The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,29

had allowed herself to be captured. She smiled faintly. Now she could be the one to tell the pirate tales and several fallacies she could correct. She felt frayed and worn, stained and bruised, humbled, but not beaten, not yet. Now, there was nothing except what she had always done: survive. She was a captive, but hadn’t been thrown overboard, lips cut off, or innards nailed to a tree…yet.

Things were looking up.

From the corner of her eyes, Cate saw something move. She looked, but found nothing. With a second glance, she found a small lizard sitting on the windowsill. With bulging orbs for eyes, the thing’s tiny throat pulsated with each breath. It darted first one way, then another. At one point it fixed a pale, reptilian eye on her, considered her to be neither edible nor threatening, and flashed out of sight through a space in the boards. Another appeared clinging upside down at the top of the window. It scampered about, and then disappeared outside.

She gradually became aware of voices on deck, their agitation increasing by the moment. She was startled to see what had to have been all hundred and twenty-odd, the entire ship’s complement, gathered. With the mizzenmast as a shield, she watched as a resounding cheer erupted. In the glare of sunlight, the milling throng faced the bow, like metal filings being pulled toward a magnet. They gave a rousing shout, their arms raised in much the same fashion as spectators at a hanging. Then there was a great stirring, like someone being brought forward.

A fearful shriek, a high, thin cry of pain rode the air. The crowd cheered, their agitation shifting to approval. A few moments later, came another cry, lower and filled with resentment. There was a scuffle, and then a man broke from the crowd and dove for the foremast ratlines. He scrambled up the rope ladders as gangs of pirates gave chase, racing up both sides, eventually going so high she could no longer see them. Their path up and across the yards could be tracked by the gazes and brandished fists of those on deck. From high above came another cry, and then the blur of a falling body. It caught in the rigging, spun, hit the rail, and then disappeared into the crowd with an odd thud, like a sack of wet meal.

A slightly puzzled hush fell over the pirates, a few grumbling with disappointment or disgust.

Stunned, Cate stumbled back, eventually coming up against the table. She was still standing there when Blackthorne stepped out of the crowd and sauntered into the cabin, the bellow of “Swabbers!” coming from behind him. He was barely through the door when he drew up short at the sight of her, his mouth curling in displeasure.

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he said, pitching his coat aside.

“I’m not sure what I just saw,” she said shakily.

Blackthorne followed her line of sight to the milling crowd outside, now dissolving. “Oh, that. Company business. Justice desired serving.”

“Throwing a man from the yards?”

He turned to give her a queer look. “He wasn’t thrown. The stupid sod fell. Never was much in the tops,” he said more to himself. “’Tis an unfortunate mess, now.”

He cast a thoughtful glance toward the deck. Hoses had been rigged, the swabbers setting to work.

“’Twas a disciplinary action,” he said, turning back. “Those three—or two now—were drunk whilst on yesterday’s raid. Their own mates came forward to claim their drunkenness was cause for injury or inconvenience. ’Tis a direct violation of the Articles. They were judged by their peers; leaves the Captain completely out of it, praise God!” he added under his breath with a roll of his eyes. “The sentence was lopping of an ear…er, last ear in Towers’ case. A bit slow on the pick-up, that one is.”

“You cut off their ears?” The pained cries still ringing in her head, a wave of queasiness took her. She had witnessed any number of punishments—stocks, ear-pinning, pillory, ducking—many cruel and sometimes bloody, but this seemed uncommonly so, especially when done to one of their own, this so-called Brotherhood.

Blackthorne smiled tolerantly. “Flog a man and he’s not worth his salt for days. Caning and drubbing is no different. Put him in irons or bilboes, and he’s on his ass, at his leisure. Keel-hauling renders him as useless as flogging, and then what with all the rigging him up, throwing him overboard, dragging him the length of the ship, not to mention