Pirate Wolf Trilogy (111 page)

"Plenty o' both, an' ye've heard the men
runnin' through drills so they know the lay o' the guns. Won't be
the first time we've been outnumbered."

Dante glanced down into the belly of the
main deck. Most of the men were there, leaning on the rails, or
hanging like insects from the shroud lines. All of them were
silent, looking to him for orders... or answers. Some undoubtedly
were thinking this was just one more curse against them for
bringing the girl on board.

He had to quash that before he could deal
with anything else.

"We all knew this was a possibility," he
said loudly, moving to the quarterdeck rail. "We all knew the
Spanish would set their dogs after us. But we have silver in our
holds, gentlemen. Twelve crates full, Master Stubs tells me. And I
for one will be damned before I hand it back without a fight. We
earned our prize, by God. You earned it and I say here and now that
I relinquish my captain's share so that it can be divided equally
among the most loyal and brave crew I have ever had the pleasure
and honor to lead."

Those with a head for figures were first to
lose their sullen expressions and raise their voices and fists in a
cheer. A ship's captain was entitled to six full shares of any
captured booty, which amounted to seventy percent of the prize. The
quartermaster received one and a half shares, the master gunner and
lesser officers accounted for another share, with the remainder...
usually less than five percent of the total... divided amongst the
crew.

As the excited whispers and murmurings
spread, more voices joined in the cheering and foot stomping.

Dante raised his hands to call for
silence.

"Our biggest advantage at the moment is the
fact we look like one of their own. If we can keep up that
appearance, they might just sail on their way." He turned to Stubs.
"What did we do with the helmets and armor?"

"Eh?"

"Helmets? Armor? Surely we
captured enough Spanish clothing and armor to outfit the men?" He
turned back to address the newly galvanized crew. "I want every man
on deck to be in scarlet or black and looking as Imperial as
possible. Have the sheet taken off the stern and give light to her
original gloriously gilded name, the
Santa
Maria
. Haul the Catholic canvas onto the mainmast and put up the
Spaniard's colors along with the king's leopards, but keep ours
handy in case our little ruse goes sour and we need to bare our
teeth."

Another cheer went up before the groups of
crewmen broke apart and scrambled to obey the orders.

Dante watched a moment, breathing through
another small wave of relief, then heard Stubs come up beside
him.

He was smirking. "Clever, that. They'll be
thinkin' o' silver not the pox.”

“We all need incentive at times.
Eduardo!"

"Here, Captain!"

Dante glanced over his shoulder. Eduardo had
just passed his thirteenth birthday and was one of Geoffrey Pitt’s
twelve children. He bore a striking resemblance to his Spanish
mother, Christiana, with his dark eyes and olive complexion.
Despite his age, he had been in the thick of the battle with the
Spanish fleet. He had been tied in the shrouds alongside his
crewmates and used as a human shield by his captors, yet not once
had he faltered, whimpered, or shed a tear, all three of which some
of the grown men had done.

"Aye, Captain?"

"Return to my cabin. There is a Spanish
signal book on the desk; fetch it and bring it here. If those ships
come closer enough to challenge us, we will need to know what flags
to raise in response."

"Aye sir." The boy turned and bolted back
down the ladderway.

"Stubs, have the master gunner, Giddings,
order all able hands on deck and gun crews at their posts, but tell
them to keep low and do not open the outer ports until I give the
word. Master Rowly!"

The helmsman stepped smartly forward. "Aye,
sir!"

"How much speed can you give me?"

The bristled face creased deeply with
concern. "She's bottom heavy an' slow to give ye what ye want...
much like my fourth... or were it fifth wife?" He chuckled,
snorted. "Sails were set all wrong but I've had the lads working on
the rigging. Strung some new lines, loosened some cleats and pins
so we have a bit o’ play. Even so, she'll not move above four
knots, not in this lack o' wind."

"I want six."

"Impossible, sir! We've used every trick we
know to adjust the sails shy of takin' the yards apart pin by nail
and rebuilding them!"

