"How do you make her?" Nathan demanded.

"She's the Nightingale, or the Faithful, for anyone what cares to see the difference, painted up like a tart on the Sabbath. Privateer. More like a wolf in sheep's clothing."

Cate recalled hearing on the Constancy of sleights of hand: ships being taken, and then disguised for the purpose of evil-doing.

Pryce spit contemptuously over the rail, and then fixed a reproachful eye on his skipper. "It were a risk to come here. They been a-layin' fer us."

"A risk known and well worth," Nathan said with a significant look. "Damn. I fancied she'd had enough of our fire and thunder off Barra Terre. Very well, let's give the sod what he seeks."

"She runs better and she has the wind. We've land in our lee to boot," Pryce warned in his West Country rumble. A cautionary nod indicated a nearby island.

"That she does, but we have the greater will, have we not?" said Nathan with a fleeting smile.

"She's brailing up her courses, sir," came a call from overhead.

"Well, there's your answer, if anyone fancied she meant to hail us for tea, eh?" Nathan grumbled.

Cate understood precious little of the exchange, but none of it sounded good, she thought as she watched the lower corners of the Nightingale's mainsails draw up. Even a landsman such as herself could see the two-masted ship was smaller and sleeker, her sails triangular as opposed to theMorganse's square, and ran her length rather than across. A long, dove-tailed streamer broke from the Nightingale's peak and the pirates gave a jeering roar.

"What is that?" she asked.

"He's declaring his superiority, like he's the goddamned Commodore hisself. We're expected to hove to," said Nathan.

"'Tis usually reserved for ships sailing under the King's papers," Pryce explained with equal contempt.

Nathan glared across the water. "Not bloody likely, the split-tongued, master rogue. She might be smaller and handier, but she's outnumbered and outgunned. Action stations. Hoist the colors."

A heavy flap, of a different timbre than canvas, drew her attention upward. There she saw the black and white banner at it was unfurled from a backstay, and a cheering roar went up from the crew. When seen from directly overhead, the haloed skull leering down, it was even more massive and imposing. Cate burst in a half-laugh, half-sob, seized by a thrill of fear, and at the same time, an inexplicable surge of empowerment and pride.

"On deck, there. Sail ho!" came from above again.

"You've gone feeble, mate. We've made her," Nathan called up.

"Nossir, 'tis another. Larboard astern."

Nathan cast an eye in that direction and swore. "It would appear an escort had been sent for the good ship Constancy."

Guilt heated Cate's face, as if she was somehow responsible for this. It was possible the two ships had intercepted the Constancy and Chambers had told them of her being taken. Judging by Nathan and Pryce's reaction, this was a continuing rivalry, which made her presence no more than coincidence.

"She's the Eclipse, sir," came from overhead shortly after.

"Captain Eldridge Simmons, commanding," sighed Nathan with a scornful smirk.

"Harte's minion," said Pryce.

"More like sacrificial lamb," Nathan shot back, grudgingly. "One would have liked to assume His Pompousness Commodore Harte would have sent one with a stomach for the smell of powder."

"Which means?" Cate asked, more testy than intended.

Nathan smiled tolerantly. "The Royal Navy puts a great store in its gunpowder. A ship is set out with an allotment and not a grain more. Anything beyond said allotment is the captain's expense. Yon Captain Simmons is ambitious, but he's also cheap."

"Which means?" she pressed.

"Which means our fair foe will do everything in his power to avoid using the one thing what could gain what he desires: a prize, and a fat prize we would be."

"Thrice afore he's cut 'n' run," Pryce put in.

"And more than likely to now. Pass the word to Mr. MacQuarrie: bar and chain shot. Dismast them before they splinter ours," Nathan told Pryce as he handed off the helm. "Clear the decks. Blood is what these bastards came for, so let's show them theirs."

Pryce thundered down the gangway, the men scattering to their posts ahead of him. They raced either to the guns, and the ship's defense, or the rigging, and the ship proper. None of the dread seen on the Constancy was here. These men knew full well what was about to come, and like a glutton dove in without regard for indigestion.

In the face of the burst of activity, Cate's first urge was to do something, yet had no notion of what. She discovered again that it was possible to be bathed in a cold sweat in the tropics, an icy stream of it trailing between her shoulder blades. Seeing the pirate ship bear down on the Constancy had been a nightmare. Now she stood on that very ship as another enemy bore down. It was like a revisiting bad dream: scary, yet familiar. The waiting, however, was the same, time being ticked off by each wave cut by the Nightingale andEclipse's bows.

