Read Chapter 33: The Traitor's Fall

The Spanish frigate came on fast, her bow wave a white scar across the grey swell. Hartley watched her from the Raven's quarterdeck, tasting salt and powder smoke on the back of his tongue. She was a lean thing, built for speed, her gunports open like hungry mouths.

"Mr. Bell," he called down to the waist. "Port the helm. Bring us broadside."

"Port, aye." The quartermaster's voice was steady, but Hartley heard the strain beneath it.

Isabel stood at the rail beside him, her hand resting on the hilt of a cutlass she had no intention of using. She had refused to go below when the enemy hove into view, and Hartley had not argued. There was no time for chivalry, and she had proved herself as steady as any man aboard in a chase.

"Hold your fire until she commits," Hartley said, loud enough for the gun crews to hear. "Let her show her teeth first."

The Spanish captain obliged. The frigate yawed, presenting her side, and a full broadside crashed out across the water. The balls tore through rigging overhead, and one struck the Raven's forecastle with a splintering crack that sent timber shards spinning across the deck. A man screamed.

"Steady," Hartley growled. "Hold."

"Captain—" Bell began.

"Hold."

The range closed. The frigate was reloading now, crew working furiously, confident in their advantage. She carried more iron than the Raven, and she knew it.

"Now," Hartley said quietly.

The Raven's guns spoke as one. The ship shuddered like a living thing, and smoke boiled out to hang between the two vessels. Through the haze Hartley saw the Spanish ship's mainmast shear at the deck and topple in a tangle of canvas and rigging. The frigate began to turn, wounded, trying to bring her remaining guns to bear.

"Second firing!" Hartley shouted. "Target her waterline!"

The gunners obeyed, ramming home fresh charges with practiced speed. The frigate had gone broadside to the wind now, her turn uncoordinated, her helmsman fighting the drag of the fallen mast. She was a beast caught in a net, and Hartley did not give her time to cut herself free.

"Fire."

The second broadside tore into her hull at close range. Hartley heard the crack of frames giving way, felt the shock through his feet. The Spanish ship began to list immediately, water pouring through the holes below her waterline. Men were leaping from her deck into the cold sea.

"Cease firing." Hartley drew his pistol from his belt. "Boarders, stand ready. We take prisoners."

The Raven came alongside the dying frigate. Grappling hooks arced through the air and bit into the Spanish rails. Hartley was first across the gap, boots landing on a deck slick with blood and seawater. The Spanish crew had thrown down their arms, their captain standing at the taffrail with a pistol pressed to his own temple.

"Do not," Hartley said.

The captain looked at him. He was young, younger than Hartley had expected, with the dark eyes of a man who knew he was about to die badly. "You will find nothing here, English."

"I've found enough." Hartley lowered his pistol. "Your ship had a purpose. A man. Tell me where he is."

The captain's gaze flickered, just for an instant, to the companionway leading below.

Hartley nodded to Tolliver, who was already moving toward the hatch, cutlass drawn. The boatswain disappeared below, and a moment later there was a shout, a scuffle, the crack of a fist meeting flesh.

Tolliver emerged dragging a man by the collar of a fine wool coat. He was a heavy man, soft-handed, with the look of a clerk or a merchant rather than a sailor. His face was purple with rage and bruise, one eye already swelling shut.

Silas Grim.

Hartley recognized him from the few times their paths had crossed in Plymouth. Cecil's agent, the man who moved money and messages between the factions, who smiled in taverns and knew where every secret was kept. His coat was torn, his silver-buckled shoes soaked with seawater.

"You," Grim spat. "You ruined everything. You were supposed to be dead a dozen times over."

"Reports of my death," Hartley said, "have been greatly exaggerated."

Grim said nothing more as Tolliver dragged him onto the Raven and threw him to the deck like a sack of flour. The Spanish crew were being herded into the forecastle under guard, their wounded carried below to be tended as best Isabel could manage.

Hartley stood over Grim. The man had stopped struggling. He stared up at Hartley with the exhausted hatred of a cornered animal.

"Cecil's plan," Hartley said. "Tell me."

"And why should I?"

"Because I've heard what Cecil does to his friends who disappoint him. I imagine it's worse than what I'll do to you." Hartley crouched, so his face was level with Grim's. "But I'll make you a promise. Cooperate, and you'll stand trial before the Crown. They'll hang you swiftly and clean. Refuse, and I'll leave you on this ship with a burning fuse and a prayer of your own choosing."

Grim's eyes moved, searching Hartley's face for bluff. He found none.

"Cecil wanted a peace," Grim said at last, his voice flat. "Not an English peace. A Spanish one. He sold the map to them. The true invasion plans, the dispositions of every ship in Howard's fleet. In exchange, then Spanish Court promised to keep his estates and his life when they took the throne."

"That's not a peace," Hartley said. "That's surrender."

"Call it what you like. Cecil called it pragmatism. England cannot win this war. He believed a quick defeat would spare the slaughter of a long one." Grim laughed bitterly. "He was always generous with other men's blood."

Hartley stood. "You have proof?"

Grim nodded slowly. "In my cabin. A ledger. Letters. Cecil's own hand, signing each page. I was to deliver them to the Spanish admiral when the fleet landed. They were to be his guarantee that the English would not resist."

Tolliver had already gone below. He returned moments later with a leather satchel, water-stained but intact. He handed it to Hartley, who opened it and saw the first page, covered in a neat, familiar hand.

Francis Cecil's account book.

Hartley closed the satchel. "Take him to the hold. Post a guard. If he speaks to anyone, shoot him."

"Aye, Captain." Tolliver hauled Grim to his feet and shoved him toward the companionway.

The Spanish captain was still at the rail, his pistol hanging loose in his hand. Hartley walked over to him.

"Your crew will be released at Baltimore," he said. "The war will decide the rest."

The captain looked at him with something close to wonder. "You spare us?"

"I'm not in the business of killing men who cannot fight back." Hartley glanced at the Raven. She was wounded, her rigging torn, her forecastle smashed. But she would float. "You'll need boats. There are islands to the west."

He left the captain there and returned to his own deck. Isabel met him at the rail, her arms crossed, her face pale.

"Grim?"

"Confessed. Cecil's the architect. He has help in the Court, someone higher up. Grim didn't know their name." Hartley felt the weight of the satchel in his hand. "But this will hang Cecil regardless. If we live to deliver it."

"Baltimore?" she said.

Hartley looked toward the west. The Armada was out there, somewhere beyond the horizon, moving toward Plymouth and the marshlands where they would land. Howard was staging at Baltimore, ready to meet them. But Howard did not know the true landing site. He would commit the fleet to Tinside Cove and find nothing.

"Baltimore," Hartley said. "And we'll need every inch of luck to make it."

He ordered the sails trimmed and the course set west-northwest. The Raven's wounds were tended as they moved, rigging repaired, the broken timbers of the forecastle shored up as best they could manage. Grim sat in the hold, under guard, his satchel of proof locked in Hartley's cabin under Isabel's watch.

The sea stretched wide before them, grey and empty. Somewhere ahead was Howard's fleet. Somewhere behind them, a Spanish patrol ship settled into the deep with her dead.

Hartley stood at the helm, hands on the wheel, the taste of salt in his mouth. For the first time in days, he allowed himself a small, grim satisfaction.

He had the evidence. He had a path forward. He had a crew that still followed him, despite everything.

What he did not have was time.

The sun sank toward the horizon, painting the sea in bands of orange and iron. The Raven drove on, her bows rising and falling in rhythm with the swells, and Hartley watched the dark gather at the edges of the world with a privateer's patient hunger for what lay beyond it.