hoping with all her heart she was right.

In case He didn’t, she would have the pins.

“WHEN can we have the women?” Patrick stopped pouring salt water over his body. He had washed off as much blood and filth as he could, but he thought with dark humor it would take weeks—mayhap years—to finish cleansing himself.

He straightened and turned toward the oarsman who’d just spoken. Four others flanked the man, giving their support.

Felix had sat in front of him on the bench. He was a thief, if the brand on his face held true.

“You won’t,” he replied curtly.

“Keeping them for yourself?”

“Nay,” he said. “But the women will not be harmed.”

“No orders anymore. No one tells us what to do now,” Felix asserted. He was obviously spoiling for another fight.

“Nay? You prefer being back on the bench?”

“We voted. We want our turns with the women.”

“Who voted?”

“Us,” the oarsman standing behind Felix said in a rough voice.

“Ah,
us
. And where do you think
us
is going without someone who knows how to sail this ship?” Patrick said softly. “You want to go ashore in Spain with that mark on your face?”

Felix touched the scar. “We been gone from Spanish waters these few days.”

“We are a few miles off the French coast,” Patrick said softly. “You think they will welcome a branded Spaniard?”

“We do not take orders now. We are free.”

“Believe that and ye are a fool,” said the MacDonald from behind Patrick.

“Si,”
added Diego, moving to Patrick’s side. Denny, who had been his shadow since the takeover, joined them.

Fury crossed Felix’s face.

“It is time for talk,” Patrick said. “I want everyone on deck.”

The men who had confronted him stood their ground, belligerent.

Diego seemed able to communicate best with most of the oarsmen. Patrick turned to him. “I want everyone but those guarding the women and the captain’s cabin up here.”

Diego hesitated, glancing at the rebellious oarsmen. Then he looked back to Patrick, his eyes measuring the Scot and Denny. Finally he nodded, but not before casting a warning look at the rebellious men.

“We should have a vote,” grumbled one of them.

“Si,”
said another.

“Do you want to captain this ship? Do you know navigation?” Patrick challenged them. “Do you know how to raise and lower a sail, or turn a ship? Know how to avoid rocks and shallows?”

“Looks easy enough,” Felix said.

Patrick stepped back. “Take the wheel.”

Felix stepped out and sauntered over to the wheel. The ship was already bearing to the right without a hand steadying it.

“You are going toward France at the moment,” Patrick said. “In an hour you will see the hills. In another five, the ship will break up on the rocks. Turn the ship back into the wind.”

Felix took the wheel. He couldn’t move it. After struggling for several seconds, it started to turn. “What . . . where do I . . .”

“You decide. To the north are English warships. France is to the northeast. Both would hang mutineers. Or worse.

“Or,” he continued, “you could just head out to open sea until the wind dies and supplies disappear. The ale will be gone as well. You will die of thirst. Or starvation. This ship is not provisioned for a long voyage.”

The ship listed starboard. His companions, already unsteady from spirits, slid toward the rail and grabbed a rope to keep from going overboard.

Patrick took the wheel back and straightened the ship. “There is too much sail for the wind.”

“What gives you the right to be master?” Felix tried to reestablish his standing among his comrades as more and more of the oarsmen came on deck and stood uneasily. Some staggered. Two were still in their loincloths.

“I have sailed before,” Patrick said, refusing to take offense. None of them really knew each other despite being confined together for months, in some instances years. “Two years learning navigation and the sea. I have never captained a ship, though, and I would be willing to sail under any man here who has.”

Diego joined him as the last of the oarsmen appeared on deck. He repeated the words in Spanish, and then in halting Arabic. Patrick repeated them in French.

No one stepped forward.

“We are mutineers in the eyes of the world.’Tis no matter that we were slaves, many unjustly. All countries fear mutiny on their ships. No country will welcome us.”

“Where do we go then?”

Now it came. “Scotland. I propose that we sail to the shores of Scotland. My family there owns ships. We will sell the cargo, then scuttle the
Sofia.
Our ships will take you wherever you want to go with enough gold to keep you in rum and women for years.”

He waited as his words were translated. Some nods. Some frowns. Some expressions of agreement. Some of angry rebuttal.

“The women,” one pointed out. “If they live, they can tell what happened.”

The men were right. That was the dilemma that had plagued him since he found them in Mendoza’s cabin.

“I swear they will not.”

“How can you do that?” asked the man who had taken the wheel.

“My life is as much at risk as yours. I will not release them until I am absolutely sure. If not, then . . .”

He left the threat dangling in the wind, then quickly changed the subject. “How many have served aboard a ship as a sailor?”

Three men stepped forward. To his surprise, Felix was one of them, although it had been obvious he’d never handled the wheel before.

God help him. Only a total of three had any experience at all, other than rowing.

“Can anyone help the blacksmith?” he asked.

No one came forward.

“Cook?”

Two raised their hands.

“Fishermen.”

One stepped forward.

“You’ve repaired nets?”

“Aye.”

“Now you will repair sails.”

One by one he discovered talents, or lack of them. Those who had none he asked to serve as apprentices to someone who had a skill.

“We haven’t agreed on a captain,” Felix complained. “Nor have we agreed on the women.”

Diego stepped forward then. “The women can bring money. And protection. Papers show the woman is meant to be the bride of a wealthy English lord,” he said. “If anything goes wrong with the Scot’s plan, we have her to bargain with. The English would pay for her freedom. But not if she has been spoiled.”

Patrick was startled at Diego’s intercession. He’d heard some of the crew talk about pirating. Mayhap the prospect of treasure could keep the oarsmen from raping the two women. Diego was proving to be a man of many talents.

“As for captain,” Diego continued, “you would not be free if not for this man. Many of you saw him kill Mendoza. He is a warrior and he knows navigation. We need him. I suggest we name him captain and accept his offer.”