Chapter 33

T his the beginning of my end, Amaury thought as done the night his foraging ended with all going black on the shore of Calais and struggling to light on the deck of Gert’s first ship that was smaller than the one he had been close to taking this day.

As Carl’s widow closed the distance between them like a cat playing with its next meal, silently he acknowledged, Oui, La Bonne Mort was half the size, meaning the keel of this one appropriately named Vengeur is much longer…hull considerably wider…more time required to pass beneath…more barnacles to tear flesh…greater suffering before she renders my boy an orphan evermore.

Holding her sword defensively as if he might pull a dagger from his sleeve, she halted two feet distant. When he remained unmoving, she raised her blade to his throat. “I am thinking we have been here before, albeit on the French side of the channel.” She showed more teeth. “Are you thinking the same, Amaury of the De Chansons?”

He raised his eyebrows. “It feels familiar, widow of Carl. ”

Her lips flattened. “Soon worse than familiar!” She glanced to those beyond him whose boots pounded the steps, and he did not need to catch the slight nod given them to know what was to come and that he stood little chance of prevailing. But he would not go softly like a lamb whose only defense against the butcher’s blade is wild bleating.

Pivoting out from beneath her sword, he lunged, crouched, and swept a leg that knocked the feet out from under the first of three coming for him. As the crack of that one’s skull against the railing assured he would not soon rise, the other two sprang onto the platform.

“I want him alive!” Gert shouted as she retreated to where he had cornered her earlier.

Amaury dropped to the planks, rolled, and snatched up his sword, then arced it toward the nearest who did not expect one on his back to land a blow well.

When he sliced open that one’s belly, the man wailed and toppled. As the third pirate was joined by another newly arrived, Amaury gained his feet and stopped a stab to his thigh by slamming his blade down on the shorter one. It unbalanced his opponent, but before worse could be done him, the other pirate was behind Amaury.

Unable to get fully around, another crack sounded. Though he did not know what came down on his head, he knew Fira could scream louder than should be possible for one her size—and if consciousness returned, the shattering pain that could debilitate worse than his previous head injury would be little compared to the evil Gert served up.

Lord, do not let Fira see what is done me, he beseeched. Move Sir Achard to take her from here…from this…from me…

Fira had known for her brother’s sake Les Fléaux must be allowed to depart with Amaury unopposed. However, once it was determined Rémy’s injury was less dire than thought, Achard resumed his mission and The Pleiades’ crew accepted his authority.

When Gert’s ships sailed immediately after Amaury dropped to the platform, her diminished numbers making her perilously vulnerable, those of The Great Mercia Shipping Company followed. Unfortunately, their pursuit was no guarantee Amaury’s suffering would be delayed long enough to overtake Les Fléaux. And all knew his death would be swift rather than prolonged if Gert stood to lose him.

“Do you think it love, Fira?” her brother returned her to where he lay on his side in a hammock to ease pressure on his back.

Blessedly, assessment of his injury appeared correct. And Rémy concurred, telling her and Achard he stayed down only in the hope of finding an opportunity to aid her and ensure her captors gained no further concessions by threatening one they believed so injured he was beyond threats.

“Well, Fira?”

“’Tis love. Though many will say I have not been acquainted with him long enough to feel such movement of the heart, I do and submit knowing someone for years is no guarantee of love as I…” She hesitated to speak of the woman he was compelled to wed to ease the king’s conscience and provide a father for a child made with another, but finished, “…as I believe you know.”

Murielle and he had been acquainted for years, and though not all of those were adversarial, their marriage was rife with resentment. When she died in childbirth, making a father of one barely out of his youth, Rémy seemed to accept his lot. However, Fira believed after he was knighted this summer and considered of an age for great responsibility, what had been difficult would become overwhelming once family members caring for Murielle’s babe relinquished it to be raised in his household as if blood of his blood.

The Wulfriths did not doubt he would be good to the child. What they doubted was his future happiness—that if he wed again, as angrily rejected the one time their grandmother broached the subject, he would do so only to lessen the burden of parenting a child for whom he felt obligation and pity.

“Aye, no guarantee,” he finally spoke and, shifting on the ropes, muffled a groan. “That I know well.”

She leaned nearer on the stool straddled for balance as the ship cut through the water. “And so?” she asked for assurance that if Amaury could be saved and truly wished to be with her, Rémy would aid in persuading their eldest brother to allow the union.

