Chapter Six: Clara Muerte

It was still dark when Florencia slowly drifted into awareness again to the sound of marmosets chattering with an erh-erh sound. The cook was in his hammock across from her, snoring quietly. He was gently rocked side to side by the moving ship and did not even stir when he was occasionally bumped against the wall.

She had been removed from her grotty cell the night before. The captain had told her that she was going to share a cabin with Flower, who had readily agreed with the man’s wisdom. As a result, he had hung up his hammock and let her have the low bed and a swig of claret that tasted vaguely of lead.

Although the reek of stale bilge water gave her the urge to vomit, Florencia was loath to leave her warm bed. The blankets pooled around her waist as she sat up, yawned and stretched a little, before clapping a hand over her mouth. It was dim inside the cabin and the gloom made the interior indistinct. She doubted that it was much more than dawn outside as she listened to the slosh of water around her. The air felt as clammy as her skin did as Florencia got up and tiptoed the two feet between her and the door, which was locked against thieves.

The key was heavy in her palm and icily cold. She twisted it, freezing when the lock clunked, but Flower just snorted and rolled over. She stepped out and pinched her nose to try and block out the horrendous smell of decomposing algae and old seawater. There was a sweet smell emanating from the timber and she suspected that the bilge had been used as a toilet more than once in the recent past.

It was with great care not to ruin her stockings that she tip-toed around the stagnant pool. She was scurrying past the dryer last cabin when she heard a sob coming from it.

Florencia stopped dead. The last cabin was next door to Flower’s but was not much bigger than a garderobe. He had more of the dirty water flowing into his but the last cell was a dank hole nonetheless as she stared at it and then crouched beside the keyhole.

“Hello?” She called softly, with care not to sound too loud.

The occupant sniffled and shifted slightly and Florencia added quietly, “I mean no harm,” Florencia added quietly.

She put her hand on the lock. It was old and rusty like most of the metalwork and was locked like she thought it would be. The person behind the door edged closer for a moment. Florencia caught sight of puffy brown eyes peering back at her, but one of the pirates snorted at that moment at the other end of the ship.

The sound carried; to her dismay, the Negress, startled and already terrified, retreated before Florencia could go back and see if Flower had a spare key.

“No, wait!”

But it was too late.

“Please?” She tried again, almost as sadly as the Negress had looked.

She hovered by the door, waiting, but the young woman did not come back. She was crying again, which left Florencia feeling useless. She sighed and decided that, as she was awake, she would get herself some fresh air before the rest of the ship awoke.

Florencia began to feel her way through the dark. The poop deck seemed to be one big storage room as she walked into another barrel and stubbed her toe on a cannon that was strapped to the floor. There was rope and at least one huge roll of sailcloth in her way before the pirates hoved into view.

A group of them were sleeping at the foot of the only ladder, which led to the deck above. She counted nineteen men; they made up the entire crew of the Dark Horse other than Flower, Newland and the captain. The latter was, so the cook told her, called Storm, by dint of his violent and deathly nature. His real name was not known, and Flower added that he and the crew thought it might be John Thatcher.

However, it was no he whom Florencia was worried about. He had taken her silk dress away solely for the monetary value of it; as for her stays, he had yanked them off of her, claiming that he hated the things. The captain had not scared her because of his professed dislike of females.

A hungry rat squeaked nearby and Florencia jumped. She felt vulnerable in just her shift and petticoat as the slumbering pirates surrounded her; several were nursing bottles that were nearly empty. The brunette pussyfooted her way into the snoring mass and reached the ladder without having disturbed a single one.

She froze for a second time when the ladder creaked, but nobody moved, so she stole her way onto the deck where Flower worked and the gunpowder was kept.

It was, to her relief, empty and silent, but it was dark at the same time, and she fumbled around for a bit until the ship rolled and caused her to stagger into the ladder. She climbed it and emerged between two cannon on the gun deck; they seemed like sleeping beasts, black and monstrous in the gloom. The iron they were made from was cool despite that the gun-ports had been bolted shut, unlike the hatch, which was still open a little. She could feel cold morning air blowing through it with a whistling noise; clambering up, Florencia shivered as a gust of wind swept her sweaty, knotted hair out of her face.

