The Pirate Captain - By Kerry Lynne Page 0,2

its tip secured in a bit of cork, and a stick with a length of thread wound around it. A few bits of ribbon lay at the bottom of the bag. Too short to be of any use, they were treasured for their color and silkiness, reminders of a genteel life.

A piece of green-and-white tartan was next; the colors of Clan Mackenzie. Shrinking with the passing of each year, it had been cut from her husband’s plaid. Wrapped inside was a shard of broken mirror. In the flickering light, she gazed into the fragment. Barely the size of her palm, she held it first one way and then another, in order to view her entire face. It wasn’t an exercise of vanity, but to see if someone looked back.

Haggard and thin, a face was there, barely familiar. The eyes—a blue-green color to which no one could ever assign a name—showed the merest spark of life. Her brambled hair defied description as well: copper or brown? Her father had compared it to his favorite blood-bay mare; her husband referred to it as “time-mellowed cherrywood.” The wide brow was the same, as was the mouth, its corners still tending to independently curl into a smile. It was a trait that had brought many a reprimand for impertinence in her youth.

A few coppers, a couple of wood buttons, all just for the sake of possession, the last two items were the most treasured: a sgian dhu—a stocking knife—and a bit of parchment, folded. She clasped the knife’s staghorn handle, recalling its warmth from her husband’s hand when he had given it to her. Crackling to the point of near disintegration, the parchment’s contents were too precious to be opened, lest the few strands of auburn hair, snipped off on their last night together, be lost. She pressed the paper to her cheek and closed her eyes to conjure his image once more.

There were no tears; those had been used up long ago. Dry-eyed, she reverently returned each token to the bag, blew out the light, and curled on the bunk around what was left of her life.

###

Rough crossings.

The term had been heard many times, but Cate had only a vague inkling as to its meaning. She had listened to the stories of violent storms, towering rogue waves capable of smashing masts into kindling, and winds that could pick up a piece of said kindling and drive it through the next mast. There was no reason to doubt such testimonials, but the most intemperate weather she had thus far experienced had been a several-day thin drizzle, the sails hanging as limply as her sodden hair.

Now the day came with howling winds shrieking through every crevice, and waves that pitched the ship from dizzying heights to plunging depths, often seemingly at the same time. Nature now seemed determined to make a point of showing the extent of its benevolence in these weeks past. Cate’s first lesson was the importance of the berth’s raised edge—that single plank her sole salvation from being thrown to the floor. If she didn’t wish to roll about like a pencil, she needed a foot planted against the bulkhead and a shoulder jammed into the opposite corner. Luckily she wasn’t given to sea illness, but she was very conscious of the peril in closing her eyes.

Braced against the bulkhead, she worked hand over hand down the narrow passage to the mess area. The men ordinarily took their meals on deck, preferring the fresh air to the cramped spaces ’tween decks, but in deference to the storm, they ate inside that morning. Her nose pinched at the combined smells of wet men, fried fish, beer, and bilge. Lounged and perched on every surface, they balanced their battered trenchers on their knee, eating and chatting, riding out the weather with the same ease as most would ride a horse.

If they’re calm, I’m calm, she thought stubbornly.

With both hands for the ship, she gingerly tiptoed through the maze of benches and outstretched legs on her way to the captain’s table, the men nodding in amused politeness as she lurched past. Once landed on the bench, remaining there required her to hook a foot around its leg. The men at table dutifully rose at her arrival, ducked the briefest of nods, and then settled back to their meal in businesslike fashion.

As a paying guest, she ate at the captain’s table with Ivy, the First Mate; Coombs, the boatswain; Sullivan, the supercargo, and Humphries. An albino,