Barclay cut her off with a wave. “Say no more, lass,” he said, and Miranda smiled. “You’ll bore me to tears. Aye, you’ll come with me. A sweeting like you, to have and to hold.” He gripped Miranda’s wrist. Her nails raked his face, gouging long red slashes across from brow to cheek. Barclay howled and pressed his hands to the wound, then took them away and saw blood. Fury flared in him and he struck Miranda with the back of his hand. She reeled with the powerful blow—no one had dared strike her before—but didn’t fall. Barclay drew a small dagger and moved on Miranda. For a moment she stared death in the eye. Wickliff shouted, “Captain! Havana!” and Barclay returned the dagger to its sheath.

A smile snaked across Barclay’s face. “Right,” he said. “Havana for you. Such a lovely face. Such fine skin, that none ever took a knife to.” He stuck his thumbs in his sash and roared with laughter as blood dripped down his face. “To Havana, then!” He crooked a finger at Nona. “We’ll not be needing her. Wickliff!”

“No!” Miranda cried. She seized a bottle from the table and sprang at Barclay, poised to crush his tanned skull. With a laugh he disarmed her and flung her over his shoulder. She kicked and pounded on his broad back with her fists. He grunted.

“Keep it up, lass, and you may not see Havana after all. You’ll just make it to my bunk, and then it’s the knife for you. Understand?”

Miranda lay still. She wanted to fight this man with every fiber of her being, but her desire to live was greater. “Wickliff,” she said.

The bosun glanced at her and looked away. Drawing his cutlass, he moved past Barclay and into the room. His shadow fell across Nona, who whimpered and crouched in the corner. “Wickliff, you can’t do this!” Miranda shouted. “Bring her, too! You can’t—you can’t!” And then Barclay was carrying her away, over the ocean, away from Nona, from Samuel, from life, from everything.

Insensate rage followed. Miranda lurked in a sullen fury for three days, the image of Nona’s fear-frozen face her only company. Barclay imprisoned her in an aft cabin, quite small, and twice a day he or Wickliff brought her food and drink, which she left untouched. Miranda lay on her cot, turned to the wall. The only sounds were the babble of the sea and the no-quieter babble of laughter and clanking dishes from the chamber adjoining hers.

But love of life was bright within her, and her grief quickly gave way to anger and hatred for the men who had slain her old friend and abducted her, and soon an ambition, hateful and necessary, germinated like a venomous weed in her mind: vengeance. She buried the ambition—for now. On the third day, she ate and drank, and was alert and thinking when Wickliff brought her meal.

“Why is it only you and the captain wait on me?”

“Your pardon, miss, we don’t wait on you exactly. We keep you among the living, is all.”

“Well, why is it only you and the captain who keep me among the living, then?”

“I believe I’m the only one the captain trusts to… respect you.”

The thought seemed strangely hilarious to her, and Miranda laughed despite herself. “Trusts you not to force me, you mean.”

Wickliff blushed. The blush faded quickly and he said, gravely, “Yes, that’s it exactly.” The laugh died in Miranda’s throat.

“Because you were in the Navy? And that makes you a gentleman?”

“More so than some others.”

“Do you miss the Navy, Mr. Wickliff?”

“I’d have to be a fool to miss the Navy, Miss Davenport.”

“Is it very bad there, then?”

“Is it very bad?” Wickliff snorted. “It’s not enough food after the purser takes his cut. It’s ten lashes if you’re late to watch. Aye, it’s not pleasant. In a lot of ways I’m better off now.”

“But not in every way.”

Wickliff said nothing for a while. “No, not in every way.”

“In the Navy, you can anticipate a pension. Here…” She trailed off, fingering a loose lock of her dark brown hair.

Wickliff finished the sentence. “Nothing but a rope.” Then he grinned morbidly and performed half a jig step. “But we’re free of tyranny, at least! So says the captain, and his word is law. And a rope’s a sight better than what you can anticipate, Miss Davenport.”

 

“Why? What awaits me in Havana?” Miranda tried to remain casual, but urgency crept into the question.

“The grandest, finest slave market in the New World, miss. Oh, don’t you worry. You’ll get to be a plantation mistress yet, what with your fine skin, and your dark eyes—only a planter could afford you.”

