sent a frisson of Arctic chill over the bloodied deck. 'Zut, putain! Goddamn your foolishness! You have put everything we've worked for at risk. You may have just destroyed our most cherished dream!'
It was too much for her. At last Charite Angelette de Guilleri hitched up a wracking sob, unable to master it, and girlishly dashed at her tears. Damned if she'd weep in front of them, but… she spun on her heels and ran aft for the looted Spanish captain's quarters for a precious space of privacy.
'Hmmm… well then,' Capitaine Lanxade said, breaking their stricken tableau. He twirled one end of his mustachio, frowning as he listened carefully. It was much too quiet, suddenly. Even the rowdy, brawling, drunken buccaneers had been silenced by her unseemly cries, her attack on that arrogant, half-dago fop, Monaster.
Fierce and merciless as they could be, Le Revenant'?, buccaneers were sailors after all. Simple folk for the most part, they carried their emotions close to the skin, could slay a longtime shipmate over trifles in a drunken rage, then weep for days over the deed once they sobered up. Superstitious- even religious when all else failed-they'd been appalled to have a woman aboard ship at first, for that was as dangerous as whistling on deck, which might summon vengeful wind at such disrespect for the old sea gods.
Yet Mlle Charite had proved so entrancingly lovely to behold, so sunnily dispositioned, that she had endeared herself to them, and their string of successes with her aboard had made her almost a talisman, the scrappy mascot that brings good luck.
And didn't she handle a smallsword or light hanger as well as a man? Wasn't she a passing-fair shot, also? They could eagerly, and had eagerly, raped and murdered women passengers or slaves aboard some of their prizes, but this young girl of theirs was different! She was sacrosanct, not to be groped, touched, taken, or even spoken of by any hand in a scurrilous manner. What upset her, then, upset them, and if they got angry enough over the sight of their 'cet jeune fille' raging in such a brokenhearted way, so contrary to her usual demeanour, then those who caused it stood in peril of being chopped into stew meat!
All Lanxade could hear for several long moments were the creaks and groans of the two lashed-together hulls, the slats and bangs aloft from un-tended yards and booms, and the drum-slapping of freed rigging. Then there came a faint growl and rumble of displeasure from several sailors, and he and his old mate Boudreaux Balfa shared a queasy look. From their long experience of dealing with the fractious and unpredictable sort of men who'd go pirating, they both feared that there would be trouble over this… even before the revelation of the shortage of expected loot.
'Women!' Don Rubio said with a lofty sniff, as if he had never placed much hope in so frail a vessel. 'Were she not so foolish, she might eventually come to understand…'
'Shut up!' Lanxade harshly barked at him, taking sides in front of his men so they wouldn't end up turning him to chutney. 'You men! There's tons of silver to be shifted, oceans of drink to salvage. Get back to work, before a British or Spanish man-o'-war interrupts us!'
'Mais oui!' Balfa quickly seconded. 'Let's gather our spoils, mes amis. Allez, vite, ah- yee!'
The de Guilleri brothers, with cousin Jean-Marie, wandered off to commiserate with poor old Rubio, closely grouped about him to give their condolences for the vagaries of brainless girls.
Lanxade and Balfa drifted forward towards the prize schooner's forecastle and belfry, where they could confide in each other, casually stepping over the odd stripped and looted body that hadn't been tossed overside, as if they were no more than ring-bolts or coils of rigging.
' Un emmerdement, Jerome,' Balfa said in a raspy voice. 'We've really tromped through de shit dis time, by Gar.'
'We need to get this ship off the sea and out of sight, vite,' Lanxade muttered from the corner of his mouth, a confident grin plastered on his phyz for the crew's sake.
'Get de lads drunk an' stuffed wit' meat, too, before dey start cuttin' dose bebe' t'roats, too. Our crew likes her.'
'Boudreaux,' Lanxade said, leaning on the lee bulwark cap-rails and gazing out to the empty southern horizon, where even more trouble might pop up, all guns and officiousness. 'Do you remember what it was we said, back at the Dry Tortugas? About showing these amateurs what real piracy looks like?'
'Hmm, ouais,' Balfa said with a shrug, trying to recall.
'Two million dollars won't go that far with our lads,' Lanxade fretted. 'Not with Bistineau, Maurepas, and that goddamned Rebellion Fund of theirs each taking a cut, what is due our very young, stupid… employers, too, n'est-ce pas ? How are your shivers, mon vieux?'
'Oh, dere be a whole herd o' rabbit run up an' down my spine!' Balfa told him with an uneasy chuckle. 'Why?'
'All of a sudden, I feel them, too, cher, ' Lanxade confessed to him, turning to smirk. 'Your talk of retiring makes me think that it may be a good time for me to 'swallow the anchor' as well. Havana or Cartagena… they are both delightful cities, where a well-respected-dare I even say famous!-former privateer could retire ashore,' he said, preening at his mustachios and posing with a hand on the hilt of his smallsword like a grandee. 'Well settled, famous, and rich. A well-built house overlooking the bay, perhaps? An honourable and respected and wealthy gentlemen, hein?'
'Oho!' Balfa gleefully grunted. 'Some aspirin' lad of ours will take Le Revenant, sail her away to better pickin's. We can't kill dat girl, though,' he speculated, making no real objection to a betrayal as he leaped on the most troublesome matter with his usual blunt acuity. 'I stagger back to N'awlins, tell Maurepas an' dem a tale o' mutiny when de lads see all dat money, and I got away by de skin o' my balls. Who know where dey go after dey cut dem bebes'heads off, haw haw!'
'And I was slain after a gallant and heroic bit of swordplay?' Lanxade airily fantasised, drawing in his corseted stomach to make a more dangerous figure to his own mind. 'Fierce as I tried to defend the poor young gentlemen, ah… quel dommage, ' he said, simpering.
'Oh, mais oui, you kill a dozen before dyin'.' Balfa snickered.
'But then… what will we do with our little mademoiselle?' Lanxade quibbled with a sober sigh. 'She lives, she'll talk sooner or later, and her parents, the Spanish authorities will run us down. I wish to fuck my way to my dotage, Boudreaux, not get garotted before I've had a chance to amuse all the pretty wenches of Cartagena.'
'We come up wit' somethin',' Balfa muttered, though what that would be, he hadn't a clue. He really didn 't want little Charite fed to the 'gators and crabs, but what other course was there?
