Alexandra awoke to see another bucket ofslop sluiced onto Nicholas. Was it to be a daily ritual?
Damiano cupped his hands around his ears,his pockmarked face possessing the appearance of a pebbled goblin.“Enjoy your garbage with the rats.”
Alexandra shared her better rations withNicholas, experiencing the heat of his fingers touching hers.
She put her shoulders back, refusing tosuccumb to the feeling of helplessness in the face of her hideousfate. “Don’t let your thoughts fall prey to the must not’s, thedon’ts, or the impossible. We will escape,” Alexandra confirmed toLord Rutland to keep her optimism alive.
She burrowed into her father’s coat,inhaling his scent, and then moved her hands into the pockets andpulled out his spectacles, fingering the thick lenses. How heneeded them to see. She gulped. Even that small luxury she hadtaken from him. She pinned the cool lenses into her bodice, a sillygesture to keep him close to her heart.
Lord Rutland broke through her reverie. “Itwill be an absolute triumph if I can hold down the garbage theygive us for food. Despite your happy confidence, we are heading toa country controlled by Portugal, far from England, a differentlanguage and a sea captain bent on his profits.”
“There is no room for petty doubt,” shesighed, clinging to the hope of seeing her father again. To ask forhis forgiveness. “We must exercise to keep our muscles fromweakening, and to use our energies to devise our escape, to imaginewhat scenarios we might encounter. We will survive. I feel it in mybones.” Her breath caught in her chest, less sure of the outcomethan she touted.
“Keep wiggling that worm of hope. We’ll givethe escape a try.”
A storm was coming. She could smell thethickness in the air. Her hearing adjusted itself beyond the crackof sails and the plunging sweep of spray around the hull.
The wave-racked confluence of the westerliesmoving across the Atlantic now battled with the easterlies off thecoast of Africa. Such forces she had learned about from her seacaptain father.
Hurricane.
Destructive storms that raged across thesea, leaving no soul alive. The rusty lock on the hatch stayedsecure. Cold ropy tentacles of fear wrapped around her chest andsuddenly she couldn’t breathe. Would she die a prisoner in a waterygrave at the bottom of the sea as Damiano had predicted?
The masthead lookout’s cry was muffled bythe wind and the lively pop of sails. The seas grew choppier, andthen gigantic waves swept over the decks, rushing like a fierceterrier.
For four days, the wind raged with terribleferocity, theSantanasand its crew at the mercy of thestorm, scudding away to be swallowed up by the sea.
“Let us out,” demanded Nicolas, but hisvoice was lost to the wind and fury. Alexandra jumped, grabbed thegrate, swinging back and forth. She stuck her free hand out andwaved. “Have mercy. Let us out.” Seawater rushed over the hatch,Alexandra fell, sputtering, gagging. She stood again, gasping forair. The ship lifted and a wave ripped along theSantanasport beams, then wallowed over, throwing the ship backward.Alexandra slipped and slid. She could imagine any man not tied tothe decks aloft survived.
Damiano clutched the grate.“Senhorita, I will give you pleasure now.”
“You dare to go against Captain Diogo?”Nicholas snarled, his demand drowned out by the wind.
“I killed him. We are all going to die fromthis storm, but I will have the woman before I do.” Damiano threwopen the hatch. Alexandra bared her teeth, but her knees shook. “Iwill not make it easy for you.”
Damiano laughed.
At the same time, Nicholas leaped upward,head butted him. Damiano fell back. Nicholas hurdled from the hold,thrust his hand down for Alexandra. She grabbed on. Nicholas yankedher upward with such strength she rammed into him and flattened himto the deck. TheSantanastacked violently, her sails inconfusion as she plunged into the storm.
“Tie yourself to something,” Nicholasordered like he was Poseidon.
She rolled off him, crawled across theslippery planks, curling her fingers over the edge of the ironhatch.
Damiano came to his feet and lunged. “I willmake you pay, Lord Rutland for making me look a fool.”
She watched Nicholas sidestep and bring hisright forearm viciously down across the back of the seaman’s neck.A wave swept over the ship, carrying the two across the deck andslamming them into the rails. Damiano rose first, his lip bleedingwhere his teeth went through. He wiped his mouth on his shirt andleaped on Nicholas.
With a deceptive lunge to the right,followed by a snakelike twist to the left, Nicholas swung hispowerful right fist into Damiano’s face. As the Portuguese sailor’shead snapped back, Nicholas doubled-up his own head and shoulderand drove into the man’s stomach like a battering ram.
Alexandra rose to her feet. The canvasslapped around her ears and still the men fought on. Madness. Thatwas what it was. Pure insanity. The planks beneath her vibratedwith the storm’s fury. The hull staggered violently, blocksscreamed, theSantanasheeled steeply to take the wind underher stern sails, lifting then filled to its thrust. The masttopgallant seemed to bend forward, the masthead pendant flickingstraight out towards the bows, as if to point the way.
Through the slanting rain, a few men stoodlike men facing an execution, so stricken they were unable to thinkor respond. Others fought the wind, and pushed a lifeboat over thegunnels, and then scrambled into the vessel. Someone shouted awarning. The ship heaved. Alexandra fell, hurled on her back. Shereached out, clawed at the capstan.
Damiano staggered backward, fell onto thedeck, rose and came at Nicholas with a barrage of fists, punchingNicholas’s head hard with the force of a bull. Nicholas slipped onthe wet deck and Damiano dropped onto him. Nicholas flicked the wethair from his forehead. Looking weakened and thin from lack ofnutrition, he feinted to the right and then the left and dodged thefists coming at him. He needed help.
Just as she thought it, a belaying pinrolled by Alexandra. She stretched her fingers and snatched it up.She let go of the capstan, and inched toward the rail, her eyespassing over swivel gunners, the unprotected wheel, two grim-facedsailors stringing futilely at the sails above. The most forwardshrouds and rigging hung like black weeds above theSantanasdeck, the brig staggering drunkenly under the onslaught.
A seaman shrieked as he fell from theyardarm above, his body making a sickening thud on impact, landingon the deck next to her. His eyes and mouth still open, bloodpooled around his head. TheSantanasgave a violent shudder,tacking listlessly to the side.
