The Butcher's Daughter, page 37
Ever since that terrible night of slaughter in Guadeloupe, I had imagined in my mind many times how this day might play out. I had imagined a long and agonizing end for the Twins. I wanted them to suffer. I wanted them to have ample time to reflect on their wickedness as I slowly bled their lives away - as they had done to Gilley and all the others - as they had nearly done to me. Now I would have my chance, a chance I would not squander.
MacGyver took the helm. Efendi, Henry and Kinkae moved among the men, quietly readying the ship for action. Hunter stood at my side and barked out orders to trim the sails. But I and I alone was the captain of the Phantom again. This was my moment.
“Michael, a point to port,” I said in a calm and confident tone.
“A point to port it is, my lady,” he replied and nudged the tiller over.
“Henry,” I called out. “Go to the beak-head. If anyone on Medusa hails us, ask them if they have a physician aboard. Tell them our captain was gravely wounded by a Spanish ball.”
My Carib lieutenant, imitating the silliness he had seen Hunter and others do, bowed to me as if I were royalty. “Aye, Mum,” he said and hurried to the beak-head shouting along the way: “Enry can tu it! Enry can tu it!”
I looked over at Efendi next. “Mustafa! When we make our turn to starboard, you know what must be done. Make every shot count.”
Efendi offered me a reassuring nod. His lips curled into a crooked smile before he made his way down to the main deck to carry out my orders.
To my surprise, Medusa continued sailing blissfully on towards Westport, oblivious to any approaching danger. Her crew made no attempt to maneuver away from us as we drew closer. They made no attempt to take their vessel out into the channel’s deeper waters.
I reached down and discreetly took Hunter’s hand. “James, what do you think?”
“I suspect,” he said, squeezing my hand reassuringly, “if the Twins are even on board they, like Dowlin - before you lopped-off his head - are poor sailors. Most likely they’ll feel secure and safe in their great war galleon, especially with Westport only a few leagues away. Arrogance has killed more than one man over the ages. I smell no trick at play here - unless they intend to blow themselves to kingdom come and take us with them if we sail too close. Our tactical position could not be better.”
I placed my hand on his chest. “Have a care with my heart when we board Medusa, James Hunter. Do not be reckless with your life.”
He laughed at me. “I shall do my very best, dear lady, rest assured of that! And you, you hold back for a bit until it is clear victory is ours. Only then should you follow me over with the second wave to press home our attack.”
I surprised us both when I agreed.
At one hundred yards, Medusa’s officer of the watch - there was no sign of the Twins - took an interest in us as we closed. Henry richly played his part asking for a physician, purchasing us a little time. At seventy-five yards Medusa’s officer of the watch waved us off and repeated that his ship had no physician or surgeon on board to help us. At fifty yards I gave the order to turn the Phantom into Medusa and Efendi had our men simultaneously run out the port side guns.
My gunners sprang into action as we glided past Medusa’s stern. One-by-one each gun captain brushed his burning linstock against his gun’s touchhole as Medusa drifted across his gunsight. The linstock ignited the black powder and the powder set off the charge, propelling a twelve pound iron shot violently through the air. In quick succession our heavy guns belched smoke and fire, shattering the day’s fragile serenity.
At such close range my gunners couldn’t miss. Every man hit his target. Our iron wreaked terrible damage on Medusa. The first two balls smashed her rudder to pieces. Our iron shattered wood rails and cabin windows, launching shards of glass and jagged splinters through the air in all directions. And then we heard Medusa’s bonaventure mizzen mast crack. The great stick wobbled for a bit before toppling over the side with a horrible, screeching noise, taking sails and rigging with it.
Then Hunter hoisted my battle flag up the main mast. I smiled when I saw the red sea serpent poised to strike on a field of yellow-gold fluttering freely in the wind.
