Upon A Starlit Tide

22. Wedding Present

22

Wedding Present

Run Cousin Bones up.

The words echoed in Luce’s mind as the two men bundled her along the deck and up the narrow stairs to the quarterdeck. They opened the first door they came to—a storeroom, Luce knew from the many hours she had spent studying the Lucinde ’s plans—and shoved her through it, wedging it closed with a stray piece of lumber before returning to midships. Luce, trapped in the darkness, watched them leave through the small, rectangular grating in the door. They gave her no such attention; indeed, the men ducked back down the stairs eagerly, as though afraid they might miss whatever Morgan had planned.

Run Cousin Bones up. What could that mean? Sails and ensigns were run up, not people. She clung to the bars of the grate, heart pounding, straining to see what was happening on the deck below. It was fully dark now, but the lantern light gave her glimpses: the movement of those long ropes, the swing as they were hauled about. She heard the heavy clank of iron, and Samuel’s voice, the words indistinct against the activity on the deck. Morgan replied, his voice tilting upward at the end as though he had asked a question. Samuel’s answer came instantly. Words flowed out of him, fast and thorough—no riddles now—and Luce knew that he was telling Morgan where the storm-stone was. Her hands clenched on the grate. Whatever Morgan meant to do to Bones was bad enough that Samuel was willingly, desperately, giving up the stone.

Silence. Luce strained her ears, waiting. For a moment she thought that it was over, that Morgan had released Bones, had stopped whatever game he intended to play. For it was a game to him; Luce had seen it in his eyes, in the relaxed, almost lazy way he’d waited for his men to bring Luce, Samuel, and Bones on board. He had known the stone would be his, before he so much as uttered a word.

A deep and terrible wave of misgiving washed over her.

And then something—Bones, she realised—was hauled up on those ropes by his feet, dangling above the deck like a fish on a line. Luce stood on her toes, ignoring their protests, and peered through the grate. The men were doing something to his wrists— she heard the hiss of rope—and then he was swung out over the side of the ship.

One second became two, then three, then four. All the while Bones hung over the water, completely helpless, his hands and feet secured top and bottom by the ropes.

Samuel swore, loud, frantic. ‘You cannot do this! I told you where the stone is! I’ll take you there myself!’

‘Where’s the fun in that?’ Morgan drawled.

And suddenly Luce knew what Morgan had meant when he had said to ‘run Cousin Bones up’.

One evening, when she was perhaps thirteen, she had crept from her chamber and sat at the door to the music room, where her father and his friends were gathered after supper. Her mother and the other ladies had retired to the salon, and Luce knew from experience that the best stories could be overheard when the shipowners were left alone with a good supply of tobacco and brandy. That night, however, she had heard more than she had bargained for. One of the men—Monsieur le Fer she suspected, though it was impossible to be sure—had spoken of a terrible punishment he had witnessed aboard a Dutch ship whose crew had attempted a mutiny. The captain, once he had restored order, had commanded that the mutineers be keelhauled—their hands and feet bound to ropes stretched from the yardarm while they were lowered into the sea and hauled along the bottom of the ship. Port to starboard. Luce, sickened by Monsieur le Fer’s vivid description of the appalling injuries the sailors had suffered—as many had died from their wounds as by drowning, their clothing and skin torn against the thick layer of barnacles crusting the hull—had crept back to her bed. She had lain awake, trembling, for hours.

She was trembling now.

‘Send him down,’ Morgan ordered. The sound of hissing rope cut through the silence, followed by a splash as Bones hit the black water below. Grunts of effort rose from midships—Luce imagined the men heaving on the rope, drawing it through the iron ring secured to the yardarm. And then the hideous sound of something dragging slowly against the Lucinde ’s hull.

Heave, heave, heave.

Drag, drag, drag.

Each haul on the rope was followed by the sound of that appalling, distant scraping. They can’t be, Luce thought. They can’t be doing this. Horror swirled like ice in her blood. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

‘ Morgan! ’ She screamed his name. Gripped the bars of the grate, shook them as hard as she could. ‘Stop this! Please, let him go!’

