“And the British?”
“As you know, the British have drawn the most potent measure of their fleet away from the Caribbean. They pursue Ross east of the
Spanish Main and into the Atlantic.” Scully paused, fingering the little spider of whiskers under his lip. “Does this news meet your current needs?”
“Ever the profiteer, eh?” Thorne coughed out a hoarse, hacking laugh. “Go and see Skellick topside. Tell him to double your usual payment.”
Scully stood and bowed. “Thank you, Captain Thorne. I will continue to monitor the British, and I will find you when I have something more to tell.” He left immediately and shut the cabin door behind him.
As soon as Scully was gone, Thorne turned up the flame of the oil lantern on his desk and reached for one of several metal canisters from a rack behind his desk. He unscrewed its cap and let a long roll of parchment fall out onto his desk. He went to work, poring over the sea chart and thinking out loud. “So the British spoiled Ross’s party in Dominica, eh? They forced him to flee east . . . but he will not cross the Atlantic and attempt the Isle of Swords without provisions. You’ve doubled back on the English, haven’t you, Ross? But where would you go?”
His scarred finger traced a line south from Dominica. “Saint Vincent,” Thorne muttered. “Barbados . . . Trinidad. No. I think not. The Isle of Swords is rumored to be in northern waters—some say as far north as Portugal. Ross is practical.” Thorne reversed course with his finger and traced north of Dominica, past St. Kitts where Thorne was now, past Saba and Anguilla, and . . . out into the open ocean.
“Where?” His eyes scanned the chart. Then he saw it, and he knew. “The Caicos Islands. Saint Pierre had run a trading operation there, out of an old Dutch fort. Yes, they will go there to drop Saint Pierre off . . . or to get supplies for their journey.” Suddenly,
Thorne’s scarred right hand clenched involuntarily like a claw.
Searing pain shot up his arm, and his head pounded.
All at once, it was gone. But his cabin was eerily silent once again. Thorne slowly opened the drawer and looked upon the silver locket. You’ve done well, my husband.
Thorne’s heart hammered. But he reached into the drawer and removed the locket. He clicked open the locket and stared down at the painted portrait. “Heather?”
I told you Ross would not escape.
“How can . . . how can this be—”
Once you have the map, and then the Treasure of Constantine . . . the sea will be yours. Make them pay.
“I’ll raise such a fleet,” Thorne said. “A fleet to pay back the British for what they did.”
“A little over twelve hours,” Ross explained to Anne. “I want to get there under cover of darkness.”
Anne nodded and was quiet. She needed to approach this subject carefully. “Will we linger in port long?”
“Not if I can help it,” he replied. “I’ll get new crewmen, if I can.
Jacques will acquire the few remaining supplies we need. Then, with all speed, we’ll get underway to the Isle of Swords.”
“But why in such a hurry?” She could feel her opportunity slipping away.
“My reasons will remain my own until we have everything we need and get the Wallace far out into the Atlantic.”
“I’ve never been to the Caicos,” she said. “Will you take me ashore?”
Ross grimaced. He’d decided long before this moment, but he knew Anne wouldn’t much like it. “This is not some pleasure excursion, my daughter. We have great need of haste. The British are no doubt scouring the Spanish Main and half of the Atlantic for us.
Bartholomew Thorne wants us all dead—that’s two fleets after us, Anne. But,” he took a deep breath, “even if this were not the case . . . even if we had all the time in the world, I would leave you aboard the Wallace. And this time, you will obey your captain’s orders.”
He watched as the light in his daughter’s eyes flickered and dimmed. But, to her credit, she did not try to argue. She didn’t cry.
She nodded thoughtfully before turning and walking away. Just before shutting the door, she wheeled about and asked, “What about Cat? Must he stay on the ship as well?”
Ross’s eyes narrowed. “I grant you authority in this matter, Anne,” he said.