We circled around for a second pass. Only this time we came in closer. With a broken rudder and her bonaventure dragging in the water, Medusa’s men wisely shortened sail and brought their crippled ship to a dead stop before they ran aground. My men lined up along the rails and threw out grappling hooks to snag the handsome man-o’-war. After they hauled her in, Hunter stormed aboard Medusa with a company of one hundred men, with our biggest, strongest fighters. I sent another fifty aloft in Phantom’s rigging with muskets to cover them. And then I drew my sword and pistol and followed Hunter over with my fearsome Carib warriors, covered from head to toe in bright war-paint, and my battle-hardened Moors with fine physiques wrapped in thick muscle.
We easily overwhelmed the men defending Medusa’s aftercastle. Most panicked and fled down the double stairs to the main deck. More than a dozen surrendered, mistaking us for the English navy. Hunter and his company continued their assault on the main deck while my men and I secured our prisoners on the quarter deck. Then I had six swivels brought over from the Phantom and after my gunners hooked them over Medusa’s fore rail, they took aim at Medusa’s crew packed in tight below on the main deck as my Caribs and Moors reformed ranks.
“Surrender or die!” I shouted down to Medusa’s crew.
The defenders wavered. For a split moment I thought the battle was over, that we had won a cheap and easy victory. But then, emerging from the forecastle near the bow, two huge and terrifying giants stepped on deck, brandishing swords and muskets. Even from a distance I could see the murder in their eyes. Scores of men came pouring out on deck behind them. The Twins rallied their crew, numbering close to four hundred, and charged at us.
We fired the swivels and dozens fell. We fired-off our muskets and dozens more fell. And as we reloaded my musketeers up in Phantom’s rigging fired-off a volley too. Still the Twins and their men kept coming. By sheer force of numbers, Medusa’s crew pushed Hunter and his company back, back across a deck slick with blood and gore, back across a killing zone fouled with piss and shit. The fighting turned savage, hand-to-hand. Men mad to kill locked in combat with men mad to live tore at each other shooting, gouging, stabbing, punching, choking, biting… Rivulets of blood trickled across the deck and flowed down the scuppers.
MacGyver and Efendi, on Hunter’s orders I knew, moved next to my side as I rushed down the stairs to the main deck. Each of us marked a target, fired, and three defenders went down.
And then I heard Hunter cry out, his voice ringing with godlike power: “Attack, lads! Attack! Beat these bastards back! Hoorah! Forward, I say! Forward! The ship is ours! Faugh a Ballagh!”
My men surged forward with Hunter, shouting the old Celtic war cry with him. “Faugh a Ballagh! Faugh a Ballagh!” they screamed with one, thundering voice.
I could see Hunter near the main mast wading into a cluster of Medusa’s men, wielding his sword right and left like a man berserk, cutting a bloody path to reach the Twins. He charged ahead with no fear. He plowed into the enemy like a New World Achilles. Men shrieked and fell back in horror as Hunter relentlessly hacked them down one after the other without pity.
But not the Twins, no. They did not fall back or even hesitate. Hunter’s bravado meant nothing to them. The massive brothers brushed their own men aside like rag dolls in their haste to get at Hunter, killing any of my men who dared step in their way. The Twins seemed unstoppable and I gasped when they somehow managed to close in on Hunter. I threw myself into the thick of the melee with no care for my life, desperately trying to reach Hunter’s side until a brute, a repulsive man, a man nearly as big as the Twins, stepped in front of me. He swung his falchion from left to right, barely missing my throat. Efendi, my brave and loyal Turk, brought the giant down with one powerful thrust of his knife into the man’s bowels. The blade went deep. The man glared at Efendi in shock as Efendi sliced his way from the man’s naval up to his breastbone as if he was gutting a fish. The brute sank to his knees with his entrails spilling out all around him. Before I could slit his throat, he keeled over and died.
I ran a second sailor through the lung and MacGyver hacked-off the leg another with a battle axe. Grisly, brutal work. My man fell on his back but kept thrashing his sword around trying to cut me until I dropped to my knees and plunged my dagger into his heart. And when I stood, drenched in blood from head to toe, I saw in the fading light the vicious fighting all around me ebbing like the tide. Men were holding back and checking their blows. I couldn’t imagine why. And then I saw men stepping aside to give my Hunter and the Twins - my Twins - room to fight. This was like watching a play for the second time. This was Guadeloupe all over again.