She shoved her shoulder against the door, again and again. It held fast. She was trapped, with no means of getting out, of running down to Morgan and begging him to cease this madness. To dive into the sea and stop it herself. ‘ Morgan! ’

For one breathless moment Luce thought he had heeded her. The dragging stopped. There came the sound of something heavy being lifted from the water. She pressed her face to the bars and glimpsed Bones dangling limply from the yardarm. Hands reached for him, drawing him back over the rail and out of sight. No matter; a glimpse had been enough. Bones’s head lolled. Water and blood poured from his face, his hands. His feet hung limply down, bare, bleeding, and painfully fragile. Patches of bloody skin showed through his ripped clothes. No way to tell if he was breathing.

Luce flinched as the lines were loosened and he was dropped unceremoniously onto the deck with a sodden thunk.

‘You fucking bastards !’ Samuel roared, rending the silence. ‘I told you where the stone is!’

Morgan said nothing. Luce remembered his words to her weeks ago, right here on this ship. The coldness in his voice as he had spoken of his revenge.

You can be certain they will regret stealing from me.

‘Do it again,’ Morgan told his men.

‘ No! ’

Luce’s heart broke at the anguish in Samuel’s voice, even as her terror swirled and grew. She threw herself against the door, heedless of the pain flaring in her shoulder. She must stop Morgan. Must save Bones.

‘Morgan!’ she screamed. ‘Morgan, please !’

Perhaps the men hesitated. Morgan’s voice, when it came again, was harder.

‘I said, again. ’

‘You don’t have to listen to him!’ Luce cried to the men. ‘You don’t have to do this! My father is Jean-Baptiste Léon. I promise you that he will know of this and that there will be a reckoning! Stop now and I will ensure he knows that you were not to blame. That you are men of honour, who refused in good conscience to murder an innocent man!’

There was a long silence, ripe with uncertainty. Hope flared in Luce’s heart.

Then Morgan laughed. ‘You forget, Lucinde,’ he called up to her. ‘Some men value money over honour.’

Splash. Heave, drag. Luce could barely breathe as they did it all over again. This time it seemed to take longer for Bones to reach the other side of the ship. When they heaved him onto the deck, he was so badly mangled that Luce hardly recognised his face.

The sound of his broken, dripping body landing on the deck, of Samuel’s agony when he realised his cousin was dead, would stay with her for the rest of her days.

‘Cut him down,’ Morgan said indifferently. ‘And clean up this mess. I’d best check on our other guest before Monsieur Thorner enjoys his little swim.’

‘If you touch her...’ Samuel said brokenly.

‘You’ll what?’ Morgan laughed cruelly. ‘I told you that night at the Blessing to keep those thieving hands of yours off your betters. You should have listened.’

There was a sickening thud, followed by another, and another. Luce winced as she imagined Morgan’s shiny boot lashing into Samuel again and again.

‘Get him ready,’ Morgan panted, at last. For the first time since Luce had boarded the Lucinde , he sounded less than completely composed. ‘We’ll dangle him when I get back.’

Steps on the stairs, and Morgan prowled into view, a lantern in one hand. Luce, a caged bird, froze as he stopped in front of the grate, tilting his head consideringly.

‘Not so talkative now, hmm?’ He knocked aside the lumber securing the door and turned the handle.

‘This was not what I had in mind for you,’ he said, taking in the storeroom with a disapproving tsk. He offered Luce his hand. It glistened with water and blood. ‘Come. Let’s find somewhere more comfortable for you to wait while we entertain Monsieur Thorner. Somewhere less... drafty. I know just the place.’

Like the rest of the Lucinde , the captain’s quarters had been greatly improved since the launch. As well as the new table, bookshelves now lined the walls, a narrow ledge running along the front of each to stop their contents tipping onto the floor in rough seas. A long bench had been constructed beneath the windows, which were all firmly closed against the night.