Anne’s jaw tensed, then relaxed. “I think Cat should be allowed to go.” She turned and, without another word, left the captain’s quarters.
Ross nodded repeatedly and smiled. Anne impressed him more and more each day.
31
HARBINGER OF DOOM
Blasted wind!” Ross exhaled loudly and paced across the quarterdeck. “Of all the times to lose speed. Maybe the monk was right.”
Stede stood at the ship’s wheel. His expression blank, he stared into the inky darkness of the sky. “This b’ a bad omen . . . the winds changing like that.”
“With all due respect, Quartermaster,” said Jacques St. Pierre, “the winds in this part of the ocean are very fickle this time of year.
But we are still at five, maybe six knots, no? Not exactly the doldrums. We’ll make it by the middle watch?”
“Just so long as we can get in and out before sunup,” said Ross.
“I don’t want our presence on the Caicos to be general knowledge.”
“That is no problem,” said St. Pierre. “We will have five hours of night left at least. You will see.”
Smuggler’s Bay was quiet as the William Wallace drifted slowly into port. It was well after the middle watch, and Declan Ross was as tense as a ratline. St. Pierre promised that he would have men at his fort to help carry supplies back to the Wallace, but to be sure, Ross planned to bring sixty of his strongest men.
Three longboats were lowered into the water. Ross, Stede, and St. Pierre led the group in the first. Red Eye, Midge, and Cat in the second. Jules and Cromwell in the third.
“I tell you,” said St. Pierre as they rowed to shore, “when we get to my fortress, we will empty my arsenal and equip your old brigantine with the most potent cannons on the sea!”
His eyes scouring the dark palms that hung over the inlet, Ross did not look at St. Pierre. “What about the salted meats?”
“The best smoke-cured beef and pork,” he replied. “I trade frequently with buccaneers from Hispaniola. There should be thrice a dozen casks of it in my cellar.”
“That b’ a lot of meat,” said Stede. “Yer making me hungry, mon.” St. Pierre smiled.
Their boats safely ashore, St. Pierre led them all up the steep incline through the palms. Ross looked back over his shoulder at the William Wallace. As ordered, Drake had doused all the lanterns.
The ship was barely a shadow on the black water.
Around the bend just north of Smuggler’s Bay, other large shadows moved silently across the water. Five of Thorne’s warships had disgorged some thirty longboats and close to seven hundred pirates. As much as Thorne would have enjoyed opening up with his sixty cannons, sending the Wallace to the bottom in splinters, he could not risk killing or—worse—disfiguring his prize. He gave his men orders to bring the monk back to the Raven alive and completely unscathed. The rest, including Ross, they could kill in whatever creative ways they desired.
On the gray deck of the Wallace, Anne tightened a cord of rope around a sail on the lowest spar on the foremast. As she tied it off, she turned and spotted Drake up near the forecastle. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could tell he was staring at her. Maybe he knew she was looking, for he shook his head disdainfully and disappeared behind the forecastle deck.
Anne shrugged, lifted a hatch, and climbed belowdecks. The dark didn’t bother her. She had navigated belowdecks enough times to walk it with her eyes closed. Still, in many places it was very close quarters. She needed to squeeze between crates and barrels or duck under hammocks. Occasionally, her hand would brush against a frayed rope and give her a start. Then she found the narrow stairwell that switchbacked down to the gun deck and, eventually, her object
ive: the cargo hold. “There’re a few honey cakes left,” Nubby had told her. “Better get ’em before the rats do!”
Drake fumed. Bad luck, but no one listens! If she wasn’t the captain’s daughter, they would. They’d have thrown her overboard as was right and proper. He leaned over the starboard rail at the front of the ship and spat.
Drake turned and began to walk away from the rail when he heard an odd rushing sound like canvas being pulled off a spool.
