Pirate Wolf Trilogy (34 page)

“
And
you
usually
see a
thing through to the finish when you start it.”

“Usually? When
have I failed?”

She moistened
her lips and looked down at his hands where they rested, bronzed
and bold, over the whiteness of her skin.

His smile
turned softly wolfish. He coaxed her legs wider apart and ran his
thumbs pensively through the feathery soft thatch of auburn curls,
unfurling and exposing tender pink surfaces that were quick to
glisten at his touch.

“
Are you
certain
you
would not
prefer to finish watching the sun rise?”

Beau threaded
her fingers through the glossy mane of his hair and sighed her
answer as he lowered his dark head between her thighs.

She would have
cause to think, only a few minutes later when the sound of shouts
and running boots on the deck overhead brought a rude end to their
pleasure, that perhaps she had made the wrong choice. For fifty
feet above them, knuckling the disbelief out of his eyes and
cursing his laxness in having drifted off to sleep, the lookout was
staring aghast at a fleet of warships slung out across the horizon,
coming their way.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

“English,”
Spence announced in awe. “They’re bloody English, the lot o’ them.
I count … sixteen galleons an’ … Christ love a sinner … half a
litter o’ pinnaces holdin’ in their wake. Are we at war, do ye
suppose?”

McCutcheon spat
over the side, but before he could offer an answer there were
shuffling sounds of a commotion behind them. Both the captain and
his quartermaster turned in time to greet Simon Dante, who was
fastening his belt around his waist, and not two paces in his
shadow, Beau, with her hair unplaited and her cheeks red as
apples.

Spit snorted
eloquently and caught Jonas’s eye before looking back to sea.
“Appears someone’s up to somethin’, that’s a fact.”

Dante clasped a
hand around the shroud lines as he joined Spence by the rail. The
northern sky was still a dull gray wall behind the rapidly
approaching ships and their sails resembled a low crust of dirty
clouds on the horizon. They were too far away to identify by ship
or master, but there was no mistaking the low-charged English
silhouettes.

“What do ye
make o’ it?” Spence asked.

Dante shook his
head. “I don’t know. But if England and Spain are at war, surely we
would have heard some mention of it from the Flemish merchant we
passed two days ago.”

“
True
enough.” Spence grunted. “On the other hand, there’s too damned
many sails out there for a simple venture, an’ ye said yerself it
took near three months o’ arguin’ to win a nod for yer two ships to
sally on the raid to Vera Cruz.”

“So it did. Our
Gloriana would rather have her nails plucked from her fingers than
part with a single coin willingly. In the end she did so only
because there was the prospect of vast profits to be made if we
were successful. The rest of the hawks, however, were being kept on
short tethers, with the exception of Richard Grenville. She was not
happy to part with him, either, but he was sent in Raleigh’s place,
for she did not want to lose Walter’s firepower for the sake of a
few colonists who needed transport to Virginia. Nonetheless, she
likely withdrew her permission for Richard to sail as soon as the
ink dried on the orders telling him to leave … just as she did
mine.”

To his credit
Jonas kept his eyes trained on the horizon longer than either Beau
or Spit McCutcheon.

“
She
withdrew her permission for ye to sail to Vera Cruz?”

“She … wavered
in her decision. It is another affliction the Queen suffers:
issuing an order with one hand, rescinding it with the other. In my
case the papers refusing me leave to take my ships out of port
arrived just as we cleared the harbor. The courier, poor lad, even
took a tumble into the drink trying to deliver them.”

Spence’s barrel
chest swelled on a deep breath. “A fine time to tell me there might
be a price on yer head in coin other than Spanish ducats.”

“I doubt Bess
would go to the extreme of a warrant. And even if she did,
Bloodstone has had two, maybe three weeks by now to cool her temper
with gold. In fact, knowing how much oil he has on his tongue, he
probably has the entire country singing his praises as a hero, with
Bess herself tossing down the rose petals in his path.”

Spence scowled.
“Are there aught more wee details ye might have forgotten to tell
me?”

