Free The Adventurer by Jaclyn Reding

twenty.”
    “Gun ports?”
    “Open, sir.” A moment passed, and then, “Sir?”
    “Aye, Davy?”
    “She’s an odd craft. Ne’er seen one like it. She’s painted gray, even her sails, like she belongs to the fog somehow ...”
    “Captain Grange.” It was Lady Isabella’s voice. “Is there any cause for alarm, sir?”
    He scarcely heard her. He certainly didn’t answer her. He was too caught up trying to decide whether he should slow up to draw alongside the other ship, or call for more sail, turn to starboard, and make a run for it.
    “Davy!” he shouted.
    “Aye, Cap’n?”
    “Is she flying colors?”
    A pause. “Aye, sir. She’s wearing the red Meteor ...” The British nautical flag. Grange let go a breath of relief.
    “It’s union down, sir. And it looks like there’s a fire on deck ...”
    “Hold!” Grange shouted without another moment’s hesitation. “Heave to, lads! She’s in distress!”
    The crew jumped to order, scrambling up the rigging like spiders on a web, pulling up lines and repositioning the sails with clockwork precision. It was a maneuver they’d practiced time and again, and which they executed this time to perfection. In minutes, the ship was no longer pulling on the water’s current, but drifting, losing speed. Grange held to the wheel, steering a flagging course for the other ship through the shadows, parting the fog with a pendulous, almost eerie silence. It seemed as if the very wind had paused to hold its breath.
    Very soon the other ship came into view.
    She was a sleek-looking brig with two masts, square-rigged. As Davy had said, she was painted a milky gray that made her difficult to see in the fog. Grange could see no one on deck or up in the rigging through the cloud of black smoke that plumed up from the deck. Her sails were furled, and she bobbed sluggishly on the sea current, seemingly deserted.
    Grange steered to port, preparing to come alongside.
    “Davy, d’you see anyone?”
    “Nay, Cap’n There’s too much smoke. But I think I can make out her name.” A moment passed. “She’s called
Adventurer.”
    It wasn’t a familiar craft, but she could be out of one of the northern ports, Newcastle or Aberdeen.
    “You there, Simmons,” Grange called to one of the deckhands. “Take some of the men with you down into the hold and bring up buckets and rope so we can board her and put out that fire before she’s lost for good. The rest of you, keep a watch o’er the bulwark for sign of anyone who might be in the water.”
    Grange didn’t even want to think about the possibility of hauling in corpses.
    He steered the
Hester Mary
until she was nearly abreast of the other craft. He locked the wheel and started toward the bow. It was then he noticed the other flag, a second one fluttering in the breeze from the ship’s jackstaff. It was a flag he’d never before seen, a white background with a shielded blue lion rampant. Above and slightly off center was what looked like a hand clutching something—a dagger? He couldn’t clearly see.
    But he did clearly hear, a moment later, when the eerie silence was ripped by a raucous cry.
    Bratach Bhan Clann Aoidh!
    Grappling hooks hurtled over the side of the sloop, catching on the bulwarks and effectively tethering the two ships shoulder to shoulder.
Hester Mary
groaned against the additional weight, and came to a sudden, jarring halt.
    Pandemonium followed.
    The figures of some thirty men, maybe more, appeared on the deck of the
Adventurer.
They had wild hair and bearded faces and were screaming the most fearsome noise Grange had ever heard. They began spilling onto the foredeck of the
Hester Mary,
yelling, shrieking, brandishing broadswords, flintlocks, and studded targes.
    And then Grange realized it wasn’t screaming he heard. It was the bagpipes, and a single man stood on the foredeck of the
Adventurer,
blaring out an infernal noise.
    Good God, they were pirates ... Scottish pirates!
    The next minutes flashed