would be required to convince Mr. Kirkland to change his brewing methods.
Sensing she was being stared at, Cate looked up into an intent gold-eyed gaze at her elbow. Hermione’s narrow nostrils flared interestedly in the direction of her cup.
“She fancies tea,” said Nathan.
“This is coffee,” she pointed out to the goat as it persistently nudged her arm.
“Aye, well, she’s only a goat. Mr. Kirkland!” The bellow directed toward the galley companionway was but a shadow of its former self. The effort evoked a pained grunt. “It would appear Hermione has been left wanting…again!”
“Aye, sir,” came a querulous reply from below.
“Mind your meal as well,” Nathan said to Cate, with a narrow look toward Hermione. “She’s no manners a-tall. Away with you, you wretched, cloven-hoofed spawn of the Devil.”
Name-calling having no apparent effect on her goat feelings, Hermione blithely turned away to browse the room.
Kirkland appeared directly with what could only be assumed to be a dish of tea.
“Is it hot enough?” Nathan demanded, following Kirkland with dull eyes. “You know how she gets, if it isn’t hot enough.”
“Aye, sir,” the red-faced cook replied tolerantly, setting the steaming dish with care at the animal’s cloven feet. “’Twas near jumping out o’ the kettle.”
Nursing the kind of headache earned through exhaustion, Cate sipped her coffee against the backdrop of the goat’s indelicate slurps.
Pryce came in to interrupt their domestic scene. Quite slumped with exhaustion, he reported, idly scratching Hermione’s ears, while she mouthed his sleeve. Bracing his head with a delicacy befitting a crystal bowl, Nathan listened to the list of damage, a litany far too technical for a landsman such as Cate to comprehend. Nathan scowled with the effort of listening, the corners of his eyes tightening with the throb in his head. From the seamanlike discussion, she was able to glean that the Ciara Morganse had inflicted nearly lethal damages, but had not escaped damage herself. In spite of it all, the ship was still able to make weigh, but was in dire need of a place in which to lick her wounds.
“Isla de las Aguas de los Santos Sedientos,” Nathan announced in Pryce’s wake.
“Water of the Thirsty Saints Island?” Cate asked.
“Muy bien. Habla español.”
“Almost exclusively, my early years.”
“Could explain that accent of yours,” he mused with an air that suggested he was still of two minds regarding her truthfulness of her identity.
“Rather a lofty title for a very diminutive spot of land,” he said, returning to the subject at hand. “Supposed to be some magical springs, or some such nonsense somewhere or another.”
Nathan plucked a piece of fruit from a plate in the center of the table. He peered at it, sniffed, curled his nose, and put it back. He grabbed up the honey jar instead, swirled his finger inside and popped a golden glob into his mouth.
“We go in with them thinking we aim to raid,” Nathan went on, licking the stickiness away. “We give them the opportunity to ask for quarter, and then agree, if they bring us water and wood, and a bit of beef, if they’re so inclined. Why do all the work, when you can get someone else to do it? I call it winning all ’round!”
“How do you figure that?” There were so many things wrong in that argument, she didn’t know where to begin, the most troubling being he thoroughly believed it to be flawless.
“We get what we desire and they don’t get their fair town rampaged, which is exactly what they want. It’s genius. Hostages, torture, pillaging, mayhem: ’tis nasty business. All that blood and wailing ’tis bad for one’s humours. This is ever so much more better and pleasanter for everyone involved.”
He lifted the bottle in a toast to the grandness of his scheme.
“Why am I confident ‘genius’ isn’t the first word which comes to their minds?” Cate said under her breath.
“A town so far off the trade routes they mightn’t have seen a ship in months, perhaps years. ’Tis perfect.”
Nathan rose carefully, wincing at the movement. He critically surveyed her and the ruin wrought by a night of tending the wounded. She was smeared to her feet with dried blood, vomit, and filth.
“We may even find you some clothes. Those seem a bit...soiled?” he said dryly.
He frowned, considered, and then began tentatively. “There is the chance—a very remote one, mind—that I might have not represented meself in the most flattering aspect.”
Humble, clearly, was not a natural state for him.
“There are times when one becomes…” Nathan paused to clear his