Pirate Wolf Trilogy (10 page)

“
It
isn’t
just
a cut,”
Beau said quietly, stepping out from behind the bulk of her father.
“I saw it earlier when he unwrapped it and there is far too much
swelling and bruising for just a cut.”

“Save my soul,”
Dante spat through the sheen of sweat glistening on his face, “and
tell me you are neither the cook nor the sailmaker.”

Beau looked
amused for the first time. “Your soul is safe, Captain. Not even a
starving man would eat my cooking, and I stitch more holes in my
fingers than I do in canvas.”

“
Pray
alleviate my ignorance and tell me what you
do
do on board this ship.”

Beau’s eyes
glowed the same smoky amber as the nearby lantern as she squatted
down beside him, her elbows propped on her bent knees. “I doubt
such a simple measure would remedy such a vast shortfall. Besides
which, it is your limb in immediate danger from your ignorance. A
simpleton would have had the sense to swallow his pride and seek
help for it.”

Quicker than it
took a protest to form on his tongue, she drew her stiletto and put
the tip to the bloodied hose, slicing a long enough opening in the
wool to part the edges and expose the wound on his calf. The slash
was as long as her hand, the surrounding flesh was shiny from the
swelling, mottled red and blue. There was evidence it had scabbed
over and split open a time or two, but it did not take a physic’s
eye or nose to detect the source of the oozing white pus that was
draining along with the thready rivulets of blood.

“There must be
something lodged in there,” Beau said, prodding the angry swelling
with the point of her knife. “No wonder it hasn’t healed
properly.”

“Whatever it
is, can you get it out?” Pitt asked.

Beau
straightened. “I am not a doctor. And if it has been in there for
two weeks, it may have to be cut out.”

“The
alternative is infection and gangrene.”

Spence shifted
uncomfortably. “Aye, so it is.”

Dante’s
head rolled and he focused on Pitt’s face with a scowl made even
more menacing by the black bearding. “You do it. Or Lucifer. Don’t
even
think
… of giving
the wench the pleasure of cutting me.”

Beau arched an
eyebrow. Without waiting for anyone’s decision—or permission—she
dipped her knife to the wound, dug until the point found something
solid, then pried it out with a quick jerk of her wrist.

Dante roared
and Pitt swore. Spence jumped forward to pin the captain’s
shoulders to the gun carriage, while Pitt grabbed his wrists to
keep him from lunging at Beau. She, quite calmly, held up her
knife, displaying a four-inch-long sliver of oak impaled on the
tip.

“Christ Jesus,”
Dante spat. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

“
No,” she
replied. “But I
am
going to
enjoy this.”

She flicked the
bloodied sliver to the deck and bent over the wound again. There
was fresh blood welling to fill the hole in the muscle, and with a
few efficient strokes she cut away the old scabbing and squeezed
the swollen flesh until the pustules were all drained and the blood
ran clear red. Spit held a lantern over her head while she worked.
Thomas Moone, despite his tender leg, fetched a pannikin of vinegar
to wash away the purulence, and Spence, being more practical by
nature, ordered someone to fetch a stone crock from his cabin along
with a couple of pewter cups.

When the crock
came, he used his teeth to remove the wax bung and filled one of
the cups to the brim.

“Wrap yer lips
around this, Cap’n Dante. Yer gut will burn so fierce, ye won’t
even remember ye have a leg. All at once now, mind. Don’t waste
time dippin’ yer tongue or ye might regret it before ye start.”

Dante’s long
fingers curled around the cup and Beau met his eyes briefly,
suspecting it was her throat he regretted he could not be squeezing
instead.

The knife
flashed again and Dante tossed back the full measure of amber
liquid. Spence, who had filled himself a cup as well, smacked his
lips with relish as the liquid fireball plummeted into his belly.
Dante had to suck at a breath and steady himself until the shock of
the flames receded. But Spence had been right; he paid no heed to
what Beau was doing to his leg, he cared only if he had a throat
and gullet left at the end of the burn.

Spence chuckled
inwardly and asked, with all the innocence of a babe, “Care for
another?”

