Steel (15 page)

Jill resisted an urge to pull the sword away from them. “What about me? What if it could send me home?”

After a long, silent moment, Cooper met Jill’s gaze, as intent as Jill had ever seen her. “If it can be done, we will learn how and do it. And if it can’t—you’ll have a place among us here until the end of all our days.”

“Pirates don’t tend to live all that long, do they?” Jill said. Cooper turned away.

Tennant leaned in through the doorway. “Boat ahoy, sir.”

“There it is, then. When everyone’s on board, we run. And keep it quiet.” Cooper looked at her. “Jill, lass, will you let me lock the sword up? Blane can’t ever find it. If he got hold of it and the shard together, he’d have all the power he wants.”

“You won’t get rid of it without telling me?” Jill said.

“You have my word.”

Pirate honor. Jill believed her, and set the rapier in the trunk. The captain locked it and gave Jill the key. “Blane will never have this, will he?”

“No, sir,” Jill said. Cooper returned the broken tip to her belt pouch. “Not like I need it to find Blane now, when he’ll come find us.”

The flight began.

As soon as the other rowboat appeared, the crew on board the schooner began setting sails. Jill climbed into the rigging with them to unfurl sails and secure lines, while others began raising anchor. By the time the last rowboat was secured, the ship was underway.

Jill wouldn’t have guessed it was possible, but the
Diana
sailed away from Nassau unnoticed, with all her crew aboard. Abe hissed his commands, the crew scrambled to their positions, and sails unfolded like petals on a flower at dawn. Water splashed, wood creaked, lines and canvas snapped, but all the ships at anchor shifted, creaked, and moaned, restless murmurs on an ever-moving sea. The tide and a cool night breeze were with them. The current flowed out to sea, tugging the schooner with it, and the wind pushed them along. By lantern light and hushed voices, they left the town with its boisterous parties and blazing taverns—and Edmund Blane’s plots—behind.

The wind was with them, and the seas were calm. They couldn’t have asked for a better escape. It seemed a good omen. Jill imagined Blane still onshore, his men hunting through the forest for her; or maybe he stood on the shore at Nassau, watching his rapier and his enemies sailing away.

Or maybe, and this was probably most likely, he was hoisting sails on his own ship to give chase.

I
t must have been close to midnight; the moon was sinking toward the west, and Jill was too nervous to sleep. Her eyes ached with exhaustion, but when she lay down in a hammock belowdecks, her head rang with imagined noises—the flick of steel against steel, distant cannon fire. If she slept, Blane would slit her throat. If he was going to kill her, she would be on her feet, giving him a run for his money when he did.

Maybe she was getting used to being a pirate after all.

She went up on deck to watch the waves, hoping the view would help her relax and make her headache go away. At the prow, she felt the full breeze of their passage, away from the shelter of the sails. Leaning on the edge, she felt like she was flying. It was almost a perfect moment, sitting near the bowsprit of a schooner under full sail, plowing through the waves of an open sea. She licked her lips to taste the salt spray and tipped her head back to let the wind tangle her hair. Above, sails framed a diamond-studded sky. She could forget why she was here, and that she didn’t belong. She’d forget it all for the moment.

Henry cleared his throat, startling her. The noise was a warning, to let her know that he approached, inching along the gunwales, asking by gesture—slouched shoulders and a sheepish expression—if he could join her. She didn’t say anything, trying not to let on that he’d surprised her, and her muscles had tensed back to fighting readiness. He settled himself near her, close enough to reach out to her, but far enough to let her scramble out of the way if he tried. She’d never seen him so skittish.

“Hi,” she said to break the tension. His anxiety was making her more nervous.

“Hullo,” he said. A few more moments passed; Jill listened to the waves slapping against the hull and felt the familiar rolling of the ship.

“You all right, then?” Henry said.

“Did you know?” she asked. “About Captain Cooper, and what Blane did to her.” And their child, their little girl…That sword was haunted, Jill knew now.

Henry shook his head. “No, none of us knew, not even Abe, and they’ve been sailing together forever. We didn’t know why she hated Blane, only that she did.”

“It’s awful,” she said. The words seemed so inadequate.

“Aye,” he said. “It’s an awful thing.”

“If I’d known before, when I challenged him—I’d have been too scared.”

“And if you face him again?”

She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“How are you, then?”

She pursed her lips, trying to figure out how to answer. For the moment, she was fine. But she didn’t know what she was going to do when the sun rose. She could only shake her head.

“Is it really so bad here?” Henry said, sounding pained. “Do you really want so much to leave?”

“It isn’t that, it’s just—” She almost reached out to him. Almost took his arms and held him—and she almost didn’t want to go. “I’m not supposed to be here. I’ve got to get back home.”

