The Devil's Fire

Copyright © 2011 Matt Tomerlin

All rights reserved

Kindle Edition (January, 2012)

ISBN: 978-0-615-52487-0

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior express written permission by the author.

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• KATHERINE
  
• GRIFFITH
  
• LIVINGSTON
  
• THATCHER
  
• NATHAN
  
• KATHERINE
  
• GRIFFITH
  
• NATHAN
  
• KATHERINE
  
• LIVINGSTON
  
• GRIFFITH
  
• KATHERINE
  
• NATHAN
  
• ANNABELLE
  
• LIVINGSTON
  
• KATHERINE
  
• GRIFFITH
  
• NATHAN
  
• THATCHER
  
• KATHERINE
  
• LIVINGSTON
  
• GRIFFITH
  
• THATCHER
  
• KATHERINE
  
• CUNNINGHAM
  
• LIVINGSTON
  
• NATHAN
  
• KATHERINE
  
• GRIFFITH
  
• KATHERINE
  
• LIVINGSTON
  
• KATHERINE
  
• NATHAN
  
• HORNIGOLD
  
• AUTHOR'S NOTE
  
• EXCERPT FROM "THE DEVIL'S TIDE"
  

"There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates."

James Russell Lowell

Katherine Lindsay pressed her legs against the bulwark and peered into the cold blue waters of the North Atlantic, hoping to locate her often heralded beauty within the rippling reflection that gazed back.

An emaciated figure, ghostly pale skin, and insipidly plain features were a tax on her self-esteem. Bodices did not accentuate her breasts as nicely as most of the women she knew. She credited the flattering remarks to the striking mane of red hair that curled naturally about her head and spilled down to her waist, forging an illusion of beauty by cloaking the abnormalities. Her hair was a wicked burden of tangles that she fastened as best she could, but the wild tresses were as much a curse as they were a fiery splendor.

Her aggravation was heightened by the miserably cold and wet environment of the ship, a three-masted merchantman that her husband had lovingly christened, "
Lady Katherine
." It was a cramped place, beset by the pungent aroma of perpetually dampened wood and the tangy flavor of salt, both of which mislaid their initially agreeable virtues after the first week at sea.

The journey had been inescapably dull. She kept mostly indoors by day and ventured outside in late afternoon to admire sunsets, whenever the sky was not obscured by storm clouds. She had grossly underestimated the need for reading material, and swiftly finished what few books she had brought with her. The stark contrast of life aboard a merchant ship frequently prompted her to dwell on the simple pleasures she had entertained each day in London.

She marveled at how effortlessly
Lady Katherine
's young crewmen accepted their lives as sailors. They numbered seventeen and were aged twenty to twenty-five. They kept to themselves and spoke of her in hushed, gossip-ridden tones. She loathed the way they hungrily leered at her, as though they had never looked on a woman before. She likened them to animals in a zoo, indifferent to the basic chivalry of civilized society, motivated only by proclivity.

She missed tea parties with her friends and conversations that consisted of nothing more than extravagant jewelry and rich husbands. She was born to a middle-class family and had wisely married into wealth. She instantly took a perverse kind of delight in her new surroundings, and that included fitting in with the wives of her husband’s friends. She never really considered herself one of them, but she had convinced them beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was. Fickle though they were, after only a few days at sea, she longed desperately for their mindless banter.

Katherine was nineteen, and her attempts to produce a child with Thomas had been unsuccessful thus far. This proved a scandalous concern for their friends and relatives, but she remained happily optimistic. Thomas had three brothers. All of them were married, two of them with children. The mortality of the Lindsay family line was not at stake, therefore Katherine and Thomas were not under any immediate pressure to preserve it.

Thomas was a handsome man with nicely tanned skin and fine blonde hair, which Katherine believed to be thinning. Her friends were certain that his apparent balding would prove to be a hindrance on their relationship, but Katherine had not fallen in love with Thomas for his looks. She loved his nonchalant attitude towards life. He was not the type of man to angrily combat the problems that inevitably came his way; he simply worked around such nuisances, calmly and peacefully.

When he announced that he would sail his merchant ship to America, Katherine demanded in no uncertain terms that he take her with him. He endured a week's perseverance, which began each day before breakfast and ended long after supper. She told him that she wanted to see more of him, having been too often deprived. While this was indeed true, it was also true that she longed for adventure, and there was nothing more adventurous than a voyage at sea.

After getting her way, she dared not grumble of the voyage's monotony, as she was certain that Thomas would only remind her of her prior diligence. She knew it would be pointless to bellyache, and she did not want to prove just how womanly she could be. The anticipation of seeing America helped keep her complaints at bay.

Katherine's journey ended two weeks earlier than expected, in the late days of September, in the year 1717. A week's worth of densely clouded skies had finally given way to a clear day. She basked in the unusually warm weather, ignoring the wandering eyes of her husband's puerile crew.

She wore a saffron mantua that was derived from expensive silk that hugged her shoulders and plunged to her cleavage. A splendid floral design was brocaded into the close-fitting bodice. The skirt, which was an extension of the bodice, was parted at the front and looped to the sides by buttons and cords, revealing a flounced petticoat underneath. Thomas occasionally came to her side to offer a tender comfort, sliding his hands along the silk of her dress, as he liked to do, before promptly returning to his duties.

It was Katherine who spotted the ship on the horizon, broad on the port bow. She underestimated the weight of her upper torso and pitched over the wall, feet lifting precariously into the air. She flailed her legs until her toes touched the deck. When she steadied herself, a sweeping wave of nausea blurred her vision. She focused her gaze on two distant black dots on the horizon, squinting until the dots merged into one. The indistinct blemish gradually formed shapes she recognized: a hull and sails.