“
If I
were you,” Dante rasped, “I would be trying to find some way to
throw me and my men overboard. I doubt I would be tending wounds
and offering to share a draft of rumbullion… unless of course it
was poisoned.”

“The thought
crossed my mind, lad, believe me. But in this case, ‘twould be a
waste o’ good Indies Gold to sour it with poison.”

“So it would,”
Dante agreed, holding out his cup for a refill. “God’s teeth, but
it does have a keen bite to it.”

“Brewed by the
brown-skinned heathens on Tortuga who drink the stuff like water
an’ only have to piss on a piece o’ wood to start a fire.”

Dante drained
the second measure and let his head fall back on the support of the
wheel. His gaze strayed down to Beau, caught as she was in the glow
of the lantern light. Over the course of the long afternoon and
evening, a fine mist of hair had escaped the restrictive confines
of her braid, framing her face in a soft reddish halo. She had
removed her doublet sometime during the day, betraying softer,
fuller breasts than Dante had originally envisioned. Her shirt was
laced tight to her throat, but he could see where curves and
indents formed impressions beneath the cloth, and where the plump,
firm strain of young flesh stretched the cloth flat.

“I suppose you
drink this like water as well?” he asked dryly.

“I don’t gasp
and wheeze like a child when I do,” she said brusquely, and
finished binding his calf snugly with a wide strip of cloth.

He grinned
unexpectedly and reached for the crock himself, filling his cup and
handing it to Beau. Without wavering her gaze by so much as an
eyelash, she took the cup and swallowed the contents, displaying
the same hearty degree of appreciation Spence had.

Jonas chuckled
aloud this time. “That’s my little black swan. Sooner pluck her own
eyeballs out with a dull stick than refuse a challenge.”

“Why does it
not surprise me?” Dante murmured.

“No reason it
should,” Spence agreed, “unless ye’re a poorer judge o’ character
than I make ye out to be.”

De
Tourville offered up a faint smile. His leg was throbbing dully but
the outpouring of sweat had stopped along with the tremors in his
hands and arms. The rum had warmed his belly considerably and he
had no great urge to move or retreat from the cooling night air. He
could have slept then and there quite happily and left the
explanations to the morning—or to Geoffrey Pitt—but he knew the
captain of the
Egret
deserved
better.

“Is there
somewhere we can go and talk in private?” he asked Jonas.

“My cabin. If
it’s still my cabin, that is.”

"
It is your
cabin, sir. Your cabin and your ship, and you have my heartfelt
apologies if I made it seem any other way. Mister Pitt will join
us, if you have no objection, and your navigator, if he can be
spared. We lost our pilot and most of our instruments in the storm
that blew us to hell and gone; with the fighting and the drift and
the heavy cloud cover we could be within hailing distance of Cathay
and I’d not know it.”

“We’ve been
plagued by the same cloud cover, but near as we can fix it, we are
a week south o’ the Canaries, thereabouts. Another three after
that, with luck, an’ we’ll be home.”

Dante
nodded
, deliberately
avoiding the glance Pitt shot his way. He did not refuse the hand
his first mate offered to help him up, however, and after testing
his weight on the wounded leg, he found the pain vastly diminished.
He still swayed unsteadily on his feet. Fatigue and two cups of
Indies Gold on an empty stomach put his head into such a spin, when
he squinted upward and tried to focus on the darkness overhead, he
saw two north stars twinkling brightly off the bow.

Jonas started
to lead the way along the deck toward the stern of the ship.
“Beau—will ye not see if Cook has aught in the way o’ hot victuals
in the stewpot? Bring along a biscuit or two as well; a man can
think an’ talk better when he isn’t listenin’ to his belly rub on
his ribs.”

Beau planted
her hands on her hips and glared mutinously after her father. “I’m
not an errand boy either,” she muttered, watching with hot,
flashing eyes as the three men ducked through the after hatch. Her
last glimpse was of Dante’s flowing white shirt as he lagged
behind, favoring the newly bandaged leg.

“
And a
gracious 'you’re welcome’ to you too,” she snorted.

