The Swashbuckling Yarn of Milady Vixen Read online

  It was a three-mast affair with billowing sails of white upon the fore, main and mizzen masts. It possessed a low poop deck to the aft. Constructed out of sturdy Effingham oak, the craft was stained a dark color from many a journey upon the rough seas. A single row of hatches dotted the side of the passenger ship, and the small girl knew this was where the cannons were concealed. At the bow of the ship was a dolphin connected to the vessel by a wooden spray boiling out beneath the belly of the creature and spreading over the bowsprit in rolling waves. Violet thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The ship, of course, not the dolphin.

  “Ahoy there!” shouted a man in a white-and-blue striped shirt. “Are ye coming onboard?”

  “Yes,” her mother stated sternly.

  “Ye be the former duke’s mistress and his bastard child?”

  Violet bristled at this comment despite his speaking in a matter-of-fact tone, a statement instead of an insult. She watched as her dame’s shoulders stiffened. Like her mother, she stared daggers at the insulting knave.

  The young man’s untamed red hair was as wavy as the ocean and about as wild. He wore no shoes, had a red sash for a belt and a small cutlass stuffed into the scarlet material encircling his waist. His blue eyes danced with inner merriment. Violet judged him to be around sixteen or so, a gangly youth who smiled at them both. This didn’t make his statement any more tolerable.

  “Yes,” Suga answered.

  “Welcome onboard the Dancing Dolphin, then!” he cheerily called out.

  “Come, Violet.”

  As her mother towed her up the gangplank, Violet tried to take in every detail her brain could handle. Men worked diligently upon the decks and on the spars and entered and exited the cargo hold’s opening. The man who had greeted them bowed and led the two women to their cabin.

  “Captain Roebuck told me ye were to have the best accommodations possible,” he commented. “Although ye be exiled from Effingham, the master of this vessel believes the two of you were done wrong by the courts.”

  “He is a wise man, then,” Suga noted blandly.

  “Aye, that he be!”

  Escorting them into the small cabin just to the port side of the stairs that led to the poop deck, he flung the door wide and ushered them in with a bow and sweep of his arm.

  “If’n ye need anything, just sing out.” He grinned. “My name’s Tom, but everyone calls me Ginger Tom for the color of my hair.”

  “I will do so if necessary,” her mother stated.

  Shutting the door behind him, the strange sailor left the two exiles alone. Violet surveyed the cabin and found it contained a trio of hammocks, a table—bolted to the deck—and a pair of chairs. In addition, there was a footlocker standing just below the porthole on the port side. She scampered atop of it only after dumping her belongings—all except Mister Snookums. Peering out of the open portal, she watched the milling flocks of people on the docks with anger, occasionally glancing sorrowfully up to where she knew her father to be buried. Hearing the cries of the gulls, the slap of the water against the sides of the vessel and the general hubbub of the folk made her grief even more acute.

  “Take a last look,” her mother said unemotionally, “for we shall never return here.”

  “I will never forget it, Mama,” she said with a choking sob.

  “Other sights will soon be ours. My father is a great juju man in my village, and we will be welcomed as honored guests. You will learn many new things and have pleasant playmates in the jungle. I am sorry I ever left.”

  Turning around, she saw the impressive woman’s countenance crack for the first time in her life. Her mother’s calm and unshakable strength was legendary in the keep. Nothing seemed to bother her. Now faced with an ocean voyage, the death of her beloved husband and the cruel exile, tears began to well up in her deep brown eyes. Violet noticed with great pride her mother didn’t wail and beat her breast like many of the other females she had seen grieve. Instead in proud silence she cried, without false fanfare but with no less intensity and honest feeling.

  She is a warrior, Violet thought, and she would never show a loss of dignity. If I am to take my vow seriously, I should learn from her.

  After a few minutes, the tall and elegant woman took up her walking staff and sat down cross-legged on the deck. Violet watched with interest. From her sack her mother unveiled a sharpened and well-honed flint spearhead. Singing a song of the hunt in her native language, her dame lashed the dull, dark object to the staff.