‘You needn’t bother trying to keep what you’re doing from me,’ Luce said.

‘Come now, Lucinde,’ Morgan said blithely. ‘We both know that it is you, and not I, who has been keeping secrets.’ He set his lantern on the table at the cabin’s center, and gestured around the room with a flourish. ‘Cabin’s coming along well, isn’t it?’

‘You want to discuss furnishings at a time like this?’

How could he be so calm, so courteous, after what he had just done? Luce was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. The sound of Bones’s body landing upon the deck played over and over again in her mind, melding with the memory of him flopping down beside her on the sand in the cove. That wide, warm grin of his, and the way his head tilted toward her whenever she spoke, as though he were listening carefully to what she had to say. The way he had pushed her behind him when they had first boarded the Lucinde, shielding her with his own body. His poor, ravaged body...

‘Why not?’ Morgan moved about the room, admiring the carved paneling, the furniture. ‘I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but I just discovered the location of my storm-stone. Which means that I can keep my end of our bargain.’

‘You just killed an innocent man—a man who was my friend—by dragging him under a ship, ’ Luce spat. ‘If you think that I would even consider marrying you now...’

He raised a hand, lovingly stroking a gleaming bookshelf. ‘Keelhauling is a standard punishment in both the English and Dutch navies.’

‘This is Bretagne. ’

He dropped his hand, eyes narrowing. ‘So high and mighty. And yet look at you, Lucinde. Dressed as though you’ve come straight from the slop-chest. You would be fortunate to have anyone of worth consider marrying you now. Why, just being seen with that scum out there—and in such a state—could destroy your reputation. Fortunately, I am willing to look beyond it.’

‘How generous of you.’

He shrugged. ‘My vision is grand, my plans far-reaching. They matter more to me than whether my wife has bedded a smuggler or two. To be perfectly honest, I enjoy slumming it myself, now and again. And again. You’ll find me a forgiving husband, when all is said and done.’

‘Perhaps we can hire an extra valet to care for all your garter ribbons,’ Luce said icily.

He almost smiled. ‘You know about that, eh? I suppose that’s why Thorner took them that night—he recognised yours. Can’t blame him, really.’ The smile he gave Luce sent a chill creeping up her spine. ‘Do you remember when I took it from you? How wondrous you looked on those stairs.’

‘How could I forget?’ Luce said, turning cold at the memory that had once set her aflame.

‘I kept that ribbon with me every day, you know.’

‘That ribbon, and half a hundred others.’

He chuckled. ‘It’s true. I cannot help myself. I tell myself constantly that it’s wrong to steal, that I should give the ribbons back. But I never do, Luce. I never do.’

‘You are despicable. You insult Samuel, and yet he is a thousand times the person you could ever be.’

‘Careful, now. You will make me jealous.’ Morgan moved, so fast Luce barely registered it. One hand slid to the nape of her neck, gripping her hair, tilting her face up to his. The table hit the back of her thighs. The lantern wobbled dangerously. ‘I brought you here to spare you from watching, and hearing, what I’m about to do to your gallant smuggler—a wedding present, of sorts. Don’t make me change my mind.’

‘You have your stone,’ she rasped. His grip on her neck was like iron. ‘Let me go, let Samuel go, and I will make you captain of the Lucinde. We can invest in any venture you want.’

‘That’s not what we agreed.’ He had her pinned between him and the table, now, his two hands locked around her. ‘We made a deal, Lucinde. Your ship, my stone.’

‘If you kill Samuel now you may never find the stone.’ Luce shifted her weight against the table. Testing his strength, and hers. Morgan, perceiving it, edged closer, nudging his hip between her thighs. ‘He could have lied to you.’

‘He didn’t.’ Morgan’s lips were so close she could have kissed him, despite the hold he had on her neck.

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I promised I’d spare Cousin Bones if he told me the truth.’

Luce went still. ‘And then you killed him anyway.’

‘Of course.’

