High Seas Stowaway

And what was she, Bianca, going to do about it now?

As she rinsed more goblets, she thought of the Calypso, that “legendary” ship said to be able to cross the Atlantic in three weeks. To be impervious to attack and storms. And Balthazar was her captain? How had he gone from his life of luxury in glittering, sophisticated Venice to being such a great seaman, the captain of his own vessel and the scourge of the seas?

She laughed with disbelief. Perhaps his father had bought him the ship, and hired a mage to ring it round with spells. Ermano Grattiano had always seemed enthralled with the occult.

As she set the clean goblets out on the counter, she caught a blur of movement from the corner of her eye. Somehow that flash, out of the kaleidoscope of the room, caught her attention. She turned just in time to see the mysterious cloaked stranger from earlier. The hood was still drawn up, concealing his face, but he moved with a stealthy, swift purpose. As Bianca watched, bemused, he drew a thin, lethally sharp dagger from beneath his sleeve.

Her stomach lurched. Violence was a constant threat in Santo Domingo, quarrels threatening to break out at any second, over any tiny slight, and spill out like a river of blood into the cobbled streets. A place so far from the civilities and comforts of home, a place so full of treasure and rum and rivalry—yes, danger was a constant. Hot tempers flared under the hotter sun. But not in her taverna. She had seen enough violence to last her a lifetime.

The cloaked man vanished into the milling crowd. Every nerve in her body tense, Bianca reached for her pistol. As she hurried around the counter, Delores let out a high-pitched shriek.

And the dreaded pandemonium broke out.

Men’s shouts, the crash of crockery and splinter of wood added to the cacophony of Delores’s screams. Bianca shoved her way through the thick crowd, sensing their readiness to join in any fight, even one not of their own making. One man drew a blade from his boot, but Bianca kicked it away, pushing him out of her path.

“Get out of my way, you poxy whoresons!” she shouted. “I’ll not have this in my tavern.”

Some of the men around her fell away, yet she still heard curses and crashes from the central knot of the trouble. At last she shoved through to see Balthazar’s table overturned amidst shattered pottery and spilled rum. Delores was still shrieking, and Balthazar’s men dashed around shouting, swords drawn as if to menace any who stood in their way. One of the men held the wraith’s ripped cloak, though the man himself had utterly vanished.

And Balthazar—he lay on the floor, his left shoulder bleeding from a dagger wound as his men closed ranks around him.

It would almost be comical, if it wasn’t so very dangerous. And threatening to become even more so, as Delores’s screams and the men’s bellowed threats and clashes of steel grew ever louder, like a match tossed on to dry timbers.

Bianca knew words would do no good. She had no hope of even making herself heard. So she pointed the gun at the ceiling, braced herself and released the matchlock.

The exploding recoil nearly knocked her from her feet. Whitewash from the blasted hole rained down on them as the explosion reverberated deafeningly. Thick clouds of acrid smoke billowed in the suddenly silent air.

“I told you I’ll not have riots in my place of business,” she said calmly. “Now, everyone get out. Unless you mean to make yourselves useful and clean up this mess.”

She swung the pistol in a wide arc, and most of the would-be brawlers fled, leaving the door swinging in the breeze. Soon only Delores and the men from the Calypso were left.

Bianca shoved the gun at one of them and knelt down beside Balthazar, ripping off her apron to press it against the wound. It was not terribly deep, but she could tell from a cursory glance that it would need cleaning and stitching. A mere few inches lower and the blade would have found his heart.

She was not the only one who hated Balthazar, then.

One of the men leaned over her, his bearded face peering down intently at the captain. “Is he dead, señora?”

Before Bianca could answer, Balthazar opened his eyes and growled, “Of course I am not dead, Mendoza. My hide is tough enough to resist such a puny blade and bad aim.”

“Not so puny as all that,” Bianca said, lifting her wadded apron to peer at the wound. “It’s caused enough bleeding. You are fortunate the man’s aim was off, Captain Grattiano, or I’d have to deal with a corpse in my tavern.”

He stared up at her with his moss-green eyes, his gaze sharp and steady, as if he sought to peer into her very soul. “How do you know my name?”

