Chapter One: Crimson Sails

A pirate's meetings with two highly dangerous women.

Chapter 1: Crimson Sails

(four years later, 1654)

"Spanish ship off starboard bow, Captain!" The voice from the crow's nest hollered.

"Rich with spanish silver, no doubt." the first mate said.

"Raise the British colors, set a course to cut her off with our port side!" The captain ordered.

"She's spotted us!" The voice from above came again. "And she's comin' at us full speed." The captain went to the rail to see the ship, it was indeed heading towards his own.

"Capt'n!” A sailor, a free agent picked up in Tortuga formerly of His Majesty’s Navy, called as he made himself present before the man. “She isn't just any ship, she's the Moria Vengadora, her captain’s Bloody Isabella.

“She’s the scourge of all British ships afloat upon the Spanish Main, the way I heard it.” The first mate added.

“She is! Few have seen her captain and fewer have survived to tell of it."

“And how do you know so well of this?” He himself had never heard of such a ship or captain, though perhaps in the midst of forgotten drunken converse.

“My former ship was sunk by her cannons, I jumped off the side before the attack.”

“I expect you won’t do the same now.” The first mate said to the man, then shooed him away.

The captain stared at the quickly approaching red-sailed ship, the hook that had replaced his left hand digging into the wood of the rail. "Reset the heading to board on her port side! Ready the cannons! Prepare to board her!" A commotion began on deck as the the crew hurried to fulfill the orders.

Up until the last possible moment it seemed that everything would work as he had planned, but then the Moria Vengadora turned sharply and came to pass on the other side of his ship. "Board!" A voice cried from the Moria Vengadora, a strange voice it was that had given the order. Immediately after, before he could give an order to prepare, men swung from the opposite ship's rigging onto the deck even as planks were placed across the gap and men poured by this way as well. His men began defending the ship against the intruders. The captain felt the hair raising chill of the steely point of a sword to the nape of his neck. "A motley crew you have for a British ship, not a single soldier on board." The voice behind him was that of a woman, her speech in English was tinted with an accent.

"Perhaps because she isn't British. We have no country."

"Pirate then?"

"And I suppose you must be the mysterious captain of the Moria Vengadora."

"They call me Bloody Isabella."

"Might I look upon her majesty?"

The blade tip was removed from his neck with an audible flourish. He turned to face the intruder upon his ship. She stood with her left arm akimbo and her right hand holding the sword as though leaning coolly upon a cane. She wore a shirt, under which the shape of a corset was visible; her skirts were hoisted up above her knees, revealing a pair of breeches. The breeze off the sea lightly blew her dark hair, a few strands floated over her brown eyes. They stared at each other, each sizing the other's strengths against their own. "If you are a pirate, and we have therefore have no purpose for enmity between us, I see no reason to continue this bloodshed amongst our crews."

She watched him for a moment, waiting for him to move first. He turned away from her to face the chaos on his deck. In unison they yelled the order. "Peace!" he in English, she in Spanish.

The battling crowd paused immediately at the orders, many comically frozen in their stances of fighting for a moment. They then lowered the various weapons and segregated themselves; with much shoving, spitting and cursing; the crew of the Moria Vengadora to the side of the deck closest to their ship, facing his own crew on the other side, while in the middle lay the several dead of both ships.

"Pedro." The woman known as Bloody Isabella called; a young man, of native origin, approached the upper deck where the two captains stood in response to her summons. They discussed the collection of the dead men's weapons and boots, the other captain caught the gist of this conversation through his limited Spanish. "We will cast our dead to the sea then leave you." She descended to the deck where members of her crew were carrying the bodies over to the rail on the far side of the ship. With some ceremony the heads of the crew were bowed and prayers said, then at once the bodies were cast off.

Bloody Isabella, accompanied by her crew, prepared to depart from the ship. She had just stepped onto the boarding plank, the last to retreat; when he rushed, descending to the lower deck, to her. "I know your name but you do not know mine."

"You do not know my name, and I see no reason I should know yours." The earnest intent of the man before her, standing with his hands held behind him, caused her to relent. "If you insist."

"Iron Hook."

A short laugh escaped her lips, a musical sound reminiscent of waves rushing atop sandy shores with the music of slaves in the background. "We remain mysteries to each other yet, Captain Iron Hook." She said, shaking the hand he had proffered. Then she left, as the ships departed he watched the crimson sails disappear.

"Robin," he addressed the first mate, "we have all just survived a visit by the captain of the Moria Vengadora."

"It's quite the miracle."

"An adventure to tell the children."

"Aye, it would be. If we had any."

"Perhaps we can search for them when we next port in Tortuga, my old friend. One more good load and we'll take port."

It was only a few days before the Judas had deprived a traversing ship of its valuables and ability to float. Then sailed toward Tortuga with the great enthusiasm of every hand. At the hour of the ship's entrance into the port another ship with crimson sails unleashed her crew in a hoard in a bay away from the docks. When the sailors of the the Judas departed their ship they flooded in great bodies to the numerous taverns and houses of ill repute. The last two to step foot off the ship were the captain and his slightly shorter and rounder second in command.

"Here it be, Tortuga!" Robin sighed as he gazed at the ramshackle port town with staggering men, generally accompanied by seductively dressed women, the air full of drunken cries, laughter, the smells of alcohol, filth, and the exchanging of blood earned coin. "Fatten yourself up while you're here, Cole, you're a startin' to drown in that coat."

