Isle of Swords

  The pirate in the lead advanced slowly on the monk. He raised his pistol. At the same time, Padre Dominguez reached into his robe and drew out two pitch-black shafts of some kind.

  Anne continued, trying to watch the monk and the enemy out of the corner of her eye. “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

  The pirate cocked back the hammer of his pistol. Padre Dominguez suddenly whirled around and cracked the pirate’s wrist with one of the black weapons. The gun fell to the ground, and the pirate began to wail. The other pirates surged against Padre Dominguez. And he took them on.

  Anne was so surprised she almost dropped the book.

  “Read!” he called back to her.

  “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” Padre Dominguez ducked a nasty slash and drove his two weapons into an attacker’s stomach. He blocked another sword swipe, caught the man’s hand between his two sable rods, and flung him headfirst into the barrel-table. The man lay unconscious at Anne’s feet.

  “Thou anointest my head with oil,” she said, a tremor in her voice, “my cup runneth over.” Padre Dominguez stood, arms outstretched like a cross, as another pirate came on. This pirate had more skill than the others. He slashed and stabbed with a short sword. Padre Dominguez blocked and parried, moving backward.

  The thin blade clipped his robe, but caught no flesh. The monk was too fast. He slammed a rod into the middle of the short sword, and the blade broke in two. Then he kicked the pirate so hard in the jaw that he flew backward and crashed into a barrel. A crimson flood ensued, and the next two attackers slipped and fell from their own lack of balance.

  “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” Suddenly from between two barrels, a pirate wearing a black bandanna lunged, driving his sword at the monk’s gut. At the same time, another rogue leaped off a crate from behind, meaning to drive his two daggers into the priest’s back. Padre Dominguez let his feet slide apart, dropped into a split, and held up his two black rods. He used the first pirate’s momentum against him and threw him into the oncoming blades of the other man. They met with a tremendous wet crash. Then they both went down and lay still.

  Anne closed the Bible and drew her cutlass.

  “No, Anne!” the monk yelled, bashing one pirate across the cheek and jabbing another in the center of the chest.

  Anne hesitated. She couldn’t just let him fight alone. She stepped forward and brandished her cutlass, but someone called from behind the mass of pirates, “That’s him! That’s Dominguez!

  Capture him, but don’t dare put a mark on him. Thorne’s orders!”

  That changed the battle. The pirates stopped charging at Padre Dominguez. They surrounded him, kept him turning. A tall pirate emerged from the door behind them. He had long greasy hair and a thin beard that sharpened to a point at his chin. His eyebrows were so arched, his eyes so large they looked like they might leap out of his head. Anne saw he had something in his hands.

  “Padre Dominguez, watch out!” she cried.

  The monk had been trying to turn around, for he sensed the danger behind. Anne’s cry had confirmed it, but he was already occupied by the jabs of three pirates. Anne raced toward the bug-eyed man, but another pirate stepped in front and engaged her.

  Even as she blocked and countered, she saw the man with the pointed beard throw a huge weighted net over Padre Dominguez.

  His arms unable to swing freely, he could not defend himself. The other pirates grabbed the ends of the heavy rope net and began to twist it and pull. And that fast, Padre Dominguez was caught.

  Breathless and exhausted, driven only by fear’s pure adrenaline, Declan Ross crashed down the hill through the palms. In an effort to get quickly in and out of St. Pierre’s fort with their needed supplies, Ross had taken the strongest and most experienced crewmen off the Wallace. With each thunderous boom, each flash of angry orange just visible through the trees, Ross knew that his decision had been a terrible mistake. He’d left the ship—left Anne—defenseless.

  The silence suddenly hit him. The cannon fire had stopped. Ross knew what that meant. Screaming, “Anne! I’m coming . . . Anne!” he at last broke through the last stretch of palms and crashed onto the shore. No sight had ever greeted Declan Ross that so wrenched his heart and his mind. Not even coming back to port in Scotland those many years ago to discover that his beloved Abigail had died—not even that—matched the horror of this vision.