He said, “If I don’t understand, it’s because, you see—I’m sure you’ve seen—that most of us don’t have anything to go back for. This is all the family we have, and all the world we need. Heaven and hell together.” He gazed up and around, taking in masts and sails, starry sky, sea and horizon all.

She kissed him. Leaned forward, almost without looking, dug her fingers into his shoulders and put her lips on his. She took him by surprise, completely. The first moment, she pressed against him while he held himself rigid. But then he melted, his arms closing around her, his face leaning in, his lips moving against hers in a warm, salt-tasting kiss.

After a moment, he pulled away. They studied each other, eyes only inches apart, so it wasn’t as if they could really see each other. For her part, Jill saw enough.

“I’m glad I met you, Henry,” she said.

“I—” Then he ducked his gaze and smiled. “You’re a rare one, and for all the pain it’s caused you, I’m glad we met as well.”

“I just wish I knew what was going to happen.”

“You still don’t understand, do you? It’s not about what happens. We all may be dead next week, eh? It’s about what you’ve got now. The wind and the sea. A bottle of rum and a ship of your own. Don’t think about what happens next.”

“Is that really a good way to live?”

He looked out at the water and avoided her searching gaze. His smile was gone now, and she was sorry she’d said anything to make it disappear. “No, it an’t a good way to live. It’s a good way to die, in fact. I suppose you’d have me go ashore and live an honest working life.”

She tried to imagine Henry as a workman onshore, one of the laborers in the harbor, loading and unloading other people’s cargo all day. She couldn’t.

“It’s not my place to tell you to do anything,” she said.

He touched her cheek and kissed her forehead. “Right now, we’ll sit and watch the waves. Then we’ll see what happens tomorrow. Eh?”

She could argue ’til morning, and he’d still be right.

Dawn broke with gray and pink streaking the sky, and the sight of a three-masted ship on the horizon, matching them for direction and speed.

“It’s him. The
Heart’s Revenge
,” Captain Cooper said, lowering the spyglass from her eye. “I don’t know how, we had a full night’s lead and were racing.”

“We still have a lead on ’em,” Abe said. “We’ll lose the bugger.”

“Aye, we will. Make sail!”

So the race commenced.

Jill would have thought hiding would be easy on a vast, huge ocean. A person swimming, tiny and lost among the waves, certainly would vanish. A ship could sail for weeks on the open ocean and never see another, never see land. Yet a pirate ship could always find prey on common shipping lanes; piracy thrived in the Caribbean because the sea was crowded with islands rich with trade. The ocean could be deceptively crowded. And they couldn’t escape Blane’s ship.

A chase by large sailing ship wasn’t just a matter of setting sails and hoping. This wasn’t like the steady cruising of previous days. Cooper kept close watch on Blane’s ship, trying to guess his strategy, to judge how his ship was handling and how he was riding the wind. The crew attended to the
Diana
, making constant adjustments based on changes in the wind, trimming sails and tightening lines to best take advantage of their only source of power. They knew what they were doing and were good at their job; the
Diana
traveled lightly over the waves. Silver-skinned dolphins played in their wake, leaping and diving, mindless of the drama taking place between the two ships.

On watch, Jill spent part of the day on the rigging of the mainmast, waiting to take in the line to trim one of the sails. Around noon the ship changed direction and began tacking, a complicated operation that changed which side of the ship took the brunt of the wind. Booms swung across the deck, triangular sails flapped uselessly for a moment, and Abe shouted orders. In seconds, the sails grew taut again and the ship jumped forward, heeling over, then leaning into her new course. Manning the sails was difficult, precarious work, but there was satisfaction in being part of a crew, of helping to control the ship to ride the winds.

The course change confused Blane, and they lost sight of him for part of the day; the
Heart’s Revenge
didn’t tack as sharply and neatly as the
Diana
did, and he had to loop around. Captain Cooper didn’t pause to appreciate the small victory, but ordered them to maintain full sails and racing speed, still bound for the chain of islands east of the Bahamas.

Before dusk fell, the lookout cried out and pointed—there it was, that ship bobbing into view on the far horizon, white sails gleaming, catching the last rays of sun that cut across the ocean.

“Bloody hell, how’s he doing it?” Abe said.

Cooper watched him through the spyglass a moment before turning to him. “Have we got anything else we can put up?”

“Every inch of canvas we have is already set, Captain,” he answered. “Even if we had more we can’t go any faster without breaking to pieces.”

“Damn. Well then, looks like we may have a fight on our hands after all.”

The crew who weren’t on the rigging, manning the sails, or helping with the ship, spent the time cleaning and loading muskets, pistols, and making the cannons ready. No longer sure they could outrun Blane, they prepared for battle. Jill cleaned and sharpened her borrowed rapier, which seemed dull and useless.