"Six knots, Master Rowlandson." Dante
clapped the stout Scotsman on the shoulder to cut short another
protest. "Do your best."

"Sir!" Eduardo was back, panting and out of
breath. "The lady won't open the door. She says them were your
orders, to keep it locked. Says she has a loaded gun and knows how
to use it."

Dante closed his eyes briefly, realizing
that Eva would have no way of knowing what 'trouble' had brought
him on deck. "Very well, I'll fetch it myself. Stubs...?"

The quartermaster was
already relaying Dante's orders to the gunners. They, in turn,
swarmed to obey, stowing any loose objects like casks, buckets, and
hammocks. Each cannon had a crew of eight men, the youngest
assigned to fetch shot and powder, loading the former into the
brass monkey's that crouched beside each monstrous gun. Buckets of
sand and ash were filled and placed beside the gun carriages, ready
to be spread across the decking to keep them from becoming slippery
with blood. Pikes, grappling hooks, and cutlasses were stacked
against the gunwales
.
The Dante colors of crimson and black were lowered and those
belonging to the former Spanish commander were run up in their
stead. The main foresail was quickly furled and tied and twenty men
working in unison replaced it with the canvas sheet bearing the
Catholic red cross. The sail was riddled from shot, like a sieve,
but from a distance it might pass.

~~

Dante left the remaining preparations in
Stubs hands and returned to his cabin. He rapped twice on the door
and rattled the latch. "Let me in, if you please."

"Who is it?"

"The captain of this ship, madam, now open
the door and let me in before my boot does it for you."

He heard the bolt sliding through the lock
and this time when he tried the iron latch, the door swung open.
Eva was standing in the middle of the cabin. Her eyes were wide and
dark, her face pale as snow apart from two burnished spots high on
her cheeks. The pistol she was holding was aimed straight and true
for the center of his chest; the serpentine hammer was cocked, the
pan brimmed with powder.

For a very long moment, neither one of them
moved.

"Eva," he said gently, "you are perfectly
safe, you can put the gun down."

"The boy said there was trouble on deck,"
she whispered. "I heard a lot of footsteps and shouting. You were
gone so long, I thought..."

"I can imagine what you thought, but I can
assure you the crew has other things on its mind than feeding the
sharks. The trouble young Eduardo referred to is four Spanish
galleons on our beam."

"Spanish galleons?"

Slowly, by inches, she lowered the pistol.
Her hand, steady up to then, started to tremble as if the weight of
the gun had suddenly become too much to bear. Dante stepped quickly
forward and caught the heavy weapon before it slipped out of her
hand, and in the next instant found himself being hugged by a
quivering, shaking armload of femininity. He wrapped one arm around
her while he uncocked the pistol and deposited it on the desk, then
he wrapped his other around and held her secure against his
body.

"I didn't know what to think," she said, her
voice muffled against the padding of his doublet. "I had visions of
the door bursting open and men dragging me to the rail and tossing
me overboard."

He unwrapped one arm and tucked a finger
under her chin to tilt her face up to his. Her eyes were huge and
dark, shimmering with tears, so full of fear it made his heart trip
and skip over a beat.

What he did next was not
planned, nor was it likely the wisest thing to do, but it seemed
like the
right
thing to do at the moment and so he lowered his mouth to hers
and kissed her.

Eva gasped softly at the touch of his lips.
Throwing herself into his arms had been purely a reaction to the
relief she felt seeing him standing there instead of angry crewmen
come to throw her overboard. Feeling his lips on hers, she should
have flinched back, should have pulled away, but instead, her hands
tightened around his shoulders and she kissed him back. It was only
when he pulled away himself that she realized what she had
done.

She touched shaking fingertips to her lips
and felt her blush grow hotter.

"I am so sorry, Captain. I... I don't know
what came over me. I don't usually act so... so foolish."

He smiled crookedly, not entirely certain
what had come over himself. "No need to apologize. I'm just glad
you didn't shoot me when I came in."

"Oh." She glanced at the gun on the desk.
"Yes, well… I didn't know what to expect. Or who to expect. And I
am truly tired of playing the helpless victim and I vowed not to be
dragged out of here without putting a hole in someone first."

