Seize the Fire (44 page)

A look came into his eyes, an expression of such silent pain that her fingers softened their grip on the gun and she took a step toward him.

He turned away. "It's not your fault," he repeated harshly. "It's nothing to do with you, do you understand?"

She stood there, helpless. "I can't believe this. I don't believe this is happening."

He leaned against the bulkhead, his eyes closed wearily, his hand spread over them like a shade against hot sun.

Olympia's lip trembled. "Promise me," she said, "that you won't do this. That you'll never, ever hurt yourself. Promise me."

He made no answer. She gazed at him in growing horror.

"
Sheridan
," she cried when she could not stand it any longer.

"All right, for God's sake!" He turned toward her sharply. "All right. I promise."

He rubbed the towel across his face roughly and threw it down, reaching for the shirt that hung on a hook beside the door. He pulled the linen over his head. As if she were no longer there, he turned away to the washbasin, tucked in the shirt and began to tie his neckcloth.

Olympia watched him in the mirror. She wanted to feel relieved. She wanted to believe that promise with all her heart.

But Sheridan was a liar.

He'd probably never kept a promise in his life.

Hot wind blew off the coast from Aden, faintly perfumed with incense. If Olympia closed her eyes, she could imagine shaded gardens and fountains in the desert, but when she opened them, she still stood on the familiar deck of
Terrier
between Francis and Sheridan, watching the sun rise over the glassy water and silhouette the hundreds of small boats that moved serenely out from the trading town.

It had taken four months to reach Arabia around the Cape of Good Hope, more than three of them spent wrestling strong currents and contrary winds up the east coast of Africa. Now Francis was in a fret because he'd missed his rendezvous with the other British warships and
Terrier
lay alone at anchor off Aden, becalmed in the growing heat of day.

Olympia glanced at the men beside her. A trickle of perspiration already made a faint glistening trail down Sheridan's temple and jaw, and Francis—lobster-red, the edges of his hair plastered to his skin in coppery tendrils—was dripping so that he looked as if he'd had a bucket of water splashed against his face.

Poor, stupid Francis—he'd never admit it, but he'd probably be secretly relieved if someone
would
splash him, mired as he was in his officer's dignity. Olympia looked enviously at the sailors who were scrubbing the decks white with seawater and holystones and getting a cooling bath in the process. In the heat, with the ship at anchor, every one of the two hundred crewmen was allowed on deck, even those off watch. Her own gown felt hot and damp at the base of her throat, though the sun was hardly above the horizon.

Sheridan said something sharply in Arabic to the pilot who'd supervised the towing of the ship to anchor amid the calm water. The man lifted his arm and began talking rapidly. His white burnoose fluttered as he indicated the clustering boats with an expansive wave. Olympia could see the baskets of fruits and hear the squawks of trussed roosters as the boats and their brightly colored occupants approached.

Sheridan moved behind her. While she was leaning over the rail, imagining the taste of fresh fruit after weeks since their last landfall at Mozambique, he said softly to Francis, "Have a care, Fitzhugh. Fire a warning shot, and tell 'em to come alongside one at a time."

Olympia looked over her shoulder. She saw Francis stiffen instantly at this advice—the first she'd known Sheridan to give since they'd come aboard. From that strange day she'd found him with the gun in his cabin, he'd acted quite his normal self, attended every meal, walked with her on deck, made his old dry jokes…but there was a wall a thousand feet thick around him. She looked into his eyes and saw no one there.

Francis had developed a profound case of injured pride, certain that Sheridan didn't approve of him, but no matter how her fiancé baited, he could not draw Sheridan into the slightest statement of disparagement. Sheridan was eerily agreeable to everything—"patronizing," Francis claimed, but Olympia doubted it.

Sheridan's compliance haunted her. There was something uncanny in it. He'd never been a tractable automaton; she knew him far better than that. But in three months there had not been a crack in his facade. She requested, and he accommodated, whether it was a game of cards or a walk on deck or a cup of tea, until she could hardly bear to be near him for the unnatural pleasantry of it.

This soft warning was the first real statement she'd heard him make for the whole of the voyage. She turned, looking up at his face.

