Beloved Warrior Page 5

  Patrick stared at the man he hated above all others, then parried the man’s first stroke of the sword. He had no shield. Nor did his opponent. It was metal against metal, skill against skill, and Patrick knew instantly from the way Mendoza moved and held his sword that the Spaniard had the advantage. Mendoza had not been in chains for six years, did not have the stiffness of movement. Patrick, though, had the will.

  Patrick was aware of the gathering number of oarsmen watching him, daggers or clubs in their hand, ready to finish the job if Patrick couldn’t. But Patrick also knew he had to win to keep the confidence of a crew made up of thieves and murderers as well as prisoners of war. He had to have that confidence to get home.

  He tried an experimental thrust. Mendoza skillfully parried it and lunged at him. Patrick parried that stroke, moving backward until he felt the wall blocking farther motion in that direction. He moved to the side as he feinted and lunged. Sheer will fueled his weakened body.

  Mendoza defended against the attack easily enough, but Patrick saw surprise on his face. It was obvious that Mendoza had expected a fast kill against a slave.

  Patrick tried a riposte. He was weak but he felt a surge of strength as Mendoza was forced back. The retreat lasted only a second before the Spaniard lunged at him. Patrick sidestepped, but not quite quickly enough. Mendoza’s blade caught his forearm just above the knife wound he suffered on deck. A fresh trickle of blood mingled with his sweat. It enraged him that the captain fought as if he were the man being wronged. This man, this captain, had wronged every man aboard this ship.

  Their swords clashed, then disengaged, and Patrick’s breath became labored. His steps slowed. Mendoza met his every move with skill, and Patrick couldn’t find an opening. One small mistake would mean his life. He saw the desperation in Mendoza’s eyes, the hate that equaled his own. Patrick knew anger would affect Mendoza’s abilities. It would cause him to make a mistake. Survival, more than anger, was Patrick’s goal.

  An opening! He thrust once more, but Mendoza blocked it with his sword and with a sudden movement knocked Patrick’s sword from his hand. Patrick dived after it, rolling on the ground to avoid Mendoza’s blade as he grabbed the hilt and sprang to his feet.

  Mendoza looked startled, giving Patrick time to balance on his feet. Patrick feinted, then sprang forward suddenly, only to find his rapier parried once more.

  Mendoza was trying to wear him down, his fury directed at the man he obviously held responsible for taking his ship. Patrick was sustained by another kind of outrage, one built over months and years.

  Mendoza, obviously tired of taunting his opponent, wielded the blade as if it were a part of him, driving in. Patrick danced away from the sword and saw that his opponent was angered enough to make a misjudgment. Patrick sprang forward suddenly, his sword driving toward Mendoza’s heart. He felt it go into his enemy, and the man started to fall, a surprised look on his face.

  Patrick pulled the blade out as Mendoza landed on the floor of the deck. There was a moan. The captain tried to say something, but blood bubbled from his mouth. Then he stilled.

  Shouts came up from the men around him.

  Several took Mendoza’s body.

  “Overboard,” yelled one.

  Four of them headed toward the steep stairs up to the main deck, each carrying an arm or leg. The clanking of chains accompanied their every step.

  Others started into the cabin, grabbing anything they could.

  He wanted nothing more from Mendoza. He had everything he wanted. He started toward the hatch of the main deck, then turned back. There would be maps in the captain’s cabin. Maps he had to have.

  Just as reached the door, he heard a scream.

  A woman’s scream.

  Chapter 6

  HER heart pounding in fear, Juliana waited inside the cabin as her uncle stepped outside and closed the door behind him. She held Carmita’s hand.

  “All will be well,” she tried to soothe the terrified girl, knowing her words were lies. Nothing would be well again. Although she tried to hide her own terror, she realized they had no hope. She also realized her uncle was probably going to his death, hoping he might divert the mutineers’ interest to himself and that Juliana might in some way be overlooked. At least, she wanted to think that of him. If she could avoid detection, perhaps she could later steal down to the hold.