Revulsion seized her. To adorn the arm of some repugnant Don! “And that’s why the captain has preserved me from the depredations of the crew.”

“Aye. Unspoiled you’ll fetch a higher price.”

“I don’t—I can’t believe you. You deceive me! You slew Nona,” Miranda hissed. “Serpent. Villain!”

Wickliff spoke quietly. “Orders are order, miss. I was gentle as a lamb with her.”

Miranda laughed, one harsh bitter laugh. “Gentle as a lamb? When you—what? When you cut her throat, and her blood poured. When you sliced her belly and her entrails tumbled out! When you hacked her skull open!” Miranda collapsed in the lone chair and held her hands palm upward, fingers curled like claws. “What did you do? Tell me what you did!”

Wickliff looked at the plates on the table, at the door to the cabin, at the lamp, at his boots. Finally he said, “The captain’s getting a trifle impatient with you, miss. Sulking does you no good with him. I had a job of it convincing him to take you to Havana, and if you make it hard by not eating and not drinking, he may forget about the profit to be had. And you don’t want that.” After a while he added, “I don’t want that.” He left Miranda alone with her thoughts.

A shudder traveled the length of her spine, then another, and though she fought them tears leaked out, two by two. A single sob broke from her lips, and she wiped the tears away, sniffing. She would cry no more. She had more important things to do.

That night, when the captain brought her dinner, Miranda smiled blandly for him. She felt the smile might run away from her and widen until it split her head open, but she kept smiling and said “thank you” in a small and timid voice, startling Barclay momentarily. Then he laughed: “There’s a good girl!” and stomped out. Miranda ate, swallowing each bite with solemn duty.

Barclay delivered her food again the following morning. He regarded her warily, expecting some new absurdity, and again Miranda smiled and thanked him, and again he laughed. “You’ll get on fine here, sweeting.”

“Tell me of your ship, captain,” she said suddenly. Miranda didn’t care a fig about Barclay’s ship, but she knew Barclay did.

He coughed and scratched the back of his neck with one filthy hand. “What?”

“If I’m to be your passenger, captain, I want to know about the ship that carries me.”

“Ah… very well.” He massaged his nut brown scalp while he spoke. “The Ocean’s Scourge. She’s got forty-eight guns. Three masts, aftermost fore-and-aft rigged. Crew of twenty-nine. Fast! Doesn’t draw much, either, so we ply the shoals. Took a Navy sloop once. How we got Wickliff. And a merchantman out of Barbados, with molasses by the ton.” As he spoke, Barclay relaxed perceptibly. Soon he was sitting in the little wooden chair and telling Miranda of a raid on Panama, and then he spoke animatedly of outrunning Navy patrols in the Bahamas. He had a natural love of boasting, and Miranda encouraged it with occasional nods and impressed murmurs. Then four bells sounded and Barclay leapt to his feet. “You got me chattering on,” he said, and dashed from the cabin. Miranda shook her head after he left, dispelling the memory of the loathsome man. The information she retained.

Wickliff came the next morning. “You occupied the captain for quite a while yesterday,” he said.

Miranda demurred. “I remain unspoiled.”

Wickliff laughed shortly. “I hardly meant that, miss.” He studied her and Miranda could see the thoughts rolling ponderously in his head. “I don’t understand, miss, why you’d care to talk to a man like that.”

“A man like what? He’s your captain, Mr. Wickliff.”

“Aye. But he’s a terror. He knows it. He wants the world to know it. Be damned if he gives or takes quarter, he says. He wants to shake the skies and boil the seas.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means blood, buckets and barrels of blood. Like your ship. No quarter, excepting you.”

“He’s treated me kindly.”

Wickliff snorted. “Because he thinks he can make a pound or two from you. The instant he thinks otherwise, your life isn’t worth a handful of sawdust. He’ll kill you for the sport of it. He’s mad.”

“Mad? Is he truly insane?”

“Aye. He’d strike the sun from the sky if he could. You just haven’t seen his madness yet.”

 

 

“Then why serve him?” Miranda asked breathlessly. From across the cabin, she held her arms out to him in momentary compassion or appeal; then she blushed faintly and withdrew them.

Wickliff stared for a moment before replying. “Not my first choice, miss!”

“Not your choice?”

