Page 17 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

Mad turned away, hands clasped behind his back, and strode off as though he hadn’t a care in the world, but Bash knew better. The old man was cracking into pieces, and his single-minded pursuit of a hoard that only Dutch seemed to believe had ever existed would kill them all if the navy didn’t do it first.

When they finally docked at whatever harbor found them, Bash wouldn’t only have to book the girl passage back to Scotland. He needed to find a way off the ship for himself as well.

Chapter Five

Flexing her hands to prevent them becoming permanently fixed in a cramped lobster claw, Maggie surveyed her work. She had mended two full sails, and as she’d finished each one, Bash looked it over, gave a satisfied nod, and then ordered it hoisted up the rigging. Now she stood back to admire her handiwork in action.

The ship had been plodding along before, helped occasionally by teams of rowers, but with the wind filling its freshly patched sails, they were flying.

“Well done, Magnus,” Bash said, clapping a big warm hand on her shoulder. “Whoever taught you to sew would be proud.”

She snorted, rather doubting her mother would appreciate anything about her present situation.

“I mean, except that you’re using your skills to aid and abet our sorry lot,” Bash amended.

“I only hope they hold.”

“Couldn’t have done better myself, and I’ve been stitching up sails since I was nine years old. Come on, you’ve earned your grub tonight. You can start on the rest tomorrow.”

What kind of childhood entailed mending ship sails? Perhaps his father had been a harbor master or merchant marine? The siren song of easy riches likely lured away many a man’s son. Had Bash joined this pirate crew for money? Or was it simply the promise of freedom on the open sea? Freedom had been the draw for Maggie, after all.

She stretched her aching back, rolling her neck side to side and rubbing feeling back into her sore fingers. Exhausting work, but she couldn’t help a flush of pride.

Below deck, more candle lanterns had been lit, so Bash didn’t flip up his eye patch, though to Maggie the scant light was still dim as the devil’s cupboard. A variety of smells assaulted her from every direction as they traversed the belly of the ship. There was the usual undercurrent of bilge, almost masked now by the sweaty musk of sixty or eighty men, and perhaps the combined stench of their farts. On top of all that, someone had been preparing food.

Bash led her to the galley, where he drew two tankards of rum. “What’s cooking, Rooijakkers?” he asked the older man who had found them in the hold and forced her above deck. Was that only this morning?

The pirate cook gestured towards an iron stove set atop a stone hearth. Inside burned a wood fire, surrounded by sand. Over the fire, a large pot of something green and sludgy blurped more than bubbled. “Cackle fruits and peas.” He grinned at Maggie. “But you’ll have to sit down to eat it.”

Without meaning to, Maggie rubbed her bottom, which was rather sore from sitting on the hard wooden deck all day. The cook burst out in a guffaw and slapped his thigh. “Poor young’un.”

“I’m sure the young’un could do with a cup of fresh milk,” Bash suggested, putting an abrupt end to the cook’s merriment.

“No milk,” he said with a frown.

“Before the cat led me to this one, I could swear I heard the lowing of a cow. But no, said I, we couldn’t possibly have bought a cow on Orkney. We could barely afford a barrel or two of watered-down ale.”

The cook stared him in the eye and shrugged. “There’s cackle fruits and peas,” he repeated.

Bash nodded. “Serve it up then, man,” he snapped, and the cook slopped some of the green gunge into two rather fine china bowls, placing, not fruit, but a whole brown hen egg atop each.

Maggie swallowed. “Thank you, Rooijakkers,” she tried to say, tripping over the unfamiliar name, but the cook laughed and waved her off.

“Bashy’s the only one can pronounce it. ’S why they call me Roo.”

She nodded, staring glumly at her egg, then up to Bash for guidance. Was she meant to eat it raw? To suck it from the shell like a weasel?

“Relax. It’s boiled,” he whispered, reaching into a barrel to retrieve a handful of the same dry round biscuits he’d given her that morning. “If you’ve no stomach for it, at least try some hard tack,” he added, handing her one. “Though it’s best to eat fresh while you can.”

He led her through the galley to a sort of dining room, where the fart smell Maggie now recognized as boiled eggs intensified. There, dozens and dozens of men lounged on benches and chairs, devouring their peas and eggs, swilling ale, playing cards, laughing and carousing noisily until they noticed her and Bash.

Silence fell over them then.

The men had mostly avoided her all day as she worked under the sailing master’s watchful gaze, but now they openly stared. She felt entirely exposed, like a rabbit that ventured into a garden party hosted by foxes and owls. Surely someone would notice something that gave her away? Would they spot the binding around her chest or a handkerchief tucked up her sleeve out of habit? Simply smell her and deduce the truth?

“Sounded like you gave quite the tanning, Nav,” a big man with salt and pepper hair called out as Bash led Maggie to an empty seat. “Was that before or after you noticed the lady had a cock?”

The assembly roared with laughter and banged their tankards on the table. Maggie’s face burned, but she focused on peeling off the shell of her egg.