"After a certain amount of arguing over coffee as to how we managed to achieve such a commanding advantage, he'll commence to maneuvering for the weather gauge-to windward, to put us in his lee," he explained to her confused scowl. "Toward those islands over there," he added with significance.

Islands had a staggering tendency to all look the same, but those to windward were easily recognized, for they were the same strand she had stared at all day. In the pre-dawn, when the world became one-dimensional, only the gleam of white sand defined their shape. The Morganse was where she had been earlier that day, except the Valor was now ahead of them.

The mouse had just become the cat.

Nathan rocked on his heels in expectation of her next query. "And then?" she finally asked.

The first rays of the sun broke on his face as he waggled his brows. "All good things come to he what waits."

The Morganse flattened and ran like a horse with the bit in its teeth. The song of canvas and rigging was lost in the rush of the water down her sides, her cutwater slicing the deep blue. Her decks took a severe pitch once more. Readings from the log lines were called out from the leeward chains. Ten. Ten and two fathoms. Eleven. Eleven and four. Twelve and three.

Nathan laid aloft on a topgallant yard and there remained. To Cate's mind, there was a grand difference between chase and being chased. Nathan's half-smile and gleeful spark suggested he took a greater joy in the latter, outwitting his enemy as opposed to besting. Some hours later, he slid down a backstay, landing as a fairy might on a toadstool, and said "Sail ho!" with a beaming flash of gold and ivory.

Cate felt pity-only a modicum, but pity nonetheless-for the faceless, hapless Prichard. The Valor had to be suffering a certain amount of confusion, if not outright concern, as to how she had kept pace with the Morganse earlier, but now was being so handily outpaced. Eventually the Morganse was obliged to spill her sails, ever so slightly so that never a shiver nor flogging sail was seen, sure signs of a ship deliberately slowing. Cate was put to mind of that cat having now caught the mouse desired to play with it.

Nathan was in the mizzentop. His attention fixed well ahead of the Valor, he called directions down to the helm. The Morganse pressed the vessel like a shepherd dog goading an unwitting sheep, the Valor slipping further and further to windward, in order to gain the favored position.

By then, the Valor was near enough that the faces of her people could be seen as they scrambled, her port lids opening. The Morganse was astir, too: her boarding party making ready, dispensing weapons, affixing strips of red cloth around heads or arms to mark them as Morgansers, and preparing the boats-which had been stowed aboard at the first sighting of the frigate-to be roused over the side the instant word was given.

Nathan shot down a backstay. "Bow-chasers, if you please, Mr. MacQuarrie. Let's kick 'er in the ass and see if she might be encouraged a little faster."

Nathan stood with his eyes fixed on the chase with a half-smile of anticipation. Something was about to happen, and soon. Cate had no sooner stepped up next to him than she saw the Valor stop with a suddenness that sent her wake roiling up her sides nearly to her bow. The breeze brought the grind and howl of wood against a hard surface, and then the crackle of shattered rigging. Her topmasts came down on the heads of her people, draping her bow in canvas. One is never aware of the constant motion of a ship, until one is seen entirely motionless. An unnatural and eerie sight it was. The Valor was hard aground, up by the bow, her deck slightly angled toward the Morganse.

In the midst of the hands' rollicking cheer, Nathan was already down the steps and at the waist, shouting orders along the way.

From behind, Cate heard Pryce make a caustic noise. "Ain't no chart on the earth what shows that shallows, I kin warrant ye that."

The Morganse luffed up near enough for an easy pull across to her prey. The Valor had no topsail to douse, but a white flag-more like a tablecloth-showed at the aft cabin.

"Away all boats," called Nathan. A resulting splash could be heard from all four corners.

The deck was a mob of men, wild-eyed for battle, surging for the rail. Cate gaped in horror at seeing Nathan tuck a pair of extra pistols into his belt and a wicked-looking knife in his boot. He meant to go with the boarding party!

"You're the captain. You don't need-" she pleaded, grabbing him by the arm.

"Aye, but I do." And he was gone.

In the melee of men pouring over the side and down the nets, Cate didn't see which boat Nathan was in. As they rowed toward the Valor, She strained to find him in the scores of heads. And then, she saw him, the bastard! He stood like a damned figurehead at the bow of the lead boat, urging his men on.

The boats drew up at the Valor's side and were nearly hooked on, when the Valor's muskets opened fire on the unsuspecting pirates. It was a gross violation of a white flag. At the same time, the Valor muskets opened fire the Morganse. Someone knocked Cate to the deck and flung himself over her as musket balls and wood splinters shot past.

