The Pirate Round

Chapter 24

MARLOWE THREADED his arms through the iron bars of the cell, looked across the stone-floored alleyway to the cell facing him.

“Lord, Roger, is there any damned thing you haven’t made a hash of?” he called across the open space. “You were the richest man in Christendom for… what? Two weeks? And then you deliver it all to Yancy like it was a tribute. Lord, what a dumb arse.”

“Shut your fucking gob.” The voice came from the dark cell, the speaker unseen.

They were in the prison in the big house, built into the lowest part of the building, under the first floor. The prison consisted of no more than two big stone rooms fronted with iron bars that faced each other across a six-foot-wide walk. The cells were cool and damp and lit by only a single window in each, a slit eight inches high and two feet across set at the top of the wall.

A lone flight of steps led from the alleyway up to the first floor. Two steps, a landing, and then a 180-degree turn and five more steps up to the grand entrance. A bored guard sat in a chair at the bottom of the stairs. There was no need for more. The cells were impenetrable, the iron bars thick and sound.

Marlowe, Bickerstaff, Honeyman, and Billy Bird, along with their men, those who had come ashore as prisoners, were in the one cell. Two-thirds of Press’s captured men were in the cell opposite, with Press. A third had elected to join Yancy.

More than a third, actually, but Yancy was not so stupid as to allow too many men of dubious loyalty into his personal army. Yancy chose the few he wanted, locked up the rest.

Yancy had kept warring crews apart. Marlowe guessed he did not want them killing one another. That was Yancy’s office. He figured that Yancy would not have locked up the officers with the men if there had been more than two cells, but there was not.

What had become of the rest of the men of the Elizabeth Galley and the Bloody Revenge, Marlowe did not know. He imagined they were still battened down aboard their respective ships, their guards waiting for word from Press. He reckoned Yancy would take them in his own time.

He did not know where Elizabeth was, but he could guess.

Marlowe wondered if his circumstances were any better or worse now than they had been three hours before, when he had been Roger Press’s prisoner. His concern for Elizabeth was the greatest thing on his mind, and that had not changed at all.

But now at least he had Roger Press’s profound misery to cheer him. “You should have killed me, Press. You pissed that opportunity away. Now Yancy will butcher you, and you’ll never have the chance.”

“Butcher me? I reckon he’s butchering that little doxy of yours right now. Thrumming her good. What do you say to that, Marlowe?”

“I say he tried that before and nearly lost his whole damned house. Elizabeth can take care of herself.” He spoke the words with a confidence he did not feel. But he would not let Press exploit his one area of genuine fear.

“Captain said ‘shut your gob,’ ” Israel Clayford said. He was leaning against the iron bars of the cell he shared with Press, six feet away. He was a big bastard, and mean-looking.

“Don’t you get into this,” Marlowe said to him. “Captain’s a dead one. You just look to your own neck.”

Then Press emerged from the gloom and ran his hands through the bars, like Marlowe, and faced him. “Look, Marlowe,” he said, his voice low, “I know you want to kill me much as I want to kill you. But I say let’s set that aside for now, work together. Won’t do either of us any good if that bastard Yancy kills us both, will it?”

Marlowe smiled, and then he laughed, and his amusement was genuine. “What you mean is, I help you save your sorry hide and then you stab me in the back again?”

“Damn your eyes, Marlowe! Don’t you see that we’re both dead if we don’t work together, and it ain’t going to be pleasant, I’ll warrant. I say-”

The guard was up, and with two steps he was in front of the cell. He slammed the flat of his sword against the iron bars. Press jumped back in surprise, shouted, “You whoreson!”

“None of that,” the guard growled, looking at Press and then Marlowe. “I hear one more goddamned word like that and one of you goes in the pit.”

Marlowe and Press glared at the guard, and the guard glared back as he retreated to his chair by the steps. Marlowe did not know what the pit was. He did not care to find out.

How they were going to get off St. Mary’s alive, he had no idea.

Elizabeth was stretched out on the big four-poster bed in Yancy’s bedchamber. The space was lit softly with candles placed around, throwing off pools of light, while the rest of the big room was lost in shadow. In another circumstance she might have found the room lovely, warm and romantic.

Her wrists were bound tightly together and tied to the bed’s headboard, forcing her into her supine position. She gritted her teeth and pulled, jerked at the constraints, worked her wrists under the rough cordage.

She had been struggling for twenty minutes, and her wrists were raw and bleeding in places, and she was no freer now than she had been when Henry Nagel first forced her onto the bed and lashed her in place.

“Son of a bitch, son of a bitch…” she muttered as she struggled and then finally gave up, let her body go limp, exhausted from the effort. “Oh, God…” she whispered.

