Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
If I were in a better frame of mind, I would try and talk to the young lad and convince him to set us free. I’m sure it wouldn’t do much good with him being a pirate-in-training, possibly press-ganged into service, but it would have been worth a shot.
As it was, I was too tired from the morning’s ordeal and didn’t say a word. Aerik, who also normally would have tried to command the boy, stayed silent too.
The boy left and we were plunged back in darkness again. Only then did I help myself to a few leaking palmfuls of water, for the bowl wouldn’t fit through the bars, and a piece of the hardtack bread, which tasted like heaven having not eaten since breakfast yesterday.
With my belly somewhat full, I sleep on and off and I wake only when the ship is filled with screams. Screams from the hold beneath us, screams of our crew and servants that are being kept below. A most hair-raising unnatural sound.
One of the screams belongs to Daphne.
CHAPTER 7
Ramsay
“What say you, boy?” I ask Henry as he climbs the stairs to the stern deck where I’m sitting on top of a bench, spyglass at my side.
Henry reaches into his burlap sack and tosses me an apple which I catch without even looking at it. “That all?” I ask, examining the apple’s surface, red but peppered with bruises. “She’s seen better days.”
He starts looking through the bag but I quickly wave him off. “No, no. The apple is fine. Something to pass the time until we cross the strait. What I mean is, how are the prisoners?”
“Which ones? The ones in the hold are screaming.”
“To be expected. What about the couple in the cell?”
He shrugs. “They seem fine, I guess.”
“Did they speak to you?”
He shakes his head. “Nah. I don’t think the fella even looked at me. The lady did but she didn’t say anything, just watched. She’s pretty.”
I find myself smiling. “She is, isn’t she? And not just a lady, but a princess.”
“Maybe she should have better clothes. And someone to change out their bucket. It’s starting to smell in there.”
I wrinkle my nose. I forgot how prisoners can get. The ones in the hold will smell much, much worse. Eventually only those with noses made of steel will be able to go down there to tend to them. We differ from others in the cruising trade, for cleanliness is one mainstays of the Brethren and our crew keeps their hygiene levels high, bathing regularly from the rainwater barrels we collect on deck and using the head at the bowsprit. I have my own tub, and a privy located outside my quarters, though I let the higher officers like Thane and Cruz use it too when they request privacy. Oh, and Sam, since she’s a woman and all. She’s in there more often than not, to our annoyance. Sometimes I think she just wants a break from us, and I can’t blame her for that.
“I’ll make a note of that, Henry boy,” I tell him. “We’ll get someone to change out their bucket, perhaps get the lady a new dress. Have we gone through the trunks we’ve looted from their ship?”
“Remi and Horse are doing that right now.”
“Good. Tell them to put the princess’s things in my quarters. Then tell them to return to their posts.” I look around at the land we’re passing. “I want our gun men to be at the ready until we’re in the open ocean. That goes for Matisse and Sterling too. Then get Lothar to change out the royal’s bucket.”
Henry nods and turns to leave.
“Also,” I call out and he stops and turns to face me, awaiting my order. “If you can get Sedge to put on another pot of coffee and bring me a mug, that would great.”
“Rum in it, sir?”
“Not until this evening.” I tap the side of my head. “I need to stay sharp.”
He gives me an impish smile. “Do you think I could finally have coffee? With sugar and milk?”
“If you think you deserve it,” I say. “Perhaps you’ll work through some vocabulary exercises tonight and we’ll call it.” He nods so earnestly I nearly laugh. He hurries off down the stairs with an extra spring in his wee step. I have a feeling the lad isn’t going to like coffee unless Sedge, our cook, makes it so it’s mainly hot milk. Much like Hilla was, Henry’s affection for sweets knows no bounds.
Henry came aboard the Nightwind when he was just five years old. He was the son of pirate woman, Elizabeth, who had joined our crew when we were holed up in Fragrant Harbor Village in China. She had heard about us and deserted the English ship belonging to the East India Trading Company that she was on. We folded them into our family, always happy for more Brethren of the Blood, and Henry became the best of friends with Lucas, who is Thane and Sam’s boy, only two years older.