He was remorseless. Profoundly, coldly so. The thought gave her new strength. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the knife hanging at her waist. Morgan sensed what she was going to do, but too late—Luce slipped the blade free and lashed out. It was a clumsy movement, graceless, yet it did its duty: a harsh red line sprang up on Morgan’s cheek, gleaming from his hairline to his nose.

‘ Fuck! ’

He reared back, clutching at his face, and Luce scrabbled away, putting the width of the table between them, the knife held before her in one shaking hand.

For one endless moment Morgan went very still. Ignoring the blood running down his face and staining his snowy white jabot, he watched Luce with terrible intent.

‘That’s a pretty blade,’ he crooned.

Then he lunged. Missed, as Luce, panting, terrified, stumbled out of reach and threw herself for the door. He clawed at her hair, seized a handful, yanked her back. She slashed desperately at him with the knife, then, as he slid out of harm’s way, lunged again for the door. He went with her, fast and light, blocking her escape easily. He seized the hem of her overcoat, gripped it tight; out of her blade’s reach and triumphant.

‘Give me that shiny knife, Lucinde.’

She shrugged out of the coat, and he fell back with the sudden weightlessness, crashing into the table. Luce wasted no time: the cabin’s large windows, and beyond them, the sea, were only a few steps away. She ran for the nearest of them, flicked aside the fastening, and shoved the thick panes open with one hand. Morgan was on his feet, careening across the cabin, bloody and rageful. He lunged at her, grasping with furious, bloody fingers.

And gripped nothing but air.

Luce had hoisted herself onto the window ledge and dived into the night.

‘ Find her! ’ Morgan’s voice bounced across the surface of the harbour, thudding into the Lucinde ’s hull. Luce, pressed against the bow, her long, webbed fingers clinging to the timbers, listened as booted feet thundered around the decks. As lanterns swung out over the water, and Morgan’s men peered into the gloom.

‘She’s swum to shore, for certain,’ someone said.

‘Then take a boat and find her!’ Morgan snapped. ‘Don’t stop until you’ve brought her back. She can’t have gone far.’ A cruel little chuckle. ‘Not with those feet.’

Movement to the ship’s starboard side. Luce drifted around the bow, her tail silent and strong beneath her. Her breeches were gone, her boots and stockings too, sinking slowly to the bottom. It didn’t matter; she had what she needed. The sea-silk remained against her skin, safe within the confines of her chemise, stays, and caraco, while Mother Aggie’s belt was cinched firmly around the place where her hips became tail, the sea-knife laying against the scales as though it belonged there.

Several of Morgan’s men were clambering down to one of the ship’s boats. Taking up the oars, they pushed away from the Lucinde and rowed swiftly for the shore. Two of their number stood at stern and prow, lanterns held high, searching the dark water.

‘As for the rest of you,’ Morgan was saying from the deck high above. ‘You know what to do.’

There came the sound of rope moving rapidly through iron blocks, the heave and grunt of working men. Edging down the ship’s side, Luce strained to see which side of the yard Samuel was tied to.

It would happen fast. She must be ready.

At last she glimpsed the yardarm, Samuel’s feet and legs dangling directly below it. Upside-down. She could not see past his waist— the ship’s railing blocked it from sight—but it was enough. ‘I told Lucinde that I would make you pay for stealing from me,’ Morgan said conversationally. ‘She didn’t pass that on? A pity.’

‘She told me,’ Samuel grunted.

‘And yet you did not heed her?’

‘It was not the first time I’d heard such a threat.’

The rope connecting Samuel to either end of the yard reared out of the darkness ahead, snaking alongside the ship before disappearing into the water. It began to wriggle as Samuel himself appeared, swinging as the men pushed him out over the water, his long limbs stretched tight between the ropes binding him at wrist and ankle. They had removed his overcoat and boots. Nothing but the thin linen of his shirt and wool of his breeches would protect him from the Lucinde ’s hull.

