Princess at Sea Read online

  Sun-browned hands reached to prod and pinch as Captain Rylan yanked me through the outskirts and into the brighter light at the bonfire. I took it without comment, my limbs tingling with renewed circulation. “Get your hands off!” Captain Rylan shouted when one pulled me shrieking into him. “None of that. You want her first, you will bloody well buy her first.”

  Captain Rylan yanked me out of the sailor’s grip, and I fell into his chest, forcing my first feeling of gratitude away. I would feel nothing. I had to feel nothing.

  “Jest checking the goods,” the sailor whined, gaining a weak agreement from those nearest him. “We all gonna want a taste afore we buy.”

  “I already tasted her for you,” Captain Rylan said. “She tastes fine.”

  “We saw that,” a man with no shirt said, rubbing his lower chest and grinning. “She’s kinda skinny. I like skinny.” He leered, chilling me. The tingle in my arms had worsened, and I shifted my shoulders to try to find a position that didn’t hurt.

  “I’ll give three coppers for her!” someone shouted, and my face went cold. I thought I was going to fight that animal in the pit, not be sold.

  “Me and Nate, we’ll share. We got five between us,” another said, and my stomach clenched. God help me, I can’t do this! I stared across the fire at Duncan, but he had turned away, terrifying me.

  A thin, anemic sailor stood up, nearly falling. His neighbors laughed and propped him up until he found his balance. “I’ll give you one for the sea whore,” he slurred. “That’s all she’s worth. Stinking little whore in a pretty—p-pretty dress.”

  “She killed Garson,” said a high voice from the back. “Killing her is worth all I got. That’s eighteen. Any of you got more than that?”

  A sound of awe rose. “Where’d you get eighteen?” someone asked, and was shushed.

  Standing with my feet in the fire-warmed sand and my hands numb and bound before me, I struggled to catch Duncan’s eyes. His head was still down, his long brown hair hiding his face. He hadn’t enough money to save me.

  “Now trench your anchors and drop your sails, all of you,” Captain Rylan said, yanking the rope so my arms jerked and I almost fell. I submitted to it, vowing to remember everything. “I told you I tasted her, and she isn’t much of a tumble.”

  The catcalls were loud, making the animal in the pit scream. I found myself balancing on the balls of my feet, but there was nowhere to go. My pulse hammered, and I dropped back down. Not a man. I can’t fight a man. Not bound and made helpless.

  Captain Rylan raised his hand, soothing them. “But what you all seem to want,” he continued, “is revenge. You can buy a piece of lace at Mad Mary’s for half a coin, so it must be revenge, yes? You all buying a chance to mete out the punishment?”

  They roared their answer, and I cringed. The short captain buttoned his faded coat and took on a more respectable air, my rope drawn casually through his arm as if I were an obedient dog. Full circle, I thought. Bought in the streets, raised to wear silk, only to be sold again. My life had come full circle; it must be over.

  “I can sell her to one of you, and the one with the most money will be satisfied, or . . .” He hesitated and the voices of the waiting men stilled. My heart pounded.

  “Or we can put her in the pit,” the man finished, a wicked, vindictive grin on his bearded face. My breath escaped me in a grateful heave. God forgive me, I thought when tears of relief started. There was something wrong in being glad to be thrown in a pit to die mauled by an animal. But I felt myself go white at the resounding shout simultaneously raised from every man but the one with eighteen coins. The call of “Put the cat with the cat” rose, was taken up, and repeated.

  “And one of you,” Captain Rylan shouted over the tumult, “can even make some money off her if you’re right in how long it takes for her to get the shakes and die!”

  If I had thought they were loud before, it was nothing compared to the tumult that rose, drowning out the scream of the animal in the pit. Most of the men had stood, and I found myself shrinking back until I was almost pressed against Captain Rylan. Terrified, I looked past the ugliness to find Duncan, seeing only his bowed back. Fear gripped my heart. It had been his idea. Was it a chance to escape or simply a better way to die?

  “I give her two minutes!” someone yelled, shoving a coin into Captain Rylan’s hands. “One coin for two minutes.”

  “I say thirty-eight,” the skinny drunk sailor said, lurching to fall and disappear behind the mass of men unnoticed.