  Illogical, si. Impossible, si. But she had seen in Tio’s face that there was nothing else. A thin hope, indeed, against rape and pain and death.

  She’d never really cared for him, and she was certainly angry with him since she saw her uncle as the architect of this marriage, but sorrow mixed with terror as her uncle stepped out of the cabin and closed the door behind him. She left Carmita kneeling next to the bed and praying in quiet earnest. Leaning against the door, she listened, hoping that those on the other side could not hear her heart pounding.

  She heard her uncle’s angry words, the clash of swords, the grunts of men engaged in mortal battle.

  Then she heard the shouts of elation and knew her uncle was dead. Elation for a man’s death! She was sickened by it.

  She moved away from the door. There was no good place to hide. No room under the bed. No cupboard. Only two chairs, a trunk and a table overflowing with charts. She and Carmita looked at each other, and she saw her own fear reflected in the young girl’s eyes. She took Carmita in her arms, holding tight.

  Fists pounded on the door, and she knew she had only seconds before it slammed open. She stiffened, the dagger her uncle had given her held tightly in her fingers. She may be cornered but she would not die like a rabbit.

  She shoved Carmita down between the bed and the cabin wall. “Stay there,” she said. At least she might divert them from Carmita, as her uncle had tried to divert the mutineers from her.

  Her blood froze as the door crashed open and blood-smeared bodies crowded inside, grabbing at whatever they could find.

  Then one reached out for her, a blood-stained finger touching her hair.

  She couldn’t stop a scream from rising in her throat and shattering the air. She clutched the knife, ready to thrust the blade into her heart. Then she hesitated.

  I don’t want to die!

  Suddenly the man holding her was swept away, and another stood before her. A giant of a man, covered in blood, his eyes as cold and hard as any she had ever seen. Eyes she’d seen before. Eyes that had been filled with fury when he had looked up at her just a few days earlier. She remembered every feature of that face. It had haunted her.

  She tried to hide the panic she felt. Though other oarsmen remained in the cabin, she could not take her eyes from him, nor from the blood dripping from two wounds in his arm.

  From her uncle’s sword?

  He was so dominant she was only slightly aware of other naked forms devouring her with angry, hungry eyes.

  God help her, he looked like el diablo himself.

  She forced her glance away and toward the door. Then she raised her eyes back to the savage before her, trying desperately to keep upright when her legs wanted to fold beneath her.

  Fissions of pure terror ran through her. This was the end of her life. The only question was how she would die. And how soon.

  She tried to control the trembling in her legs. In her hands. Do not drop the dagger. Not now. Show him that she could die as well as her uncle had. With a weapon in her hand.

  He stepped closer, hard, cold eyes running over her as if she were a prize cow.

  Then to her surprise, he asked, “Senora Mendoza?” His voice was hoarse and she heard a slight burr in it.

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t want him to hear the tremor that undoubtedly would be in her voice.

  Should she claim to be her uncle’s wife? Or daughter? Or just an innocent passenger? There were documents. She knew her uncle had the marriage contract with him. But would they find them? Read them?

  She shook her head.

  “Senorita?”

  His ey
es pinioned her against the wall. “Who are you?” he finally asked in Spanish. He spoke it well, but the burr in his voice was thick.

  A Scot?

  He took another step toward her, and instinctively her hand went up and she slashed out at him, striking his chest. Just as it did, his left hand caught her wrist, tightening around it, forcing her to drop the dagger.

  Blood flowed from the gash on his chest.

  He looked at it with surprise, his large hand holding her small one tightly.

  She would die now.

  Instead, he thrust her into the arms of another near-naked man. “Lock her in up in a mate’s cabin. Make sure she has no weapons.” There was a slight hint of wryness in his voice that startled her.

  Another man shouted from behind him. “There is another one, Scot. Behind the bed.” Then the speaker grabbed Carmita. The girl fought back as the brigand leaned over and tried to kiss her.