Before he could turn, he felt a prick in his lower back. His back, side, and chest began to burn. His knees buckled. He slumped face-first to the deck. Before his vision faded, Drake saw black boots moving across the deck, a never-ending stream of boots. Drake mouthed, “Bad luck. . . .” And then he lay still.
Anne stepped down into the cargo, ducked under a low beam, and straightened her back severely to get between two walls of barrels.
When she slid open the door that led to the food stores in the deep bow of the ship, she was surprised by the soft glow of a light.
Darting between casks and crates, she navigated the storage and saw Padre Dominguez. A lantern hung on a peg behind him. He sat on a small crate and had a barrel in front of him as if it were his private table at a pub. He held a small leather-bound book in one hand and a honey cake in the other.
“Padre Dominguez!” Anne said, trying to startle him. “Nubby said those cakes were for me.”
Padre Dominguez didn’t even flinch. “Odd,” he said without looking up. “He told me not an hour ago that I could have them.”
“What are you doing down here?” she asked. “Besides eating my cakes, that is.”
“It was the only place I could risk a bit of light.” He smiled and said, “And this isn’t the last cake. There are two more. Pull up a crate and join me.”
Anne did as he requested. He held out a brownish-gold rectangle, and Anne received it happily.
Munching, she leaned over the barrel table on her elbows.
“What are you reading?” she asked.
“The Holy Scriptures,” he said. “The Twenty-third Psalm. I turn to it whenever my heart is troubled. Would you like to . . . I mean, can you—”
“I can read,” said Anne. “My father taught me.”
“Here then.” Padre Dominguez handed her the leather-bound volume. It fit comfortably in her open hands. He pointed to a very large and fancy gothic “T.” Anne angled the book to get more light and began to read.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He re-storeth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of right . . . righ–tee—”
“Righteousness,” he corrected gently. “It means to be on the path of truth and honor.”
Anne nodded. “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death—”
A muffled boom came from above. Her eyes big and white in the flickering lantern light, Anne looked up from the pages of Scripture.
She said, “That was Stede’s thunder gun.”
Nubby had just wheeled a barrel into Captain Ross’s cabin when full-out war erupted topside. He drew a long carving knife from inside his heavy coat and ran to the windows behind Ross’s desk. He threw open a window and peered out just in time to see a dark mass hurtling down. He ducked back in as the body plummeted past the window and into the murky water below.
“We’ve been ambushed, and no mistake,” he muttered, starting toward the cabin door. He stopped short, hearing voices on the stairs. He closed Ross’s cabin door and locked it. “Buy me some time, maybe.”
He looked frantically around the room. Remembering the pistol the captain left in the upper-right-hand drawer of his desk, he raced to the desk and opened the drawer. The gun was there. Nubby put the knife in his teeth and grabbed the pistol. The doorknob rattled behind him, followed by a sharp bang.
“You would do well to open this door,” came a high, nasally voice from the other side. “My master, Captain Bartholomew Thorne, shows little mercy to those who delay his efforts!”
“You mean, no mercy whether they deserve it or not,” muttered Nubby through his teeth gritted on the cold blade. He considered hiding behind the desk. No good, he thought. Another slam to the door. A loud crack in the wood. One more shot like that, and they would kick it in. Nubby rushed to the cabinets on the left side of the room. He barely had the cabinet door open, and all manner of clothes, books, and other assorted items began to topple out.
“Slob!” Nubby shouted, slamming the cabinet shut. Then he looked to the window. He ran over, gazed down, and saw several bodies floating in the water. But there were also ropes, ropes from the intruders’ grappling hooks, dangling from the unseen rails above.
“You had your chance, Ross!” shrieked the voice. Nubby climbed up over the sill, tried to put the pistol in his coat, but missed. The gun fell and disappeared into the water. Keeping the knife in his teeth, Nubby clutched one of the ropes just as the cabin door crashed open.
“How in the world are we going to get the cannons down this hill?”
Ross asked. They’d been climbing for over an hour.