“Nothing I can
think of, offhand.” Dante glanced past Spence’s shoulder and caught
Pitt’s eye. “Nothing that would jeopardize the safety of this ship
or crew, at any rate.”

“
Aye. An’
that would be the
whole
crew, I’m
thinkin’?”

Dante’s gaze
flickered back to Spence. They were both aware of Beau, who was
standing nearby occupied with hastily plaiting her hair and
listening to Billy Cuthbert’s report on winds and currents.

“Offhand,”
Spence mused in a low growl, “ye might not know the boards a’tween
Beau’s cabin an’ mine are not as stout as they seem.”

“I will keep it
in mind,” Dante returned carefully.

“
Aye. Do
that.” The red beard folded around a grimace.
“Helmsman!”

Beau dropped
her hands with her hair only partly tamed. “Aye, sir.”

“Run up the
flags. Put Aulde George front an’ forward so our visitors get a
good long look.”

“Aye, sir.”

“An’ I want the
word passed beam to beam, the first man who breathes a hint o’ what
we have in our holds, boastful or otherwise, it will be the last
thing he breathes.”

~~

“She’s a
merchantman. English, by her flags.”

The captain
nodded and lowered his hand from his bright blue eyes. “A pity. We
could have used some practice for our guns.”

The officers
gathered on the foredeck laughed on cue, knowing their leader was
always at odds to fire his guns and prove himself deserving of the
title the Spanish had given him.

A few who took
their heroes to heart might have wished the Dragon of the
Apocalypse were more imposing in appearance, including Elizabeth,
who enjoyed surrounding herself with tall, handsome men in their
prime. Sir Francis Drake was short and squat. His hair and abram
beard flamed orange in any manner of harsh light and his eyes were
positioned decidedly too close together over a sharp, pointed nose,
making him look more like a basset hound than a dragon. But the
common people loved him. The sailors who fought to serve under him
loved him. No one doubted he was the greatest sailor in all the
world, the most daring of Elizabeth’s private merchant navy, the
bravest and most fearsomely loyal subject of the Crown … including
Francis Drake himself.

Captains
brought their ships from all over England and anchored in Plymouth
Sound, hoping they might be recruited to join Drake’s elite group
of fellow adventurers— sea hawks like Martin Frobisher, who had
earned his just reputation for courage, resourcefulness and
seamanship by leading three separate expeditions in search of a
northwest passage to Cathay. John Hawkyns was another. He had been
the first to challenge Spain’s monopoly on the slave trade and was,
more important, the treasurer of the royal navy. Walter Raleigh,
Richard Grenville, Lord Howard of Effingham, John Seymore, Robert
of Essex, and Sir Humphry Gilbert—they were all Drake’s peers and
took to heart the patent from the Queen to discover and take
possession of any remote, barbarous, and heathen lands not
possessed by any Christian prince or people.

The
deliberate vagueness of the patent was what had attracted the sea
hawks, and most had made their reputations and their fortunes
sailing into “barbarous, heathen, or un-Christian” waters Spain had
dominated for over a century. They had looted millions from
Philip’s plate fleets and were not hesitant to claim any ship, be
it French, Dutch, or Portuguese, in prize if it chanced to cross
their paths on the open seas.

It was a
wise precaution, then, for a merchant ship like the
Egret
to give no outward sign she was
laden with treasure, although the scarring on her hull and the
evidence of recent and ongoing repairs to her yards and rails won
close attention as Drake’s ship, the
Elizabeth Bonaventure
, drew into range.

Drake had
signaled two of his sister ships to accompany him away from the
pack, the
Golden Lion
and
the
Thetis
. The
former was commanded by William Borough, a dour, humorless naval
officer with a gallant record of service in the Baltic. The
Thetis
was captained by Robert Flick
and aboard his ship were ten companies of infantry under the
leadership of Captain Anthony Platt.

The rest of the
fleet hauled down sail and drifted at the alert, or took the
opportunity to drill on tacking maneuvers.

Onboard
the
Elizabeth
Bonaventure
Drake and
his second in command, Christopher Carleill, stood at the rail
waiting to draw within trumpet distance of the merchant ship. A
third officer, young and fresh faced, was eager to prove his worth
and interrupted a murmured conversation between the two more
seasoned veterans.