  Mama is going to practice! Violet gleefully thought.

  Suga began kicking off her shoes and tossing the last remnants of civilization out the porthole. Violet watched her mother motion to her. With a haughty expression she met the gazes of the sailors while she climbed to the empty prow. Pointing to the very tip of the ship, Suga told her daughter without words where to take up her vantage point. Kneeling briefly, Mama set the short lance beside her and began chanting. All eyes were upon her. Suga’s dark chocolate skin, her swaying bosom, long, lean legs and proud arching neck were seared into the memory of everyone who witnessed her preparations.

  She stood without warning. Twisting her long braids into a ponytail, so it appeared a sea creature with endless tentacles had gripped her by the head, she picked up the spear on the deck. A surprised gasp was torn from every throat when she launched herself into a series of jabs, thrusts, and spinning movements too quick for the eye to follow. Her feet slapped against the floor in a primal rhythm, and a fierce look twisted her features. Violet studied every move, the powerful grace and the intense concentration of the spear dancer.

  Yes, I must be strong like my mother and learn the ways of the spear if I am to avenge my father, Violet swore inwardly.

  Of course you realize that Suga’s bizarre display was not truly for practice, right? She was sending a warning to the men whose hot stares she had detected when they had boarded. Any lusty thoughts or erotic daydreams died upon the flashing tip of her weapon. A woman has to look out for herself and her daughter—don’t you agree?

  To Sea with Thee!

  Violet was standing at the prow of the Dancing Dolphin, the salt spray in her face and the wind in her hair. Gripped in her right hand was a smaller version of her mother’s spear, and in the other was Mister Snookums. Looking out all around her, she could only spy the rolling deep blue waves until they met the sky far off on the horizon. The pitch and yaw of the ship’s motion had become second nature to her. Even the sailors toiling on the vessel had given her tight-lipped but honest grins at the speed with which she had obtained her sea-legs. Her mother, on the other hand, was often hanging over the side, retching loudly. Some people just don’t travel well.

  Pulling herself away from the mesmerizing view of the ocean, Violet began the spear dance her mother had been teaching her. Despite the work she had put into it these past two weeks, her solemn-faced mother critiqued her efforts harshly and found them unsatisfactory. Stomping her feet on the deck, avoiding the butt of her spear, Violent waltzed, spun and thrust.

  “I think ye are better off with a sword,” a man’s voice interrupted her.

  Her feet crossed up into the spear’s back length, dumping her onto her butt as the weapon flew out of her hands. It skewered the space between the sailor’s legs, making him hop back, both hands covering the precious cargo betwixt his legs.

  “Blimey, lass!” Ginger Tom exclaimed. “Be careful with that pig-sticker!”

  “Sorry, Tom,” Violet said.

  She stood up and rubbed her stinging backside, and the ginger-haired man laughed. It was an infectious sound, and soon she joined in.

  “If’n ye beg my pardon,” Tom started off. “I have something that ye might find to be more suitable.”

  From behind him he pulled a short sword, thin bladed and nearly her height. It was a common weapon, not
gilded or ornate, but it caught her eye and made Violet’s stomach tremble nervously. She snatched up the spear and aimed the flint point toward his once-more guarded crotch.

  “Now avast, lass! I don’t intend to spill your guts out with it,” he cautioned her.

  “You want to give that to me?” she growled suspiciously.

  “I thought I might teach ye to fence. I asked yer mother, and she said it’d be okay.”

  “The spear is the weapon of my people.”

  “Well, about that,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Your esteemed mother stated she’s given up hope you’ll ever learn it well enough. That’s how this got started. I told her about the sword I used to practice when I was a lad of your age, and she took up the idea quite nicely.”

  Violet was shocked and hurt by the man’s words. Trying her best and practicing twice a day since they first left port, she’d thought she was growing more proficient with the spear. To hear that all her hard work wasn’t meeting with her teacher’s—and mama’s— approval was like a stinging slap across the face.

  “So you’re going to teach me to fence,” she said, bottling up the tears and hurt.