  It seemed half the inlet was ablaze. Hunks of debris, like islands of fire, floated around the gutted, sinking hulk of the William Wallace. Flames climbed the foremast and the bowsprit. The sails were long ago consumed, now just strips of char. Black smoke wreathed the inferno that raged still within the bow, even as it slipped slowly below the surface with a never-ending hiss. All around the debris, illuminated by the fires, drifted a multitude of bodies. And sharks had followed the scent of blood into the cove.

  Ross cried out something guttural and barreled into the bay. He ran until he could not run and swam with wild, powerful strokes.

  “Anne!!” he screamed, coughing out gulps of bay water. “My sweet Anne . . . where are you?!”

  He swam in circles, searching frantically among the bodies. He saw forms he recognized, but not Anne. Several times, he felt something under the water. Something nudged his leg or bumped his foot, but he went heedlessly on. The enormity of what had happened washed over him. He realized with dreadful culpability that once again, he had left someone he loved alone . . . alone to die.

  And then he stopped. A coldness gripped his mind and heart, and he stopped swimming and let himself sink.

  At almost the same moment, the captain and his ship slipped below the surface of the dark water.

  33

  ONE LASH TOO MANY

  Get out of the wattah, thrice a Scottish—!” came a muffled voice from above. Ross felt an iron grip around his upper arm, and he was hauled upward. He broke the surface spluttering and coughing. “Yer coming with me, mon,” said Stede as he hauled Ross onto his back and began to swim for both of them. “The sharks have had enough.”

  Stede drew Ross up onshore. Jules, Red Eye, and the others parted and watched numbly as their captain and quartermaster passed between them. But Cat stood apart from them, just a few feet from the tree line. His face was ghostly white, his eyes far away.

  Ross looked up and saw Cat, and something unspoken passed between them.

  St. Pierre knelt just a few inches from where the water lapped at the shore. He grasped huge fistfuls of sand, stood, and squeezed so that ragged clumps bled out between his fingers. He stared at the burning debris and said, “I will break his neck.”

  Jules replied, “You’ll have to get in line.”

  “Captain!” A voice came out of the darkness. They heard wet footfalls on the sand. Ross spun around—he knew that voice. “They took ’em, Captain!”

  “Nubby!” Ross exclaimed and grabbed Nubby by the shoulders.

  “You said ‘they took them,’ Nubs. What did you mean? Took whom?”

  “Why, Anne, of course. Anne and the monk. Thorne took ’em.”

  Ross swayed. His thoughts reeled. “Anne . . . she lives?”

  “Aye!” He pointed out of the inlet, out into the dark sea beyond.

  “I was in your quarters when the attack began. Begging yer pardon, but you asked me to get a barrel in there to you. I just barely escaped through the window when Thorne’s men broke in looking for you. Captain, while they were searching for the charts, I heard some of them talking—especially this one with a real pointy chin.”

  “Skellick,” muttered Ross.

  “You know ’im?” asked Nubby.

  “He’s Thorne’s quartermaster, a wicked, skulking shell of a man.”

  “Sounds right,” said Nubby. “He seemed to know quite a bit about Thorne’s plans. Captain, he kept talking about Thorne seeking black gold for the mission. I think they’r
e taking Anne and the monk to Spain, a place he called Cape Verde.”

  “Not Spain,” said Jacques St. Pierre. “Cape Verde is a small chain of islands five hundred miles off Africa’s western coast. Thorne has a huge stronghold on the biggest island, from which he deals sugarcane and . . . slaves.”

  “He will get word out to his other ships,” Ross said, “and they will meet their captain at Cape Verde to bulk up their crews with slaves. Nubby, are you sure they took Anne off the ship?”

  “They had Anne and the padre in shackles on a longboat. I’m sure of it.”

  Hope surged anew in Ross’s thoughts. He’d let Anne down, but at least she was alive. And now there was a chance that he could get her back.

  “Thorne has been building a shipyard in Cape Verde for years. On the backs of those slaves,” Jacques said. “If he gets to Constantine’s Treasure, do you know what he’ll do?” Jacques spat in the sand.

  “He’ll build a pirate fleet twice as big as any colonial power can put to sea. He’ll own the North Atlantic and the Spanish Main.”

  “We can’t let him do that,” Ross said coldly. “And I will not let him take my Anne away.”

  “What do ya propose we do, mon?” Stede asked. “We have no ship. Barely a crew.”