After the first barrage, the Morgansers raised their heads to glare over the rail. A roar of protests and obscenities dissolved into the furor of response. MacQuarrie and his gun crews stood in red-faced fury. They didn't dare employ his great guns, not with their mates in the line of fire. They were handcuffed and livid for it. Muskets, already to hand from arming the boarding party, were snatched up, the sharpshooters scurrying aloft.

Cate wound up half-crouched behind the bulwark, wedged between Squidge and Widower, as etched near her shoulder on the carriage. Squidge paused in his firing to toss her a cartridge box and kicked a musket to her, for her to begin reloading. She fell quickly into the rhythm of tearing the cartridge's paper with her teeth, pouring the contents down the hot barrel, ramming, priming and cocking. Squidge held out the empty weapon, ready to grab the next, grumbling, "Bear a hand! Bear a hand!" when she fumbled. With the steady resupply of cartridges and powder delivered, the barrels soon became so hot, she had to use her apron.

There were none of the rolling gun barrages. This was a battle of marksmen, meticulous picking off, a cry of victory going up at seeing a target fall. The air grew thick and acrid with smoke. Balls whirred overhead like a swarm of enraged bees. Spent balls bounced and rolled about the deck. Amid the continuous splat and crack of lead hitting wood, Cate felt splinters brush her body and tug at her clothing.

Underneath the gunfire, she could hear the clash of hand-to-hand fighting on the Valor. Through the disembodied voices bouncing between ships and the cries of the wounded, she strained to hear the one in particular: Nathan's. She felt herself slip back into another time, during the Uprising. It had been Brian she had worried for then. The anguish, smoke, sweat, and blood, however, were all the same.

"Hold fire!" It was Hodder, from somewhere further amidships.

And then, it was quiet, eerily so. A cheer went up at seeing that the Valors had surrendered, their raised hands visible as Cate stood.

The breeze stirred and the deck cleared. The smoke still hung in grey whorls in protected nooks. The jubilation of victory was brief. The Morgansers set immediately to seeing about their ship and mates. Cate set to seeking the injured and tending the worst. Only a few had been hit, most just grazed. Mute Maori had dug a ball out of the flesh of his massive leg with his rigging knife, before she could reach him. Scripps bemoaned the disfigurement of one of his precious tattoos. Several of his fellow topsmen had already offered good-natured suggestions as to how the scar might be incorporated in a new one.

Overall, the mood was relaxed victory. A job done and done well.

Sombers glared at the Valor as Cate wrapped his arm. "Praise God that goddamned hulk was straked. The sodding bastard woulda opened his guns else."

Cate glanced toward the Valor. Running up on the reef had left the ship leaning at least a strake, nearer to two. The gun ports allowed only a few degrees of variation in their elevation, which meant, if the Valor had fired, the result would have only been a great deal of dead fish.

"The spineless fucker was willing to kill himself and take every jack with him, all for the glory of King and Country," came Hodder's voice from somewhere behind her.

"Or endear 'imself," put in Pryce grimly. His waistlong pigtail was queued up at the back of his head for battle. "Aye, a-coming back dead could be a damn sight better 'n comin' back empty handed, where the Commodore is concerned."

Cate worked to treat the wounded, but her mind was with Nathan. She snatched glimpses over the rail toward the Valor, but saw nothing of what was happening over there. She cursed herself for over-reacting. She had sent Brian off to battle with far more aplomb, and he had always come back unscathed...for the most part.

At length, she paused in her labors at seeing the Valor's boats being loaded. Piles of plundered clothing, she judged, including flashes of the unmistakable Marine red. Once loaded to the point of near swamping, instead of being brought across, each boat was cast adrift, a torch tossed atop when the wind caught. They trailed away like a column of Viking funerals, their progress marked by curls of smoke.

Another lick of flame appeared, the Valor's Union Jack and commodore's banner set afire. The Morgansers jeered and hooted, baring their arses over the rail. The blazing fabric dropped from the Valor's poop deck and floated down, a small hiss marking the flames' death in the water.

Still no sign of Nathan.

Cate snatched a glass from the binnacle and focused on the Valor's decks. Its downward angle allowed her a full view. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing: an entire frigate of men all naked as Adam. Standing so closely packed together, their white bodies looked like maggots wriggling in the sun. She thought she should look away, but their eloquence in indignation was too delicious. Some were almost purple with outrage; they had to be the officers.

