Page 38 of The Tempest
Astria stood up from the stump she’d been sitting on, smoothing the simple peasant dress she was wearing. “I will walk.”
“Good lass,” Maude said in approval. “I knew we’d get on well, eventually. Things aren’t so bad, are they? My Payne is a good lad. He’ll make a good husband.”
Astria didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t like she could refuse. She also didn’t want to seem agreeable about it, either, because she truly wasn’t, but so many things would fall into place once she married the Earl of Lismore, not the least of which was the fact that, as her husband, he would be obligated to protect her from Arnaldo. For the woman who had lived her entire life alone, with few friends or family, the idea of marrying a man who could actually protect her was the greatest lure of all. Perhaps with time he’d even help her wage war on Arnaldo and take control of the Titans of the Deep. She’d be The Sea God once again and they’d have their own seaborne empire.
Whatever the case, she no longer thought marriage was a terrible idea.
Maria Astria Julia lost something of herself that night, though she wouldn’t realize it until much later.
Loneliness.
She was no longer alone.
CHAPTER TEN
Port of Rousse
Guernsey
“She took mygoddamn ships and I want them back!”
The nearly shouted statement came from a young man with a good build, a handsome face, and dark, sultry eyes. He was gathered with a collection of men that seemed to run from the well dressed to the positively slovenly, all of them collected outside a seaside tavern in the small port town of Rousse. Overhead, the gulls cried and a sea breeze blew steadily inland, smelling of salt and surf. In front of a sea-bleached tavern called L’egout, which loosely translated to “sewer,” the man with the dark eyes seemed to be bellowing at some men across the table.
It was the meeting of two rather volatile groups.
“I understand the situation,” said a man who went by the unlikely name of Crusty Appleton. “We’ve received the message you sent around to other ports. You are looking for Bloody Maude and Medusa’s Disciples.”
“I am,” the dark-eyed man said, slapping his open palm on the table. “She captured two of my ships and also captured my stepmother, who stole the ships from me in the first place. I donot understand these women, thinking they can rule in a man’s world. There can only be one Sea God, and that is me!”
He slapped the table again, furious and insulted. Crusty had spent the past twenty minutes speaking to the young and passionate Duc de Tarragona, Arnaldo San Miguel, a man who insisted on being calledyour grace, but the truth was that he was a pirate just like the rest of them. Crusty and his men were from Kraken’s Horde, a faction of pirates out of Dublin who mostly controlled the Irish Sea when the Spanish weren’t trying to take their territory or the English weren’t trying to steal their ships.
It was a delicate dance in the hotly contested sea between England, Wales, and Ireland.
The Irish, however, were more apt to deal with fellow factions. They knew the value of alliance and in doing favors for those who were usually the enemy. That was the reason they had sent word to The Sea God, who had been off the coast of Le Havre, because rather than chase Bloody Maude around, he’d simply put out word that he was willing to pay a reward for information leading to her whereabouts.
And the Irish knew a little something about Bloody Maude.
The old bitch was perpetual thorn in their side.
“Here’s a little something you should know,” Crusty said as one of his men put a cup of cheap ale in front of him. “Bloody Maude’s father was Red Shane Connacht, who was my mother’s uncle. Maudie comes home to Ireland now and again, though she’s not been in a while. We’ve seen her in Scotland, but I heard from a Spanish merchant ship recently that they saw her in Bristol Bay.”
Arnaldo looked at him in surprise. “Bristol Bay?” he repeated. “What is she doing in Bristol Bay?”
“That’ll cost you.”
Sighing sharply, Arnaldo threw the man a small purse with gold coins, which Crusty handed off to his men to count. “Tell me,” Arnaldo demanded. “Why is she in Bristol Bay?”
Crusty waited until someone counted all the coins and gave him a nod. This was, after all, a business, Satisfied, he continued.
“She had a run-in with Triton’s Hellions,” he said. “You know that they rule Bristol Bay. No one gets in or out without them knowing. And no one wants to go up against St. Abelard de Bottreaux. Not even Bloody Maude. But she’s looking for something, I’m told.”
Arnaldo was more confused than he had been since the conversation started. “What is she looking for?” he asked. “The woman has my bloody ships—that’swhat I’m looking for. Did she take my ships into Bristol Bay?”
Crusty shook his head. “This, I cannot tell you,” he said. “But the Spaniard told me that she was seen going inland. Her ships are moored in Combwich.”
“Where’s that?”
“If you travel the south side of the Bristol Channel, you come to a sea town called Burnham,” Crusty said. “The mouth of the River Parrett is there. If you travel down the river a mile or two, you’ll come to Combwich.”