  “We’re going to need both,” Ross said. “Jacques, can anyone on the island get us a ship?”

  “I know a few men who might have something we can use,” said Jacques. “But these will not be warships.”

  “Hmmm . . .” Ross muttered. “That’s a problem. But I guess we’ll just see what we can get.”

  “Captain?” It was Jules. He had a dark clump in his hands, and he handed the wet mass to Ross. At first, the captain did not recognize it. . . . It was badly burned and torn in places, but as he unrolled it a white wolf and a claymore sword appeared.

  “The flag of the William Wallace!” Ross looked out to sea. “I’m coming, Anne,” he whispered.

  Belowdecks on the Raven, ship’s mates Davis Lowther and Howell Ames decided to have a little fun with their prisoner and try to earn a little extra reward from their captain in the bargain.

  “So . . . priest,” said Lowther as he stood over the kneeling Padre Dominguez, whose hands were shackled behind his back. “Yer the one ol’ Cap’n Thorne’s been worried about findin’, eh?”

  But the monk said nothing.

  Ames frowned. Perhaps the monk did not understand Lowther’s gutter language, he thought. “Seems you have something valuable in your possession, old chap. Something Captain Thorne desires.

  You would do well to relinquish it into our possession.”

  Lowther frowned. “Re-what-quish?”

  “Oh, do shut your mouth,” said Ames. He turned back to the monk. “Padre, you would save us all quite a bit of duress if you would simply hand it over.”

  “Leave him alone!” Anne screamed from her cell a few yards away.

  “Oh, you’ll get yer turn, me pretty,” said Lowther.

  “Be quiet, idiot!” Ames said. “Thorne will have your head on a spit if he hears that kind of talk. This young woman is something special to Captain Thorne. Else why would she still be alive?”

  Lowther swallowed and absently rubbed his neck.

  “What do you say?” asked Ames, kneeling close to Padre Dominguez. “Will you give us what you have?”

  He grabbed Padre Dominguez by the shackles and lifted him to his feet. He shoved him over to a single wooden beam that reached from floor to ceiling on the portside of the cell deck. Even in the dim flickering light of the lanterns, Anne could see that the beam was splotched with dark stains. “What are you doing?” cried Anne.

  “Don’t you worry yer pretty little head,” said Lowther, reaching into a large leather satchel on his waist. “We’re just goin’ t’ soften ’im up a bit. Make ’im more helpful.” He removed a long whip and let its coils fall down at his feet.

  Ames started to fumble with keys, but Lowther said, “I’d be careful takin’ off them cuffs, if I was you. I heard Skellick say this monk bested fifteen men ’fore they netted the blaggard.”

  “I have been duly warned.” Ames unlocked Padre Dominguez’s shackles and pulled his arms high up on the post. There, Ames quickly wound part of the chain around a peg and locked Padre Dominguez’s shackles once more. “That should do it,” he said.

  Now, my good sir, you may commence.”

  Lowther looked down at the whip in his hand and then up at Ames. “Com-what?”

  “Just whip him, dolt!”

  “No!” Anne yelled.

  Lowther grinned at her and let fly with a terrible stroke. The whip crackled and hit Padre Dominguez’s right shoulder blade. His robe split slightly, revealing a tiny patch of skin. Anne grimaced. She couldn’t believe Padre Dominguez didn’t yell out.

  Lowther couldn’t believe it either.

  “That will never do,” said Ames. “You barely hit him.”

  “I split ’is robe!” Lowther complained. “Maybe he passed out from the pain.”

  “Hardly,” said Ames. “I can see his eyes. Try it again.”

  Lowther rolled up his sleeve and unleashed. This time the whip struck Padre Dominguez in the middle of his back. Again, he barely moved. Lowther struck again . . . and again. His last stroke split the robe even more and opened a gash on Padre Dominguez’s shoulder. Anne could see the blood trickling over his welted flesh. And then she remembered. “No!” she screamed. “Stop! You’ll tear up the m—”

  “ANNE!” Padre Dominguez barked. “Be silent!”

  “There now,” said Ames. “At least the monk knows how to endure his due punishment.”

  “Yeah.” Lowther laughed. “And he knows how to put a lass in ’er place!”