Cate scanned the wreck and ruin. It was rather shocking the damage that could be wrought by no more than musket and blade. The dead scattered about was testimony enough. A thin crimson stream poured from a scupper amidships, several triangular fins thrashing in the water directly below.

She flinched.

There it was again, that same stab, like an onset of the gripes. It was like a great fist seizing her gut and twisting.

The great hand of guilt.

It struck after every engagement, at realizing what she was a part of.

Pirates.

She couldn't reproach the Morgansers. To blame them would be to blame the hound for howling. She could see them on the Valor-easily, for they were the only ones clothed-and their familiar faces, the ones she lived among, the ones she laughed with and mended their bodies, now taunting the defenseless and naked Valors. The bitter taste of revulsion rose in her mouth at seeing the injured and dead had been stripped. The sight called to mind the aftermath of several battlefields. The scavengers picked through the bodies, going so far as to cut off fingers for rings and bashing out teeth for the gold.

And so, regret for what? At what point do you think you could have caused a different outcome?

"What a cold-hearted bitch you've become," Cate said under her breath.

Too late, my dear. That happened the day Brian left.

There had been no massacre, nor atrocities here, and there well could have been after such a gross deception. She was no neophyte; she knew what was done in the heat of battle, in war or when fighting for one's life. And fighting for their lives was exactly what the pirates were doing; their blood smeared her apron and crusted her nails. If anything, the pirates had been the ones to fight by the rules.

It was kill or be killed...wasn't it?

The glass grew slippery. She wiped her palms and peered again.

Still no Nathan.

Cate choked down the fear that tightened her throat at thought of him lying somewhere, that it was his blood draining to the sea.

She cursed Nathan for this damned feud of his. In a moment of honesty, she knew what troubled her: all of this destruction was because of it. This drive to best Harte and Creswicke went far beyond anything she had witnessed, including the Highlander clan wars, which could span generations over a mere patch of land.

Nathan's was a blood vengeance, to be sure. Over what would probably never be hers to know.

"Tut, tut. Ogling, are we? What would your mother say?"

Cate spun around to find Nathan standing behind her, grinning, still flushed with the exultancy of battle. Blood spattered his sleeves and he had a scrape on his chest, but he was whole...blessedly whole. Her heart warmed at the sight of him. She was caught between throwing her arms around his neck with joy and giving him a piece of her mind.

"Where did you...? How did...?" she cried. Then anger won out. "Damn you, you bastard. How dare you go running off like that. You could have been shot...or killed...or..." Her mouth moved like a fish gasping for for air as she searched for words.

Nathan shook his head, jangling his bells, and flipped a braid. "Charmed."

This exchange was made while he spun her about and patted her down, seeking to assure that she was well. He held up the side of her skirt to exhibit a hole, much like that which might have been made by a musket ball. The corner of his mouth tucked up and he gave her a paternal glare. His displeasure at her failure to find safety deepened at finding another.

"What happened?" she asked, interrupting the berating that was in the offing.

Nathan shrugged and dabbed the sweat from the side of his face. "Everything and nothing. Opened fire on our heads, the dung-souled maggot. Sharks what had been following the ship got those what fell in the water." A bit shaken at that recollection, a disgusted noise related the pursuant carnage.

"I can't believe they fired on you, not after a white flag."

"Pirate." Under his mustache, his mouth took a grim curve. "Nothing so low should reap the benefits of anything so gentlemanly."

"But you..."

He waved her away. "We did no different than every pirate from Bartholomew to Teach: took every shred of clothing. Clothes, tarpaulins, blankets, right down to the hammocks, the table napkins and the cook's apron: we took anything and everything what could be possibly shifted to cover one's ass."

Nathan looked judiciously to the Valor's shattered rigging. "'Course the sails remain, but that Number One duck will be blessedly rough on one's bum."

Cate recalled seeing the boats being loaded. "But you-?"

"Burned every stitch." He proudly rocked on his heels. "Allowing the men their pick, of course."

"Of course," she muttered to herself.

"Unlike the aforementioned sea rogues, we left them a boat, dinghy, truth be told. They shan't die of hunger or thirst, although sunburn will be a definite hazard," he said, curbing a smile.

"Won't they wash that off?"

Nathan looked with little remorse at the haloed skull and wings that had been painted on the Valor's side, shockingly white against the deep blue hull. "I pity the poor sod what will have to hang his bare ass between the Devil and the deep blue sea to do so."

Nathan shrugged as he turned away. "A week or so, and someone will come looking."

"And Commodore Harte?"

He stopped and turned, his smile broadening. "Will be oh, so very annoyed."