"Mates," Nathan called down to the main deck. "Yon ships desire our heads. Let's hand them their asses instead. Blow these bastards back to the festering hell from which they came. A fourth of me share to the gun crew what takes out their helm."

A rallying cheer went up. The ship vibrated as the port lids slammed open. Shirts cast off, backs glistening with sweat, the crews manned their guns, ramming home wadding and charges. Bellowing "Heave!" they hauled on the side-tackles, the guns rumbling home into their ports.

The Nightingale was the first to fire: a shot across the Morganse'sforefoot.

"Manners, if you please, Mr. MacQuarrie! Pray send that sodding bastard a reply to his invitation."

The Master of the Guns glared down the long barrel of the gun nearest the bow, intent on the swell. "Fire!"

The gun barked, MacQuarrie arching his body away from the recoil. A tongue of flame licked out from a cloud of smoke and a ball shot out, hurtling across theNightingale's bow. The deck was still vibrating under Cate's feet from it when Nathan pulled her around to him.

"You need to get to the hold," he said. "They will seek to rake us by the stern, so go as far to the forepeak as you can. And for God's sake, keep your head down. Mr. Pryce, a pistol, if you please."

The requested weapon was delivered. Nathan took it and matter-of-factly set to checking the load and priming. When finished, he touched a finger to her chin, his gaze fixing hers.

"Listen to me, luv. Take this. Save it for yourself. If we're boarded, use it. Even in breeches, with those curves you'd never pass for a man. Do not allow yourself to be taken. Sabe?"

Her gut knotted at what that meant. She looked to the ships looming closer. Was the enemy of the pirates automatically her salvation, or was the Nightingale a menace to all in her path? Where did the Devil lie? Either ship could be her salvation, rescuing her from a fate worse than death-until her identity was discovered. Imprisonment and the executioner's block waited after that.

There were no answers, only instincts. She looked into Nathan's steady gaze, solemn and intent. Was he to be her captor or protector? Savior or curse?

"Very well," she said and took the weapon.

"What?" he mused at her surprise. "Shocked to be armed? 'Tis one against over a hundred. We'd have to be a bunch of cod-handed, Dutch-built dolts if we were to be shot by a lone woman. And to what point or purpose would it serve?"

He paused to regard her anew. "But then, perhaps I presume too much. If you prefer to be with them, then say the word and allow us to save the powder. You'll be adrift within half a glass and aboard that fair ship before the sun is below the gun'l."

Her silence was his answer.

"No worries." Grinning at her dismay, he winked. "'Tis old hat. I've suffered far better and survived far worse. Now, do not come out, no matter what you hear."

He leaned to kiss her lightly on the top of the head. "I swear I'll fight for you. Now go."

She was too numb to be startled by his gesture or words. She felt herself being urged toward the steps. By the time the shock had worn off, he was gone, deep among his men. She woodenly made her way to the forward companionway through the throngs of scrambling men. She saw their mouths move, but their voices were muted, as if heard under water. At the top of the steps, she stopped to look back at Nathan, shouting orders from the quarterdeck break.

Damn him! He was enjoying this.

He caught sight of her and smiled.

With a smile like that, how could she not have faith?

Winking, he waved her on.

"Lively, now. Bear a hand, there. Puddening chains, if you please, Mr. Hodder" was the last she heard of him as she went below.

The scene 'tween deck was chaos, but an organized one. Muskets and cutlasses were dispersed, while strips of cloth were secured around heads, arms, or waists, to differentiate themselves from the enemy. Tubs of slow-match and baskets of cartridges were brought up from the hold, while wet sand was spread against slippage in the inevitable blood. Over the din could be heard the rap of the carpenter and his mates' hammers, for "clear the decks" meant not only stowing every object which might pose a hazard, but knocking down the cabin walls.

She took Nathan's instructions to mean she was to go to the lowest point possible, and so she continued downward. She hung onto the manrope to keep from being bowled over by the hands racing up and down with laden arms. At the bottom of the steps, she balked. The hold was dark and airless, smelling of things gone too wet for too long. What checkered light that managed to squeeze through the grates lost its battle against the void and died within a few paces.

Cate turned away from the stream of men, toward the bow. Clutching the pistol, sliding one foot in front of the other, she groped her way past casks, hogsheads, bales, and crates. Each step took her further from the furor of preparation, and the comfort of human voices faded. She thought a few times she had reached her destination, only to discover it was a barrel or some other obstacle. She pressed ahead, Nathan's final words still ringing in her ears.

If I'm not to worry for him, then why did he tell me to shoot myself?