Yancy had learned his lesson the last time, apparently, about letting Elizabeth wander free in the room in which she was imprisoned. She knew that as long as she remained tied as she was, Yancy was free to do as he pleased. She might be able to get in a good kick or two, but in the end he could rape her to his heart’s content.

“Oh, God…” she said again, giving in to the despair.

She had been alone in the room for an hour. At first she had not dared move, but she lay very still and listened, hoping to hear something that would give her some indication of what was happening.

Yancy had sprung his trap, had marched Press’s men and Thomas and Billy and Francis and their men off to some prison, she supposed. She had been held at gunpoint in the grand entrance while the men were led down a half-concealed stairway to a level below the house. From there she had been taken to the great hall, alone but for the three guards who stood over her.

For two hours Elizabeth had sat there before Nagel had come back and taken her to Yancy’s bedchamber. She did not know what had become of the others, if Thomas was alive or if Yancy had killed him already. She did not know what would happen to her, but she could guess.

Her eyes moved again to the swords mounted on the wall. A pair of long, thin, cup-hilt rapiers, crossed and mounted as decoration, they were very like the weapons with which Bickerstaff had taught her sword work. If she could just get her wrists free and get one of those weapons in her hands, she could skewer the filthy insect as he came in the door.

She struggled anew against her bonds, clenched her teeth against the agony of her raw flesh, but it was no use. Nagel was a sailor. He knew how to tie things so they stayed tied.

Then footsteps in the hall, light footfalls, and she knew it was not Nagel. She lay still, listened to them growing closer, and she was sure that the soft, quick steps were those of Elephiant Yancy. There would be no getting out of this through brute force alone, no chance to run him through as he entered the room. She had no choice now but to play the willing lover, if only until her hands were free.

The thought of it was as revolting as that of being forcibly raped.

The footsteps stopped. The door to Yancy’s bedchamber, like all the doors to all the bedchambers in the big house, had a heavy lock that could be worked from inside the room or out. Each room could function as either sanctuary or prison.

Elizabeth heard the key turn in the lock on the other side of the door. The door swung in. Half lost in the shadows was Elephiant Yancy, wearing his rich silk clothing, his long cape with its red lining trailing behind him. He stood there for a moment and looked at her, and she tried to look back in an alluring, come-to-me manner, but it was hard, being tied as she was. She reckoned that the sight of her lashed to the bed was all the allure the little prick would need.

“Elephiant, where have you been?” she asked, as if she cared.

Yancy stepped into the room, and then Elizabeth could see his thin weasel face, the carefully groomed mustache and goatee, which he stroked as he watched her, as was his habit. He believed that the gesture made him look thoughtful and intelligent, she could tell.

He turned and closed the door and locked it, set the key on the table by the door, then crossed the room, stepping with authority and confidence. “It has been a busy day, my dear, a most busy day. But I need not tell you that.” He whirled his cape off, tossed it on a nearby chair.

“I have no doubt,” Elizabeth said soothingly. “That beast Nagel has tied me up. Let me loose and I’ll rub your shoulders. You need a soft touch.”

Yancy took a step toward her. “That beast Nagel tied you up on my orders. You nearly burned my house down, when last you was here. Do you recall?”

“Me? You think that was my fault? I have no notion how the fire started, though I do recall it nearly killed me. But come, let me make it up to you.”

He smiled down at her, then tossed his head back and laughed. “I am not so much a fool, you know, as to think you want me in that way!

You’ll have me, want me or no, but I’ll not be tricked into thinking you hold some great love for me. Someday you will. But not now.”

“How do you know? You are a handsome man, and a powerful one. Perhaps I do have some feelings for you.”

“Perhaps. But what will you do if I untie you, eh? Fight me? Punch me? Kick me? What will you do?” He stepped over to the bed, ran a finger down her cheek, down her neck, over her breasts. Elizabeth closed her eyes, made a purring sound as between closed lips she clenched her teeth.

“What will you do, my lovely?”

She opened her eyes. “Why don’t you let me free and see?” she said, just a whisper.

Yancy ran his fingertip over her face again. “I will.” He reached around his waist and pulled out his long, needle-thin stiletto, held it up, let the candlelight dance off the blade. “I am not such a fool,” he said again. “But I think I will like it if you fight. These native girls are so very passive, they will lay down with never a struggle. I think I will like a bit of a challenge.”

Elizabeth lay very still as he moved the knife past her face, less than an inch from her skin. She felt the tip of the blade touch her arm, as light as a feather, and Yancy ran the point gently up the length of her arm until she felt the steel against her wrists, and with a quick motion he cut the bonds away.

“Oh,” Elizabeth moaned involuntarily. A great wave of relief flowed over her as she lowered her arms, gently rubbed the raw flesh on her wrists.