The sea was a desolate place, and she was giddy at the prospect of meeting new faces. Perhaps there was a woman aboard who would join her for dinner before their ships parted ways. That would certainly ease her boredom. She alerted Thomas immediately. After a glimpse through his telescope, he maintained a curious silence. She didn't like to bother him when he was contemplating, but impatience got the better of her.

"A merchant ship, you think?" she inquired placidly.

"Most probably, dear," he replied. "I can't see her colors with the sun behind her."

"Colors?"

"Her flag," he said, a little too sharply. "We'll know what she is when we see her flag."

She furrowed her brow at the briskness of his tone. She wanted to spin on her heels and retreat to the cabin, so he would regret speaking to her so curtly. She had to remind herself that her husband's duties as captain far outweighed his matrimonial sentiments, at least for the duration of the voyage. Still, she made a mental note to scold him when next they were alone.

They watched the ship for an hour, until at last the sun began to set. When the vessel was near enough to discern the particulars, Thomas leaned close to Katherine and said, "She's a brigantine." The vessel had two masts, square-rigged fore and topsails, a fore-and-aft rigged spanker abaft her mainmast, a triangular main staysail between the foremast and mainmast, and a jib that stretched from foremast to bowsprit.

Katherine asked, "What does 'brigantine' mean?"

Thomas set his jaw and fell silent.

She squeezed his arm. "Thomas?"

"Brigand," he said finally.

The sun ducked beyond the horizon and the sky turned a variety of colors, each darker than the last. Goosebumps riddled Katherine's flesh as the air took on a sinister chill. The closer the brigantine came, the colder the air became.

A crewman's breath prickled the hairs on the back of her neck, and she turned with a start. His face was a ghostly shade of white and his eyes were wide, unblinking saucers, staring at the brigantine. Several more had gathered round, appearing equally distressed.

She looked to Thomas, who was studying the ship through his telescope, and said, "What is it?"

He handed her the scope. "See the flag on that ship?"

She peered into the eyepiece and guided the scope until she found the mainmast, and then scaled it to the top, where a massive black flag thrashed in the wind. Broad at the center was the frightful image of a blood red heart, impaled by a white cutlass.

"Pirates," Thomas concluded with a grimace.

"Do we run?" said a crewman, his voice trembling.

Thomas gave no reply. Katherine wasn't sure her husband had even heard the man. Seeing him so uncharacteristically despondent left a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

A blast sounded from a chase gun on the forecastle deck of the brigantine. Water exploded in a billowing plume on the port beam.

Katherine backed into Thomas's chest. She felt his hands cling to her waist, as if he feared losing her over the edge. He released her and returned to his crew, shouting orders that she didn’t understand. She was so fixated on the brigantine that she was only distantly aware of the crew's frantic activities behind her.

Thomas ordered, "Hard to starboard!"

Katherine was thrust against the bulwark as the helmsman tilted the ship into a sharp evasion. The emptiness in her stomach gave way to a severe jolt of pain. A second report exploded from the chase gun, and she stared dumbly as a plume erupted directly in front of her, spraying her with seawater. She was blinking the saline sting out of her eyes when she heard her husband bellow:

"HEAVE TO!!"

This prompted frightened gasps from several crewmen.

"Do it!" Thomas shouted. "They outgun, outman, and outmaneuver us ten to one and more."

Lady Katherine
's bow was aimed against the wind, with no small amount of fuss from the sails. Katherine braced herself as the ship was wrenched to a sudden halt.

The pirate brigantine approached at such a startling speed that, for an alarming instant, Katherine thought that its bowsprit would rake across the deck and split her in half. The brigantine tilted sharply and ran parallel to
Lady Katherine
. Each snap of the brigantine's sails sounded with the fury of a thunderclap. Protruding from the bulwark were six cast-iron, four-pound cannons. Swivel guns were mounted on the quarterdeck and forecastle. Scattered across the decks were what Katherine wagered to be a hundred pirates.

Before she could absorb further details, Thomas seized her firmly by the arm and whisked her to their cabin. "It won't last long," he assured her, "but keep yourself concealed beneath the bed, you hear me?"

She nodded.

"I love you," he said. He closed the door before she could echo his words.

It was six hours before she was discovered underneath the bed.

The night began with five rapid thudding sounds, followed by three loud clacking noises, and a violent tremor of feet pummeling the deck. She heard domineering shouts from the pirates and submissive responses from Thomas's crew.

Several pirates spilled into the cabin, laughing and cursing. She glimpsed only their feet. Some wore boots, but most were barefoot. Through a hole in the heavy quilt that was draped over the bed she watched as they thieved most of her clothes and jewelry. They took whatever perked their interest and then left, their boisterous laughter fading into the roaring pandemonium that had enveloped the main deck.

After what she presumed to be two hours, she heard a loud scuttle and a subsequent shriek that was abruptly cut short. A riotous commotion lasted for nearly five minutes before it broke into uncontrollable fits of laughter. For the next hour she was left to ponder Thomas's fate. Her mind played out a relentless torrent of ghastly possibilities, with Thomas meeting a grisly fate in every one of them.

And then, with a glorious flood of relief, she heard his voice. Her eyes burned. She squeezed them shut, refusing to allow any tears to burst free; there would be time enough for that later, when she held him in her arms again, and the present ordeal was nothing more than a memory.