At last, a blind hand verified a solid wall before her. The ship veered and lurched. She skidded on the wet boards and came down hard on one knee. Swearing away the pain, she crawled to the wall and planted her back against it, ignoring the wet coming up through the planks and soaking her breeches.

Don't let yourself be taken.

Where had she heard that before, she thought grimly. The advice came readily enough, but she had yet to be advised as to how she was to accomplish it. Such advice carried even more weight coming from a pirate, the very one she had been warned against. Unlike the Constancy, she felt a kinship with Nathan and his men, for their hatred of the Nightingale had been as instant and visceral as Highlanders sighting British patrols.

Save this for yourself.

Cate looked down, but in the blackness could only feel the pistol. It was a chilling prospect: to kill herself rather than being taken prisoner. Or, she thought, fondling the cool metal, had Providence provided her another way, a means to escape it all?

One shot and be eternally free.

It was the first time since everything had been lost that she held a weapon. True, a blade had always been to hand, but a pistol promised an efficient end to the misery, starvation, and worst of all, loneliness.

Click.

And then what? She contemplated at what point she would hear no more: the metallic working of the hammer, the gunpowder's hiss, or the discharge itself? Or would she be aware long enough to hear the retort in the hold, fading as her life did?

All further thoughts were blotted out by the first great gun blast, the next only seconds after, followed by a rolling sequence from fore to aft. The reverberations clashed into each other and settled in her bones. Cannon-guns, on a ship-was nothing new to her. Those experienced before, however, had been with land under her feet and a husband at her side. Now, she was surrounded by nothing but sea and strangers. She knew little of sea battles and didn't share Nathan's confidence: two ships against one seemed impossible. The piercing of 12 inches of oak wasn't unthinkable, dooming them all to a watery death. She tried to convince herself that she should find courage in those guns: they were the Morganse's defense, their safety in every bone-rattling burst.

The splintering crash of the Morganse taking her first hit dissolved all resolution. Cate felt the ship shudder through the wood at her back. TheMorganse sagged, but then came up on the swell, rising above the pain, and fired. The voices of Widower and Merdering Mary joined in from the Captain's cabin, confirming Nathan's prediction: the Eclipse had crossed the Morganse's stern. The deadly duo aft fell mute, and the starboard guns spoke as the Eclipse crossed. The Morganse was now in a crossfire.

The ship's timbers creaked under the strain of firing, flinching at every hit. It became a hypnotic din: the guns' roar, the crash as they leapt back against their tackles, the bellow of men and rumble of carriages being hauled back into place.

Roar. Bellow. Rumble. Roar. Bellow. Rumble...

It was a three-beat tempo from a 36-piece orchestra.

The crossfire was short-lived, the guns firing on the Eclipse going quiet. The retort of the Nightingale's guns, however, grew louder, which meant she was pressing nearer.

Fingers of fear crawled up like the wetness at Cate's bottom. The water seemed to jet higher between the planks with every roll. The waves rushing past the hull sounded too much like water over a falls, pouring in, the ship becoming nothing more than a coffin. The acrid smell of gunpowder overpowered the hold's dankness. On the smoke rode the shrieks of the wounded and dying, and the smell of blood. It seemed impossible that anyone could remain alive in the face of all the gunfire.

Not Nathan, please, not now.

The deck pitched as the ship carved another turn. The thud of the great guns gave way to the staccato crackle of small arms: muskets and pistols. The barrages were a pummeling assault, one lethal wave overlapping the next. The ship slowed, and then came the grind and scrape of wood against wood, like two gigantic tubs, the wood at Cate's back reverberating with the collision. All sense of motion ended. The musket fire intensified. Deafened by the guns, she could barely make out what sounded almost like an infantry charge: the cries of men, the clash of swords, and sporadic pop of pistols.

And then, it was quiet.

It brought no sense of peace. If she had been scared before, she was terrified now. She wished she had paid more heed to the stories on the Constancy and knew more of what constituted victory at sea. On land, it was often a matter of which side took the fewer casualties or gained the most ground. Was it a simple matter of which ship was still afloat, which captain still stood, or were there other deciding factors?

Cate clutched the pistol and waited. Joints aching, hand cramping, time became interminable, marked off by her shuddering gasps from holding her breath while striving to listen. Smoke rendered the muggish air nigh unbreathable. She vibrated with the desire to go help with the wounded; Nathan's final demands the only thing holding her back.

No, not "final demands."

"Final" was a word which put him too near the grave. "Parting wish" sounded ever so much more bearable.