CHAPTER
SIX

Beau was still
grousing as she descended the shallow ladder into the area beneath
the forecastle where the cook held rein over the ship’s stores. He
was a bellicose man, lean as a whip, ugly as a wart, with the
unparalleled talent of being able to pass wind upon request. Beau’s
query for food won a resounding demonstration of his skill,
followed by a hand waved sullenly in the direction of the huge iron
cauldron. Assuming it meant help yourself, she did. There was a
thick miasma of rice and beans bubbling sluggishly in the kettle,
some of which she ladled into a large wooden bowl. Two thick slabs
of boiled, salted fish were tossed onto a tin platter along with a
handful of rock-hard biscuits and a wedge of yellow cheese.

With the crumbs
of one hastily devoured biscuit clinging to her lower lip, Beau
threaded her way back to the stern, choosing to take a path
belowdecks rather than crossing above. The air was dank and smelled
of too many sweaty bodies cramped together in too close quarters.
Hammocks were slung between every beam and board, many of them
already occupied by men of both crews who had worked hard
throughout the day. Most of them would be up again before dawn,
engaged in normal ships routine.

A small, clear
section perhaps six foot square was devoid of any hanging canvas
cocoons and it was there, around an upturned barrel, that a dozen
or so men who were not slated for the early watch gathered to
whittle and trade stories. A shielded lantern hung over their
heads, swaying with the motion of the ship. Some chewed on knots of
leather or sucked on hoarded sticks of sugarcane that had been left
out in the sun long enough to ferment the juices.

Most of
the twelve were from the
Egret
and tugged a forelock respectfully as Beau passed by. One
offered her a strip of cane, which she accepted and popped into her
mouth, chewing and sucking the stringy pulp to release the sweet,
strong liquor.

Two of
the men were off the
Virago
and
watched her with curious eyes and slack mouths.

“She don’t
belong to nobody,” she overheard one of the men whisper in response
to a muffled question. “And if ye know what’s best, ye’ll forget ye
askt.”

The narrow
passage leading to the captain’s great cabin was dark, but Beau
knew it as well as she knew the back of her hand. She ducked for
the low beams and veered once to avoid clipping her hip on the
ladder rail, a second time to maneuver around a barrel of
water.

Where
there was usually one large cabin spanning the breadth of the
ship’s stern and occupying most of the area beneath the raised
aftercastle, on the
Egret
there were
two. It was Spence’s only concession to Beau’s sex, that she have
somewhere private to sleep and tend to her “woman’s things.” Thus
the great cabin had been partitioned into two slightly unequal
halves, with two separate doors and a wall of oak planking between.
Spence’s was the larger of the two, overstuffed with furniture as
stout and well seasoned as the man who used it. A wide, square
berth filled one corner, a desk and a wire-fronted cabinet were
crammed into the other. The door to the gallery—a two-foot-wide
balcony that stretched across the stern—was located in Beau’s half,
leaving that much more room for the captain’s sea chests and piles
of assorted clutter that filled every spare inch of space. A large
five-spoked wheel with simple brass lamps hung suspended from an
overhead beam, spilling a pool of pale light over the top of a
much-abused dining table and four sturdy chairs.

Spence, Simon
Dante, and Geoffrey Pitt were seated at the table, a fresh jar of
rum between them. Beau’s approach had been silent and no one looked
up or noticed her standing in the darkness of the companionway, the
platter balanced in her hands.

“
Not near
as fancy as yer
Virago
, I
warrant,” Spence was saying. “But then I’m not a fancy man an’ it
suits me just fine. Beau has the other half—fer her own safety, if
ye know what I mean. Not that she wouldn’t sling herself in a
hammock alongside the rest o’ the crew, given her druthers. Aye,
an’ if it meets yer needs, Cap’n, ye can put up in her berth for
the journey home. Beau won’t mind.”

Out in the
corridor Beau’s mouth fell open.

“I’ll stay with
my men. I don’t want to put anyone out of their bed.”

“Nonsense.
There’s a perfectly good sail closet Beau can make proper cozy. An’
I’m not wantin’ to be known as the man who slung Dante de Tourville
in a canvas sack atween two beams.”