Dante arched an eyebrow, recalling his first
impression of Eva Chandler, seeing her sitting with her back stiff
and her ankles primly touching. He had envisioned her in a courtly
drawing room sipping tea out of tiny cups. After only two days in
her company he was coming to realize there was more to this slender
wisp of a girl than he had supposed.

His thoughts were interrupted, thankfully
so, by the sound of a commotion in the companionway. Eduardo came
into the cabin with another lad, the pair carrying a heavy sea
chest between them.

“Master Stubs said to bring it here.”
Eduardo puffed out a breath as they set the chest at the foot of
the bed. He opened the wooden lid and began laying out various
articles of clothing: white silk stockings, pleaded
scarlet-and-black slashed trunkhose with a red peascod doublet that
descended in a deep vee in front and ended with an aggrandized
codpiece striped in gold. Two embroidered sleeves along with a
starched white neck ruff were added to the pile, as was a velvet
pillow cap with a long white feather.

“Cap’n is going to look a treat in these,”
Eduardo whispered through a giggle, holding up the ribboned garters
used to tie the stockings.

“I heard that,” Gabriel said, looking up
from the entry he was making in his logbook. “And I will expect
both of you to be all prettied up with just as much pomp and
frivolity. Off with the pair of you now. Be on deck in ten minutes
looking like Spanish blow-boys.”

The lads ran out, managing to hold their
laughter in check until they had exited the cabin.

“You’re going to dress up like a
Spaniard?”

Hearing the softly whispered question, Dante
set his quill aside and raked his fingers through his hair. His
eyes sought hers and held them long enough for her to feel as
though he was sliding under her skin and coiling through her
body.

"There are four well-armed ships out there.
I've fought against ill-weighted odds before but not without taking
heavy casualties. And never in a strange ship that handles like a
pig, with cannon that are in a fixed position and sails that..." He
stopped and sighed, having said all this before. "Our best chance
lies in duping them. With luck they'll accept us as one of their
own and go on their merry way."

"And if they don't?"

"If they don't," he mused, "we may all be in
for a hot time."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Is there anything I can do?"

A slow smile spread across his lips. "With
regards to what, Mistress Chandler? Manning one of the cannon?
Climbing the shrouds with a blunderbuss? Or perhaps waving a bit of
lace and appealing to their gallant nature to simply sail away and
leave us unmolested?"

As soon as he saw the flush in her cheeks he
regretted the sarcasm, but the last thing he needed to worry about
in the heat of battle was Evangeline Chandler being cut in half by
a twenty-four pound lead shot.

"If you truly want to
help," he said in a gentler tone, "you can fill up those
pillowslips with my log book and charts in case they have to go
over the side. And then make sure they
do
go over the side rather than
falling into Spanish hands. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes. Of course."

"Good." He stood and walked
over to the bed to inspect the garments Eduardo had laid out. With
a sigh of resignation, he stripped off his shirt and flung it
aside. The stark whiteness of the bandaging around his back stood
out against the bronzed skin of his arms and shoulders and Eva was
somewhat pleased to note there were no pink stains leaking through
the linen. Not wanting to be caught staring, she retreated to the
far corner of the cabin as he stripped off his breeches...
did he not know the meaning of
modesty
?... and started dressing in the
Spanish garb.

When she thought a suitable time had lapsed,
she peeked over her shoulder and saw that he had pulled on the
white stockings, the scarlet balloon-shaped trunkhose, and was
standing at the washstand shaving most of the thick, dark fuzz from
his cheeks and jaw, leaving a neatly trimmed, pointed imperial on
his chin.

When he was done, he donned the stiff
peascod doublet and fastened the score of gilded buttons up the
front. It was a snug fit but emphasized the breadth of his
shoulders and the trimness of his waist. Next came the sleeves,
which needed to be fastened to the rolled padding on the shoulders
by means of tapers threaded through a series of eyelets. There were
a dozen of these ribbons on each sleeve, few of which he could
manipulate on his own.