  “Stop,” said the Scot sharply, and to her surprise the man did.

  Still another oarsman pushed to Juliana’s side. “I will take her, Scot. Teach her a lesson,” he said in bad Spanish.

  “Nay,” el diablo said. “I will tend to her myself in good time.”

  “We should share,” another man said in Spanish. “She is nothing but Mendoza’s whore.”

  Others agreed vocally. Voices rose. They moved forward, almost as a whole.

  The man she had wounded turned around and faced them. Blood dripped from him, from the wound she had made and another. He disregarded both.

  “There will be but one leader here,” he said in Spanish and in a voice as cold as his eyes. “If you want to live to see your homes again, you will do as I say.”

  “You cannot tell us what to do. We ’uns had enough of that,” said one man stepping forward. “We all fought. You have no right to take her for yourself.”

  “Can you sail a ship?” the giant asked. “Do you know navigation?”

  She noticed the burr sounded even stronger, though his Spanish was good. There was an air of a natural leader about him.

  Perhaps . . .

  Angry muttering. Oaths.

  “Take what clothes you can find,” he told those still in the cabin. “Have those manacles struck,” he continued in Spanish. “There’s spirits aboard, but do not take too much or you will sicken.”

  The muttering faded, but one man objected. “We will take what we want.”

  Her captor stared him down. “We are in the sea lanes. I will have to turn you into sailors if we are not to be taken by the English or Spanish. Then you will have a rope about your neck if not worse.”

  She saw some turn to one another, obviously not understanding. There were simple translations dotted by crude words she recognized by tone if not by language. Still, they did not leave.

  Juliana saw the tension in her captor’s body. He was asserting leadership to a bloodthirsty rabble. She tried to shrink into the wall. She was helpless now without the knife. But she understood what would happen if the devil’s apprentice did not convince them. She would be taken then and there by all of them.

  A few hours. Perhaps we will encounter another ship.

  One of the mutineers still held her wrist. Her hand shook slightly. She looked up at her captor’s face. It had not the ice of the el diablo, but she did not like the speculation in it as he glanced at her and then at the man who appeared to be the rabble’s leader.

  Then a third man pushed through the door toward her. He still wore manacles on his wrists and ankles, though the chain linking them was broken.

  His face was thin but aristocratic.

  “And what is this?” he asked in perfect Castillian Spanish, his gaze roaming over her.

  “A woman,” said the apparent leader. “And a wee lass. A servant, I expect. Neither will speak, but the woman shook her head when I asked if she was Mendoza’s wife.” He shrugged. “Mistress, mayhap.”

  The Spaniard looked at the man’s chest. “Another wound, Scot?”

  “The lass.”

  The Spaniard roared with laughter. “You take a ship with this tattered crew, and a wisp of a senorita wounds you.”

  The Scot shot him a sharp look.

  But the Spaniard didn’t pursue it. Instead, he took his place next to the Scot in an obvious gesture of support.

  Muttering, the others started to back off.

  “Is there a cook here?” el diablo asked of the men crowding into the room, obviously trying to divert them.

  One man advanced. Like the others, he was filthy. “Si.”

  “Go to the blacksmith. Tell him I said to strike your irons first. Then prepare some food. You,” he said to another, “ration the spirits aboard. Give every man two cups. No more.”

  To another, he said, “Make sure all the bodies are overboard. I want every man here to be dressed and look as if they belong here as crew.”

  Charged with duties, the oarsmen backed off, some sullen, some responding to having something to do.

  El diablo said something to the man holding her, but it was in a language she did not know.

  Then he turned to the Spaniard. “Now take the two of them to a cabin,” he said in English.

  “Why am I so fortunate?” the Spaniard said.

  “They do not appear to understand English,” el diablo said.

  Juliana intended it to remain that way. A small advantage for her.