  The whipping continued. Anne counted the strokes. Five, six, seven. Lowther must have been giving it all that he had because Padre Dominguez began to groan as the strokes fell.

  “There, Lowther, I think that is enough punishment for one day.”

  “Aww, mate. Just one mo—”

  “WHAT are you DOING?!!” The whip froze in Lowther’s hand. Anne spun around and saw that both Lowther and Ames had gone sheet-white, their eyes fixed on the stairwell on the other side of the deck. From the shadows, a form advanced. He wore a long black frock coat with tails that hung down behind him like folded bat’s wings. At either side there were sheaths as if he might carry two swords. And across his chest was a strap with no less than six pistols. He had a dark hat held in his hand and wore a black bandanna over long silver hair. Sideburns knifed down, meeting his frowning moustache and making it appear that his jaw was monstrously large. Anne could not see his eyes, for they were yet in the shadow of his imposing gray brow. But Anne could feel the intensity of his gaze just from the expression of abject terror worn by Lowther and Ames.

  “I asked you, what are you doing?” This man’s voice was raspy and choked, painful to hear. With several other men following him, he entered the deck a few paces and looked right at Anne, then into the next cell.

  “Captain Thorne, I . . .” Words failed Ames as his captain turned and saw the priest slumping limply on the pole. Lowther dropped the whip.

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!” Thorne ran to Padre

  Dominguez, tore wide the robe at his shoulders. The map was still intact . . . except for the area upon Padre Dominguez’s right shoulder blade. There, a six-inch swath of flesh was shredded and bleeding bright red. “No, NO, NOOOO!!” Thorne bellowed. He drew something from the sheath on his left hip and swung it around so fast that Ames didn’t have time to flinch. Whatever it was hit Ames in the upper cheek. Anne heard a sound like a dropped melon and looked away just as Ames fell limp to the ground.

  Thorne bent down, took the key ring from Ames, and unlocked the shackles around Padre Dominguez’s wrists. He caught the priest and carefully handed him to the men who had come in behind him.

  “Take him to the infirmary,” Thorne rasped. “Tell Mister Flagg to do what he can to repair the
skin here—stitch if he must, but not to cut. Is that clear?” The men nodded and disappeared. Thorne turned to Davis Lowther.

  “Davis, Davis,” said Thorne, sheathing the bleeding stick. “I know this wasn’t your idea, now was it?”

  “N-n-no, s-sir,” said Lowther. “I could think a no such thing.

  Ames, it was. Not me.”

  “No, of course not,” said Thorne. “You are not that much of an idea man. But what you did puts me in an awkward position. Before I decide, I must know a little more.” Thorne bent down and picked up the whip. “Tell me, Davis, how many lashes did you give the priest?”

  “N-nine, sir,” said Lowther, not daring to lie. “No more’n nine.

  I’m sure of it.”

  “Ah, just nine,” said Thorne. “Very well, that eases my conscience. Now, tell me, why were you whipping this man?”

  “Well, Ames said the priest had somethin’ ye wanted, somethin’ important, and . . . well, we thought—”

  “You thought you would get this item from Padre Dominguez and surprise me with it?” Thorne nodded as if he was satisfied.

  “Very well, here is what I have decided. You meant well. And really, you gave the priest a mere nine lashes.” Lowther nodded repeatedly.

  He was relieved with the direction this was going. Even Anne turned around to see—though she avoided looking down at Ames.

  “But since I cannot let you go unpunished,” Thorne continued, “I will give you the very same number of lashes that you gave Padre Dominguez. There, does that sound fair?”

  Lowther nodded—even smiled weakly as Thorne shackled him to the same whipping post they’d used for Padre Dominguez.

  Bartholomew Thorne marched back several paces to give himself room to swing the whip. Anne shrank back in her cell. “Now, Mister Lowther,” said Thorne, letting the whip slip from his fingers and fall to the floor. And he began to breathe audibly between his words . . . cracking, phlegmy, and harsh. “It is time for you to receive your due. I could understand if I asked you to give the priest seven lashes, and you lost count and gave him nine. But I did not ask you to whip the priest at all.” Lowther pulled at the chains and twisted, trying to see what Thorne was doing.