“You!” Remus, the taller of the two brothers cried out. “I fuckin’ killed you once, maggot.”
Hunter took a step closer and laughed. “You miserable, foul-mouthed oaf! You disgrace! I’m the one who bested you that day. You’d be dead all these years but for your cowardly brother who shot me down before I could finish you off! But here I stand and I come bearing gifts. Today Hades has dubbed me his trusty herald and one of his invitations bears your name. Today I will give you the rematch you long for though I promise you, you’ll take no joy from it. Today your men will hear you scream when I rip out your twisted heart. Look up at the sky my friend. Take a good look at the setting sun. For this is the last you or your wretched brother will ever see of it.”
Remus grunted in reply. He lunged at Hunter with all his fearsome strength wielding a long, Caribbean cutlass. But Hunter, with a quickness and raw power I’d never seen before, grabbed Remus by the wrist and cut Remus’s hand off with one, savage blow. Remus howled in agony, pressed his bloody stump into his armpit and stumbled backwards, leaving his severed hand behind still clutching at his sword.
Then the one-eyed Cyclops named Romulus, the more formidable threat by far, stepped into the circle. That man, I must grudgingly admit, had no fear and he was cleverer than his brother.
He ignored his brother’s whimpering. He paused for a moment to consider Hunter and forced a friendly smile, though I will never forget the loathing I saw in his eyes.
“After I disembowel you,” he told Hunter, while contemptuously kicking his brother’s mangled hand aside. “I am going to fuck your bitch over there. I’m going to fuck her raw. And when she starts to bore me, I’ll hurt her in ways you can’t possibly imagine. I’ll feed tiny pieces of her to my dogs and make her watch. A finger here, a toe there, perhaps even a nose or an ear. I’ll keep her alive in horrible pain for long, excruciating weeks, I swear it. Perhaps I can even stretch her misery out for months. I have the talent.”
But Hunter didn’t take the bait. He kept his cool composure. “I do the world a favor by killing you this day,” he said. “Tonight your one-eyed carcass will swing from your own yardarm to rot, next to your one-handed brother. What a sight you’ll both make dangling side-by-side from the yardarm. Tonight my woman and I will raise our glasses high and make a toast to your new place in hell as your mangled bodies twist and turn in the wind.”
But Romulus wasn’t about to take the bait either. He ignored Hunter’s taunting. He ignored Hunter’s blatant attempt to provoke him into rash and thoughtless action.
The two men squared-off calmly, each man carefully dancing around the other, taking time to gauge the mettle of his opponent. Hunter made the first move. He took a step forward and thrust his sword at the one-eyed Twin. He missed. He took a second step forward, lunged again and missed. He took a third step forward, feinted to the left, feinted to the right and tried running Romulus through the heart. But the Twin was not so easily fooled and he was quicker than his brother. He deftly stepped aside and parried the nearly fatal blow.
Romulus countered, swung his body around and tried taking off Hunter’s head. His blade though found only empty air to slice through when Hunter ducked to the left. Then both men settled down and warily circled around and around each other. They slashed and hacked away, both men looking for some weakness in the other to exploit. It was a battle of two titans, of two godlike champions at the pinnacle of their astonishing powers. All of us, men on both sides, stood and watched in awe.
The duel dragged on and on. The two warriors went at each other relentlessly for what seemed like long hours. They fought each other like gladiators in the ring where no quarter was asked and none would be given and it was by no means certain at first which man in the end would prevail. They seemed an even match.
But then, after both men had exchanged many blows and counter-blows, a smile touched my lips. I saw the sweat trickling down Romulus’s temple. I could see his arms begin to tire. I could see the wobble in his legs. He switched tactics too. He began fighting defensively, wielding his sword with two hands to compensate the strength draining from his limbs.
Hunter started moving with more confidence, with more power. He had conserved his strength. He had been toying with the Cyclops all along.
Romulus soon understood the terrible truth. “Lads!” he finally called out, trying to make men think he held the upper hand. “Enough of this foolishness - this strutting popinjay and I have fought ourselves to a stalemate. But we can still snuff out all the rest with our greater numbers. Kill them, kill them all I say!”
