Ransom (7 page)
“Lad, you know perfectly well what I’m talking about; there is no point in being so deliberately obtuse. I refer, of course, to a function that would require you be at least partly out of uniform.”
Archer wondered wildly if there were some sort of target painted on his back, but he forced his voice to coldness. “I take your meaning, sir. I also take offense.”
Adrian laughed. “And next I suppose you’ll ask for satisfaction. Well, laddie, that’s all I want, myself... but I expect to get it from your pretty little arse.”
Archer’s fingers spasmed, snapping the crystal cup from its delicate stem. Tawny port soaked into the crisp linen cloth. “If you are soliciting my cooperation, the answer is no.”
He laughed again. “I don’t require your cooperation, Mr. Archer. But I would prefer it. It’s so tedious when a poor fellow’s all trussed up, it dulls the enjoyment.”
An odd sense of detachment numbed Archer’s mind, as though this were some weirdly civilized dream that split appearance from reality. The tone of Adrian’s words was calm, even cheerful; the content was a threat. His heart was thumping; he wanted to run. But there was nowhere to run. Even if he made it through the door, at least three guards waited outside. Archer could not guess what this bastard would do to Will or Captain Smith if he failed to follow the undefined rules of this game.
Formal speech seemed to be one of them, though it was difficult speaking politely through clenched teeth. “I think it unlikely that I would enjoy such an experience under any circumstances, so I must again decline
.” No thank you, I’d rather not be violated today, if you don’t mind.
“Ah.” Adrian tilted his head to one side, a professor examining a curiosity. “Perhaps I was hasty. I thought you were a connoisseur, like myself.”
Archer frowned, not quite following.
“Of male beauty. I had thought perhaps that you and Mr. Marshall—?”
Ice touched his heart, started to seep down through his body. “No.”
No. Leave him out of this, damn you!
“Are you certain? He seemed quite... solicitous... of your welfare, when you first arrived.”
“Mr. Marshall is a—a conscientious officer. He would be equally concerned for any of his men.”
“Oh, of course.” A knowing smile.
No, no, no!
He had to divert the bastard from Will. “There was another officer aboard our former ship who... labored under a similar misconception. Mr. Marshall called him out.”
“Oh, really? And—?”
“He shot him dead.”
As he would you.
Adrian patted his lips with his napkin. “My word. Well, so much for Mr. Marshall, I suppose. But I notice you have said nothing of yourself. Poor lad, I expect all you’ve known is a brutal bit of buggery below decks—that ‘other officer’, no doubt. We’ll have to do something to remedy that.”
Numbness began to give way to anger. Archer clutched at it, willing it to warm the frozen knot of fear in his chest. “Captain, this is preposterous. You are making an assumption about me—a very personal and offensive assumption—based on no evidence whatsoever. On that baseless assumption, you further assume my acquiescence to a proposal that I find repellent. This, in addition to the fact that I was violently abducted and am here entirely against my will.” He saw Adrian start to respond, and finished quickly. “I am sure you have force of arms sufficient to impose your will, but you deceive yourself if you mistake coercion for cooperation.”
The cold eyes bored into him. “You have not denied the assumption.”
Terror and outrage balanced on a sword’s point. He knew Adrian could tell he was frightened. He didn’t care. He was a man now, not a boy. “I deny your right to make the assumption.”
Adrian smiled thinly. “Sooner or later, laddie, you’ll find you want to cooperate. But for now, if my suggestion does not appeal, you can return to your cell. Perhaps things will look differently in the morning.” He rang a small handbell and stood, gesturing toward the door. Weak with relief, hardly believing the ordeal was over even for the moment, Archer rose hastily and followed.
Then Adrian stopped, his hand on the knob. “Remember, Mr. Archer, any violence on your part will bring severe retribution upon your shipmates.” With that, he moved up close behind, pulling Archer against him and running his hands down the front of his body. Trapped between the trespassing hands and the hot breath against his ear, Archer froze, closed his eyes, and waited for what he knew must happen next.
But... it did not. Adrian’s fingers roamed across him for a horrible eternity, stroking, probing—and then he abruptly pushed the door open and thrust Archer out into the arms of the guards who’d brought him there. “Tell Mr. Brown to inform me when we are out of sight.”
