On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) (35 page)

Just as they approached the boat that was to take them across the water, and her excitement was reaching a fever pitch, Lamotte stopped her with a hand on her arm.
 
“What do you make of that?”

Two men, obviously not seamen, dressed in dark clothes, were huddled with the Captain in a dark corner of the pier.
 
As they watched, the two men raised their heads, looked around them with a secretive air, and slunk away out of sight.
 
The Captain, now left alone on the pier, tucked a heavy-looking pouch into his shirt with an air of satisfaction.

She stood stock still, her excitement turned into apprehension.
 
“I don’t like the look of that.”

“Maybe I am too suspicious.
 
They could have been having an innocent conversation about the price of fish.”

Sophie shook her head.
 
It paid to be suspicious in this day and age – those who were too trusting ended up dead.
 
“They were paying him - probably for doing their dirty work for them.
 
If we sail with him, we shall be feeding the fishes before morning.”

They backtracked their steps, keeping a wary eye out for the two spies.
 

Lamotte’s face was drawn with worry.
 
“Damn.
 
We can’t sail with him now.
 
I sold that horse for nothing and nearly got us killed into the bargain.”

She felt only relief that she would not have to share a boat with the man she had distrusted from the beginning.
 
“Look on the bright side.
 
He may yet be hanged for horse stealing.”

He rubbed his hand slowly over his forehead.
 
“We have to get on that boat.”

Surely he was not going to risk their lives on such a small thing as a sea captain’s honesty?
 
“What?”

“If the spies think we are taken care of, we shall be safe all the way to England, and back again.
 
Otherwise they will come after us again and again, until they finally succeed.”

She was not convinced.
 
“How shall we escape once we are on the boat?
 
There will be half a dozen seamen against the pair of us.”

“Can you swim?”

“A little.”

“Good.
 
The water is calm enough.
 
A little is all we need.
 
Come, we don’t have much time.”

They were panting hard as they raced up the wharf again, just moments after the turn of the tide.
 
The Captain was already on board, standing on the prow of the boat keeping a lookout, a watchful frown on his face.

His expression relaxed when he caught sight of them.
 
“You’re just in time,” he said, and he gave a twisted smile.
 
“I thought we would have to leave without you.”

Sophie shot a quick look at Lamotte.
 
The fact that he had stayed for them even moments past the turning of the tide spoke volumes.
 
It confirmed all their suspicions that he was counting on something other than simple trade to make his money on this voyage.

They clambered aboard, holding tight to the side stays as they made their way into the tiny cabin.
 
Their heavy riding boots slipped and skidded on the wet deck.
 
“Cast off,” the captain ordered as soon as their feet left the dock, and a couple of wiry-looking seamen cast off the mooring lines.

The cabin reeked so badly of fish that Sophie gagged as soon as she put one foot into it.
 
She immediately thrust her head out again into the fresh salt air.
 
“I can’t stay down there,” she said with a shudder.
 
“I will die before I reach England.”

Lamotte’s face was green already.
 
Without a word, he nodded to Sophie and climbed out on to the deck again.

The Captain gave them a scowl as they came back up on deck.
 
“Passengers stay below decks.”

The ship was rolling up and down on the waves as if it were a cork, bobbing around in the middle of the sea.
 
Sophie grabbed on to a side rail and looked at the white caps of the waves as they broke against the side of the ship.
 
She’d never been on a boat before.
 
The motion was unusual, and it made her feet feel unsteady beneath her, but she didn’t find it too unpleasant.
 
It was a bit like the feeling of riding a horse, only more so - like riding a wild sea horse that jumped and bucked and tossed and turned this way and that beneath her as it ran with the wind in its sails and the current beneath its keel.

Lamotte staggered to the rail and vomited over the side.
 

The Captain’s scowl became even more pronounced.
 
“Stinking landlubber,” he muttered under his breath as he scuttled past, as agile as a monkey on the pitching deck, slippery now with salt spray.
 
“I won’t have you fouling up my cabin.
 
Stay up here, but don’t get in the way or I’ll toss you overboard myself.”

Lamotte just groaned and heaved over the side again.

“Look at the horizon,” one of the seamen said with an unpleasant grin, and he spat a wad of tobacco juice over the side.
 
“It might stop you puking your guts out like a girl.”

Sophie raised her eyes to the horizon.
 
Despite the nasty tone of his voice, the seaman’s advice held good.
 
Looking far out to sea made her notice the pitching of the boat beneath her feet less.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lamotte raise his head to look out to sea, only to lower it again with a groan as he retched again and again over the side.

Despite all her sympathy for his misery, she could not help laughing to herself just a little at his predicament.
 
All it took to unman such a brave soldier was to put him in a boat and set him out to sea.
 
She would have to remember that in future.
 
It would be a good threat to hold against him.
 