  “I want someone watching the cabin at all times,” el diablo added. “And make it clear that anyone touching her—either of the women—will fight me.” Then he turned and left.

  Oddly enough, his leaving frightened her. He had prevented a mob from attacking her. His motives might be vile, but he had given her a few hours of grace.

  A few hours of life. If that much. She had wounded him. What would he do to her in return? I will tend to her myself in good time.

  The Spanish oarsman bowed in a gesture that was ironic at best. “Senorita, you and your servant will come with me.”

  She paused at the door.

  The Spaniard looked at her curiously, then he took her elbow and guided both her and Carmita down the passageway. He reached a cabin door and opened it. Juliana knew it had been occupied by the first mate, the one with the leer on his face every time he’d looked at her.

  She did not want to stay there.

  “Not here,” she said in Spanish, wondering where that bravery came from. Her heart pounded frantically even as she said the words. “My cabin is two doors down.”

  His hand still firmly around her wrist, he nodded and continued down the corridor to her cabin. He opened it and she went inside.

  He followed her, his gaze searching the cabin for clues.

  “You are Mendoza’s mistress?”

  She stood there in shock at the thought. “He is my uncle. He was taking me to be wed in England.” She hated the fear she heard in her voice.

  The cool expression in his face did not change. She was only too aware of the noise made by the ends of the manacles he wore. She remembered how only hours ago she’d thought about these same men below and the sympathy she’d felt.

  Now she was the prisoner.

  She did not like it. The helplessness was terrifying.

  She watched as he went through her clothing. Blind terror returned. Despite his civilized speech, he wore only a loincloth and his body was marked with scars, new and old.

  “Sit,” he said, “while I search for weapons.” His gaze went to Carmita. “Both of you. I would not want to suffer what my companion did. You are fortunate he did not take revenge,” he said, then added thoughtfully, “though he may not be finished.” The words sent a new chill through her.

  She eyed the door as he went through her trunk.

  “Do not do it, senorita,” he said, obviously reading her face. “I should hate to hurt you. But I will if you try to run or hurt me as you did the Scot.”

  He didn’t sound as if he would hate it at all.

  “I was frightened,” she r
eplied. “I only defended myself.”

  He frowned.

  “Who is he?” she blurted out.

  “The Scot?”

  “Si!”

  He shrugged. “I do not know, any more than he knows my name. The guards forbade any speech between us.”

  “But he leads you?” She had to know about the man who had her life in his hands. Perhaps she could turn the oarsmen against each other.

  But what good would that do her? She would still be on this ship.

  Time, she reminded herself. Time.

  “No one leads us.”

  “But you obeyed him.”

  “Because it suited me.”

  “You are Spanish?”

  “Si,” he said roughly.

  “Your name, senor?”

  “It no longer matters,” he said curtly.

  He finished searching the cabin, then straightened. “I would suggest you bolt your door, senorita, but open it when you hear the Scot. From what I have observed, he does not brook opposition well.”

  “What . . . will he do?”

  The Spaniard eyed her. “I do not know.”

  “You are Spanish. You would leave me to him?”

  “I am nothing, senorita. Your uncle made me less than nothing. I have no loyalty to Spain. Or liking for anything or anyone that comes from Spain.”

  “Why do you obey him?” she cried out desperately.

  “He can sail and navigate,” the Spaniard said. “I need him.”

  His voice was as cold as the Scot’s had been.

  She had sensed the hatred in her uncle’s cabin, but this was very personal.

  She had to break through that hatred. Despite the fact that he, too, was covered with blood and still bound with broken chains, there was an aristocratic feel to him as well as to his speech. Surely he was—had been—a gentleman.

  Beg.

  She couldn’t. Perhaps more of her father was in her than she thought. These men, despite how they had been treated, had killed her uncle and, as far as she knew, every other living soul on the ship.

  She wasn’t going to beg before them. She suspected even if she did, it would do little good.

  She was alone on a ship full of men determined to obtain revenge and freedom.