Beloved Warrior by PATRICIA POTTER Read Free Book Online

barrels of ale.
    He took an offered mug of ale and tasted it, but nothing more. He had to be clearheaded for the day ahead, the days ahead. . . .
    Patrick saw MacDonald, the only other Scot. “Weapons?”
    “They be distributed among the oarsmen.”
    Patrick only nodded. They would have to be collected. But first he had to finish this. “Have you seen a sword?”
    “Aye. There was a cupboard full of weapons. I prefer a dirk, but the Spaniard took a cutlass. There were several left.”
    “Take me there.”
    MacDonald’s wrists were still bound by irons, but he smiled as he led the way to the weapons cache. The sound of laughter echoed along the corridors.
    Patrick knew he would never forget it.
    He found a sword, a rapier, among the clumsier cutlasses and balanced it with his hand. As a lad, he had trained mostly on the heavy Scottish Claidheamh Mor, the two-handed broadsword that relied on its mass to crush through the armor of an enemy. But during his years on the continent he had used the lighter rapier.
    This one felt right in his hands.
    Then he went with the MacDonald to the locked cabin.
    “WHAT do you think has happened?” Juliana asked as she paced the large, elaborate cabin. The silence had grown ominous now.
    Her uncle, obviously stunned, shook his head. “We should have heard something.” He looked at her. “Your father entrusted your safety to me, and I have no way to protect you now.” He hesitated, then handed her a dagger. “Do not let them take you alive.”
    She closed her fingers around the hilt. Better than the small knife she’d grabbed earlier.
    “They have been without women for a long time,” he said simply. “Go for your heart. I should kill you myself, but . . . I cannot. Perhaps I can bargain with them.”
    She saw fear in his eyes, in his face, and she wondered whether he had stayed in the cabin to protect her, or to let his crew fight the battle for him.
    He must have seen the question in her eyes.
    “It was too late, querida. I came back to . . . but I cannot do it. I cannot kill my own niece. The Church . . .”
    His hand trembled, and she wondered whether it trembled for her or himself. But his words struck less terror in her than the expression on his face.
    Cries of jubilation came from outside. Then a pounding at the door.
    Her uncle ignored the sound, though his fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword. Her own gripped the dagger. She knew the men roaming the ship must hate her uncle and, therefore, her. She remembered the fury glowing from the one oarsman.
    All of a sudden, the pounding stopped. She heard loud voices, then indistinct voices. Languages she did not understand.
    “They might listen to you,” she ventured finally, knowing they wouldn’t, yet unwilling to stand like a sheep to slaughter. “If you offer to free them . . . take them somewhere safe.”
    He looked at her as if she had two heads, and she realized how incredibly foolish she must sound.
    She had dreaded every moment of this journey to wed a man she did not know, but even that was preferable to what she knew must be coming.
    Still, she tried again. “They cannot know how to sail a ship. They need you.”
    “I doubt they care about that,” he said, stiffly, and she saw her father’s pride in him. Pride and arrogance. Pride and arrogance that would kill them both. He buttoned up his coat and looked in a mirror. He carefully placed a captain’s hat on his head.
    “They are not breaking down the door,” she ventured hopefully.
    He lowered his voice, the pride dropping away. “They are in no hurry. There is no place for me to go.”
    The new silence was as frightening as the shouts outside the door.
    He touched her face. It was the first sign of affection he’d ever shown. “Say your prayers,” he said. “I intend to say mine.” He lowered his sword to the floor, knelt and crossed himself.
    It was the first time she had seen his arrogance slip from his face.
    She knelt next to him.