  “She killed Tom,” one missing all his front teeth said. “I say if you give her a sword, she’ll last four . . . no, five minutes. Gilly lasted five, and he was drunk.”

  “She’s half Gilly’s weight,” another protested, coming close and fingering my arm. I jerked away, and they laughed. “It will bring her down in half the time.”

  “It will have to catch her first,” the first said. “I still give her five minutes.” He shoved money into Captain Rylan’s hands. The small man handed my rope to Mr. Smitty—who looked bothered by it all—and proceeded to take everyone’s money. His eagerness and greed made me sick, and I recognized the new, businesslike glint as he mentally matched money to faces and estimates of the length of my life.

  My knees started to tremble, and the wagers continued around me. They ignored me, since I had gone from something to abuse and torment to something they could make money from. Listening to the wagers get larger as the estimated time of my survival grew smaller, my pulse grew fast. I hadn’t had much to eat in days, and fatigue made me light-headed.

  “Enough!” Mr. Smitty bellowed, making me jump. His expression was cross, as if irritated by it all. “Let’s get her in the pit and be done with it. I want those ransom letters to go out before one of them dies.”

  My thoughts flew to the dark, ramshackle hut that Contessa and Alex had been taken to. I prayed they were all right. I’d never know, and I wiped the hint of tears from me, steadying myself. They would survive. I had to believe it.

  The crew made more noise than I thought was necessary as they plucked torches from the sand and followed Captain Rylan when he reclaimed my rope and jerked me to the pit. The sailors got there first, and the animal screamed, a raw, frustrated sound, when a few threw their torches down to light the hole. The sound struck my heart and I shuddered.

  “Make a spot, make a spot. I can’t get her in if you don’t let me through,” the captain complained as he pushed forward, and I stumbled after him. Duncan had forced himself a place directly across from me, the firelit pit between us. The harsh glow flickered up against the sloping walls as if it opened up to hell itself. I could tell by Duncan’s empty expression that there would be no help coming from him. There would be no rescue. This wasn’t a way to escape. All he had done was give me a more dignified way to die.

  Panic crept up from my belly, settling in about my throat. Seeing my face go cold with the knowledge of my death, Duncan’s jaw clenched, and he pushed to the front. “I put my entire take of ransom that she survives,” he shouted. “But I want her. If she survives, she’s mine.”

  I held my breath against a sob. Even now he was trying to give me hope. Not many heard him, but those who did, laughed.

  “Never seen the cat in action, eh?” Mr. Smitty said, the first hints of amusement in the sour man. “I’ll back that one,” he called to Captain Rylan. He took an ornate watch from a pocket and reverently opened it. “She ain’t gonna survive,” he added. “No one survives the cat. Not even Gilly, poor bugger. No more than a scratch and he fell, twitching and jerking.”

  Someone shoved me forward. The sand was cold on my feet, and a sliver of hope drew my gaze into the pit. A cat? A cat had killed a man with a scratch, dying with convulsions? Had they caught a punta? Was that a punta in the pit they had dug?

  Even as hope took me, it died. Even if it was a punta, it would make no difference. True, it was the punta’s venom that players used as the source of their magic. And yes, Kavenlow h
ad upped my natural immunity to where I could handle three times what would kill anyone else, but the amount of poison they inflicted was far beyond the limits of even players. It would kill me as easily as anyone else. Frightened, I peered over the edge of the lip, seeing nothing.

  “Cat with the cat! Cat with the cat!” a man chanted, the litany taken up by angry voices.

  Heart pounding, I held my bound wrists out to Mr. Smitty. He seemed to know more about the animal than anyone, in charge of the men though he wasn’t the captain. “Give me my hands,” I demanded. “If you want me to fight, you will give me my hands.”

  Captain Rylan glanced at me in mistrust. “Won’t that change her odds?” he asked.

  “No.” Mr. Smitty pulled a dagger from his belt. “Won’t make a chu pit of a difference.”

  As the men cheered, Mr. Smitty sawed at my bindings. They gave way with a snap, and a groan slipped from me. My hands felt like dead things, tingling painfully. Mr. Smitty eyed me in warning, and I closed my eyes in an understanding blink. I wouldn’t attack anyone to get a weapon. My hands didn’t work yet, and even if they did and I managed to get a knife, the men would have me.