If he proved a bad husband to her, she would simply run off to England again, or to the Americas, and he would not be able to face following her.
 

The land was fast disappearing behind them.
 
Once they had left the shelter of the harbor, the wind had freshened against her face and the waves had picked up noticeably in strength.
 
Sophie made her way to the stern of the boat, found herself a spot out of the way of the sailors, and scanned the sea behind them with a watchful eye.
 
Lamotte staggered over to stand beside her, his hip touching hers as if by accident.
 
She took comfort from his presence.
 
They were well out into the Channel now.
 
If they had been right in their conjectures, the seamen would move against them at any time now.

She could make out a couple of sails in the distance, but they were too far away to make out what boats they belonged to.
 
She grasped the railing with nervous fingers.
 
What if all their preparation had been in vain?
 
What if they had no hope of rescue and were doomed to die out here, in the middle of the sea?

One of the sails changed tack, veering away from them.
 
All her attention was concentrated on the other sail she could see.
 
It was moving in their direction, but it did not seem to be drawing any closer.
 
If anything, it was falling further behind.

She swore under her breath.
 
She did not like the look of things.
 
Even assuming the boat was willing to pick them up, she would drown before she would be able to swim half that distance.
 
Their best bet would be to stay where they were and hope that they had been mistaken in the honesty of their Captain.

She turned her head to check over her shoulder at the Captain.
 
It was just as well she did so.
 
Three of the sailors were sidling up behind them, knives in their hand.
 
She nudged Lamotte hard with her elbow and he whirled around to face them.

She could not fight off three of them by herself on the deck of a ship that rolled under her feet.
 
She was in a sailor’s territory and they had the advantage over her.
 
Neither was Lamotte much use.
 
His face green and his hands shaking, he looked as though he would not care if he were to die.

She looked first at the sailors, who had stopped a few feet away, their knives held in front of them, and then down at the white-tipped green of the water.
 
She had to choose her doom it would seem, death by the knife or death by drowning.
 
She was unwilling to stand by the rails and offer up her throat as calmly as a sacrificial lamb.
 
She would take her fate into her own hands if she could, and make one last choice.
 
The water looked cold but it not menacing.
 
It lacked the deliberate evil of the filthy grins on the sailors’ faces.
 
“Shall we jump?”

One of the sailors laughed an ugly laugh.
 
“Jumping will do as well for us.
 
It’ll save us dirtying our knives on you.”

The three of them moved another step closer.
 
“So, what’ll it be?” one of them asked, showing his dirty yellowed teeth in a vicious grin.
 
“The water or the knife?”

Sophie looked towards the closest sail, noting its position as well as she could.
 
She took a deep breath and climbed the railing, moving awkwardly in her landlubber’s clothing, Lamotte beside her.

Sophie thought for a moment about using her height and leaping down on to the sailors.
 
She would sell her life dearly were she to get among them.
 
More than one of them would go with her into the oblivion of death.
 

The sailors rushed at them, knives held high.
 
Death at their hand would be certain.
 
At least in the water she had a chance to live.

She closed her eyes and held tight to Lamotte’s fingers.
 
Hand in hand they jumped off the railing and into the cold, rushing waters of the channel.

Chapter 9

She hit the water with a vicious smack that tore Lamotte’s fingers from her grasp and forced all the air out of her at once.
 
The waves closed over her head as she plummeted down into the cold, green depths.
 

She had been wrong about the water – it was worse than cold.
 
It was evil and terrifying – remorseless in its hunt for living prey.
 
It was sucking at her with long, green tentacles of death, clawing at her, dragging her down into the depths of the ocean where fishes would feast on her body and golden-haired mermaids make harps of her bones.

She failed her arms and legs desperately, fighting to get her head above water and take a breath of life-giving air.
 
She felt a hand grab at her and try to drag her down.
 
A sea monster, she thought, with panic invading every fiber of her being, taking its chance to drag her down to its watery lair and feast on her drowned body.
 
Desperately she fought it off, with no thought in her head but to find air and to breath again.

It was too strong for her.
 
Relentlessly the grasp on her shoulder pulled her down, down, down, towards a watery death at the bottom of the sea.

Her head broke the surface.
 
Air!

She grabbed a mouthful of it with such greed that she inhaled half water.
 
Coughing and spluttering, she forced the water out of her lungs again.
 
Air – pure and sweet.
 
How good it was to breathe again.

Lamotte was treading water beside her, his hand still grasping her shoulder.
 
Lamotte, not a sea monster.
 
He had saved her, not pulled her down to drown her.

Her panic subsided enough for her to breath without choking this time.

“Kick off your boots,” he barked at her.

She looked at him stupidly.
 
She was trying to survive in the tossing ocean.
 
Why was he worrying about her feet at a time like this?
 
She would hardly get more blisters trying to tread water.