“I was impressed, Miss Davenport. I was Navy. They take our sloop, and line us up on the deck. Barclay scratches a line with the tip of his cutlass and bellows, ‘All free men, cross! All others can perish!’ What do I do then? I do what I must to survive. I cross, my captain cursing me for a traitor and a coward—but I’m drawing breath now, at least.”

“And the captain?”

“He didn’t cross. Barclay cut him down.”

“And now you’re an enemy of the Crown.”

“Aye. To see my wife no more.”

“You are married?”

“To a baker’s daughter in Bristol. Sweet young thing, a humble lass, not educated and refined like yourself, madam, but goodhearted and kind. She looks—looked after this scoundrel well enough.”

“And if you return to her—the rope.”

“The rope,” Wickliff echoed.

Miranda snapped her fingers as if she had received a brilliant inspiration. “You could obtain the King’s Pardon. The governor is quite free with those, I understand. Mr. Fraser—my betrothed—has written to me of such things in the past. All but the worst ruffians can be pardoned for laying down their arms.”

“I’ve heard of that. And there’s the rub—’all but the worst’. As long as I sail under Barclay, I have no more hope of the King’s Pardon than he.”

“As long as you sail under Barclay. I judge that you are intelligent, Wickliff, from conversing with you. I can see that you are strong.” Wickliff shrugged modestly. “And you’re sane.” She crossed the cabin and reached to touch his sleeve, but stopped. Wickliff stiffened. “You’re sane,” she whispered. “That’s more than that animal has. He’ll lead you into the jaws of hell, Wickliff. I know you for a good man. You’ve been so kind to me.”

Wickliff shrugged, but Miranda could see her words working on him. “The crew…” he said.

“The crew will follow you. Tell them of the King’s Pardon. They have to know that Barclay’s mad. They have to fear him. They won’t fear you; they’ll respect you.”

“And how do you know they’ll respect me?”

Miranda clutched his sleeve in her delicate fingers. She fingered the rough fabric and stepped closer to him. His sunripe scent filled her nostrils. Miranda examined the dulled brass buttons of the coat, the worn stitching of the collar, and finally, looked Wickliff in the eye. “Because I do,” she whispered.

Wickliff turned aside roughly and wrenched the door open. “I have a good many duties other than tending to you,” he said as he left.

 

Miranda waited for Wickliff’s return. She examined her little prison for the tenth time, going over every surface and object, searching for something, anything she could use. And, for the tenth time, she found nothing—except a rotted plank on the starboard wall. It ran horizontally, directly under her cot, and so she had missed it on previous inspections. Miranda scratched at it with her fingernails and little flakes of wood tumbled off. She took her tortoiseshell comb, one of the few possessions Barclay had left her, and scraped the wood. She wiggled under the cot and dug at the edge of the plank where it joined the other. The crack between the planks widened; she put her elbow to the rotten plank and it gave a little. She peered through the gap: a long table, two benches, and a large chair at the end, once grandly upholstered, now faded. The officers’ mess. That explained the occasional laughter from next door. At the far end, light streamed through a pair of large windows at the very stern of the ship. She craned her neck and saw the rolling ocean beyond—vast freedom, just feet away! Footsteps echoed in the passage and she scrambled from beneath the cot. She swept the crumbs of wood away with her foot and rearranged her disheveled hair as well as possible.

Wickliff entered. “I departed in a temper,” he said. “I apologize, Miss Davenport.”

“No apology required,” Miranda said. “Have you essayed the crew?”

 

Wickliff’s red face darkened for a moment. “Some,” he said. “The second mate, Jenkins, might prove agreeable. He’s a Navy man, like me, and new, at that. Picked him in a public house in Tortuga six months ago, and he’s still right sore about it.

“The first mate, Trent, may not be game. He’s been with the captain a lot longer, and I think he came off a plantation—that maybe he escaped from bondage. So he’s got nothing to go back to. But he’s a powerful dog, quick as can be with a blade. He and the captain together—well, I couldn’t stand before them.”

“Then you won’t,” Miranda said. “See if Trent can be turned. If not—do what is necessary.”

Wickliff furrowed his brow. “You don’t mean murder, miss?” Miranda said nothing. “You do mean murder.”

