Read Chapter 7: The Chase Begins

The cry came down from the masthead just as the last of the squall spat its dying breath across the deck. "Sail ho! Dead ahead, half a league!"

Hartley wiped the salt from his eyes and squinted into the clearing murk. The cloudbank had torn open like a ripped sail, and low golden light spilled across a grey sea. And there she was—the *Golden Hind*, hull down but unmistakable, her painted stern catching the sun as she wallowed in the troughs.

He had expected her to run. She did not.

"Mr. Pike," Hartley called, "shape a course to bring us across her bow. Redmund, arm the men and clear the decks for boarding."

Pike's weathered hands worked the wheel with grudging skill, but his jaw was set. "She's not fleeing, Captain. A merchantman with a clean hold runs when she sees a privateer's flag."

"Then she's either brave or stupid," Hartley said, though the words tasted wrong in his mouth. He pulled the glass from his belt and trained it on the Dutch ship. Her gunports were closed, her decks quiet. Too quiet. A crew that spied a predator should have been scrambling like ants from a kicked nest.

Isabel appeared at his elbow, clutching the shrouds to steady herself. Her hair was plastered to her skull, and there was a bruise blooming on her cheekbone from the storm's violence. "What is she doing?"

"Waiting," Hartley said. "Or so it seems."

"You don't trust it."

He lowered the glass and looked at her. "I trust nothing that sits still on an open sea. Not this season."

The *Swan* closed the distance, her bow cutting a white furrow through the chop. Hartley could make out details now—the Dutch flag snapping at her peak, the chipped gilding on her rails, the way she sat low in the water. Low enough to be carrying silver. Low enough to be carrying something heavier than coin.

"Captain," Redmund said, appearing at his shoulder with a cutlass strapped across his back. "We're within hailing range. Shall I—"

The *Golden Hind* answered before he could finish. Her gunports swung open as one, a clatter of hinges that carried across the water like a death rattle. Hartley saw the muzzles emerge—twelve of them, black mouths ringed with brine—and knew he had been a fool.

"Hard to port!" he roared. "All hands down!"

The world dissolved into thunder.

The Dutch ship fired a full broadside into the narrowing gap between them. The first salvo screamed past the *Swan*'s rigging, tearing canvas and sending splinters spinning through the air like thrown knives. A second followed before the echo of the first had faded, and this one found its mark.

Hartley heard the crunch of timber and the wet, ugly sound of a man screaming. He turned in time to see his helmsman—a quiet Cornishman named Dower—pitch sideways off the wheel platform, his shoulder opened to the bone by a shard of oak the size of a man's forearm. The *Swan* yawed hard as the wheel spun free, her sails cracking as they lost the wind.

Hartley was moving before he knew it, leaping the ladder to the quarterdeck and seizing the spokes. The wheel fought him, bucking like a live thing, but he threw his weight against it and hauled the *Swan*'s bow around, presenting a narrower target to the enemy.

"Pike! Get Dower below!" he shouted. "Gunners, ready on my command!"

The *Swan*'s own guns had been loaded for boarding, not battle—grape and canister meant to clear an enemy's decks, not punch through hull. But they would do. They would have to do.

The *Golden Hind* was turning now, her helm answering as she came about to deliver another broadside. Hartley could see men moving behind her ports, silhouettes against the glare. He counted them. Too many for a merchant crew. Too many, and too disciplined.

"She's not a merchantman," he muttered under his breath. "She's a warship wearing a merchant's coat."

"What?" Isabel had not gone below. She was crouched behind the binnacle, her eyes wide and white-rimmed, but she had not fled. "What did you say?"

"Stay down!" Hartley snapped. "Redmund, fire when her bow crosses our line!"

The *Swan* came around, and for a moment the two ships were parallel, trading shots across fifty yards of churning sea. The Dutch guns roared again, and Hartley felt the deck shudder beneath his feet as shot struck home somewhere below the waterline. He did not have time to wonder how bad the damage was.

"Fire!" Redmund screamed.

The *Swan*'s guns answered, a ragged volley that tore across the water and raked the *Golden Hind*'s forecastle. Hartley heard the shriek of tearing wood, the cry of wounded men. Smoke billowed between the ships, thick and acrid, stinging his eyes and burning his throat.

He hauled the wheel again, closing the distance. If they could get close enough, board her, the fight would be decided by steel and muscle, not powder. That was a fight he could win.

Then he saw Isabel rise from behind the binnacle. She was staring at something beyond his shoulder, her mouth open as if to shout a warning, and Hartley had just enough time to think *she should have stayed down* before the world cracked open beside his ear.

The splinter took her in the side. One moment she was there, a living woman with fire in her eyes; the next, a shard of the *Swan*'s own rail, torn loose by Dutch shot, had punched through her ribs and flung her across the deck like a rag doll.

She hit the planking hard and did not move.

The wheel jerked in Hartley's hands. For a heartbeat, the battle vanished. There was only Isabel's still form, sprawled on the blood-slicked deck, her hair fanned out around her like a dark halo, and the red stain spreading across her bodice.

"No," he heard himself say. "No, damn you."

"Captain! We're losing way!" Pike was back at his side, blood on his hands, Dower forgotten below. "We need to break off or we'll be sitting ducks for her next pass!"

Hartley tore his eyes from Isabel's body. The *Golden Hind* was already coming about, her gunners re-loading with a speed that spoke of hours of drill. If the *Swan* stayed in this fight, she would be blown out of the water.

But if they ran, they lost the prize. And without the prize, there was no debt to clear. No commission. No redemption. Only the hangman or Grimm's debt-collectors waiting in Plymouth.

He looked down at Isabel again. Her chest still rose and fell. Barely.

"Pike, take the wheel," he said, his voice flat. "Mr. Redmund, get below and see to the damage. The moment we've got steerage, come about and run for open water."

Redmund stared at him. "Run? Captain, we—"

"She dies if we stay." Hartley's voice cracked like a whip. "And she's not dying for a cargo of silver I haven't even seen. Come about, Mr. Redmund. That's an order."

Redmund's jaw worked, and for a moment Hartley thought the man would defy him. Then Redmund nodded once, sharply, and disappeared below.

Hartley knelt beside Isabel and gathered her up as gently as he could. Her eyelids fluttered, and for an instant her gaze found his.

"The helm," she whispered, blood bubbling on her lips. "It's not broken. It's a key."

Then her eyes rolled back, and she went limp in his arms.

Hartley stared down at her, at the broken locket that had come free of her collar to rest against her collarbone. The helm glinted in the dying light, and he realized with a cold, sick certainty that he had seen that sigil before.

On Cecil's seal.

The world tilted around him, and the *Golden Hind* fired again.