Whoops and hoots of celebration broke out as more men topped the gunwale, returning from the raid.

The celebration was on.

The Ciara Morganse was on the prowl again.

Chapter 7: Havens.

If the sails were a ship's heart, then the tar was the Morganse's lifeblood. The black goo coated every inch of the standing rigging, the sun's heat often causing it to drip in glob-like rain. In combination with oakum, it was tediously packed between every plank, literally keeping the ship afloat. Tarring, consequently, was a never-ending task, the smell of tar stoves, hot pitch, and loggerheads as prevalent as the sea itself. That same lifeblood, however, in swinging bucketfuls on lurching decks was a hazardous combination. Burns were commonplace.

On tarring days, Cate came to keep the stoneware jar of burn ointment and bandages in a basket at the ready. She knew the high-pitched scream unique to burns. Of all the injuries, she found burns to be the most difficult to face. Pirates were a stoic lot, but burns often pushed them beyond the pale. Her patient often gone white with pain, herself feeling a peculiar shade of green, she swallowed down the rising bile as she tweezed the raw, seeping flesh clean, applied salve, and then the wrapping.

One such day, she heard the familiar scream. Rising instantly, she grabbed the basket at her feet and followed the commotion to her next patient. He sat on the forecastle steps, hunched over his arm, rocking in silent agony. The offending tar had been yanked away, leaving an open, oozing blister nearly the size of her palm. With eyes only for the injury, she knelt to inspect, setting the basket next to her.

"I knew eventually I'd have you servin' me on yer knees."

She froze at the voice and looked up into Bullock's scarred face. He saw her surprise and grinned insolently. She ducked her head, intensifying her focus, but could still feel his brooding glare. Resting his arm on his thigh, he didn't extend it as much as he might, forcing her further between his knees. He groaned and swore, making a large show of his suffering, all the while leaning back, obliging her to come nearer yet. His breath blew hot on her neck. She inched away, but not far enough for comfort's sake-at the taffrail would have been too close. From the corner of her eye, she saw the grimed fingers pluck a lock of her hair from on his leg.

"Hmm! Be yer quim the same color, darlin'?"

Cate tried to rise, but was stopped by his foot on her skirt. He made no attempt to move it.

Bullock's comment had been uttered loudly enough so that there was no mistake, yet low enough for her ears alone. Glancing around, Cate saw that Bullock had timed the comment well. A burn was nothing new, this one too minor to draw comment. On a deck filled with men, they were alone.

She jerked her hair free of his grasp. Biting back several retorts, she prayed her hands to be steady, determined not to let the bastard think she was afraid of him. Still, she couldn't meet his gaze and he knew it. Over the smell of tar and burned flesh was his reek, a combination of sweat and animal lust.

Bullock bent, his lips brushing the top of Cate's head. "The Cap'n thinks we're over here a-exchangin' love notes."

She shook with the effort to not flinch, carefully measuring what it would take to land an elbow squarely in his crotch. Loath to cause a scene, she refused to play into his game, although she fancied an accidental slip of the tweezers, gouging the raw flesh.

Keeping her eyes fixed on her work, Cate strained to recall where she had last seen Nathan: on the quarterdeck, virtually the length of the ship away. Of course. Bullock wouldn't have had the courage, else. It was a small blessing: Bullock was dangerous in more ways than one. A "goddamned, swivel-tongued, son-of-a-double-eyed Dutch whore," as Pryce had called him, the man was the contagious type. His agitations could spread through a ship faster than wharf fever. Causing a scene, obligating Nathan to take action, could only fan the fires of dissention.

Giving the burn only a perfunctory cleaning-his arm could fester and fall off, for all she cared, the longer and more agonizing the process the better-she fumbled with the jar's cork. She scooped out the mixture of tallow, wax, and sweet oil, and took great satisfaction at seeing him flinch when she touched the raw flesh, admittedly rougher than might have been required.

Bullock gave a lewd smirk. "A man can't help but wonder what it would be for those hands to be a-greasin' his cock."

Cate lurched backward, ignoring the sound of her skirt giving way as she stumbled to her feet. The jar crashed to the deck. The hands nearest paused, looking interestedly on as she backed away, rigid. She kicked the cork from the shattered crockery and splattered ointment, hitting Bullock in the shin. Smiling, he regarded her with the cold eyes of a shark, his leering chuckle echoing behind her as she stalked away.

Cate's path aft intersected Nathan's as he came forward. She sought to brush past him, but he seized her by the arm, his countenance dark with concern.