Bianca had no answer for him. She tore her gaze from his, shifting him so his head rested on the lap of her grey wool gown. The apron was becoming soaked, and Delores’s sobbing was so loud Bianca could scarcely think.

“Oh, shut up, Delores!” she cried. “Go fetch me some water and some clean rags for bandages. Now! And you—Mendoza, is it?”

The bearded man nodded. “I’m quartermaster of the Calypso.”

“Mendoza, what happened? My tavern is usually a peaceful enough place. The governor doesn’t appreciate those who come here to deliberately cause trouble.”

It was Balthazar who answered, his voice rough and taut with suppressed pain. “It was Diego Escobar,” he said. “He vowed he would find me, and so he did. I was a fool to let my guard down even for an instant.”

“I said we should have stayed aboard ship, captain,” Mendoza said gruffly.

“We’ve been aboard that poxy ship for weeks,” Balthazar said. “And, as the señora says, her tavern is usually peaceful.”

“Until you arrived,” Bianca answered.

“We will pay for the damages.”

“Yes, you will. Along with all the drink you consumed,” Bianca said. Delores came back with the cloths and a basin of water, and Bianca peeled back the sodden apron. The bleeding seemed to have slowed, and the edges of his torn shirt were dark brown and crusted.

Balthazar turned his penetrating stare to the men who hovered around. “And why, may I ask, didn’t you go after the knave?”

“We thought you were dead, captain,” one of them answered.

“Oh, so there was no need to hurry after my murderer, then,” Balthazar said. Bianca thought she heard a note of wry humour in his voice, beneath that pain, “if I’m not here to see him brought to justice.”

Another man tossed aside the would-be assassin’s cloak. “He just vanished, captain! Like a puff of smoke. Just like last time…”

“Mayhap the man is a wizard after all,” Balthazar muttered. Bianca swiped a wet cloth at the edges of his wound, and he arched up with a hiss. “Damn it, woman! Are you trying to kill me, too?”

“I am trying to help you,” Bianca said, pressing him back down. As his head rested again in her lap, a long strand of his hair fell over her hand, silken and binding. “Despite the trouble you have caused me. Infection takes hold fast in this climate; the wound must be covered.”

She glanced down at the floor beneath them, sticky with rum and sand. The toxic mixture would be sure to kill him as fast as any dagger-wielding madman. And, for some unfathomable reason, Bianca wasn’t quite ready to let him go.

Not until he gave her some answers.

“Help me carry him upstairs,” she told the men. “I can clean the wound better there.”

They hesitated, looking towards the captain for any orders. And Balthazar, in turn, gazed steadily at Bianca, as if he, too, sought answers. Finally, he nodded. “Do as she says,” he ordered. “And then get back to the ship to make sure the villain causes no trouble there.”

“But, captain,” Mendoza protested, “should we not stay watch here?”

A wry smile touched the corner of Balthazar’s lips. “Oh, I would vow I am protected enough by the señora and her harquebus. I’m sure that’s not her only weapon.”

“Indeed not,” Bianca murmured. She led the way up the narrow staircase to her living quarters, Delores following with the water and bandages. Balthazar let out one deep groan as his men lifted him, but was silent when they carried him to Bianca’s bed.

After the men reluctantly departed, and Delores was sent to bed, the silence grew thick and hot around them. Bianca’s bedchamber was small, a whitewashed chamber tucked beneath the eaves with room only for a bed, a small table and chair, and her husband’s old sea chest. Balthazar Grattiano, despite the fact that he lay flat on his back, seemed to fill the whole space with his overwhelmingly masculine presence.

Bianca felt more tense, more frightened, than she had in the midst of a threatened riot.

She drew in a deep breath, and was surrounded by the smell of the tropical night wind from the open window, the wax of the candles—and of Balthazar. He smelled of clean linen, leather, salt air, sweat, blood, and that dark, mysterious scent that was his alone. She remembered that scent all too well from years ago.

But she was not that infatuated girl, hanging about hoping for one glimpse of him as he passed by, for one whiff of his cologne. And he was obviously not that young man, either. So beautiful. So angry.