“I have specially made carts, my friend,” said St. Pierre. “Remember, these cannons are forged with a new process. The iron-bronze alloy is pumped full of air bubbles as it cools—it is lighter than you are used to. My men at the fort and your brawny crew should have little problem.”
“Whatever they weigh,” said Jules, “I can handle it.”
Cat looked at him and didn’t doubt him for a minute. Jules was massive, and his upper arms were bigger around than Cat’s legs.
“Ah!” St. Pierre exclaimed. “It is just around this bend! Follow me.”
They emerged from the tree line and navigated around a rocky outcropping, and there before them, high on a hill, was St. Pierre’s fort. “Something is wrong,” St. Pierre whispered. And they all saw it. Smoke poured from the windows of the square complex and its three turrets.
“No!” St. Pierre blurted out. “This cannot be!” He drew a pistol in each hand from his holsters and charged up the hill.
“Swords! Muskets!” Ross yelled. Stede pulled his two machetes; Red Eye and Cat drew their cutlasses. Together they raced after Jacques up the hill to the fortress.
But they were too late. They found Jacques St. Pierre on his knees, weeping, in the wide doorway of his main keep. And beyond him, strewn among still-smoldering fires, were dozens of bodies.
Cat shut his eyes. “This b’ Thorne’s wark,” Stede muttered.
Just then, Ross heard a muffled explosion. He sprinted out of the keep and looked all around. “Where?!”
“East,” said Stede, pointing over the treetops from which they had just emerged.
Declan Ross could not see his ship from where he stood, but he could see the widest part of the dark bay. To his horror, three massive dark ships stretched almost the width of the inlet. Fire flashed from their sides. The booms sounded a second later. “The Wallace!”
Ross yelled. “Anne!”
“Get away from the fort!” St. Pierre yelled. Then they all heard an odd kind of whoosh.
Ross turned and looked past St. Pierre into the keep. A harsh orange glow burned beneath the heavy door on the far side of the room. Ross’s mouth dropped open, and he might have died there, but Stede grabbed him by the shoulder and rushed him down the stairs. The rest of the crew, some running, some leaping from the walls, got away from the fort just before a thunderous explosion.
Fire, debris, and smoke sprayed into the dark sky. Chunks of wood and stone rained down among the crew as they ran. Several men were struck and fell. Others behind them grabbed up the fallen, unsure if they carried someone alive or dead. Ross stared hopelessly ahead and led his men recklessly down the hill. He knew that, somehow, Thorne had been in wait for him to arrive. And that meant he was too late to save his daughter.
32
THE FALL OF THE WILLIAM WALLACE
Keep reading,” said Padre Dominguez.
“What?” Anne lowered the book and stared at the monk. “But the Wallace has been boarded. We’re under attack!”
“They will be among us soon enough,” he said. In his dark eyes dwelt a strange kind of melancholy—like one who is sad when a long journey has ended, but is at the same time still happily immersed in the memory of it all. “Please . . . read.”
Heavy footfalls thumped from the stairwell on the other side of the cargo hold where the gunpowder kegs were kept. Then came muttered curses as men in the darkness bumped into sharp crate edges or bashed heads on low-hanging beams. “Have you lost your mind?” Anne asked, staring at the still-open door to their side of the hold. “We can’t just—”
“READ!!”
She went back to the beginning of the Twenty-third Psalm, to the large “T,” and began to read. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
As she spoke the words, Padre Dominguez stepped from behind the barrel-table and looked back at her once more. His eyes smoldered with a cold fire so powerful it made Anne look away. Then, with his arms behind his back, Padre Dominguez faced the open door.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,” Anne continued.
“He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
At that moment, the first enemy pirate squeezed through the barrel walls. Others appeared on either side. Some held swords or daggers. Some pistols or muskets. Anne saw Padre Dominguez’s hands drop down to his sides. His fingers moved and twitched.
“Louder!” said the priest.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me. . . .”