He was squinting at the crowd of light trading craft, his expression unchanged while Francis frowned.

"Why the devil bother with that?" Francis wiped his forehead with a limp handkerchief. "You aren't afraid of this trash?" He paused, and then added with stiff formality, "Sir."

Olympia glanced at the Arab pilot, who stood impassively a few feet away. She looked at Sheridan and sensed a new alertness in him. It was nothing tangible, but the wall was gone. He was
there
. And he thought there was danger in this ragged trading fleet. "Francis," she said, "perhaps you should consider—"

"Pardon me, my dear," Francis interrupted. "You need not take it upon yourself to advise me as to how to conduct my duties."

She shut her mouth. The first of the trading dhows came alongside with a thump. Two robed merchants began shrilly touting their wares in a broken mixture of English and Portuguese.

They looked innocent enough. And
Terrier
was an eighty-gun warship, after all.

Another boat slid alongside. The sound of hawking doubled. Within a few moments a swarm of the fragile-looking dhows had pulled up under the gunwales, and the British crew was lined along the rail, shouting and haggling. Mustafa was among them, tugging at a sailor's sleeve and pointing down into one of the boats. Ropes went over the side, and a basket of dates came up for inspection.

Sheridan's hand closed on Olympia's elbow. She looked up and felt him exert a steady pressure, pulling her away from the rail. Her heart started to beat faster.

She let him guide her. Francis glanced at them, and Olympia said quickly, "It's so hot. I think I'll go below."

Her fiancé wiped his face and nodded absently. "I'll join you when we've cleared this nuisance away."

As they moved toward the stairs, she saw that the Arab dhows had crowded around the other side of the ship, too. They seemed perfectly peaceful, interested only in selling, but the purposeful grip on her arm sent a message. The motley fleet, increasing in size by the minute, appeared to press in on the ship with ominous fervor, filling the air with shrieks of excitement.

She and Sheridan had reached the companionway ladder when the first gaudily robed trader came over the side. The swift slide of color made Olympia pull back, startled, but the Arab only stood shouting and waving his arms at the purser, alternately pointing to a wooden cask that had been hauled on deck and lifting his eyes as if beseeching heaven to reason with this foreigner.

The pressure on her arm grew tighter. Sheridan pushed her toward the ladder. With her heart pounding in her ears, she went down just ahead of him. On the empty, sweltering gun deck, he strode to the nearest cannon and reached toward the weapons stored in brackets overhead. A sword slid from its brass rack with a metallic hiss. He took a pistol, and then another, while the noise on deck increased steadily. With expert efficiency, he loaded them both, shoving a ramrod down the barrel and checking the firelock before he held one out to her. "Stay with me," he said.

She stared into his eyes and saw the old Sheridan there, the man who'd saved her life more than once. She nodded, asking no questions.

He turned, gesturing her to go ahead of him into the cramped, dead-end passage behind the ladder. He took up a station just beneath the open rungs, his hand resting on the sword, his head tilted back slightly, watching above.

The sounds from the deck were merry, full of eager, incoherent argument and the occasional shout of laughter. Olympia leaned against the bulkhead, perspiration trickling down her neck and into her bodice. The weight of the gun in her hand seemed unreal. It made her think of the scene in Sheridan's cabin. She gazed at his back, wondering what was in his mind.

What had he seen out there? She could feel his tension, the way she'd felt it that day—tension that seemed to have no rational source. Long minutes passed, and she began to wonder if it had a rational source this time. There was not the least sound of threat from above, only the loud babble of men trying to make themselves understood in an alien tongue. She pushed back her sagging hair, trying not to let her fingers slip on the handle of the loaded gun.

"I'm going crazy," Sheridan muttered suddenly.

Olympia straightened, watching him.

"I'm going mad." His voice sounded anxious. "There's nothing wrong. Why did I think there was something wrong?"

She touched his shoulder tentatively. He started, gripping the sword, and turned as if he'd forgotten she was there.

"Do you think it's safe?" she asked.

"Jesus." He closed his eyes and slumped against the bulkhead. He bit his lip. The tension and alertness had vanished. He looked vulnerable, uncertain. "What's wrong with me?"