‘Of course it wasn’t.’ Morgan leaned on the rail, a bloody kerchief pressed to his cheek. Luce shrank back against the ship. ‘But I’m sure we can all agree that it will be the last.’

Luce braced herself against the timbers, every muscle alert to Morgan’s next words. Send him down.

Samuel braced himself, too. ‘Your soul is forfeit,’ he told Morgan. ‘Know that. The sea should have taken it when the Dauphin wrecked. Luce saved you, and risked her own soul doing it. I’ll never forgive you for that. Or for what you’ve done this night.’

‘The night is far from over,’ Morgan said breezily. ‘For some of us, at least.’

‘Your crew will never forgive you either,’ Samuel mused. ‘I’ve seen them walking the shore at dusk. Searching for you. You know what they say about a captain who abandons his own men—’

‘Superstitions and stupidity,’ Morgan interrupted. ‘Nothing more.’

‘You don’t believe a crew betrayed by its captain will rise from the deep?’

‘I’m not some idiot deckhand to be spooked by tales!’

‘What happened that night?’ Samuel asked, softer. ‘You can tell me, surely?’ He nodded at the dark waters below, as if to say, I’ll be dead in a few moments. What can it hurt?

Morgan glanced at the men behind him, waiting, the ropes taut in their hands. ‘There is nothing to tell,’ he said. ‘The storm took us, there was nothing to be done—’

‘Horseshit,’ Samuel said. ‘You were carrying enough stone to see out ten such storms.’

‘I suppose you’d know.’

‘I suppose I would. Your pilot was Malouin, no? Surely he knew the way through the islands and reefs to the harbour? Its ticklish for a ship that size, even in fair weather, but I heard he was experienced enough.’

‘He was a fool,’ Morgan hissed, stepping to the rail and leaning out so that no one but Samuel—and Luce—could hear. ‘Told me he knew the channels and would have us safely through.’

‘And he didn’t?’ Samuel sounded doubtful.

‘There wasn’t time,’ Morgan muttered. ‘The English were on our heels, the ship was damaged... I did what I had to do.’

‘You took the wheel yourself.’

‘Why not? It was my ship, my crew—’

‘You’d lived in Cádiz for ten years or more. What made you think you had the skill to pilot a ship into Saint-Malo? Men more experienced than you have failed in kinder weather.’

‘I studied the charts—’

‘Charts are not the same as water.’ Luce, clinging to the Lucinde ’s side, all but nodded in agreement. ‘So, you hit the reef. What then?’

‘What do you mean, what then?’

‘What of your crew?’

‘They tried to save the ship, the cargo, obviously. It was worth a fortune—’

‘But instead of helping them, you lined your pockets with storm-stone and launched one of the boats,’ Samuel said. ‘Is that not so? And when the storm really worked itself into a lather and even that went down, you lashed yourself to the wreckage and tried not to think about the crew you’d left behind.’ Samuel’s voice was grim. ‘In fact, you’ve tried not to think about your crew every day since. Tell me, how are you faring?’

Luce, pressed against the hull, waited for Morgan’s answer.

It never came. One moment Samuel was high above her, the next he was falling, the hissing of the ropes loud as thunder. Luce dived as he hit the water.

Darkness. The looming shadow of the Lucinde ’s hull. Ahead, a wash of bubbles, a pale figure plunging beneath the ship.

She surged toward it.

She reached Samuel as the rope at his wrists began to curve toward the keel. His eyes were closed, creased in fear, but he opened them wide when he felt her hands upon him. It hardly mattered; Luce knew he would not be able to see her in the dark. She gripped him tight as the ropes began their heaving rhythm, pulled him down, away from the wicked crust fouling the hull. Mother Aggie’s knife glimmered in the dark water. Luce raised it to the rope at Samuel’s wrists, began to cut.

Drag, drag, drag.

The blade was too small, the cutting too slow. Luce longed to reach up and seize the rope, hold it firm with both hands, but knew that to do so would leave Samuel exposed to the underside of the ship.

Drag, drag, drag.