The brunette had guessed right, for it was dawn, and a foggy one. The sea had disappeared beneath an abundance of silvery cloud which swirled around the Dark Horse like some sort of ethereal veil. Florencia was forcibly reminded of the morning of the day when Captain Storm had first thundered into her life.

Florencia took the time to walk around the top deck. The fog was so thick that the great cabin was obscured and she could not make out the figurehead either as the lustrous cloud shrouded her in cold dew. She looked up and saw that the sails were full of the stuff, as the breeze buffeted the ship along. It blew the clinging stink out of her clothes, and as she walked, she heard the discordant sound of a cracked bell chiming in the not-so-far distance. The noise piqued her curiosity, for she had believed, until then, that they were far out to sea in the middle of nowhere. However, Florencia quickly reasoned that it could be another ship, and hoped with a pang that the pirates would not be going after it.

She turned back with a mind to go and wake Flower, but at that moment, the wind blew away some of the fog that had been blocking the helm from view.

Amidst the creaking of the elderly ship’s timbers, Florencia gasped in fright, for the captain himself was standing at wheel. He had tied himself to it and was not very steadily on his feet as he steered his vessel through the water with a calm, sluicing action. The ropes around his head dripped with condensation, which had made the deck damp.

“Watling’s not far now,” he told her, proud but tired. He had a pipe in his mouth; smoke unfurled from the chipped bowl. There was blood on his chin too and he coughed some more, managing to not loose his pipe as Florencia watched warily.

“Be a few ‘ours yet, I reckon,” he added, sounding wearied, “If the wind picks up more, prolly earlier.”

He did not look at Florencia; instead, his eyes were fixed on his destination, as though he could see it through the banked fog that eddied around them. She looked at him once more, and when she was certain that he was not going to do anything more than steer, she moved over to the handrail. It felt as though it had been rained on as she grasped it and peered over at the grey water they were cutting through. Her shift grew quite wet as she stared in surprise and mounting fear at the jetsam that was bobbing past them. She even thought she glimpsed a body face down in the water; jumping back, she winced at the feeling of the hard, gritty board underfoot.

“I think there’s been a ship-” Florencia began. She had a stab at sounding casual, but her nerves came through anyway.

Storm snorted, and replied, “’S unlikely to be a ship out ‘ere, even pirate these days.”

The pirate jerked his hand out of the bind he had put it in, and removed the pipe from his thin mouth for a moment, “More’n likely there’s been a squall lately an’ the crap’s floated.”

A loud bang made the both of them jump. However, Storm hid his alarm rapidly and snapped, “Who goes there?”

Newland scrabbled out of the hatch. The hole had not been big enough for him and he had been forced to widen it, causing a bang when the grid on top had slid back too fast. He had not buttoned his shirt up and stood panting for a moment as Florencia noticed how crooked his nose was. It had stopped bleeding but was now skewed to the left and black with bruises.

“Cap’n,” he wheezed, “last night-we-the crew and I-we was wondering if we could go ashore-we ain’t been on dry ground in a year-”

“An’ yer ain’t got a reason to be, neither!” Storm snarled, suddenly quite venomous, “Only Flower ‘as-”

“’Hardy ‘as a wife too, cap’n-”

“An’ yet ‘e sleeps with Sam an’ Martin, drunk an’ needy as those sodomites are!”

The little man shut up abruptly, and Florencia winced, now knowing what the odd grunting and slurred moaning had been in the middle of the night.

“Cap’n-”

Storm hurled his pipe at the little man, off whose head it bounced. The burning ash that scattered across the deck was quickly put out by the dew as Storm tore his other hand free from the wheel. He stalked off huffily and as Florencia watched, Newland jumped in to take his place.

*

Florencia ended up in the great cabin again after Storm had woken the rest of the crew. She was sitting on the flea-bitten rug in silence, transfixed by the grisly relic that sat on the desk. It was a human skull and she did not doubt that Flower had been the one to pick it up and put it back after his captain had knocked it flying. She recalled it rolling into a corner where it had lain bereft of its jaw in the dust until the aforementioned cook had salvaged it.