She laid her hand on his arm. "Tell me why we're here."

He lowered his head and shook it with a defeated move. "I'm sorry. I—sometimes I think…I could have sworn…" He looked at her, almost childlike in his earnestness. "It's a bad position, can you see that? We aren't armed; we can't retreat, can't bring the guns to bear—it's a bad position. It's an ambush." His voice rose. "Can you see that? I have to know. I have to be ready. I'm responsible, do you understand?"

She wet her lips. "Sheridan—"

"I know," he said bleakly. "I know. I'm not in command here." He covered his eyes and shook his head. "God, I can't explain it…sometimes it seems like I am." His hand fell. He tilted his head back, resting it against the wall. "Sometimes it seems like I'm just…losing…my mind."

She slid her fingers into his and gripped hard, saying nothing. The din of trading went on above them, as if no one up there could come to an agreement over a miserable basket of melons. He stood there in the dim light from the companionway, his face sweaty, his eyes still closed, a figure of shadow and glistening heat.

A shriek of laughter drifted down to them. Sheridan opened his eyes, stiffening. The steady noise seemed to waver, and suddenly there was a shout that was not laughter at all. Feet began to pound on the deck above; men's voices rose; Olympia heard a pop and a cry, and then the noise erupted into a roar.

Sheridan jerked free, turning. Just as he faced the ladder, the bare feet of a sailor appeared at the top. The man made it down three rungs and then fell free to hit the gun deck with a terrible thud. Around Sheridan's back, Olympia could only see an outstretched leg—but the sailor did not rise, or cry out, or stir.

Sheridan seemed to ignore the fallen man; he was looking up. She sucked in her breath as she saw the bright swing of a trader's robes begin the descent, and then Sheridan was crowding her back into the cramped passage, lifting the sword. The trader came down facing them—his sandaled feet, a drape of green-and-red robe, a flash of light on the dagger in his hand as he gripped the ladder—and Sheridan moved.

His sword winked, thrusting upward. It seemed to Olympia to merely disappear into the man's voluminous robes and reappear instantly, carrying a thin sheath of red silk with it. But the red was blood, and the trader was dead, with nothing but a strange choking sound and another heavy fall onto the deck in front of them.

Olympia could see the Arab's face. There was blood in a scarlet dribble at the corner of his mouth. The screams of combat rose to a deafening echo.

Two sailors came then, in a half scramble, half jump, and leapt for swords. There was a commotion of movement on the ladder far down at the other end of the gun deck. Armed, the seamen ran to engage the invading Arabs. Another robed figure started to come down in front of Sheridan. The sword poised, drove upward, and the pirate screeched. He scrabbled and fell sideways, clutching his torso. Sheridan glanced up and then stepped out from behind the ladder. With a deliberate move, he thrust his sword through the writhing man's heart, picked up the pirate's dagger and stepped back into the passage in front of her.

She could not see Sheridan's face, but she could see the blood pumping through the veins on his hand where he gripped the sword.

At the far end, the gaudy robes were pouring down, surrounding the two sailors. They fought frantically, but a tide of color seemed to flow over them. Sheridan's back grew taut; he lifted the pistol and aimed it through the ladder rungs. Olympia could see the dark, wild faces of the Arabs rushing upon them. In a strange distortion of time she seemed able to note every detail: she could see the jewels on their scimitar hilts, the gold thread shot through one's sash, the brown stains on their teeth.

Sheridan fired.

The explosion hit her ears, echoed amid the shouts, and two pirates were down. Suddenly Sheridan was no longer in front of her; he was beyond the ladder, the handguard of his sword glistening with the blood of a man he'd taken upward under the ribs. The others closed, but the reach of Sheridan's sword far exceeded their curved scimitars, and he cut down one, and then another, with an economy of motion like a dancer's.

Suddenly a wash of white obscured the scene, and Olympia looked up to see another enemy descending their own ladder. He howled and leapt free of the last rungs, his weapon lifted to plunge at Sheridan's back.

Before any logical thought had crossed her mind, Olympia raised her pistol and pulled the trigger.

The white robe crumpled soundlessly amid the din. The pale cloth settled and began to turn crimson.