Lilah clung to a barrel cover as the Magdalene went down. For what seemed like an eternity the brigantine appeared to balance on her prow, her stern high in the air, silhouetted against the soft blue sky. Her sails were bright crackling flags of crimson flame. Inky black feathers of smoke dirtied fluffy white clouds high above. Then, with hardly more than a whoosh, the ship slid downward, creating a giant whirlpool that sucked everything in the vicinity into its vortex before swallowing it whole. The ship and all that had been aboard her simply vanished from the surface of the ocean in the space of a few minutes. Swirling ripples rushed out from where the ship had disappeared, catching Lilah as she clung for dear life to the barrel lid. She was far enough from the center that she was not drawn down in the ship's wake. Others, not so fortunate, screamed as they were dragged under, never to be seen again.
Bodies and debris bobbed all around her. A man clung to what was left of a spar nearby. He was alive, but Lilah spared him scarcely a glance. Her eyes raked over the gently rolling waves, weighing every bit of flotsam, anything that might possibly be human that she could see. Her stomach churned; her throat was dry.
One thought occupied her mind to the exclusion of all else: What had happened to Joss?
He had been on the jib when the powder had blown. She had not seen him again. Had he been thrown clear? Or had he gone down with the ship? At the thought that he might be dead, that she might never see him again, Lilah wanted to scream, wanted to curse, wanted to cry. If he was dead, she could not bear it.
Two longboats crisscrossed the surface of the water, picking up survivors. They were from the Bettina, whose master was clearly too godly a man to see even pirates drown.
He would, instead, see them hang.
Joss could not be dead. She would know if he was, would feel it deep inside. He was alive, somewhere amidst the debris that was all that was left of the once- proud brigantine. She had to find him, now, before the Bettina's crew did. They would think him a pirate like the rest. At the discretion of the captain, pirates, when taken, could be hanged summarily from a yardarm. No trial was required; it was the law of the sea. The gloomy truth was that those who had survived the Magdalene's sinking might not see land again anyway. They might very well end their lives at the end of a rope at sea.
It occurred to Lilah that she herself might be mistaken for a pirate, but the possibility did not seriously worry her. She would explain the situation, and they would understand and restore her to her father. Joss was the problem. Convincing a captain to spare her was one thing; arguing for the life of a man, a gunner who to all appearances had been as much a part of the pirate crew as anyone, was another.
But none of that mattered at the moment. All that mattered was finding Joss. Alive.
Where was he?
Not wanting to cry out his name for fear of attracting the attention of the longboats and being picked up before she was ready, Lilah looked carefully around. Then, kicking, still clinging to the barrel lid, she half swam, half floated to an overturned lifeboat to which three men clung.
Yates was one, Silas another. Lilah did not know the third. The skin on Silas's face was blackened, burned raw in places. His hair was singed off. He looked dreadful, a creature from a nightmare. Still, he seemed to be suffering little pain, she thought as he stared at her for a moment without recognition. Or perhaps he was in shock.
"Remy? That you?"
"Yes, it's me, Silas."
Her voice, made hoarse by the smoke she had inhaled, was nonetheless far from Remy's inarticulate grunts. Nov/ that the Magdalene was gone, there seemed no sense in keeping to her role. Besides, her worry about Joss was so acute that it drove everything else from her mind.
"By damn," Silas muttered, staring. "Yer a bloody wench. By damn!"
In addition to the change in her voice, Lilah realized that she had lost her kerchief and protective coat of dirt. Silas's recognition of her true sex was almost inevitable, but she no longer cared.
"Have you seen Joss? San Pietro?" she asked urgently, but Silas only stared at her, his eyes starting grotesquely from his scorched face.
A longboat came close, oars lapping through the water. Lilah saw that two survivors were huddled in the stern under guard by a man with a musket. A third survivor was sprawled in the floor of the boat, clearly unconscious. One of the Bettina's crew crouched in the bow, leaning out over the water as he probed at a floating body with a boat hook. Two more manned the oars, but Lilah had eyes only for the man sprawled on the floor.