"Go on, Robin, make yourself merry."

"Sure you won't join me? It's a lovely evening to be on liberty!"

"You speak like a British sailor, Robin." He called after his friend, who walked slowly, almost with a skip down the street. "Besides I've business to attend to."

"Business, bah! All work no play; you'll wither away, Cole, I swear it."

Laughing to himself he entered a large tavern, packed with a jostling crowd. In the back a table was a group of other captains. Not until he was mere paces from the bunch was he able to hear the argument. Which seemed to be about a particular bottle of rum, the conversation had however begun to turn to whose ship was faster, even as two men sitting on a corner launched into a heated argument over a nearby tavern wench. Upon taking his seat he was immediately seized and roughly pulled close by an older pirate, was in an unusually jovial humor explained by the rum scented haze in which Cole had been engulfed. "Hooky! Do join us, we were just..." Here he sunk into slurred Dutch, until he became distracted by the argument at hand.

Seated a few feet away from the table next to the stone chimney was a quite conspicuous woman. She lounged in the chair as usual, daring any of the men at the table to try something. Her skirts were long and full, a trademark of her country, it showed very little but held the promise of loveliness underneath. The blouse, worn with a tempting lack of corsetry, dipped low enough to suggest what lie beneath its fabric. Her dark hair, pulled up and back, afforded no added modesty. This woman had no name, she was known to all in Tortuga as the Siren, for she was as dangerous as that creature of lore to men foolish enough to pursue her.

A Frenchman slammed his cup down on the table and announced in his annoyingly go heavy accent. "My ship is the fastest on this sea!" Immediately an uproar from the table contended the point.

"For God's sake, shut up! Can't you quit this ceaseless squabbling like a bunch of children?" She stood up and approached the table. "While you're all here arguing over rum and women the English send ship after ship, preparing an armada to take the Spanish Main. You might ask how who holds claim to these waters concerns you. As it is, the Spanish find you nothing more than a nuisance, the reason a few ships are sunk and how silver is taken. They leave you be. Do you think the English will be so lacks?" A short moment of silence followed while the few escapees from England remembered the past and like the others pondered her words.

"Sit down and shut up, you Spanish b***h." The Frenchman ordered. She drew a knife and held it at him, as though weighing his worthiness to die, then with an exasperated growl she loosed the knife. It lodged into the very edge of the table directly in front of the Frenchman. Her crimson skirts fluttered as she left the table, as much the seductive creature as ever. She was already disappearing into the crowd when the Frenchman looked up from his unscathed lower extremities. "What's got her skirts in a bunch?"

"Iron Hook, I heard you had a run in of sorts of late." A pirate on his other side  said.

"I did indeed, with the…" He replied, trailing off as he gazed off in the direction the Siren had gone. "I must attend to something." He got up and started away after her.

"Good luck, Hooky." The still very drunk Dutchman called after him.

"Watch she's not too much for you." Another voice added.

He reached the street, the dark street lit only by the flames of torches, and stopped standing there. He had left with some purpose but he could not seem to remember exactly what that had been, and so he wandered, passing stumbling man after slumped man. Having walked to the shore he saw a form seated in the sand gazing across the sea. Approaching to within a few steps he was halted by the touch of metal upon his right wrist. "Another move and you'll lose that hand."

Taking the blade in his hook and moving it away he replied. "I'm rather fond of the one I've got left, thank you."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing. I was merely passing."

"And in passing you found me here."

"Were you always like this?"

"Yes. Are you usually so imbecilic?"

"What do you mean?"

"You stop to inquire of one sitting on the shore whom you know has no qualms about maiming you. That is not the action of an intelligent man."

"Perhaps I have other intentions. And what are your intentions, Siren, to start a war, those were the words of war at that table?"

"And what of you, Iron Hook? I’ve heard of you. Are you not also trying to start a war, flying the colors of nations when you strike?"

"There is very little known between us, but let it be known I share your sentiments of the English."

"Though I should say for very different reasons." She got up and stood facing him, her dark pool-like eyes looking into his from the height of his nose. "Return to your women and rum, Captain, they are waiting for a tale of conquest." With that she walked down the road, her form sinking into the darkness like sails into a fog.

He returned to the tavern where he was surrounded with questions to which he gave the simple, noncommittal reply, "I've still got everything." It wasn't long until some other alcohol involved topic took precedence.

Author's Note

Reviews are welcome. Is the innuendo too much, 'cause if so I can tone it down?

Reviews

[Cyndy Robinson]

mmm, I don't know. I am not a professional, but I like comments that tell me what people think. I follow them or don't. I found this lacking the draw into the story that your prologue had. Perhaps because it is to much background and not enough action. You have an action scene, but at best it is narrated at having occured, which gives up the human element and the chance to be drawn in. Like lives lost, and a mistake and not the english. You have introduced a new character, but not much characterization about him. This seems to more showcase sailor's talk, and actions, which will be there in the rest of the book, and doesn't need to be showcased at this point. At times there was so much of it, it was boring and I found myself bleeping past it. I am not even saying all of this doesn't need to be here, just that something else does as well. You aren't drawing me into anything at all, just throwing a bunch of background elements out there, to move into the story. Let the background come as it may, and show, draw in and involve the reader. A book is long, most are over 200 pages. This chapter is relatively short. You have plenty of space to fill it in.