Yancy had made a grave mistake. Her arms and her wrists had ached so much, she had been so very helpless, that her will and her strength had begun ebbing fast away, and she had not even realized it. But now the fight was back in her.

She snuggled deeper into the bed, looked into Yancy’s eyes, gently bit her lower lip. There was not much about enticement that Elizabeth did not understand.

Yancy tossed the stiletto aside. He was kneeling beside her on the bed, and she ran her hand up his thigh. She turned her head and let a wisp of her long blond hair fall across her cheek.

She did not dare look at the rapiers. But even as she caressed Yancy’s leg and his waist and ran her hand up his chest, she was calculating time and distance, gauging whether she was better off going for the weapon or going directly for the door.

Yancy came down on top of her, his hands planted on either side of her, and he began to kiss her neck roughly. She shifted under him, gave a low moan, swallowed hard to try to quell her revulsion. She could make it to the door, she concluded, but she would not have time to grab the key, work the lock and get out, then lock it again from the outside. Not unless Yancy was genuinely disabled. And for that she needed the rapier.

Timing, timing, timing, it was everything, and she knew she had to endure a minute more of his insult. She ran her fingers through his hair, stretched out her neck, forced her mind to concentrate on visions of Marlowe House, her beloved garden, long rides through the fields.

Yancy ran his mouth over her neck and down her chest, and his hands grabbed at her breasts. She could hear his breathing growing raspier. She moved her hand over his back and down his leg, shifted under him. He reached up and tugged at her bodice, kissing her roughly above her breasts, getting swept up in his desire, his former caution forgotten.

Elizabeth pressed her lips together hard, slid her hand along the inside of Yancy’s thigh and up. She could feel his erection under the loose fabric of his breeches. She ran her hand along it, and he pressed against her and made a guttural sound and bit her neck. She moved her hand lower, cupped his balls.

Yancy groaned, pressed closer, and then he sensed the danger. He began to push himself off her, and she squeezed him hard, crushing him with a grip grown powerful after half a year at sea.

“Bitch!” Yancy shrieked, tried to stand up on his knees, but the pain doubled him over. Elizabeth let go of his privates, rolled out of the way just as Yancy would have collapsed on top of her.

She rolled off the far side of the bed, hit the floor, and leaped to her feet. “Ahhhh!” Yancy screamed, part pain, part fury. Elizabeth raced around the bed, eyes on the door, thinking, Perhaps I can make it…

But then Yancy was off the bed, hunched over, staggering for the door, the stiletto in his hand. He was half lost in the deep shadows that filled the room, the little pools of yellow light from the candles. “Go on, go for the door, you rutting bitch! Think you can make it?” he hissed.

Elizabeth stopped, took a step back, reached up, took hold of a rapier on the wall, and pulled it free. The weapon danced in her hand, felt as natural there as her hairbrush or glass, but Yancy did not notice the ease with which she wielded it. He stood between her and the door, straightening slowly, grimacing. “Come on… you want to leave, you have to go through me first…”

She advanced on him, point of her blade at the height of his eyes. He stood straighter, and his grimace resolved into a grin as the pain subsided. “I said I wanted a fight, and, oh, you do not disappoint, do you, my dear?”

Elizabeth paused. She felt taut, every muscle pulled tight like a ship’s rigging. Everything in the dim light seemed sharper, every sound distinct and clear. Yancy was grinning at her, holding the stiletto in front of him. Knife against sword, it did not seem to be such a problem.

She lunged at him, arm extended, back leg straight, forward leg bent, tip thrust at his chest, and to her amazement he caught her blade with the hilt of his stiletto and turned it aside. He tried to twist her blade, to disarm her, but she knew the trick and leaped back, en garde, pulling it free.

She lunged again, instantly, automatically, and that move, fast as it was, took Yancy by surprise. He could do no more than leap out of the way of her attack, scrambling around her in satisfying flight as she whirled with him, keeping the tip of her rapier pointed at his chest.

Yancy backed away. “You are no dainty little thing with a blade, I see,” he said, sneering, patronizing. “Good, good. I’ll cut you a little before I fuck you. Before I kill that bastard Marlowe right before your eyes.”

Elizabeth pressed against the door, felt for the key on the table while she kept the tip of her rapier between herself and Yancy.

Yancy stepped back again and again, always facing her. She cursed under her breath and patted the tabletop with her hand, but she could not find the key.

Then Yancy turned and grabbed the second rapier and turned back fast, and Elizabeth could not worry about the door. He held the rapier low, beckoned with the stiletto, now in his left hand. “Come on, come on, try and stick me, you bitch…” He circled toward her.

Elizabeth stepped away from the door, gave herself some fighting room, as she had been taught.

