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Port of Rousse

Guernsey

“S he took my goddamn 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 do not 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 called your 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’s what 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.”

Arnaldo could picture that in his mind a little. He wasn’t hugely familiar with the Bristol Channel, so he mostly had to take the Irishman’s word for it.

“But why?” he asked. “Why would she do that?”

“Who knows?” Crusty said. “But if they are your ships, then now is the time to go and get them. If she’s moored them inland and has traveled somewhere into England, those ships will be lightly guarded.

She’s probably paid some men to watch them, or left men on board to watch them, but they’d be no match for The Sea God. ”

Arnaldo’s mind was whirling with the possibilities.

“I could get them back,” he said, excited for the first time since the conversation started.

“But it seems incredible to me that they are in Bristol Bay. I followed Bloody Maude’s trail to Scotland, but I lost her in those damnable islands to the north.

I tried to look for her along the coast of Wales, but the Welsh hate pirates more than the English do.

No one would give me information on her, not even for a price. ”

“Then you are fortunate I will,” Crusty said, mirth in his expression. “Also, if it matters to you, the same Spaniard told me that Maude has a prisoner with her that she may ransom. A woman.”

Arnaldo stiffened. “And she took the woman inland?”

“I would not know, but it is possible that is where her buyer is,” Crusty said. “You might find out if you find her moored vessels.”

That didn’t seem to please Arnaldo. “Damnable woman,” he muttered. “I want my ships back, but I also want her.”

“Who?”

“The woman who stole my ships.”

“Is that not who we are speaking of?”

Arnaldo shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “My father’s wife took them from me first. Bloody Maude happened to capture both her and the ships.”

“And you want your father’s wife returned along with the ships?”

Arnaldo nodded firmly. “Indeed, I do,” he said, his dark eyes taking on a dangerous gleam. “I have something particularly interesting planned for the dowager duchess.”

Crusty wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew it wasn’t good. Arnaldo clearly had a vendetta against his stepmother. Family feuds were always the most brutal because blood and emotion were involved, so he didn’t ask further questions.

It wasn’t his business, anyway.

“My suggestion would be that you go to Bristol Bay, to the River Parrett, and gain access to Combwich,” he said.

“I’ve told you all I know. But a word of caution—if you do go, beware of Triton’s Hellions.

Their home port is close to the mouth of the River Parrett.

You do not want to tangle with St. Abelard de Bottreaux, nor do you want to tangle with Santiago and his Sea Demons.

They have been known to moor at Fremington, which is along the western Devon coast.”

Arnaldo was listening carefully. “Then how do you suggest I get to the River Parrett and not cross their paths?”

“Do you have maps?”

“Of course.”

“Bring me a map of England and I’ll show you.”

Arnaldo sent one of his men on the run back to the Brizo and Crusty did, indeed, show him how to get to the mouth of the River Parrett by staying clear of Santiago de Fernandez and St. Abelard de Bottreaux, but it cost Arnaldo another sack of gold coins.

For what Astria had cost him so far, he was going to take it out of her hide and then some.

The Brizo set sail before dawn.