“Aye, sir.”
Archer stood trembling with shock while they replaced the loop on his wrists, draped the cloak about him, wound the line around. He managed to make it back to the cell, but his legs gave out as he stumbled inside. He dropped onto the straw and fell back against the bulkhead.
Marshall, who’d been lying out of the angle of light, rolled over and sat up beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Davy, what’s wrong? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
True enough. The ghost of George Correy
. He shrugged away, afraid of accepting the comfort, afraid he’d go to pieces. “I’m all right
.” Stay calm. Deep breaths
.
He could not break down in front of Will. He had to hold himself together until the guards took away the lantern outside their door. Once it was dark he could let himself feel. “I-I shouldn’t have had spirits, it went straight to my head when I stood up.”
Marshall frowned, but did not press him. “I’d have thought a drink would do you good. How did it go—did you learn anything?”
Although William’s presence was a tonic, if he didn’t change the subject he was going to start shaking again. “Good food, disgusting company. Did they ever feed you?”
“No,” Marshall said lightly. “I seem to be forgotten this evening. They did refill the water. Some kind of cat-and-mouse game, I suppose, though I can’t see what purpose it serves. Does he expect to start us fighting over a missed meal?”
Genuine happiness unfroze Archer’s face as he remembered his subterfuge. “If that’s his intention, he’d better watch the larder more closely.” He carefully extracted the fragrant, greasy napkin from one pocket and a reliably unsquashable biscuit from the other. “Adrian struck me as the sort to play divide-and-conquer. He tried to suggest I should be jealous that you outrank me. Here’s one for our side.”
Will’s expression said more about how hungry he was than his diffident words had. Archer’s warm satisfaction at watching his friend eat helped, for a few minutes, to push away the fear that was beginning to gnaw at him. Adrian was not especially subtle, but he did not need to be. Treat him well and starve Marshall, then remind him how easily he could help his friend... Adrian might well have known he’d taken the food.
“Davy,” Will said, polishing off the last of the biscuit, “if I were an admiral, you’d be promoted on the spot. But what are we going to do with the bones?” They both stared around the tiny, bare cell.
“Not in the straw, we don’t want rats for company.”
“No, there are too many outside as it is. Out the port, then... Ah.” Will lifted the lid of the slop bucket and popped them in. “I doubt they’ll inspect this too closely.”
Archer shrugged. “If they do, we’ll tell them I have terrible digestion.”
For some reason, that sent Marshall into a fit of stifled giggles. Then, just as he was settling down, the notion of pirates reading the entrails of a slop bucket struck Archer as hilarious, and that set Marshall off again. Every time their eyes met, control went out the window. It was nervous laughter, of course, and they both knew it; but it celebrated the one small triumph over their captors, and it shook the numbing fear loose from Archer’s throat.
“I think we had better get some sleep,” Marshall said finally, looking carefully away.
“Wait.” Archer lowered his voice, although they had both quickly gotten into the habit of speaking in undertones. “Before I forget, I do have a few things to report. The man at the helm right now is called Brown, though I suspect that name is as genuine as Adrian.”
“It could be, that’s a common enough name.”
“True, but why would any of them use their real names and wear masks? There are 14 steps to the quarterdeck, from the hatch we came down. It’s a fair-sized ship, as you guessed, I think somewhat larger than the prizes we brought in, but it doesn’t have the sound or feel of something as big as the
Calypso
. Also, Adrian mentioned that you and I were caught by mistake, just as the Captain thought. They were actually after the Captain or Mr. Drinkwater.”
“He mentioned the lieutenant by name?”
“Yes. And he knew Drinkwater’s family is well off. I wonder how long they knew we were coming into port. It was not a scheduled return.”
“The first two ships we captured arrived the day before we did,” Marshall said. “They couldn’t have learned anything more than that we were on the way, 18 or 20 hours notice, at best. Of course, the officers’ list is easy to get. I wonder if he was waiting for our captain, specifically, or any officer worth a good ransom?”