She carefully removed his boots and his leather jerkin and cut away his torn shirt, conscious at every moment of his steady gaze levelled on her. Oh, the beauty was still there, undeniably. As she smoothed the damp cloth over his wound, she couldn’t help but notice the lean, sculpted muscles of his torso, the smooth, gleaming skin a light golden colour, as if he worked on deck without his shirt. There were scars, too, pale, thin old ones, and one long, jagged pink cut along his ribs.

So, presumably, the anger was still there, too. That darkness that gave an edge to his angelic beauty, and once made her flee in fear.

But he was in her home now, in her very bed. At her mercy.

She traced the cloth from the wound along his collarbone, lightly over one brown, flat nipple, and down his chest over the light sprinkling of pale brown hair. He drew in a sharp breath, his rippled stomach muscles tightening, but he did not pull away. Did not even say anything. His skin seemed gilded in the candlelight, a taut line arcing down to the band of his hose.

Yes, he was still handsome, the most handsome man she had ever seen. Even after all her travels, she had never found a man to compare. But there was a hard edge to his beauty, a barely leashed violence. She would be a fool to give in again to his fatal allure.

Her gaze trailed the length of his black-clad legs, sprawled across her white sheets, the bulge of his codpiece, his lean hips. Yes, he was handsome, and she knew he was good in bed. All the whores in Venice had sung his praises, and that was long ago. He had now had years to hone his carnal skills to absolute perfection. And she was a widow, who had gone many months without a man in her bed. It was only natural she would be drawn to him now.

But only a fool would give in to lust for a villain. And she hoped she was no longer a fool.

Bianca snatched her hand away from his chest, from the warm rise and fall of his breath, the steady beat of his heart, and went back to the wound. Still he watched her in silence, always watching, as if he divined all her thoughts. Surely he was the wizard, and not the knife-wielding stranger!

She soaked a fresh cloth in rum and pressed it to Balthazar’s shoulder. His breath hissed, but he gave no other reaction to the sting.

“I will have to sew this up,” she muttered. “But you needn’t fear. I’ve done such things many times. You’ll have only the tiniest scar to add to your collection.”

As she turned to reach for her sewing box, he startled her by suddenly grabbing her wrist. She tried to yank away, but he held fast, his roughened fingers like a vise. He drew her closer, until she hovered over his bare body, unable to move or even look away. Her heart pounded in her breast, until she was sure it echoed like a drum in the silent room.

“I know you,” he said, his voice soft and low in contrast to the steel of his touch. “But from where?”

Bianca shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Yes. I have seen you before—and you knew my name.”

“Of course I know your name. Santo Domingo has been buzzing with talk of the arrival of the Calypso and her oh-so-daring captain.”

“That’s not it,” he insisted. But he let her go, falling back to the pillows as if exhausted. A fierce frown creased his brow. “Where have we met before? Who are you?”

“I am Señora Montero,” she answered. She opened her box and tried to thread a needle, despite her trembling hands. “And I am certain I would remember you if we had ever met before, captain. A tavern owner cannot afford to forget a face, especially if it belongs to a troublemaker!”

He gave a harsh laugh. “I would vow you know much about troublemakers, señora.”

“And I would vow you know much about women,” she said, knotting the end of her thread. “No doubt you have me confused with a female of your acquaintance in some other port. Perhaps you are growing feverish and delusional.”

“Perhaps I am. Everything seems very—confused. But I will remember soon enough, señora. A ship’s captain also cannot afford to forget a face.”

Bianca held a goblet of rum laced with an herbal sleeping potion to his lips. “Remember later, then, but drink this now. It will dull the pain.”

He drank readily enough, his lean body growing so relaxed and pliant he did not even move as she sank the needle into his flesh. She just wished she could be so steady, could remove herself from the acute awareness of his body heat, his every breath. At last she finished, tying off her thread before she dared glance at his face.

He seemed to be asleep, the harsh lines of his face relaxed so he seemed young again. She was free at last from those all-seeing green eyes, even if only for a moment.

Bianca threw herself into the chair, burying her face in her hands. She longed to cry, to shout out the confusion of this strange night that had borne Balthazar Grattiano back into her life! Yet she was bound in silence, in the tangle of the past come suddenly into the present.