“And? Is it murder to murder a dead man? If Trent will not surrender his captain and seek the King’s Pardon, he is a dead man. You would serve the King’s purpose in this, and make possible the deliverance of all your fellow crew—your fellow prisoners.” The color drained from Wickliff’s face. “What?” Miranda was suddenly angry. “Are you a stranger to slaughter?”

“No… no, not at all, damn me for it!” Wickliff muttered violently. “But to hear such words—from a lady. How coldly you condemn him!”

Miranda lifted her pointed chin in a gesture of rebuke. “And? How they would condemn me! Or you—when they took you, they condemned you to death on the sea. I find it not cold but delicious indeed to turn their cannon upon them.”

Wickliff stared, speechless. Miranda’s anger grew. “Well? What do you have to say? Speak, if you have a tongue!” Fury overwhelmed her and she slapped at him. Her blow caught him across the face, and he reeled back, startled. “Excuse yourself! Tell me how you could slay my Nona, but not this wretch Trent! By what reasoning do you doff the executioner’s hood now, when you wore it so well in the past?” She struck at him again and he raised his hands to defend himself. He advanced on her suddenly, fist shaking, and she drew back with a cry.

“Don’t tell me my own mind,” he said. “I know what has to be done. Do you think I don’t know?” He ended in a shout.

“Shh, shh,” she soothed. “I’m sorry, Wickliff, I’m sorry. You know. You’re a strong man, more than able.” Wickliff turned away, and Miranda wondered if he was ill. Then she saw that he wept, silently, wiping the tears away so she would not see. She put her arms around him from behind and leaned her cheek against his broad back.

“I was gentle as a lamb,” he said in a thick voice. “I pinched her nose and mouth shut and sang ‘Rock-a-bye’ while I laid her down. And it soothed her, just like a wee babe. She drifted off with a smile, miss, I swear to you!”

“Shh, shh,” Miranda said. “You did what you had to. You are forgiven. No need, no need.”

Soon after Wickliff left, Miranda heard voices in the officers’ mess. She slid beneath her cot and peered through the crack. Wickliff and another man, a shorter, older fellow, with a mass of curly grey hair and a missing eye uncovered by a patch or scarf. The void in his skull gaped blackly and seemed to rove over Miranda and her peephole. Wickliff stood before him, his voice strident and quick.

“Just hear me out, Trent,” he was saying. “Hear me out. How old are you? How much older do you expect to get on an outlaw’s ship? It’s no life we live, Trent.”

“Watch your words, Wickliff. Treason—”

“Treason? From a man of no country! From a convict—an exile!” Wickliff’s voice grew louder, and Miranda saw Trent’s hand go to his pocket.

“Do it!” she cried. Wickliff’s pistol roared, and Trent fell dead, blood spouting from the wound in his chest.

“Oh, Christ…” Wickliff moaned. He didn’t seem to know what to do. Blood flowed from Trent’s chest in a widening pool. Wickliff stepped back from the pool.

“Wickliff! Listen to me!” Miranda whispered. He looked wildly about, his eyes searching the wall. “You must hide him! We aren’t ready, and if they find the corpse, they will know you for a mutineer! Hide it! Wickliff!”

“Yes,” he said. He replaced his pistol in its holster and regarded the body. Then his head jerked to the door—footsteps in the corridor. Someone had surely heard the gunshot.

“Hurry!” Miranda pleaded. Wickliff opened the port window. The salt breeze flowed in and Miranda breathed deeply of her first fresh air in days, mingled with the rusty scent of blood. Wickliff shouldered the burden of flesh and thrust it through the window; Miranda heard the distant splash. Wickliff watched for a moment.

“Sharks have him now,” he said. The footsteps—closer, closer. The door to the mess creaked open, and Wickliff, covered in Trent’s blood, whirled to face the intruder. Crimson soaked his shirt, his coat, his hands, his hair. Blood stained the floorboards.

“You cut yourself, then?” The voice was unfamiliar. “Or did you do for Trent?”

 

 

“Jenkins,” Wickliff said, “It’s not… it’s not…” Miranda winced.

“I think it is, old boy. I think you did for Trent. I saw you call him below, and I thought—now what could he be wanting with old Trent? He’s not enjoying his conversation, rosy and pleasant as it may be. Old Wickliff’s known not to care for Old Trent. So what’s he doing, then? And then I hear a shot.”