I clenched my teeth. I raised my sword above my head and took several steps forward.
“NOOO!” I screamed. “This abomination you call your chieftain is nothing more than a cruel and craven coward. If one man moves, just one of you - I’ll show no mercy. I’ll murder the whole lot of you. I swear it. And no one will question me. The English already know you’ve sided with the Spanish - and they aren’t taking prisoners. See my men up in Phantom’s rigging and along Medusa’s fore rail with muskets and swivels at the ready? You’re caught in a cross-fire. You’ll all be slaughtered. Do not test me for I am, if you do not know it, the bitch all men dread. I am the last offspring of the last of the Kings of Umaill. I AM BLOODY MARY!”
Romulus searched the faces of his men. No one stirred to help him. He looked back at me and snickered. “You, the descendant of a king? Ha! How preposterous. You’re the daughter of the gutter, the bastard child of a whore. I’ll deal with you later, after all your men are dead! Hear that lads - I want this diseased-riddled trollop alive.”
And with one last fierce surge of energy, with one last roll of the dice, the mighty, one-eyed Twin threw himself at Hunter with everything he had. He raised a knee and slammed it hard into Hunter’s midriff, catching Hunter off-guard. When Hunter doubled over, Romulus raised his sword high above his head to drive the pointed hilt down into Hunter’s skull. For the second time that day, I put my hand to my mouth and gasped.
But what followed next stunned us all. Seized with bloodlust, Hunter pounced. He wrapped his arms tightly around Romulus’s hips, lifted the giant up off his feet - as if he were tossing a sack of apples over his shoulder - and slammed Romulus down against the deck. Romulus’s head smacked the wood hard. He let out a dreadful howl. I thought I heard his skull crack. Hunter straddled the brute, used his knees to pin the monster’s arms down and rested the edge of his sword underneath Romulus’s chin, across his neck. The one-eyed Twin looked up at Hunter dazed and unsure, grimacing in pain.
And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Remus, his bloody stump now wrapped in thick gauze, come at Hunter from behind with a machete in his hand, barely a step or two away. I jumped into the circle ready to plunge my sword into his belly when a chill shot down my spine. I was a step and a half behind, Remus was just beyond my reach. But not beyond Efendi’s. The Turk’s knife flew past my nose and buried itself in Remus’s windpipe.
Remus didn’t scream. He didn’t even cry out. He dropped his machete to free his hand and calmly plucked Efendi’s knife from his throat as if he was removing an irksome splinter. Still very much alive, he moved forward to stab Hunter in the back with Efendi’s own blade - until I kicked him behind the knee, causing him to stumble. And before he could regain his balance, before he could raise his hand, I brought my sword up around my shoulder and swung it down to cut off his pig head. His corpse twitched for a bit, spraying jets of blood through the air, and then toppled over.
Hunter finished it. “Now you can join your brother,” he cried out. “Time for you to die!”
I spun around just in time to catch Hunter, with one quick pull of his sword, cut Romulus’s carotid artery open. Romulus gagged on his own blood until his one good eye rolled up into its socket. And then he was gone.
Hunter had killed my man and I had killed his.
With both Twins lying dead in a pool of blood, Medusa’s men had no more fight left in them and threw their weapons down. At long last the ugly deed was finished. Finally the long and costly blood vendetta between the Twins and me was settled. And it was me, a meek, imprudent woman, the bastard daughter of a clan chieftain who had been raised by a common laborer, a butcher, and the daughter of a whore, who had won.
Hunter and I embraced and kissed while my men watched and smiled. I didn’t care. I was thrilled the Twins were dead. I was overjoyed that Hunter was alive and unharmed.
And then, feeling strangely tired, I returned to the Phantom and let Hunter and the others secure the Falling Star and our prisoners without me. After every battle, always, I had lured Hunter into my bed, inviting him to ravage me. But not this time. Once I was back in my cabin, I stripped off all my clothes, soaked in filth and gore, washed the blood off my face and hands with cool, clean water and scented soap and crawled into my bed, exhausted. With little effort I floated off into a deep and peaceful slumber.