“I don’t know. Adrian seems scornful when he mentions officers and gentlemen, but his manners suggest that he is one, or was. His cabin makes our captain’s look Spartan.” Smith’s quarters had a fleet-wide reputation for their simple elegance; the Captain exercised his rank’s prerogative of a private stock of wine and other small comforts, but his indulgence was hardly on the same scale. “Most of the food was perishable stuff, everything but the biscuit. He must have a flock of hens aboard somewhere, and a wine cellar. I would guess this ship probably never travels very far from land.”
“Careful, Mr. Archer,” Marshall warned. “You’re showing a definite talent for intrigue. We don’t want to lose you to the spy service.”
“No danger of that,” Archer assured him. “If they ever tried to send me into France in disguise, the Frogs would know me in an instant—from my knees knocking together.”
Marshall smiled and cuffed him on the shoulder, and they arranged themselves for the night. It didn’t take long: shoes in one corner, jackets rolled as pillows, and shirts airing out at the port. The bits of sailcloth were just large enough to keep the sharp stalks from being a nuisance. It was too warm in the stuffy cell to need any cover.
They had guessed the time within minutes; before they were completely settled, a crewman came and took the lantern away. Without it, night was dark enough to escape into sleep. Archer prayed it would be too dark to dream.
Supplemental Log, HMS Calypso, in for repair, Portsmouth.
Lt. Anthony Drinkwater, in temporary command. 18-7-1799
No further news.
~
Exhausted by the nerve-wracking dinner engagement, Archer slept like the dead, but a mob of masked sailors thumping into the cell brought him abruptly awake. The lantern light showed Marshall struggling in the grip of two burly seamen; a third gave him a single hard punch in the stomach that doubled him over while another shoved his hands forward to be bound.
Archer was too startled and groggy to put up a fight; by the time he could, someone had a knee in his back and an arm around his throat. Shirtless and barefoot, they were tied, blindfolded and dragged out of the room, up the stairs, and outside to the edge of the quarterdeck. Someone spun him around, pushed him a few steps further. His wrists, still bound, were pulled up and secured above his head.
As he stood trying to get his bearings, he heard Adrian’s voice just beside him. “You’ll hardly benefit from the lesson if you can’t see it, will you?” The blindfold was pulled away.
He was at the gratings—well, that was no surprise. He had offended the bastard; aboard any ship, flogging was the most likely punishment for a variety of offenses. He’d taken a couple of beatings aboard
Titan,
when Correy had contrived to shift the blame for his own transgressions. But there was something peculiar about this arrangement.
He frowned through the metal latticework, and realized that he was wrong-way on, facing the maindeck... and suddenly Marshall was thrown against the other side, so their faces were only inches apart. In the light of a bright three-quarters moon, Archer saw that they were lashing Will to the grating spreadeagled, so he couldn’t move at all. Looking past his friend’s shoulder, he saw two more sailors bring Captain Smith on deck, also blindfolded, stopping some 20 feet away.
Archer had been half-expecting reprisal, but he had never imagined this. Twisting to look over his own shoulder, he saw Adrian watching him greedily, waiting. His gut tightened. Well, with 40 or 50 men to one, it had always been a foregone conclusion, hadn’t it? “All right,” he breathed, his mouth dry. “You’ve made your point. I’ll do it.”
“Of course you will.” Adrian’s smile was ripe with self-confidence. “I never had any doubt. But this is a consequence, not a threat.” He raised his voice. “Let these gentlemen see what’s going on so they understand how very serious I am.”
He strode onto the main deck, and Archer reflected that a stage career might have saved them all a lot of grief. “Men,” Adrian announced, “We have had an escape attempt this evening. It was not Lt. Marshall himself who essayed it, of course, but he will have to bear the burden for it, this time.”
Marshall blinked at Archer in surprise as his blindfold came off. “So that’s why you were so winded when you came back. Why didn’t you say something?”
“I’m sorry,” Archer whispered. “But I didn’t—” Someone hit him from behind. He’d have to explain later. No. He’d have to come up with some plausible lie, later. He couldn’t possibly explain.
“I don’t want to disfigure such a splendid young specimen,” Adrian continued. Hearing the undertone, Archer went cold. “So we’ll use the cane this time. Next time, it will be the cat. Bosun—oh, before you begin, give Mr. Archer a small sample.”