“
Excuse
me, sir, but I believe I know her. She hails from Tor Bay, near
Plymouth. The
Egret
Her master
is Captain Jonas Spence.”

“Is my ear
supposed to tingle at the name, Mister Finnerty? I hear a thousand
of them a day.”

Carle
ill coughed
into his hand and raised an eyebrow in Finnerty’s
direction.

“Aye, sir. Bald
fellow, rather robust. Wooden leg. Beard as red as … er … well,
red. He’s the one with the daughter; the nasty-tempered wench who
castrated a seaman named Sheepwash … er, well, it does not warrant
what he looked like then … she castrated him with a butcher knife a
year or so ago. He brought her up on charges but naught came of
it.”

Drake shook his
head. “I am not familiar—”

“She is also
the ship’s pilot, sir,” Carleill offered. “I believe you once
admired one of her charts enough to commission a copy.”

“
Did I?
From a
woman?
The hell
you say.”

“The hell I do,
sir,” said Carleill, whose business it was to know such things.
“The mark of the Black Swan.”

’Ah. Ah, yes.
Betides I have the man in my eye now, though not the daughter.”

“A long-legged
little filly,” his second remarked in a murmur. “With eyes you
would not soon forget if you saw them.”

Drake’s
hand came up again as he squinted against the glare. The
Egret
was perhaps three hundred yards
off the bow quarter, carving a slow, graceful line through the
water in a course that would bring the two ships briefly alongside
as they passed.

“Tell me,
Mister Carleill, does she look to be riding heavy to you?”

“If I am not
mistaken, he deals in Indies Gold, sir. Rumbullion. Fetches upwards
of a thousand quintals a voyage.”

“Is that a
fact. Perhaps he’ll share a tun or two with us to lighten her
load.” He paused and narrowed his squint. “She appears to be
carrying a deal of weight in iron as well. Culverins, fore and aft,
I make it, but … what the deuce is she mounting in her waist?”

“It looks like
… demis, sir. Thirty pounders.”

“Impossible.”
The blue eyes widened. “And damned impertinent for a rum merchant.
Have you the trumpet handy?”

“Aye, sir, I
have it here,” Finnerty blurted. He fumbled at his side a moment,
then raised the funnel-shaped brass speaking horn.

“Hail them,
then, if you please. Identify ourselves in the name of Her Majesty
the Queen and inquire if all are hale and hearty.”

~~

“Sir Francis
fuckin’ Drake himself.” Spence gasped in awe, hearing the metallic
echo roll over the water. “Where, by God’s ballocks, did he come
from?”

“A better
question,” Dante said, “might be where, by the vinegar in his own
vainglorious ballocks, is he going with such beetling import?”

Spence
elbowed an equally dumbfounded Spit McCutcheon. “Give them a hail,
man, else he take
offense
an’ throw us a shot to remind us of our
manners.”

Spit raised the
speaking trumpet and gave their name and the master’s name and the
fact they, too, sailed loyal under the flag of Her Most Royal
Majesty, Elizabeth of England.

“How long at
sea?” came the hollow query.

Spence nodded
and Spit advised, “Eight months by calendar, eighty by the lack o’
good Devon ale!”

Spence elbowed
him again and Spit defended his attempted humor with a shrug.

Sunlight
glinted off the brass trumpet as it was raised again on board
the
Elizabeth
Bonaventure.
“Sir
Francis inquires if it might be a fair trade: ale for Indies
Gold?”

“Fair trade my
arse,” Jonas muttered, then grabbed Spit’s arm. “No, bloody hell,
that wasn’t what I wanted repeated. Tell him … tell him aye, ’Tis a
fair trade, happily given.”

Spence waved a
hand in salute to reinforce his pleasure as Drake’s ship slid close
enough to distinguish which blot on deck bore orange hair and an
orange beard. Helping to identify El Draque was the general
knowledge that he always wore black on board his ship. Black
doublet, black balloon breeches, black hose, black boots. That and
the fact that his head and shoulders barely cleared the top
rail.