Chapter 48
Mary lay on her back and looked up at the first pinpricks emerging in the greenish tinge of dusk.
The off-watch crew lounged on the quarterdeck after devouring a feast of fresh pork—courtesy of a sloop they’d boarded the day prior.
She counted her blessings that she’d kept the food down.
Her queasiness had dimmed over the past week.
While she worried what that might mean, no bleeding came.
Not yet. Anne told her to put it out of mind, that this was common and not a terrible omen.
Mary breathed in. Fall now reigned, its constellations moving like a chariot across the sky.
Last night, she’d spotted the ram, Aries.
Also the W of Cassiopeia. Her heart squeezed.
She smiled to remember pointing out the latter constellation for Bjorn, the way he beamed and said that this shape was also a letter.
How she burst with a flurry of explanations, drawing his attention to her favorite clusters of stars from her navigational training, pointing them out one by one.
Bjorn’s undiluted excitement as she made connections between past and present.
What would he make of this present? Mary thought, listening to the sound of blades clinking near the bow.
Her attention drifted to the commotion. For three weeks, Rack-ham had held true to his word.
Mary watched as he trained Anne in the mornings and early evenings, like now.
In those three weeks, the crew had intercepted seven other small vessels—mostly fishing boats near Harbour Island.
The Revenge’s hold swelled with more odds and ends.
On the last raid, they’d taken a pile of fraying fishing nets and the coats off the backs of the sailors—despicable.
But provisions that mattered? Food? Valuables that would fetch a large and swift profit at the nearest dock?
Those were in short supply. They still didn’t have a single gold coin or handful of silver aboard.
Yesterday, the crew voted to begin rationing and head southeast with due haste for the French side of Hispaniola.
The pork feast had kicked off the gradual fast. Howell, reduced to one glass of ale per day, snarled at everyone.
He vocalized what everyone began to feel.
Morale soured, even as Rackham and Corner stuck to their mission.
The clang of cutlasses continued. Mary heard Anne curse.
“Well done, Bon,” Rackham said. “Again.”
Mary stood and approached the scene, where Thomas and Corner also observed the training as the night watch kept an eye on the lines.
Sweat drenched Anne’s hair and the red kerchief around her neck.
She swung the cutlass, her face aglow with the reflected remnants of the sunset.
Rackham blocked, making her curse like the Devil.
“Our weapons are turning into decorations, no matter how many times I visit the grindstone to quell my boredom,” Thomas said. “We’d all do well to practice.”
And bathe, Mary thought, overwhelmed by their sour clothes. But yes, practice was also in order.
“A fine idea, Brown,” Corner said, drawing his rapier. “Shall we?”
Thomas hesitated, and Mary held back a chuckle. Corner, gentle though he may be, was not a giant anyone wanted to slay. Not that anyone could.
She nodded at Thomas. A worthy foe, a worthy exercise.
With the two of them joining the throng, Mary shifted her attention to Anne. Her bared teeth. The way she heaved from exhaustion. Her form.
What on God’s green earth was she doing with her footing?
“Rackham, may I?” Mary said, cutting in.
Anne wiped sweat from her brow and Rackham glared. It was a look he often wore after Mary offered a suggestion or when she and Anne engaged in conversation.
Fool. His efforts would be better spent on devising a better strategy to fill the hold. “She doesn’t have the advantage of your upper body strength,” Mary said before directing her words at Anne. “You need to use your legs.”
Anne panted so hard that Mary feared she would collapse. But to her credit, she didn’t protest. “Show me.”
Rackham, backlit by the fading sunset, let out a noise of annoyance and stepped aside.
Mary drew her cutlass. “Study my feet.”
Anne watched as Mary stepped right over left, left over right. Then she made Anne do the same. “When you move to strike, surge using your legs. Lead with that power.”
Anne laughed, squatting lower. “I look ridiculous.”
“Battle is ridiculous.”
They circled, a blur of steel. Anne had improved immensely over the past month—Mary had to at least give credit to Rackham for that.
“You have to learn to channel your anger,” Mary whispered. “Direct it at an opponent, a goal. Move your anger from your head into your bones.”
Anne swung and missed. “You’re distracting me on purpose.”
“It’s like fear. You have to move through it.”
“She’s tired,” Rackham interrupted. “Let’s be done. It’s growing dark.”
Without thinking, Mary whipped her blade around, facing him. Out of instinct, he raised his own cutlass and blocked. The metal sang.
The crew walloped with delight. Thomas and Corner lowered their weapons to watch.
“This I have to see,” Earl said with a trill.
“Let’s have it, Captain! Give us a proper demonstration,” said Corner.
Rackham rolled his eyes, then lunged. Mary dodged, then cut left. Her balance felt different after carrying this child for three months, but she still had sturdy footing. Rackham parried. She exhaled, feeling her opponent escalate as she settled into that deep place within herself.
He didn’t stand a chance.
He attacked from overhead, and she absorbed the force of his blow with a parry. He tried again, and she threw her arm outward, blocking the diagonal cut. She thrust left; her feet moved the way they had a thousand times before.
Rackham bellowed. He swung with all his might, and she saw her opening. She thrust up using her legs as a springboard, whipped her wrist, and sent the cutlass flying from his hand.
The crowd behind him cheered, but his eyes narrowed to daggers.
“Come, Jack,” Anne said, looping her arm through his—all adoration. Mary saw it for what it was: appeasing his wounded pride, staving off a foul mood. “Let’s have a song. Earl? Your fiddle?”
Mary lowered her blade and tucked it into her belt alongside her pistol. She really did prefer the pistol, particularly this new one—a breech-loading flintlock with lavish silver markings and an anguished face stamping the butt cap.
Thomas lingered behind the others. “What were you thinking?” he shot.
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
He inched closer to her, closer than he’d been in weeks. He’d even moved his hammock to the other end of the sleeping berth and called it a precaution. “You challenged the captain.”
Mary raised a brow. “Maybe someone should. We’ve been preying on poor fishermen instead of ships worth our time for weeks. Time I don’t have.” She felt her pulse rise and willed herself to calm, to steady.
Thomas stepped in front of her. “We have to stay patient. We can’t risk another blow to our reputation.”
Our reputation? She studied him—so stiff, so severe, so different now that he’d regained his status among his peers. How the tides had turned. Now, she was a liability. Their child, an inconvenience.
Mary curled her toes in her boots and swallowed the bitter realization. A chasm of loneliness gaped open in the pit of her chest.
“You have to exercise more caution,” Thomas said.
Mary said nothing, hearing the fear behind his words. Caution. Care. Vigilance. She had a lifetime of training in these, avoiding risk at all cost—not weighing the counter costs of hiding.
And a child was not a thing she could hide much longer.
She brushed the back of Thomas’s hand with hers for a moment, remembering the warm feel of him, then walked away to join the others.