  “If’n you don’t skewer me with that pig-sticker.”

  Jamming the spear into the deck, she reached out and took the slender blade from Ginger Tom’s hands. Swishing the sword through the air, she smiled at the familiar sound. She had to admit it was more familiar than her current dance partner.

  “Well,” he said nervously, pulling out his own blade. “Shall we begin?”

  With gentle words and instructions, the first man she’d spent time with since her father’s death described in great, yet simple detail the fine art of swordsmanship. Within an hour’s time, Ginger Tom and Violet were fast friends.

  “Where are you going, Violet?” her mother asked a week later on a sunny morning.

  The voice sounded like it should’ve been coming out of a dying woman’s throat, gurgling past her thick lips and rattling around the cabin. A slight greenish cast was about her noble face.

  “Out onto the deck to practice with my sword,” Violet answered.

  No answer came her way from the sickly woman swinging in the hammock. A quick nod was all she got before Mama snagged the porthole and retched noisily out of it. Violet saw she wasn’t terribly accurate with her aim. Running out and holding her nose from the bile-smelling stench, she took great gulps of the ocean breeze.

  The ten-year-old was stunned to see sailors running around shouting and yelling like the legendary Kraken had risen from the sea depths to drag them all to Davy Jones’ locker. Everywhere she looked was frantic industry; the crew had donned fear-laced faces and grim smiles like festival finery. There were rumblings beneath her feet and the hard wooden thunking sounds of cannon ports opening.

  “Tom!” she screamed upon spying her teacher, “what is going on?”

  “Get back in the cabin!” the man snarled.

  “Not until you tell me what’s wrong!”

  “Pirates, God curse the lot of them! We’ve been shadowed all night by a buccaneer’s vessel, and we haven’t been able to outrun it. Now they’re closing, and that means we’ve got to fight.”

  “I want to help!”

  “Don’t be stupid, you’re only a little girl—now get your mother and hurry below decks where you’ll be safe!”

  She started to say something, but a series of roars boomed out, and the Dancing Dolphin lurched to the starboard side as her guns went off. Huge white clouds of smoke poured over the top deck, making Violet choke and cough. With tear-filled eyes she fled back the way she came. The pirates’ answering shots hammering into the Dolphin’s side and the shuddering impacts knocked her off her feet. Scrambling on her hands and knees, she scooted across the threshold.

  “Mama!” she screeched. “We’re beset by pirates! Tom said we’re to go below decks!”

  “Let them come,” her mother snarled like an angry lion.

  The sickly woman was teetering on widely spread legs, her face set in a grimace of unshakable determination and her hands filled with her tall spear. Her long brown legs quivered, and her bosom rolled beneath her colorful dress when the Dolphin’s weak return fire rang out. Stumbling past a stunned Violet, her mother staggered like someone eagerly heading to a battlefield where they knew they’d never return. Violet knew her mother would sell own her life at a dear cost to be paid in full by buccaneer lives.

  No, Suga wasn’t committing suicide. You see, her mother bear’s instinct to preserve her one and only cub was in full swing, and hell would be gaping for any foolish mortals who put themselves willingly in her path.

  Teetering on shaky legs, Violet scampered after her mother, her own weapon gleaming in the dawn’s early light. Climbing the rocking and quivering steps, she found her way to her mother’s side. Off the starboard side she saw the pirate ship. A gasp tore out of her young lips.

  It was black, an inky shadow on the sea like some hideous blight. Dark gray sails billowed out, filled with the driving wind that threw the vessel through the choppy waves and past them like a thrown dart. Another thunderous volley of cannon fire raked across the Dolphin, tossing men, splinters and other debris into the air. Blood splattered hot and wet against the deck. Turning her face once more to their attacker, she noted that from the main mast an ebony flag flapped evilly in the wind. A blood-red hand was the only symbol it possessed, declaring this was no jovial craft, but a shark-like predator filled to the brim with terrible men hell-bent on greedy plunder and violent murder.