Yancy paused. He was waiting for her to make a move, and she knew better than to comply, but she did not have the advantage of time. Every minute might mean someone coming to Yancy’s aide. Killing Yancy would do no good if Nagel was waiting outside the door.

She advanced on him, and he held his ground, the point of his rapier on the floor. She lunged, full out, and Yancy’s rapier came up and knocked her blade aside, and he slashed out with the stiletto, missing her stomach by half an inch as she leaped back.

Damn me! she thought. Yancy was fast as a snake, faster than Bickerstaff or any of the men she had sparred with. She circled around.

In a blur Yancy was on her, his rapier flicking out, and she parried him by instinct alone-lunge, parry, riposte, parry-the familiar clash of steel on steel in the small room. A slash with the stiletto that threw him off balance, and Elizabeth was able to leap away and then make an awkward lunge. She caught him in the shoulder and sank her blade an inch deep into his flesh before he was able to leap clear.

“Ahhh, damn you, you bloody whore!” he yelled, furious now. He clapped his hand with the rapier over his shoulder, and Elizabeth knew opportunity when she saw it. She lunged again, a running attack.

Too late to parry, Yancy twisted, and her blade, aimed at his chest, caught him in the upper arm and tore through flesh and cloth like a knife cutting meat, and Yancy shrieked and leaped clean away, onto the bed and over it, rolling on the sheets and coming up on his feet on the far side.

Elizabeth turned and raced for the door, tried to find the key among the shadows on the table, but she could hear Yancy coming at her from behind.

She turned back, blade up as he lunged, fully extended. She parried his sword, flicked it aside, and lunged back at him. He caught her blade with the stiletto, pushed it aside and held it down.

They stood facing each other, eyes locked, breath coming fast, both of them too close to use their rapiers. A moment of silence, motionless they stood, and it was as if a year were compressed into that one instant. Elizabeth could smell him, the sweat and perfume and garlic.

She felt the pressure come off her blade as he slashed at her with the stiletto, and she kicked him in the groin. He doubled up, still too close for her to skewer him, so she swung her hand and hit him in the side of the head with the steel cup-hilt of her weapon.

Yancy was knocked sideways by the blow. He staggered, fell, and his head hit the edge of the table as he went down. Elizabeth heard the thump, saw his head jerk in an unnatural way, and then he was lying curled on the floor and still.

She stood, heaving for breath, the tip of her rapier resting on the floor, ready to move if Yancy did. For a full minute she stood there, breathing, watching Yancy for any sign of life, listening for any sound from the hallway. She wondered that all the noise had not brought people running, but perhaps it was not unusual to hear screaming from Yancy’s bedchamber.

At last her breathing was under control, and she could hear nothing beyond that. She kicked Yancy’s rapier away from him, leaned her own against the wall, and picked up the stiletto. She held it down at her side, ready to strike, and prodded Yancy with her toe. He did not move. She crouched down beside him, felt his neck for a pulse. It took a few tries, but at last she felt it, the life still beating in him, and she did not know if she was happy or not.

She gritted her teeth, rolled him onto his stomach, stepped back, and waited for him to move, but he did not. Another second, then she straddled him, grabbed his hair, pulled his head back, stretching out his neck. She reached around with the stiletto, pressed the razor-sharp blade against his throat, and stopped.

Do it, do it, damn your eyes… she cursed herself, but she could not. “Oh, damn me for a weak fool,” she whispered, letting Yancy’s head drop. His chin hit the floor with a thump, and she heard his teeth snap against each other, but he did not stir.

She stood up, staggered over to the bed. She was very tired, and her body ached. She found the lashings that had held her to the bed, and a few pieces were long enough for her to use. She carried them back to Yancy’s prone figure, knelt with her knee in the small of his back.

Along with sword work Elizabeth had learned a great deal about lashing things in her time at sea, it falling to her to secure all of her and Marlowe’s things in the great cabin against the roll of the ship, and she applied those skills to Yancy. Round turns around the wrists, crossing turns between, finished off with two half hitches, the bitter end hauled taught betwixt them. Yancy was not going to untie that by himself. She cut off the excess, bent it onto another piece of cordage with a double sheet bend, and served Yancy’s ankles out in the same manner.

That done, she tucked the stiletto into her skirt and found the key. She picked up her rapier and unlocked the door, eased it open, peered out into the hall. There were lanterns glowing dimly at either end, but in the muted light she could see nothing else. She stepped back into the room, retrieved the second rapier, then stepped silently into the hall. She closed the door, locked it, moved softly toward the big staircase.

She would find Thomas. If he was alive, she would free him and they would get off the damned island. If he was dead…

She pushed that thought aside, moved fast and silent down the hall, the rapier at her side, ready.