  Legs shaking, I moved to the edge of the pit. The torn hem of my dress hung over, hiding my bare feet. I shivered, feeling the cold wind off the water, shaking the tops of the trees and finding me. The men shouted, their faces ugly as they bellowed their approval. Trembling, I peered down, seeing the cat for the first time.

  It was larger than I had expected, the size of my wolfhound at home, with a short sandy coat. It had pressed itself against the side of the pit, ears flat against its head and its stubby tail bristled to twice what I imagined it to normally be. Mind whirling, I tried to remember what Kavenlow had said about killing one: nets, snares, and deadfalls baited with an entire deer. Things that killed from afar. I took a slow breath. Was there hope here, or was it a cruel jest?

  The cat’s head jerked as if it had heard the sound of my breath over the noise. Cold, blue eyes met mine, and the animal screamed to show long, yellowed canines.

  My breath caught. I have to fight this? With nothing? Frightened, I turned to Mr. Smitty since he seemed to be in charge of the beast. I wondered if he knew what he had. If it bit me, I would die. My voice trembled as I said, “May I take a moment to pray?”

  The disregard in his eyes grudgingly shifted to respect. He gave me a curt nod and bellowed, “Quiet! Let her make peace with her god!”

  Immediately the noise ceased. I stood, surprised when the rough, unkempt men went as still as the man who had passed out. A few even bowed their heads. Over the silence, I could hear the harsh breathing of the punta: three quick breaths, a hesitation, then three quick breaths. My toes in the cold sand, I closed my eyes and stood over the pit—thinking, not praying. I had a bare advantage over poor Gilly in that I could probably withstand a scratch, though a bite would probably kill me. I couldn’t defeat it. Escaping the pit would get me nowhere.

  A new despair crept up to smother my faintest glimmer of hope. I knew what it was, but I still had nothing to survive it.

  “That’s enough time,” Mr. Smitty said, and the men burst into a collective, savage shout. “In you go,” he said, and with no more thought, he shoved me forward.

  I couldn’t help my cry as my feet slipped, and I fell. The shadowed torchlit ground rushed up, and I flung my useless hands out to fend it off. I hit the sand floor of the pit with a jar that sent shock waves of pain to reverberate through me. On my hands and knees, I looked past my fallen hair to the punta. Frightened, I tried to breathe quietly.

  It was bigger now that I was down here with it, pressed against the sand walls atop a small rise. The air was markedly warmer, stagnant, and smelling of feces though I was sure the animal had been burying them as its smaller kin did. The top of the pit was about twenty feet across; down here it had shrunk to about fifteen. Bones with half-gnawed gristle and cartilage littered the sand among the confused tangle of webbed footprints the size of my outstretched hand. Black beetles skittered over the sand, scavenging. My attention went to its feet, seeing claws long as my fingers contract and extend in time with its breathing.

  Ears back, it fixed its eerie blue eyes on me and growled so low that the sound seemed to resonate in me. I shifted to rise, freezing when its growl turned to a spine-tingling scream before falling back to a growl. The men shouted their approval, and the hair on the cat’s stubby tail bristled farther. It didn’t want to be here, and it wanted me here even less.

  “Tess!” Duncan’s voice cut through the noise. I only heard it because it was familiar. I risked a glance up, not seeing him. Above was only a black circle marked by the waxing moon. The men’s jeers and shouts came down like the voices of unseen, angry gods.

  I jerked at the sensations of tiny pinpricks atop my hand. It was a beetle the size of my palm, and I stupidly pulled myself upright to shake it from me.

  Fire lanced through my upper arm. Crying out, I instinctively flung myself backwards. My back hit the sandy wall. The heady rush of venom scoured through me, and I took three quick breaths, walling it off. From above, the cheer of men sounded hollow through my venom-laced hearing. My heart pounded, and my skin tingled. It had scratched me. The punta had scratched me. I hadn’t even seen it move.