  “We’re doomed, Mistress Suga,” Captain Roebuck swore. “That’s the colors of the notorious pirate Captain Guy Pinsetter—the most feared scallywag ever to put to sea. He calls his vessel the Red Hand, and aptly named is she, for what she touches dies a bloody death!”

  “We cannot outrun them?” her mother asked, followed by a ragged burp.

  “Nay, she’s peppered the Dolphin good and proper—my men on the starboard side as well as below decks are wallowing in their own guts. She’s crippled us. Look! The bastards are heaving to and readying their grappling hooks!”

  Violet watched as the dark terror of the seas hooked around the nose of the Dolphin and began pouring iron shot into the port side of the stricken vessel. Sweeping around like a circling shark, the pirates readied another volley of death.

  “’Ware grapeshot!” Roebuck screamed.

  The Red Hand belched out a volume of white smoke, which made the ship disappear momentarily before the ocean winds drove the man-made cloud away. Something screeched past Violet’s head, a screaming wail as if death were whistling into her ear.

  “Ugh!” someone grunted wetly.

  Spinning toward the hideous gurgle, she saw Captain Roebuck had been cut in half by much smaller projectiles. His guts began oozing out of his upper half while the rest of him slid away, eventually dropping off the boat and splashing heavily into the water, leaving behind a grisly crimson wake. Rushing to the rail, she gaped in horror as she saw many of the sailors had met similar, terrible ends.

  “Mama!” she screamed at the grim-faced warrior. “The pirates are coming!”

  The ships slammed together as ropes flew into the air to bite into the shattered wood of the Dolphin. Wallowing together like drunken lovers, the merchant vessel and the pirate ship were quickly bound to each other. The bloodthirsty crew launched themselves onto the slick and splintery deck; their faces were lit like shining beacons from Hell.

  The remaining members of the Dolphin’s crew met the invaders. Sabers, cutlasses and knives skittered off one another in a many-voiced metallic hiss. Flashing like summer lightning, they struck and sprang apart. Pistols barked and muskets roared from shots fired off at point blank range. Violet screamed. The heat of battle had suddenly and unexpectedly filled her soul with an ancient and primitive call to arms tha
t coursed through her small frame. Another female battle cry rose high above the racket as Suga announced her warrior heritage. Heavy footfalls thudded up the stairs. Suga bent at the knees and knocked Violet down and straddled her prone body. They came.

  With wild-eyed wonder she witnessed her mother’s initial attack, which ripped the blue coiled guts out of a black-bearded pirate. His intestines splattered to the deck. Two more pirates tried to flank Suga, but she sprang at one, jabbing him under the chin with the sharp flint spear point. The other man’s cutlass found only empty air. Never giving an inch, Violet’s dame wove a spinning shield of death no blade could penetrate. Spreading out around her and herding her against the aft rail of the poop, the buccaneers stayed out of reach. It became an ugly stalemate none of the antagonists wanted to break.

  They may be wolves, but she, my Mama, is a tigress! Violet exclaimed proudly to herself.

  The men leered at her with sneering soot-stained faces. Most were covered in a fine dusting of gunpowder, some dripped with their opponent’s blood, yet others wore wounds of their own. The variety of them shocked Violet. Bearded, clean shaven, and mustachioed, each wore his facial hair in his own style. They all wore hardened expressions, as if their visages were stamped by a hammer that beat into their faces a commonly shared dark deed.

  Only one was different from the rest. Pierced and tattooed, a huge black man bearing the mark of a cannibal, possibly from her mother’s own tribe, ground his teeth angrily at the warrior woman keeping him and his colleagues at bay. His face was dotted with small metal studs, his teeth filed down to points. He licked his lips at Violet, his hungry intentions plain on his face.

  Finally, one of the pirates pulled out a long-barreled silver chased pistol. Shoving it toward the growling she-tiger, the man spat on the ground in contempt.

  “Never bring a spear to a pistol fight, bitch!” he rasped.

  “Shoot the wench dead!” a wrinkled-faced man spat, just off the man’s right shoulder.