Having wished for the sight for so long, when the lantern appeared, she thought the glow through the gloom and smoke to be a dream. Unsure if it was friend or foe, she cowered against the bulkhead, clasping a hand to her mouth lest the rasp of her breathing reveal her location. There was nothing to be done for her heart; hammering so loudly, it was sure to give her away.

"Hoy! Missus?" came a voice through the dark. "Cap'n begs you leave."

And then, the light disappeared.

Rising stiffly, Cate groped a return path, the fogged light through the grates and the cries of agony her beacon. Finding the steps at last, she came up to the gun deck into an ethereal world. The sun streamed through the ports in glaring shafts through whorls of grey smoke, the men moving like dark ghosts. From the swirling clouds came voices, thickened and muffled, orders colliding with pleas. She came upon a wounded man leaned against a gun carriage. As she knelt, she was touched on the arm.

"He's gone," the pirate shouted, semi-deafened by gunfire. His smoke-blackened face pinched with grief as he looked down at his fallen mate.

Her ears still ringing, it took a moment to fully understand what he had said. Her first impulse was to argue, but then saw his meaning. The man sat clutching his abdomen and the shard of wood that had speared him, nearly the thickness of his arm. His life oozing between his fingers, he wore the shocked look of one knowing he was about to die and naught to be done about it. Another, sprawled nearby, had been taken by a more merciful means, half of his head cleanly swept away.

The drive to find Nathan strengthened. Seeing him safe would allow her the peace of mind to tend the rest. Wiping her eyes, now burning from the smoke, she climbed to the main deck, the dread of what she might find weighting every step.

The last rays of afternoon slanted on damage that was far worse. The breeze, which now barely stirred, failed to clear away the stench of death. Cate had seen the havoc wrought by a cannonball on an open battlefield. It was nothing compared to what 16 pounds of hurtled iron could do, smashing through everything-and everyone-in its path: shredded canvas, splintered wood, and snarled rope, the shattered bodies resembling half-butchered hogs. Hanging shoulder-high, the smoke shrouded anyone standing, giving them a ghastly headless appearance.

Her bare toes curled as she picked her way through the destruction, cautious of the treacherously slippery blood that streamed toward the scuppers, the surrounding sea taking on a brackish pink cast. She closed her ears to the gurgling coughs and death rattles that she passed. It was too late for them. Pryce hunched over a man propped against the bulwark; Kirkland was not far away with another casualty. Tiptoeing through offal and vomit, she felt something round and slightly giving underfoot. She looked down to see a fingertip sticking out from beneath her foot. More could be seen lying about, single knuckles to entire digits, with the occasional pinkish curve of an ear.

The silence in the aftermath of battle was always the most deafening, the elation of victory doused by destruction. These mariners bore the added pain the damage suffered upon their ship, a lady who had fought as valiantly as they. Their efforts were divided between tending their mates and her. As before the battle, it was a scene of chaos, but again with purpose. The powerful voices of the captains of the tops, forecastle, waist, and the like, rallied their men. The mariners busied with tending each other, tying rags about bloodied limbs and heads. Some sat stoically as his mate fished into his flesh with a knife for whatever battle had inserted. The more seriously injured lay waiting, either to die or for help, whichever came first.

The price of victory.

The wreckage of rigging and spars was already being cut away and tossed overboard, along with the bodies of those past identification or Nightingales. No one here would mourn the latter.

Her heart lightened at finding Nathan. He stood amidship, sword clutched in his fist. He whirled around at her approach, eyes still wild with the exaltation of battle. His bloodied blade raised, and then lowered at seeing it was her. His cuffs and sleeves were crimson. A fine spray of blood, like paint flung from a brush, flecked his face and chest hair, kept brilliant by his sweated skin. A trail of scarlet ran down several braids from a dark blot on his headscarf, near his crown.

He swiped the blood from his smoke-blackened face. His breath coming in ragged bursts, he lurched unsteadily toward her, but stopped when his foot hit something: an arm, severed near the elbow.

He kicked at it in frustration and fury. "Goddammit to fucking hell! Is this what you expected, woman?"

A nearly decapitated body lay at his feet. A vicious swipe of his blade finished the job and he bent to snatch the head up by the hair. She stumbled back several steps when he charged at her shaking it, the dead eyes rounded and frozen.

"Pirates! Heartless, soulless, ravaging barbarians, without a shred of decency or humanity," he shouted, the cords in his neck rigid.

He grunted with the effort of tossing the thing over the rail. "Goddammit, I didn't want this," he extolled to the sky.