He was black-haired, broad-shouldered, tall and muscular, and wearing a sapphire silk shirt. He was Joss. She was sure of it.
Abandoning her barrel cover, she swam for the longboat, grabbed the side.
"Back off there!" The man with the musket swung the weapon around on her.
"I'm not a pirate," Lilah said impatiently, barely sparing him a glance. "Help me aboard."
At the obvious femininity of her voice, all the men aboard who were capable of doing so turned to her.
"Lad or lass, it makes no matter. Pirates all," one of them said.
"I tell you I'm not-"
"Pull 'er aboard, Hank," said the one with the musket, who seemed to be in charge, to the one with the boat hook. Then, to Lilah: "If you try anything, we'll blast you to Hades. Lass or no."
Hands reached down to drag her over the side. Her attention was riveted on Joss. There was blood on the back of his shirt.
"What's wrong with him?" she demanded, scrambling to kneel beside him.
The man who had helped her aboard shrugged.
"By Jehosephat, it's the idiot, Remy! She's his leman!" One of the pirates roused himself enough from his lethargy to stare at Lilah with a mixture of surprise and venom.
"Watch your language, you!" The man with the musket swung the weapon around so that it pointed at the speaker, who subsided.
Lilah ignored this interchange, instead focusing on discovering the extent of Joss's injuries. He was unconscious, soaking wet, scarlet bloodstains spreading like red ink on the wet silk covering his back. She traced the blood to its source, a deep gash in the back of his head, just above the skin of his neck. The hair there was sticky with blood and matted. She reached out a trembling hand to determine the extent of the injury. As she moved, the barrel of the musket caught her shoulder, pushing her back.
"You, sit over there with the others!"
"But-"
"You heard me. Sit! Or lass or no, I'll blow you straight to hell! Right here and now!"
Lilah looked up at that hard, unyielding face, and knew that he would do as he threatened. The man was young, probably not more than a few years older than herself, freckle-faced and gangly. But his expression was grim, his grip on the musket unwavering. Lilah realized that he considered her as much a member of the pirate crew as any of the captured men. She realized something else, too: He had been through a dreadful fight to the death, and as far as he was concerned, she was the enemy he'd narrowly defeated.
The longboat picked up Yates, Silas, and the third man who clung to the lifeboat, then reversed direction to make its way back to the Bettina. Lilah kept her eyes fixed on Joss. He moved once, flexing his back as if it hurt him, sending more blood spurting forth to trickle down his neck, stain his shirt. His head lifted, came down again so that the opposite cheek rested in the faint wash of the seawater that sloshed in the bottom of the boat. In his new position, she could see his face. Her every muscle ached to go to him, but she was sorely afraid that if she made the attempt she would be shot. So she stayed where she was, watching, aching.
Joss grimaced, his eyes flickering open, then closed. Lilah caught her breath, and made an involuntary move toward him. The muzzle of the musket caught her in the shoulder, thrusting her painfully back.
"Do that again and you're gone!"
"He's hurt, bleeding! He needs help!"
"Stay where you are! There'll be no mollycoddling of bloody pirates! What is he, your lover? That's too bad."
"He's not a pirate-I'm not a pirate! We were forced-"
"Sure you were."
Lilah glared at the man, who was looking at her with a combination of hatred and contempt, the small black hole at the end of the musket never wavering as he pointed it at her heart. Joss groaned, and she felt a spurt of anger.
"Look, you insufferable man, my name is Delilah Remy. My father owns Heart's Ease, one of the largest sugar plantations in Barbados. We were shipwrecked and-"
"Stow it," the man interrupted rudely. "I don't have the time to listen to fairy tales."
"Why, you…!" Forgetting where she was, Lilah started to her feet. The boat rocked precariously. The man roughly shoved her back down.
"Move again, and I'll throw you overboard, and leave you to drown!"
Looking at the grim set of his mouth, Lilah believed him, completely. Disgruntled, she crossed her arms over her chest and sat, alternating between glaring at the imbecile with the musket and casting worried looks at Joss as the longboat was rowed back to the Bettina.