She was still eyeballing it when Storm came in from ordering his men about, and at her furtive look of curiosity, he said, “Donovan.”

He took the time to light up his pipe and fill his cabin with acrid grey smoke, which wafted around and made Florencia’s eyes water.

“Bare Bone, they called ‘im,” Storm added, sounding almost nonchalant, “could cleave flesh from bone with one sword swipe when ‘e we’re younger, they said. ‘E was proud o’ that, but then ‘e took ter drink.”

The pirate took a deep drag, which he paid for with a violent bout of coughing that had him doubled over. His lungs seemed to rattle, and when Florencia went to help him, he stubbornly shoved her away; nevertheless, she saw the speckles of bright blood on his hand and chin.

“Donovan was wreaked off Bermuda an’ was penniless when this ‘ere ship,” he nodded around at the Dark Horse, “came by. It was a ghost ship that beached one day-nobody would go near it, but Donovan did. ‘Is brain was muddled by rum, see, and ‘e was a puppet to his man Ricardo…”

His face suddenly darkened, and he turned to glare blackly at the skull sitting on his desk with a rather toothless grin. Storm took out a knife as he looked at it, and continued bitterly, “I lived on New Providence when ‘e found me an’ took me aboard ‘is ship, and it were two years after that before I killed ‘im and ‘is bullies-“

Storm’s hands were racked with tremors of repressed fury. A feverish snarl wobbled on his face, making Florencia recoil, frightened at what he might do.

“I put up with that murderous bastard and then I forced ‘im ter ‘is drunken knees-”

His teeth were black and stumpy, Florencia saw, as he screeched and flung out his arm with the knife, which he plunged suddenly into the white skull. There was a noise like a wooden bowl being broken, and looking out from behind her hair, she saw that the stain spotted blade had gone right through the gory artefact. The cranium was so dry that it cracked in half along a ragged suture in the bone. It then broke into pieces as Florencia watched. The two ragged breaks where the jaw attached shattered and Donovan’s skull collapsed in on itself in a heap of beige debris.

Storm twitched violently. His knife was buried in the walnut desk, still moving very slightly as he screeched again and threw his pipe away. The noise he made was not unlike that of a greased cork coming loose from a bottle.

Florencia jumped back as he pounced on his knife and pulled it out. The pirate spat a mouthful of bloody sputum at what remained of the skull, then turned and bellowed at the man knocking on the door.

It turned out to be Newland, damp and windswept looking. He had a relieved look on his face that quickly turned to trepidation as he took in Storm’s demonic appearance. The latter was dreadfully pale beneath his florid cheeks and his eyes had dilated massively; they burned holes through the other pirate, who stuttered, “C-cap’n…Taffy’s s-s-sighted Wat-”

Both he and Florencia jumped back at the sheer force of Storm’s profanity. The little man nearly shut the door in his fright, and yelped in a pitched voice as his captain made a throwing action. His knife embedded itself in the doorframe at an awkward angle, and barely a foot above where Newland stood wetting himself.

“Get Flower fer me!” Storm thundered, “And tell ‘im to bring ‘is shears!”

Newland beat a sharp retreat and left a little puddle in the doorway. His captain, having not drunk anything, started coughing again as the hot morning air tickled his parched throat. He gulped down more but it only served for him to convulse more as he grabbed his desk and bent double again, wheezing and crying as Florencia stood stock still. She raised a hand to her mouth as he began to choke and slowly turn blue.

“Somebody-!” She eventually cried out half-heartedly, and the door burst open with the timely arrival of Flower from deep within in the Dark Horse. He took one look at his captain and dropped what he was carrying to help the man.

Florencia watched as moved behind Storm and raised his hand before bringing it down once, twice, on the other pirate’s back.

“Do something!” Rafaela shrieked. She was a tall, thin woman who seemed to inflate and stretch when she was angry, “Anything!”

Her husband had gone blue in the face. He was leaning over the table and clawing madly at his throat as his stupid older brother looked on dumbly. His father was having a whispered argument with his mistress as the littlest children stared palely. Illegitimate Esperanza looked like she was about to cry and Margarita seemed to want to run for her mother.