“All right, then,” Wickliff said. “Trent’s feeding the sharks. I’ll have you know I intend a mutiny. You can stand with me, or I can do for you, too. Stand with me, and the King’s Pardon can be ours. Miss Davenport—”

“The harlot what Barclay nabbed?”

Wickliff bristled. “I’ll not have her called that. You’ll respect the lady.”

“Aye.” Jenkins moved into view, bowing elaborately as he walked. “I suppose you’ll be the new captain, so I’ll respect you true enough.” He was gaunt, his face thin and bony.

The sarcasm was lost on Wickliff. “And I’ll respect you in turn. But I’ll only be captain as long as it takes to reach the nearest British port. Then we surrender ourselves and take the King’s Pardon.”

Jenkins considered. “The King’s Pardon? For us?”

“Miss Davenport says it’s possible. Her fiancé is a captain in the Navy. You and I were Navy once, too. We bring them Barclay’s head and it’s beyond doubt.”

“And if you’re wrong, we’ll swing.”

“If I’m wrong, we’ll swing sooner or later regardless. You know that’s all we can hope for, right? A noose, a drum roll, and a short fall.”

Jenkins nodded. “Right. I’m in.”

“If you’re in, and Trent’s gone, the crew will follow. We’ve only to dispatch Barclay.”

“And how do we do that?”

“At supper, during the dog watch. Have your pistols primed and ready. That’s when Barclay will miss Trent. After us, only the quartermaster and the cookie’ll be present. Can’t count on any of them.”

“Right you are, captain. I’ll be ready.”

Jenkins left and Wickliff leaned heavily against the wall. He wiped his brow, then stared at his bloody hand. “Oh, Christ,” he said.

“Wickliff! There remains work to do!”

He snapped to attention. “Yes! So close now.”

At her direction, Wickliff threw his bloody clothes through the window (Miranda averting her eyes), then fetched a change of clothes and a bag of sawdust. He soaked up the blood, scraped up the sodden dust, and disposed of that as well, leaving a dark stain on the floorboards. “Fetch a rug!” she ordered, and he returned with a moth-eaten scrap of carpet. It hid the stain admirably. “Now—until tonight!” she whispered. “And freedom!”

“And freedom,” he echoed, not sounding convinced.

The minutes crawled unbearably. Miranda sat, in a careful frozen attitude. She could do little else. Everything depended on Wickliff now. She listened to the heave and sigh of the ocean. She trusted completely in her success. Never once did it occur to her to pray.

The door clattered open and shattered Miranda’s trance. Barclay stood in the doorway, staggering a little. Miranda smelled rum as he approached her. That hideous fear reared in her mind and she fought it back. She was golden, she was charmed; things could not go awry when her plan was so close to fruition. Miranda knew for a fact that Barclay couldn’t harm her; she would not allow it. She had no idea how she could prevent it, but it simply would not happen. Yet—she backed away as he fumbled across the cabin.

Barclay glared at her and collapsed sideways on the cot. He pulled at the bottle. “Pretty wench,” he slurred. “Gad, so pretty.” Miranda remained quiet. “Had a pretty wench once. Looked like you. But not so dark. And red hair, not brown. And freckles.”

“What happened?”

“What happened?” Barclay laughed joylessly. “She lived in a placed called Drogheda. Know you Drogheda?” Miranda shook her head. “Course not, Gloucester wench. Daughter of a knight, not knowing what lives and dies—what mass of blood and bones you eat and drink and sleep upon.”

“Strong talk, from a murderer!” Miranda said. Barclay didn’t seem to hear her.

“Of course you wouldn’t know Drogheda and my pretty wench. How English steel spilt Irish blood and made an apostate of Joshua Barclay. No country, no king. And you wouldn’t know, either, the price of dying—how blood cries for blood and can’t ever be sated. Drink, drink, and still thirst. What can you do?” Barclay put the bottle to his lips and tilted it until the bottom stuck in the air. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and wagged the bottle between thumb and forefinger, gazing madly at Miranda.

 

“Whosoever drinketh of me shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Is that so?” Miranda only stared, horror-stricken. Her silence infuriated Barclay. He leapt to his feet and hurled the bottle at her; she ducked and it shattered on the bulkhead. His voice filled the room. “Drink of life and know everlasting life; I drank of death and know everlasting ruin! I can swallow the seven seas and not quench this thirst!”