  Focus wavering as my body assimilated the poison, I looked to find the cat nearly in the same place. A new sheen of red was under its nails, glinting in the firelight as it moved its claws in and out of hiding. Empty blue eyes watched me. They were uncaring. There was no surprise that I hadn’t fallen. No expectation. Nothing.

  My hand had automatically covered the scratch. Slowly, I pulled it away. Under the tears in my dress were two long rips in my flesh. There would have been more but my arm wasn’t as wide as its foot’s spread. My skin was laid open in a soft welling of blood. The cat didn’t seem to mind my moving now, probably thinking it had given me a killing dose and was expecting the twitches and jerks of a dying man. If I was going to move, now would be the time.

  Breathing shallowly, I estimated the dosage to be three or four of my darts. Anyone but a player would be dead. One more bite or scratch, and it would be beyond even my limits.

  The first cheer of the men faltered and died as they realized I hadn’t gone down. “She’s still up!” one said, as I stood and put a wavering hand against the wall of sand.

  “It don’t kill women!” another cried. “It don’t kill women! She’s a witch!”

  He sounded panicked, and I spared a thought that if I survived, I would either be revered or stoned to death. Sailors were superstitious idiots. My focus blurred, then steadied. My left leg ached, and I knew it would drag if I tried to walk. It was where Kavenlow had desensitized me to the toxin, and the damage to my body showed there the most.

  “Fool!” Mr. Smitty said, a tremor of fear in his voice. “It just missed her. That’s all.”

  The cat screamed again, sounding confident, vindictive, and angry. Its whiskers bent forward, then back as it sniffed me, smelling my blood. From the back recesses of my mind came a faint tickle. Its eyes met mine, and I wondered if it was seeing me as something other than a warm body to take its anger out on, then bury to eat later once I stopped twitching.

  The tickle in my head turned into a soft, insistent push. My eyes went to a still-burning torch. Maybe I could use it. But I’d have to reach to get it.

  My attention flicked back to the cat, estimating the distance. The men were cheering, shouting encouragement. I wished I could have said good-bye to Duncan, to ask him to take care of Contessa for me and see her back safely to Kavenlow.

  Balance wavering, I stood with one hand on the sand walls for support and prayed the animal wouldn’t move. “My whip!” I called up, knowing it was a lost cause. “For the love of God, give me something!”

  Captain Rylan’s voice came down, full of a self-satisfied dominance. “That will change her odds. She gets nothing, or all wagers are returned.”

  But the
re was a sliding clatter of an enormous sword as long as my leg falling to land closer to the cat than me. It was old and notched, as if having been used to cut wood. From above me came laughter. I couldn’t even pick it up. All it did was enrage the cat further.

  It started a low growl again, its tawny hide rippling when kicked sand fell on it. I couldn’t fight it. But I had something that poor Gilly hadn’t. I had my magic. And with venom from the large cat coursing through me, it would be strong. Perhaps strong enough.

  Closing my eyes, I pulled myself straight. I settled my mind and sent a tendril of awareness to the back recesses of thought where my magic slowly accumulated, walled off from the rest of me so it wouldn’t kill me. Reaching the mind of a wild animal was tricky at best. The reason I could manipulate Jy was from our frequent association and because he thought I was his lead mare. And the punta, whose poison was a natural part of its body, would be immune to all but the strongest of impulses, much as I was immune to a rival player’s mental persuasion—to a certain degree.

  “Fight it!” came the jeering call of a pirate. “I didn’t give up my chance at ya to watch you die of starvation!”

  The sound of spilling sand pulled my eyes open. They were trying to force the cat into action. Disoriented, I sent my thoughts out to the cat, hoping I could find it among the aggressive emotions of the crew. With a jolt, I found it was already searching for me.

  Shocked, my breath came in a gasp and I shuddered. Time seemed to slow, and the rush of my blood paused. My heart beat once, the slow contraction of muscle as definite and sedate as a sigh. My eyes were fixed upon the cat, and suddenly the dead blue of its eyes lit with an inner fire that only I could see.

  The jolt of connection fed back into me, rebounding against my soul and reverberating up my spine. Abruptly I saw it through its own perceptions: a force so free, it couldn’t comprehend being any other way—untamed, trapped, insulted, chained, powerful, a killer, but not knowing what that meant or even thinking to justify it.