Amanda McCabe - High Seas Stowaway

He gave a harsh laugh. “I would vow you know much about troublemakers, señora. ”

“And I would vow you know much about women,” she said, knotting the end of her thread. “No doubt you have me confused with a female of your acquaintance in some other port. Perhaps you are growing feverish and delusional.”

“Perhaps I am. Everything seems very—confused. But I will remember soon enough, señora. A ship’s captain also cannot afford to forget a face.”

Bianca held a goblet of rum laced with an herbal sleeping potion to his lips. “Remember later, then, but drink this now. It will dull the pain.”

He drank readily enough, his lean body growing so relaxed and pliant he did not even move as she sank the needle into his flesh. She just wished she could be so steady, could remove herself from the acute awareness of his body heat, his every breath. At last she finished, tying off her thread before she dared glance at his face.

He seemed to be asleep, the harsh lines of his face relaxed so he seemed young again. She was free at last from those all-seeing green eyes, even if only for a moment.

Bianca threw herself into the chair, burying her face in her hands. She longed to cry, to shout out the confusion of this strange night that had borne Balthazar Grattiano back into her life! Yet she was bound in silence, in the tangle of the past come suddenly into the present.

She went to the window, pushing the casement further open to catch more of the night breeze. The sky was a heavy purple-black, dark clouds obscuring the moon and stars, blown in by that storm that damaged Balthazar’s ship. Santo Domingo was quiet enough now, in the hours before dawn. Only a few houses near the banks of the Rio Ozama were lit from within. The governor’s fortress, high on its hill overlooking the town, was a blank, silent behemoth.

Soon, the streets would come to life. She would have to face cooking, and cleaning up the mess downstairs. She would have to face the man in her bed. But for now it was as if she was alone in the world. Alone with Balthazar Grattiano.

Bianca rubbed wearily at her aching neck, turning to the small looking glass hanging on the wall. She almost laughed aloud at the sight that greeted her in its silvery reflection. How could Balthazar possibly recognise her, when she hardly recognised herself? Her curling brown hair stuck every way from its pins, tangled and wild. Her cheeks were a hectic red, her eyes lined with purplish shadows. Her grey wool dress, never fashionable in the first place, was stained with Balthazar’s blood.

She unlaced the simple bodice and tossed it with her skirt over the chair, standing before the glass in only her chemise and stays. As she brushed out her hair, yanking at the stubborn tangles, she knew that Balthazar would not long think he had her confused with some past dalliance. He had always preferred blondes with lush bosoms and full, pink lips. And she—well, she was a thin, dark tavern owner. Any meagre attractions she had as a girl in Venice were surely coarsened by a life of hard work on a tropical island.

Not that it mattered, of course. Balthazar and she would have their reckoning soon enough. And then it wouldn’t matter a bit what he thought of her bosom, or she his codpiece. For now, she was almost too weary to think of anything at all.

Bianca loosened her front-laced stays and slipped into bed, as far from Balthazar as she could get on the very edge of the mattress. She wrapped a blanket tightly around herself, but even as she fell into slumber she could feel his heat, reaching out to wrap seductively around all her senses…

It was the old dream again, the one that Balthazar always thought long-buried until it rose up to haunt him. Like a monster of the deep— Here Be Serpents. Here lay the past.

A vast storm raged, silver lightning flashing overhead from the bowels of black, roiling clouds. Cold, jagged whitecapped waves broke across the bow; the screaming wind drove past the bare masts, flying the caravel through the air as if it was naught but a child’s toy. Rain beat on the deck’s planks, hard enough to bruise. The ceaseless pitching of the sea, the driving rain, the howling dread of his men who feared to be swallowed by the sea—Balthazar saw it all again. Like a painting of the judgements of hell come to life before his very eyes.

Yet still he dragged on the rudder, trying desperately to steer the ship away from her certain death, even as he knew in his heart that all his efforts were in vain. All he had worked for, all the men who trusted and followed him, were doomed.

It seemed a fitting end. For had he not spent all his life fighting against the dark inevitable? Against his own tainted blood, his sins. And all for naught.

His muscles ached as he strained against the rudder. He would not let it win! Not the sea, that pitiless mistress. Not the black emptiness that always threatened to swallow him. Salvation lay ahead, if he could just fight hard enough. But as he felt at last the blessed yielding of the rudder under his slippery grasp, a terrible sound split the sulphurous air. The crack and splinter of wood.

Balthazar shook the wet strands of hair from his eyes, staring up at the damaged mainmast of his ship. It listed, wavering in the gale. Soon, all too soon, it would crash to the deck, driving a hole through the wounded ship that would take them all to the bottom.

And atop the mast perched his father. Ermano Grattiano, dead these seven years by Balthazar’s own hand, clung to the splintered wood like a demented bat from hell, his black cloak and white mane of hair flying wildly in the wind. Even from that distance, his green eyes glowed, and he held out his bejewelled hand beckoningly.

“I told you that one day you would be mine, Balthazar,” he shouted, his voice clear and ringing over the howl of the storm. “We are one flesh and blood; you cannot escape me. You have killed my body, but I will always be with you!”

Balthazar shouted out his own fury. In his burning anger, he climbed the slippery, tumbling mast, not feeling the cold or pain. He was intent only on destroying the evil within himself, once and for all.

But Ermano only flew higher, ever distant, ever beyond reach. At last the mast fell entirely, sending Balthazar plummeting towards the battered deck—and certain death.

But he did not land in the cold sea. The waves did not rise up to claim him at last. He fell back on to a soft bed, amid a tangle of sheets and blankets.

He opened his eyes, staring wildly up at the dark wooden beams bisecting a whitewashed ceiling. The stench of lightning was banished by a warm, soft breeze from an open window.

This was not his cabin aboard the Calypso. There was no constant pitch and sway of waves, no watch bells or shouts from the deck. For a moment, he could not remember what had happened, he was still caught in the nightmare. In the storm, which had been all too real. And his father, who lived now only in his mind.

He tried to roll to his side, and the sudden stabbing pain in his shoulder reminded him. They had come ashore in Santo Domingo, seeking comfort after their travails in the Mona Passage. The battle with Diego Escobar and his pirate lot, the storm that damaged the mast and crippled them. They sought warm, dry beds, drink, food free of rot and weevils. Perhaps a pretty woman. What he had found was Diego, and his dagger.

“Damn the man’s eyes!” Balthazar cursed, as hot needles of pain shot down his arm. Diego had fought them on the seas, where Balthazar was greater and Diego knew he had no chance of victory. So, he had crept to Hispaniola and waited like a spider for his moment.

Ermano Grattiano might indeed be dead, but there was never any shortage of villains waiting to take his place. Diego was proving to be one of the more determined. Revenge was a potent motivation for anyone; it could even drive a man to piracy and murder. Balthazar knew all too well about revenge.