“It is your heart, Fira. Just as you have no s-say in what I let in and out of mine, I have no say in yours.”

Cleaving to this exchange that distracted from what was happening—and would happen—on Gert’s ship, she said, “That is so, but…”

He glanced at the ceiling beneath the deck across which men moved to keep Orion’s Song on course with its sister ship and their prey. “But given the chance for a future with De Chanson, will I support you? I am acquainted with him f-far less than you.” As her sunken heart sank further, he added, “Still, it speaks well of him he yielded all rather than let those w-wretches slit your throat.”

“Though you have much to learn of him and what transpired between our first meeting and now, none can say he lacks honor,” she said a moment before shouts overhead multiplied. Something had altered, and further proof of that when the clank and jangle of rigging was heard .

Rémy touched Fira’s hand. Having left her spectacles down her bodice, she brought his face to focus as well as possible.

Still pale, he said, “I believe the chase is over.”

“Les Fléaux will yield?” she said with false hope.

“As their numbers are depleted and they cannot outrun us, the stand they take will be more gesture than b-battle, but not both their ships.”

Remaining seated though she longed to see for herself what went on the sea, she said, “Pray, explain.”

“Gert did not become England’s most hated pirate by sacrificing what need not be sacrificed. Hence, I believe she prepares to do what she came to do, and in a w-way that allows her second ship to escape.”

With Hugh and Islay aboard, Fira thought, recalling the two ascending to that deck. For Gert to assure their escape as well as avenge her husband, Amaury would be put on display. Suppressing a whimper, she said, “How can great love for another become ungodly hatred of others?”

“I shall never know, Fira. Nor would I wish it.”

“Certes, not if such love can be shaped into evil.” She withdrew her hand and stood. “I must see what is happening.”

“Were it possible to stop you without wrestling you to the floor, I would.”

Fira kissed his brow that was warm but not alarmingly. “Unless Achard forces me back, I will be a while,” she said, then feet wide to counter the sway, crossed to the steps.

She ascended and raised the hatch, letting in a cool breeze and sunlight, then stepped onto the deck amid commands to tend sails and ropes. Not every recipient was a seaman. Sir Achard’s warriors, excepting the few whose tossed bellies bent them over the railings, aided in whatever capacity they could. As for the lad, Donal, he coiled rope.

Rémy is right about what is to come, she thought, and when it is before me, this wondrous breeze will be nothing more than air my body draws to sustain life.

She breathed deep, then looked to what lay far to the right.

Vengeur’s sails having been lowered, it was moved by languid waves alone—unlike Les Fléaux’s smaller ship passing on its starboard side.

“Lady Fira!” Sir Achard shouted from the sterncastle, “Return belowdeck!”

He would not have her see this, but she would remain unless forced from here.

Leaning down, she fit a pin to secure the hatch open to provide her brother sunlight and fresh air, then wove among quick-footed men toward Achard who had turned aside, surely believing when she bent to the hatch she did as told. While he attended to something Captain Girarde spoke, Pietro on his other side glanced over the deck, slid past Fira, and swiftly returned to her.

Certain he would alert Achard, she hastened her advance. A moment later, the king’s man attended to Pietro’s words, but too late. She reached the sterncastle and ascended several steps before he came around and landed mismatched eyes on her.

Stepping onto the platform as he strode toward her, she jutted her chin at Gert’s ship that was turning broadside. “Amaury is there because of me.”

“Lady Fira?—”

“’Tis right I am here, and since my person is no longer under threat because of his sacrifice, why deny me?”

He halted. “From what I know of the chevalier’s character, he would not have you witness what the hag intends to present on that stage. Thus, I repeat?—”

“Do not!” She set a hand on his muscular arm. “Pray, do not. ”

Flames leapt from the blue to the brown eye and back, then flickered and became glowing coals. “I will allow it—for now.”

Taking her arm, he moved her past the helmsman now conversing with the captain. When he halted her before Pietro, the man’s face was so grim she guessed he revisited the past, comparing that long ago day when he prepared Amaury for keelhauling to this day when he could do nothing to soften the battering and slashing should Gert repeat that act of revenge.

“You should not be here, Lady,” he said.

She raised her chin. “I know what was done him and may be again. I am staying.”

He sighed, looked to the ship that was now fully broadside, and exclaimed, “Lord!”

Heart racing, Fira followed his gaze and saw what made no sense.

But it made sense to Achard who said, “They prepare for a keelhauling.”