Barclay fell upon Miranda. “But I can try!” he roared. His huge hands crushed her throat. She struck his boiled-egg skull with her fists and scratched at his eyes; death was at hand, death had her by the throat! Barclay’s grin grew wide in her vision, vast, two feet, three feet across, filling her mind and obliterating all else. Only the grin—and death.

“God, Bridget,” he moaned.

Suddenly she choked and spat on the floor of the cabin and he was gone, his lunatic assault broken off as quickly as it began. Miranda limped to the door and slammed it. She leaned against it, trembling; tears welled up and threatened to burst forth, but she would not let them. She collapsed against the door and shook with tearless sobs.

At length Miranda recovered. Her head stopped spinning and the pain dulled to a slow fire in her throat. She drew breath only with great agony, but still—she drew breath.

Supper could not come soon enough, and then it came too soon. Miranda went to her vantage point under the cot and watched as Wickliff and Jenkins entered. They kept their hands in their pockets and avoiding looking at each other. Wickliff’s eyes darted to Miranda’s peephole from time to time. Soon a short, round man—the quartermaster—joined them, and the cookie brought the plates and dishes. Neither Wickliff nor Jenkins touched the food, and the quartermaster, after a moment’s befuddlement, helped himself.

“We may have to seek him out,” Wickliff whispered.

“Aye, you may, or he’ll miss his supper, and we’ll all hear it then,” said the quartermaster as he scooped potatoes from a steaming dish.

“You may not. He may come to you,” said Barclay. Miranda craned her neck, but could not see the entrance to the mess. Barclay moved into the room, still quite drunk. He dropped into his big chair at the head of the table. “I see Trent has still not shown his face.”

“He must be quite ill,” Wickliff said. Miranda could see his hands shaking as he set down his fork with great concentration.

“He’d have to be dead in his grave to miss supper, if I know him!” said Barclay. “What think you, Wickliff? Is he dead in his grave?”

“Now!” Jenkins shouted. Three pistols fired and filled the mess with white smoke. The quartermaster screamed shrilly and Jenkins shouted, “I’m killed, Wickliff!” and there was a great crash of tin and wood as someone capsized the table. Through the thinning smoke Miranda saw Barclay and Wickliff locked in struggle, Barclay with a rusted dirk poised at Wickliff’s cheek and Wickliff straining against the thrusting arm with all his might; Jenkins lay dying, eyes rolling heavenward. Dark blood pulsed from a puckered hole in his abdomen and his fingers worried at the wound. The quartermaster had vanished.

Wickliff deflected Barclay’s thrust and the knife sank into the wood beside Wickliff’s ear. Barclay drove his knee into Wickliff’s stomach and Wickliff doubled over, empty of breath. Barclay rammed Wickliff’s head into the sideways table and bloodied table and head alike. He dropped the swooning Wickliff.

The smoke reached Miranda and tickled her throat. She coughed, just a small cough, but Barclay heard it and his eyes darted to her peephole. “You,” he said, and a pistol cracked and Barclay tumbled to the floor, his head burst by the ball. Wickliff slumped behind him, blood running from a diagonal gash on his forehead. The pistol dangled from his fingers and fell with a clatter.

“Wickliff! Mr. Wickliff, wake up!” Miranda pounded on the wall. “Wake up! Wake up! You’ve done it! The captain is slain, Wickliff! Wake up!”

 

 

Footsteps poundeded down the stairs and the mess flooded with men and their shouts: “He’s killed the captain!” “Barclay’s dead!” The quartermaster returned and helped Wickliff to his feet.

“Boys,” he said, his voice tremulous, “you’re free men now, free in deed as well as word. An end to slavery to a madman. I’ve secured a King’s Pardon for those who want it. All others will be set ashore with their portion to seek what fortune they may. What say you, boys?” A thunderous cheer went up from the sailors. Miranda stared, fascinated, at Barclay’s corpse. The monster who ripped her from her world—slain. Yet relief did not come to her. Blood cried for blood, and would not be sated.