None of them slept that night. Around what must have been midnight, Jill found Captain Cooper still at the helm, still watching behind them. Blane’s ship, lit by lanterns, was visible as a faint glow, like a star come to rest on the waves.

“What are we going to do when he catches up with us?” Jill asked. She’d moved quietly, didn’t announce herself, but Cooper didn’t seem startled when she spoke.

“We’ll make our stand, I suppose,” Cooper said, a little too fatalistically, a little too willing to give in to the inevitable.

“We can’t win against him,” Jill said. “How many cannons does he have? A dozen?”

“Twenty,” Cooper said, and Jill imagined her counting each one on their last encounter, and knowing exactly what that many cannons on a ship that size could do if it cornered a schooner like the
Diana
. “But we have speed. We can keep ahead of him, just watch.”

“But we’ll have to stop eventually, and he’ll find us.”

“Here now, who’s been at sea half her life and knows far more about it than you, you wee tadpole?”

It sounded like bluster. Cooper could be standing with a sword at her throat and she’d never admit she was beaten. Blane’s ship was bigger, better armed, with more crew. All the
Diana
had was speed, and if that didn’t work—

Well, no. They had something else that Blane didn’t—both pieces of the cursed sword. And Cooper had
her
, her and the sword together, which Blane had never had.

She almost hated to bring it up. “You said you’d thought about using Blane’s sword.”

Cooper huffed and shook her head. “It’s cursed. Haunted. I can’t even tell you all that sword’s about.”

“What would happen if we fixed it? Put the two pieces back together.”

“That’s what Blane wants. No, we can’t do it.” Cooper bowed her head so her thick hair fell over her shoulders. Hiding some expression. When she looked up again, her expression was cold. “If we repair the sword and Blane gets ahold of it again, we’re done for. I’ll not have that. I ought to bury both pieces on different islands and watch him scramble.”

Jill took a breath. “If I have that sword, I think I can beat him.”

The words shocked her—she was sure she hadn’t meant to say that. Then she thought, maybe that was it. Maybe fighting Blane—and winning, beating him with his own power—would send her home. It made sense: The only thing that would defeat Edmund Blane was Edmund Blane’s own power, his own curse, confronting him with the blood he’d spilled. She remembered the feeling of the sword in her hand, the sensation of leather and wood against her palm, and she knew it had power. Her hands itched to hold the sword, whole and ready for fighting, again. Even if it was haunted.

Rather than refusing and cursing at her, Cooper considered. Jill couldn’t guess what the captain was thinking when she looked at her with that narrowed gaze.

“You faced Blane, didn’t you? You fought him?”

“Yes, sir,” Jill said.

“You aren’t lying about it.”

“No, sir.”

“And you held your own against him?”

“I didn’t beat him, but I didn’t lose, either.”

“And what makes you think you can beat him now?” she demanded.

“It’s the sword. Not by myself, but with that sword.” She had to try….

Then Cooper shook her head. “It sounds all high and mighty, but we can’t risk getting close enough to Blane to see if you’re right. Now get up on the mainmast and take the next watch.”

Jill almost argued. She had stood up to Blane, however briefly; standing up to Captain Cooper ought to be easier. She was planted on the deck, her jaw stiff with the arguments she wanted to make—if the sword had power, couldn’t they use it, too? They glared at each other, neither of them flinching, Cooper daring her to make a challenge and Jill almost doing it. But unlike facing Blane back on the island, she didn’t have anywhere to run to on the ship.

Jill marched to the mainmast, where she swung into the rigging and pulled herself to the lookout perch, working out her frustration through her muscles.

Looking out over the ocean, a tiny sphere of lantern light reflected on distant water. The
Heart’s Revenge
, still trailing them.

At some point near dawn, Jill stumbled down off the mainmast, clinging to ropes while half asleep and nearly missing a couple of her grips. She was too tired and angry to be frightened by her near misses. She made it belowdecks and into a hammock and must have slept for an hour or so. Noises above deck and sunlight coming in through the hatch awakened her.

Startled, she swung out of the hammock, half falling, and looked for a sword or pistol, sure that the battle had started. But no, there hadn’t been any cannon fire. No one shouted in a panic. The deck above echoed with the sound of something being hauled across it, and of Captain Cooper calling out orders.

Jill climbed up on deck and blinked in the sunlight.

In a clear space in the middle of the deck, a large crate had been set, and cannonballs stacked in the crate. Nearby, members of the crew were breaking up other crates, building a pile of splintered wood.

“What’s going on?” Jill said. Of all the strangeness she’d seen and learned since arriving on the
Diana
, this made the least sense.

Abe, who had been walking along the deck, smiled at her. “We’re going to build a fire without burning down the ship. What do you think?”

Jill shook her head. “Why?”

“You’ll see. You’ll like it.”

She could only stare, baffled.