She went to the window, pushing the casement further open to catch more of the night breeze. The sky was a heavy purple-black, dark clouds obscuring the moon and stars, blown in by that storm that damaged Balthazar’s ship. Santo Domingo was quiet enough now, in the hours before dawn. Only a few houses near the banks of the Rio Ozama were lit from within. The governor’s fortress, high on its hill overlooking the town, was a blank, silent behemoth.

Soon, the streets would come to life. She would have to face cooking, and cleaning up the mess downstairs. She would have to face the man in her bed. But for now it was as if she was alone in the world. Alone with Balthazar Grattiano.

Bianca rubbed wearily at her aching neck, turning to the small looking glass hanging on the wall. She almost laughed aloud at the sight that greeted her in its silvery reflection. How could Balthazar possibly recognise her, when she hardly recognised herself? Her curling brown hair stuck every way from its pins, tangled and wild. Her cheeks were a hectic red, her eyes lined with purplish shadows. Her grey wool dress, never fashionable in the first place, was stained with Balthazar’s blood.

She unlaced the simple bodice and tossed it with her skirt over the chair, standing before the glass in only her chemise and stays. As she brushed out her hair, yanking at the stubborn tangles, she knew that Balthazar would not long think he had her confused with some past dalliance. He had always preferred blondes with lush bosoms and full, pink lips. And she—well, she was a thin, dark tavern owner. Any meagre attractions she had as a girl in Venice were surely coarsened by a life of hard work on a tropical island.

Not that it mattered, of course. Balthazar and she would have their reckoning soon enough. And then it wouldn’t matter a bit what he thought of her bosom, or she his codpiece. For now, she was almost too weary to think of anything at all.

Bianca loosened her front-laced stays and slipped into bed, as far from Balthazar as she could get on the very edge of the mattress. She wrapped a blanket tightly around herself, but even as she fell into slumber she could feel his heat, reaching out to wrap seductively around all her senses…

Chapter Three

It was the old dream again, the one that Balthazar always thought long-buried until it rose up to haunt him. Like a monster of the deep—Here Be Serpents. Here lay the past.

A vast storm raged, silver lightning flashing overhead from the bowels of black, roiling clouds. Cold, jagged whitecapped waves broke across the bow; the screaming wind drove past the bare masts, flying the caravel through the air as if it was naught but a child’s toy. Rain beat on the deck’s planks, hard enough to bruise. The ceaseless pitching of the sea, the driving rain, the howling dread of his men who feared to be swallowed by the sea—Balthazar saw it all again. Like a painting of the judgements of hell come to life before his very eyes.

Yet still he dragged on the rudder, trying desperately to steer the ship away from her certain death, even as he knew in his heart that all his efforts were in vain. All he had worked for, all the men who trusted and followed him, were doomed.

It seemed a fitting end. For had he not spent all his life fighting against the dark inevitable? Against his own tainted blood, his sins. And all for naught.

His muscles ached as he strained against the rudder. He would not let it win! Not the sea, that pitiless mistress. Not the black emptiness that always threatened to swallow him. Salvation lay ahead, if he could just fight hard enough. But as he felt at last the blessed yielding of the rudder under his slippery grasp, a terrible sound split the sulphurous air. The crack and splinter of wood.

Balthazar shook the wet strands of hair from his eyes, staring up at the damaged mainmast of his ship. It listed, wavering in the gale. Soon, all too soon, it would crash to the deck, driving a hole through the wounded ship that would take them all to the bottom.

And atop the mast perched his father. Ermano Grattiano, dead these seven years by Balthazar’s own hand, clung to the splintered wood like a demented bat from hell, his black cloak and white mane of hair flying wildly in the wind. Even from that distance, his green eyes glowed, and he held out his bejewelled hand beckoningly.

“I told you that one day you would be mine, Balthazar,” he shouted, his voice clear and ringing over the howl of the storm. “We are one flesh and blood; you cannot escape me. You have killed my body, but I will always be with you!”

Balthazar shouted out his own fury. In his burning anger, he climbed the slippery, tumbling mast, not feeling the cold or pain. He was intent only on destroying the evil within himself, once and for all.

But Ermano only flew higher, ever distant, ever beyond reach. At last the mast fell entirely, sending Balthazar plummeting towards the battered deck—and certain death.

