aback! Lay ’er in irons!” Pryce and Hodder echoed the command fore and aft.
The Morganse’s bow-chasers fired again. The guns must have been elevated and on the rise, for this time the Sybilla’s sails took the worst. The Sybilla’s own gunsmoke clogged her decks; the Morganse’s filling the space between the ships. The Morganse seized the moment and swept in. A shrieking grind and a lurch, which sent Cate scrambling for a handhold, marked the two hulls meeting. Grapnels were flung and the Morgansers poured over the bow. Strips of red flapping, brandishing pistols, cutlasses, boarding axes, and the like, they shrieked like Tartars as they charged and disappeared onto the Sybilla’s smoke-choked deck.
The clash of battle drifted from the Sybilla: the roar and cry of men, the scrape of metal against metal, the sporadic pop of a pistol. The deeper cough of muskets came from high above, the sharpshooters hanging like murderous monkeys in the rigging of both ships. The breeze pushed away the lingering great gun smoke, leaving only the thinner curls from the small arms remained. Cate stood on tiptoe straining to see forward through the tumult, and by some miracle, onto the Sybilla’s deck, hoping for a glimpse of Nathan. She thought she caught snatches of his voice. It would have required the force of a great gun, if it was to be heard over her heart hammering in her ears.
Damn him! Damn him!
Damn him for putting himself in danger, for being who he was.
“I’ll never forgive the bastard, if he gets himself killed.” Cate spoke aloud without meaning to, and apparently louder than she thought, for Chin, Hughes, and Cameron gave her a startled look.
Cate looked down at her shaking hands—when did that start?—and worried that in this condition she might not be able to do what was necessary if Nathan came back injured. She buried her hands deep in the folds of her apron, not only to stop the shaking, but to prevent her nails from digging so deeply into her palms.
And then it was quiet, with no more than the clank! and thunk! of weapons dropped.
It was over.
Cate gasped a choking sob of relief at seeing Nathan’s head bobbing among his cheering crew. Then he stepped clear of the crowd and into a band of sun breaking through the smoke. Shirt darkened with circles of sweat, sword in one hand, pistol in the other, the whites of his eyes gleamed against his smoke-blackened face. The eyes narrowed as Nathan peered toward her. A flash of white and gold broke the soot when he smiled at seeing that she was well. A tap to his forehead in salute and he disappeared into the jubilant throng of men.
The ships were shifted and secured, the yards triced up lest they tangle. Gangplanks, derrick yards, and whips were rigged, so that the prize might be ridded of her valuables. Judging by the net-load after net-load, passed down through the hatches next to where Cate had set up the makeshift sick berth, most of it was stores: spars, yards, canvas, cordage, blocks, and tar, or victuals.
Tradition held that the defeated captain was to pay his respects to the victor straightaway. After some time and no captain, word was passed. Still no one showed. Incensed by the slight, Pryce was on the verge of apoplexy, threatening to send a detail to drag the “double-poxed, worm-boweled, ill-beseen prick” aboard.
Cate had finished with the wounded. The maindeck being in such chaos, she returned by way of the ’tween deck to the Great Cabin. Nathan was there at the table. She had seen him safe at the end of the battle, but hadn’t seen him since. Seeing him now, unbloodied, was better than any tonic.
His face lit at seeing her top the galley steps. “A Butcher’s Bill?”
She had hoped for a remark a bit more personal, but after all, this was Nathan.
“The Sybillas must be better sailors than warriors,” Cate sighed. “A good number are bashed or broken, but barring something festering, all should survive.” She touched wood at the same time. Festering wounds was nothing to take lightly.
The air was pierced by a coxswain’s whistle, the Sibylla’s, for the Morganse had none. With the pomp befitting visiting royalty, Captain Samuels was piped aboard. The forewarning still did not forearm Cate for the visage which appeared at the door.
Cate had assumed pirates to all be of much the same cloth. Roughly the same age and height as Nathan, Samuels was diametrically opposed