 

The Scourge raised a white flag and sailed for Kingston with Barclay’s head swinging from the bowsprit. Wickliff unlocked Miranda’s door and escorted her to the deck, where she blinked in the bright sunlight. She walked the deck, enjoying the fresh air and unbroken view, and Wickliff was always at her arm, glaring at the sailors who dared leer at her. She paid them no mind; Barclay was dead, dead, and she would be free!

The venomous weed persisted in her mind.

Two days later they spotted a sail. “Navy,” Wickliff said, and handed her the spyglass. “Ship of the line.”

“HMS Valor,” Miranda read. Her heart leapt—Samuel’s ship! “Bear for it, captain,” she said. “They will escort us to port.”

Wickliff looked from the white flag to the Valor and back to Miranda. He chewed his lip. “Forgive me, miss, for my reservations,” he said, “but they are a warship, and we are—were brigands.”

“Trust me,” Miranda said. She took his big red hand in her small white one and squeezed it. “I trusted you to care for me, and you did. Now let me care for you.” Miranda smiled without difficulty.

Wickliff exhaled. “Very well, miss. Full sail, boys—hard about!” The barque swept over the waves. Through the spyglass, Miranda watched as the blue-jacketed sailors of the Valor swarmed over the rigging; the starboard shutters opened and cannons rolled forth. “No worry, lads!” Wickliff shouted to his nervous crew. “Best behavior, boys!”

The Scourge drew near the Valor and an officer came on deck with a speaking-trumpet. His voice drifted across the gap. “Men of the barque: stand down!” Miranda scanned the ship with the spyglass. Marines lined the deck, dozens of muskets trained on the pirates. “By the power of His Royal Majesty, we seize your ship and all her crew. You are hereby prisoners of the Royal Navy. Resist and you will be fired upon.” Miranda spied the officer—tall, bushy moustache, long black hair—Samuel!

“Samuel!” She waved her handkerchief. “Samuel!” The Navy officer produced his own spyglass. He lowered it and resumed the speaking-trumpet.

“You will surrender all prisoners immediately! We will send a boat. Do you agree to these terms?”

Wickliff cupped his hands and shouted his reply: “Aye, governor! Just the King’s good subjects, returned from truancy!” He laughed in his relief.

A half-dozen sailors lowered a boat and rowed it across. Three of the sailors held muskets, which they kept on the pirates while Miranda descended. Wickliff squeezed her hand. “God grant you deliver us, love,” he said, and released her.

The boat returned. The sailors handed her up and Samuel, her betrothed, her beloved, welcomed her. “My love!” He took her hands. “Tell me you have not been mistreated! Have they injured you?”

“Oh, Samuel!” she sobbed, collapsing to his chest. “I cannot tell you the horrors I have endured at the hands of these wicked, cruel men!”

Samuel’s lip curled in disgust and rage, and he bellowed his command with all the breath in his lungs: “Fire!”

Twenty-nine cannons boomed and sixty-four muskets cracked. For a frozen instant Miranda saw Wickliff, tiny in the distance, whirl about, face red with shouting, his men dashing to battle stations. Then the sea exploded upward in mighty plumes of water, rending the sails and shredding the rigging, and the Ocean’s Scourge, shattered by the bombardment, listed to starboard and sank beneath the waves. Some desperate members of the crew clung to barrels and burning wreckage, and the marines picked them off one by one. Miranda watched a redheaded sailor stroke frantically through the waves; a musket popped on the crow’s nest, and the figure disappeared in a cloud of blood. Miranda watched the waves disperse the blood in a wash of red, then pink, then nothing but the clear Caribbean water.

Samuel was embracing her and muttering words of comfort, Miranda realized. “And Nona?” he asked. “Does she—rest in peace?”

“Yes,” Miranda said. “I believe she does.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, my love.” Samuel held her tight.

They were married two weeks later. Miranda slept late on the day of the ceremony. She slept extremely well. For a bridesmaid she had the governor’s charming daughter. The two had become fast friends on her arrival, and under the daughter’s care, Miranda recovered quite quickly from her ordeal. In fact, by the time of the wedding (which all agreed was perfectly beautiful), the daughter commented to her father that Miranda bore no ill effects at all. “She is the very portrait of charm and gaiety! Flowers fairly spring in her footsteps!” the daughter said, and the governor nodded assent.