of faggots and torches.
“Bacchanal” seemed a lofty description for a beach writhing with pirates, and yet it applied. Men who lived by the credo of “freedom” made gay in that same spirit, their rollicking jubilation fertilized by an unlimited flow of bumboo, a spiced mix of water, rum, and sugar, a great favorite, by all appearances. The scene came close to resembling what Cate had imagined pirates to be: carousing on a shore, wild with drink. There is a difference between revelry and drunken brawl, a fine line but a difference, nonetheless. At that point, it was still the former, but teetered precariously toward the latter.
Once supper was finished—a great boar roasted over an open pit—the pirates gathered about the fires in small intimate groups, former mates, nationality, home port, common language, or mere fate the determining factor as to where they settled. With fiddles, fifes, concertinas, and hornpipes, along with a great number of exotic and homemade instruments, resulted in a dissonant din. The Scots bodhrans meeting Hindi sitars and African pipes was backdrop to a Babel of tongues as the men sang.
Through that roistering din, Cate gravitated toward the fire from which drifted the growl and gruff of Scots, and the even more enticing refrains of Highland music. Bodhrans—a Highland version of a stretched-skin drum—and tin whistles played Gaelic tunes that stirred her memories and pulsed in her veins. She sat against forage bags stuffed with dried grasses, the hay-like smell harkening back to hayfields and barn lofts of another life. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be carried back. The palm trees, balmy air and rolling surf faded into the sharp resinous smell of pine trees, hunch-backed mountains, tumbling burns, and crisp air. A familiar face awaited, one that brought a smile and quickened her heart. He beckoned her to the shadows beyond the fires with an intent blue gaze and an outstretched hand.
Cate opened her eyes to find Nathan gazing down at her, seeming to know what she was thinking.
He smiled, although it seemed somewhat forced. “I wondered where you’d gotten off to.”
She flushed guiltily. She thought to explain when he folded down next to her, but decided it was better left unsaid. There was no shame in missing what she had lost, she thought defensively. But Nathan’s combination of resentment and suspicion indicated otherwise.
“Rumormongers would go rabid if someone was to be seen not drinking,” he said, handing her a tankard. A slight slur of speech suggested he had taken measures to avoid the same. “’Twould be outright seditious in many circles.”
He watched as she took a drink, nodding in affirmation when she discovered it was ale. He had to have gone to some lengths to find something other than rum for her to drink. It was appreciated, and she said as much. He demurred and waved her away, while at the same time puffing with pride.
Sitting companionably together, they watched the men dance, a scrap of cloth tied around the heads of those posing as women. In a swirl of bearded, sun-weathered faces, distorted by the rictus of wild-eyed gaiety and drink, they whirled like wraiths in and out of the fire’s shadows. Jets of sand spurted up from under their feet as they pounded the ground. Eyes feverishly bright with merriment, they pled for Cate to dance. Hesitant, she looked to Nathan, who shrugged abidingly. As she rose amid a chorus of cheers, she wondered if she would remember how, for it had been years since she had done so. As she was spun from one man to the next, exact steps proved to be of little consequence: so long as she didn’t think too much, her feet remained untangled.
The faces of her partners soon blurred, no man being allowed more than a few steps before she was whisked away by the next. Smalley, all arms and legs, resembled a child’s whirligig as he cavorted around the fire. Hughes, singing in Gaelic at the top of his lungs, fell into a jig that instantly took her back to the Highlands and Hogmanay celebrations. Towers’ diminutive height brought his face—much to his pleasure—in line with the edge of her bodice, earning him admonishing glares, and ultimately his skipper’s warning hand on his shoulder. MacQuarrie, normally as stoic as one of his guns, verged on giddiness. Millbridge was the surprise. He moved with surprising gentility and poise, a distant-eyed gaze indicating he saw a face other than hers.
In the midst of it all,