“Well?” Rafaela squawked.

She glared accusingly at Aunt Clara, as though the corpulent woman was to blame for Rodrigo choking. He was still heaving breathlessly as his static haired wife demanded of the whole table, “Is he just going to be left here to die?”

It was Federico Velazquez who finally stood up and saved his son. Florencia watched silently as he threw off his frock-coat and strode down the table, for his son was sitting opposite him. He rolled up his sleeves as he reached his son and stood behind him; with a look of askance at his mistress, he slapped Rodrigo on the back once, twice and then a third time.

The last blow did the trick, for the young nobleman spluttered, gasped, gurgled and then coughed up the chicken bone. Beside him, Rafaela sank down poker-faced into her seat.

Florencia was jerked out of her momentary reverie by the unmistakable tang of ferrous blood on the air. Flower was draft as he walked passed her, retrieved his shears and then walked back. She looked at Storm and gasped in horror; frothy blood was dripping through the hand that covered his mouth.

“Clara muerte,” she breathed, turning pale and stepping back.

Storm removed his hand, straightening as he looked at her with a moustache of bright red blood. It dribbled off his chin and spattered his shirt, leaving stains that would dry to a dark maroon colour. She screamed as he lunged forward and grabbed her by the throat. Flower cried out, and she saw his shadow move, but her attention was wholly swallowed up by the pallid and feverish face that was now in hers.

“If yer ever,” he rattled, “tell anyone, I’ll kill yer!”

His breath, which was laden with the smell of copper and rot, filled her nostrils and made Florencia feel violently ill as she tried to lean away as far as possible from him. His eyed bulged a little in madness, and spittle flecked his face.

Florencia staggered back when he released her, and immediately clutched her throat. It felt bruised and her hand came away sticky with his diseased blood. She looked at Flower in terror, but he merely frowned, and turned to his captain.

“She needs ‘er ‘air cut,” Storm told the cook shortly. He coughed again and brought up a wad of very pink phlegm, “An’ be quick about it! I ain’t got all day!”

He was coughing again as he made for the door, whilst Florencia now looked in horror at the small pair of silver poultry scissors that Flower had in his hand. She gulped, and ran to the desk.

“No!” She shouted at the kindly Italian. He looked from her to Storm, “I won’t-!”

The mere thought of being ransomed with bobbed hair was mortally humiliating to her. The pirate captain said he was going to sell her back to the Spanish for a lot of money, and it was not difficult for her to imagine the spiteful things that the likes of Rafaela Velazquez would say. She would be alone amongst the vile hetaera if she went back, and with that thought in mind, she stared imploringly at Flower.

“Please,” she beseeched, “just leave me-”

“Yer’ll be shaved if yer don’t shut up!” Storm butted in nastily, “Yer ‘air’s too long and if yer want ter live it’ll ‘ave to come off!”

He strode over and grasped her arm as she tried to run past. The brunette yelped but was not strong enough to prevent him manhandling her behind her the desk. He beckoned for his cook, who came over dutifully but grey faced and with a pitying gaze for Florencia.

“Cap’n?” he asked.

Storm took his questioning for defiance, and snatching the shears from Flower, he held Florencia tight and gracelessly began scissoring great chunks of her chocolate coloured hair off. She wriggled in his grip, but stopped as the blades scraped across her scalp and made the blood rise there. She wept in silence for a while as her wavy tresses were snipped off, but when the pirate caught her skin again, she flailed her arms wildly.

As a punishment, Storm let the shear blades skitter across the back of her hand, which made Florencia howl in both surprise and pain. She stared in horror at the bleeding gash left nestling across her knuckles, then looked up when Flower spoke.

“Captain,” he interjected, pulling Florencia pulled away. He clasped her slashed hand, shushing her gently as she gazed balefully at Storm, “Maybe if I were to do it-?”

His captain hurled the shears down like a child throwing a tantrum. There was still blood smeared on his chin as he strode to the door, walked out and slammed it shut angrily.

After a moment, Flower bent and picked the shears up. He wiped the blood and hair off and approached Florencia, one step at a time.