They were halfway along the ship’s width now, almost at the keel. The rhythm of the men above intensified, quickening Samuel’s progress through the water. Luce held him harder, her tail working to draw him downward and away, against the ropes pulling him toward the hull. The faster the men hauled, the closer Samuel’s body came to the barnacles. Morgan, Luce realised, knew this. This first run was intended not to drown, but to maim.

She stopped cutting. Slipped the knife back into the silvery belt at her waist and gripped Samuel tight about the shoulders, using all her strength to keep him away from the fouling. There was one of her against the strength of six men, however, and she felt him tense, felt the hideous catch and scrape of his back and shoulder against the hull. Blood bloomed in the water.

Drag, drag, drag.

Faster they hauled, and faster, as though Morgan were urging the men on. Barnacles hissed against Luce’s forearms where they wrapped about Samuel’s back, snarling at her skin. She did not let go. Not until the heavy shape of the ship disappeared above them, and the rope at Samuel’s wrists began to tilt up. She watched him rise to the surface at the ship’s opposite side, his shirt ripped half-off, blood dripping from his back, then swam for the bow and silently surfaced.

‘Fools!’ Morgan was saying to his men. ‘There’s hardly a mark on him!’

‘He should be more cut up than this,’ someone agreed nervously.

‘The ropes were tight, I checked them myself!’

‘Check them again,’ Morgan growled. ‘And send him back down.’

They were going the opposite way now, and Samuel was dragged feet first, even faster than before. The ropes were tighter, this time, the pressure dragging Samuel toward the hull even fiercer. It took all Luce’s strength to stay with him, dragging against the relentless upward pull of the ropes. Even so, when Samuel surfaced, once more on the side where this nightmare had begun, his shirt was gone, his back a bloody mess, one side of his breeches tattered against a lacerated thigh.

‘Much better,’ Morgan said approvingly, as Samuel coughed and spluttered on the deck. ‘Again.’

For this, Samuel’s third run, he once again entered the water hands first. Luce seized the rope binding his feet and held it firm with one hand, slicing at it with the knife as they dragged him under the ship. They were slower on the ropes this time, perhaps hoping the water would finish the job they had started. The change in pace meant Samuel was farther from the hull than before, and protected from the worst of its bite. Even better, it gave Luce precious time.

By the time they had reached the keel, she had breathed into Samuel’s mouth twice and sawed through the rope binding his feet. Untethered, his legs and body drifted limply down as Luce worked on the rope dragging at his wrists. She sliced at it frantically, ignoring her own pain, willing whatever magic lingered within the blade to hasten her work. The edge of the ship was nearing, drawing closer and closer with every beat of Samuel’s heart.

At last, just as they reached the open water, the rope tore free. Luce glimpsed its rough-hewn edge bouncing for the surface as she caught Samuel tight against her, dragging him away from the Lucinde.

She did not stop until she reached the nearest ship. With Samuel cradled in her arms, his head lolling on her shoulder, she caught her breath and watched the panic and confusion rising from the Lucinde ’s decks. She pushed on, to the next ship, and the next, pausing in the shadows, clinging to the timbers as she rested and let Samuel breathe, doing her best not to hurt him further. Again, and again, ship to ship, the lights of Saint-Malo glittering like stars, guiding her to safety.

Please, please help us.

She did not stop, not when Samuel’s breathing became shallow, not when he became cold and still in her arms.

Help me. Help us, please.

At last she reached a familiar beach beneath familiar ramparts. She slithered into the shallows, dragging Samuel with her, collapsing against him as the Manche ebbed and flowed over his hips, his back, licking at his wounds.

Only then did she let herself cry.

Please, please don’t be gone.

Nothing, for several long, slow sea breaths. Nothing but the sea, and the moon, the ramparts behind her. Water lapped against Luce’s tail, toyed with her long fins, melded with her tears. It was blessedly cold against her aching skin, her aching heart.

Then came the groac’h’s voice. ‘What’s this, then?’