But he did not land in the cold sea. The waves did not rise up to claim him at last. He fell back on to a soft bed, amid a tangle of sheets and blankets.

He opened his eyes, staring wildly up at the dark wooden beams bisecting a whitewashed ceiling. The stench of lightning was banished by a warm, soft breeze from an open window.

This was not his cabin aboard the Calypso. There was no constant pitch and sway of waves, no watch bells or shouts from the deck. For a moment, he could not remember what had happened, he was still caught in the nightmare. In the storm, which had been all too real. And his father, who lived now only in his mind.

He tried to roll to his side, and the sudden stabbing pain in his shoulder reminded him. They had come ashore in Santo Domingo, seeking comfort after their travails in the Mona Passage. The battle with Diego Escobar and his pirate lot, the storm that damaged the mast and crippled them. They sought warm, dry beds, drink, food free of rot and weevils. Perhaps a pretty woman. What he had found was Diego, and his dagger.

“Damn the man’s eyes!” Balthazar cursed, as hot needles of pain shot down his arm. Diego had fought them on the seas, where Balthazar was greater and Diego knew he had no chance of victory. So, he had crept to Hispaniola and waited like a spider for his moment.

Ermano Grattiano might indeed be dead, but there was never any shortage of villains waiting to take his place. Diego was proving to be one of the more determined. Revenge was a potent motivation for anyone; it could even drive a man to piracy and murder. Balthazar knew all too well about revenge.

As he lay back on the bed, the rest of the night came flooding back to him in waves of vivid colour and noise. The flashing dagger, the shouts and commotion of running feet and utter confusion. The explosion. And the woman who peered down at him, her brown eyes filled with sparkling anger, concern and…

And what? He, who had spent years at sea and in rough ports learning to read men as if they were nautical charts because his fortune, his very life, depended on knowing their nefarious plans and deepest desires, could not read her face at all. Her eyes were a beautiful veil, opaque as fine Seville lace. Perhaps her life, too, balanced on knowing the thoughts of others while always hiding her own.

What had she read of him, as she stared down at him in that cacophonous tavern? As she tended his wound so carefully? And where, by all the gods where, had he seen her before?

Suddenly, there was a soft rustle of sheets, and that face was above him as she leaned over him. She must have been sleeping beside him in the bed, for her hair was loose, a river of wild curls over her shoulders, and she wore only a thin white chemise. The candles had burned out, and she was lit by the faint, chalky moonlight streaming from the open window.

He frowned as he stared up at her, studying her in the shadows. That sense of recognition was still there, but it was like a dream that faded with the dawn. The more he grasped for it, the more elusive it was. Yet it was still there, as tantalising as a Venetian perfume.

She was not beautiful, not like the courtesans of his youth, or like Marguerite, Nicolai Ostrovsky’s French wife. Golden, charming creatures of light and air. This woman, his physician tonight, had a thin face with high, sharp cheekbones, a long nose, full lips, and brows like silken raven’s wings. She obviously did not hide from the tropical sun, for her cheeks and nose were scattered with freckles. Her slim hands, slightly rough from work, had been calm and quick as they tended to him.

Not a pampered lady, then, but not a dockside whore either. He had surely never tupped her, or danced with her at some Venetian ball. But still that feeling persisted. She was not a stranger.

She reached out and gently touched his brow with one of those hands, her fingers cool and steady. The sleeve of the chemise fell back to reveal a thin wrist unadorned by any jewelled bracelets or rings. She smelled of clean water and soap, of ale and some rich tropical flower. Sweet and exotic, strange and familiar, all at once, like the islands themselves.

She smoothed back his tangled hair, her touch resting lightly on his cheek. His rough beard, the product of long days at sea, surely abraded her skin, yet she did not draw away. Her dark eyes watched him, gleaming like obsidian in the night.

And Balthazar felt the most unaccountable, irresistible urge to turn his face into her touch, to kiss the soft inside of her wrist, just where her lifeblood beat so strongly. To taste the palm of her hand with his tongue, until she gasped and that veil was torn away. Until she showed him her true self.

But he merely watched her, warily waiting to see what she would do.