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I remembered the captain talking about them just a few nights before at dinner in his cabin. A notorious pirate who called himself the Pirate Lord had been raiding off the Cardmon coast, though he hadn’t been seen or heard from in a few weeks, so the captain said we’d probably be safe from his interference. We were still a good distance from Anberra and hadn’t as yet even rounded the Cape, but this had to be the same man. He and his men were famous for their black ship and red sails.
Through the dense smoke I made out some figures running toward me. I pulled up my gun to fire, but before I could, a strong hand from behind me knocked it to the deck.
I turned, prepared to fight, and was horrified to see a man I already knew by the name of Jacobs, in full pirate regalia with a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other, a scarf knotted around his head as he leered down at me.
I could hardly believe it. I had made his acquaintance on the first night of the voyage. He had been one of my fellow travelers on board, and we’d had dinner at the same table for the past week or more until he’d left the ship when we’d arrived in Cardmon.
“Good evening, my lord,” the captain had hailed me that first night as I had arrived in his cabin at the beginning of our voyage. “Allow me to introduce Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Abernathy. They’ve booked passage with us on our journey.
I nodded to them both and took my seat at the captain’s right side, trying to think of something I might have in common with these men, both betas, so that I could be a congenial dinner companion at least. I noticed the close scrutiny of one of them, Mr. Jacobs, and returned his gaze curiously. He blushed a little and quickly took up his wine glass to offer a toast to our journey. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your surname,” he said to me.
“I’m the Earl of Bedford. Brandon Bedford,” I repeated, with a slight bow.
“Ah, I thought so,” he replied rather mysteriously, making me wonder if I’d made his acquaintance at some time in the past, but he didn’t bother to elaborate. “Captain Arlin,” he said as putting down his glass, “would you be so good as to lay out our course for this voyage? I’m curious about the route we’ll be following.”
“Yes, of course,” the captain answered politely. “Once out of the channel, we’ll follow the coastline as best we can, putting in at the port in Anberra in about a week and a half. We’ll deliver our cargo there and then set sail for Cardmon, hugging the coast until we round the Cape. Then we’ll head for the nearest Cardmon port, where we’ll put in and take on our cargo for the return.”
“Sounds straightforward enough,” Jacobs said.
“I have every expectation that it will be, sir.”
Jacobs held up his glass in a toast again, and I thought I saw a sly look in his eyes as the corners of his mouth turned up, but I must have imagined it, because the next thing he said was a remark about hoping for fair weather, and he seemed pleasant enough. He was a bit rough around the edges, but he was a trader of some kind, I thought, and of modest means, judging from his clothes.
The rest of the dinner passed with general remarks about the surprisingly well-seasoned beef roast the cook had prepared for us, and Abernathy announced that he was a silk merchant and would be onboard all the way to Cardmon to purchase new samples and then he’d travel back to Sudfarma. Jacobs said he had business there in Cardmon too, though he didn’t disclose exactly what kind, and would be leaving us there to follow his own pursuits.
We passed the rest of the meal in conversation about one innocuous thing after another, until it was time for me to retire to my cabin. I thought I noticed Jacobs’ gaze on me as I rose to leave, but when I glanced at him, he was talking to Abernathy and the moment passed.
He hadn’t rejoined the ship after Cardmon, and now here the brigand was, brandishing a damn gun at me.
“There you are, pretty boy! I have my orders to find you and take you with us. Don’t struggle and you won’t be hurt. You’re coming with us.”
Despite what he said, I fought as hard as I could, but there were four of them, and they soon overpowered me. At one point, I kicked out at one of the pirates and struck him near his groin, so he pulled back his fist to strike me. Jacobs, who seemed to be their leader, pulled the man’s arm away before he could land the blow. “The captain said no harm is to come to him! You may be willing to risk going against his orders, but I’m not! Just truss him up, and we’ll take him to the ship.”
I fought like a wild thing then, because I knew they must be planning to kidnap and ransom me. It was common for pirates to do so, and the cousin of the king was no doubt a tempting and valuable target. The treacherous Jacobs scowled at me and yelled at the others, “Get his hands, damn you, and stop him from all that kicking—he almost got my bollocks that time!”
I was quickly becoming exhausted, and I saw no sign of anyone coming to help me. Jacobs pulled a hood from somewhere and yanked it over my head, so I couldn’t see. The problem was that it was made of some heavy cloth, so I couldn’t breathe either. I started struggling and shouting even more and that brought on heavier breathing, and I soon couldn’t drag in enough air to fill my lungs. I began to panic, thinking these idiots would suffocate me.
The more I panicked, the harder it was to breathe, and little spots began dancing in front of my eyes. I tried to take in one last desperate gasp, but then the blackness overcame me, and I knew no more.
****
The Pirate Lord, a.k.a. “Captain Devane,”
formerly known as the Earl of Roxbury
“Jacobs, you idiot, were you trying to fucking kill him?”
I was furious with my first mate, and it didn’t help that I was so worried about the man he and his fellow buffoons had just dragged past me, his body so limp, he was seemingly more dead than alive. In a panic, I stopped them and ripped the filthy hood off his face, bending to check his breathing and his pulse. The first was still shallow, but the second was steady and strong, so my heart calmed down and stopped trying to beat its way out of my chest.
“Well, don’t just stand there. Bring him water!”
Jacobs scrambled to do as I asked and within a few seconds, handed me a tankard full. I sniffed it suspiciously, and it seemed all right, so I put my arm around Brandon’s shoulders to help him sit up and take a sip. He was beginning to come around but was still groggy and not fully conscious.
“Take a sip—slowly. The last thing I need is for you to choke on it. You’ve been far too much trouble already.”
I looked down at him and his long, thick eyelashes fluttering over those gorgeous, sky-blue eyes of his. I’d been holding out some faint hope that he wouldn’t still be as unreasonably beautiful as he used to be—after all it had been over ten years since I’d last seen him, and one would naturally expect some deterioration, some normal decline. But I didn’t see any.
I handed the cup back to Jacobs and stood up to look down on Brandon at the railing of my ship, my arms folded across my chest, and in a horrible temper. I passed the time by observing my men rounding up the last of the crew onboard. I had things to do, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to leave him yet. The ship’s captain was shoved in front of me by one of my men and I gazed over at him. He was scowling defiantly.
