Lions of the Sea

59

Morris tried to resist when he was shoved up into the cart with the others while they held Marina back, but the girl's look stopped him. And he had no choice but watch them hook her shackles to a chain at the cart's tail.

Alonso lined up the soldiers from the Trinidad behind the girl, muskets to their shoulders, and waited for the cart to start moving. He let it get several yards ahead before ordering the soldiers to march, keeping their pace not to shorten the distance with Marina. Castillano took the pier side and let his friend on the street side, hoping that seeing with his own eyes what was about to happen would enlighten him.

Despite the heat, her exhaustion, her thirst, and the stones and other small objects hurting her bare soles, Marina did her best to straighten up and hold her head high. People crowded the street outside the stores, taverns and brothels.

An uproar of curses rose when they started walking, and they even threw rotten fruits and greens at the cart. But as soon as people saw the beaten child chained to the cart, the yelling and cursing hesitated, and died away in disapproving murmurs as she passed by.

Before reaching the first corner, a bunch of women started following the cart. They cursed and spat the escort, and they even landed some slaps on the surprised soldiers.

The crowd waiting ahead to see the accursed seadogs that had done so much harm to them, ready to yell on top of their lungs and threw litter at them, soon noticed the growing group walking by the soldiers. They were mostly women and children, but some men had joined them too. So the uproar died away even faster out of curiosity. And when they saw Marina, the family wives crossed themselves, grabbed their daughters and took them away, so they wouldn't see such a disgraceful sight. And all the curses changed to address the escort.

Castillano met Alonso's puzzled frown and gifted him with an ironic smirk. He kept walking by his side, a hand on the hilt of his sword, face to the sun, as contented as coming out of church on a Sunday morning.

Marina's feet soon started leaving a trickle of blood drops behind. She tripped, suffocating a cry of pain, but she was able to keep the balance and walked on. The problem came when somebody threw a rotten orange, with such a good aim that it hit her on the face. It stunned the girl. She tripped again and this time she fell.

"Pearl!" Morris cried, leaning over the cart's back to try to release her chain.

The pirates shouted for the cart to stop and tried to jump on the soldier holding the reins, causing a brief scuffle with the other soldiers on the cart with them. Part of the group following the pirates ran toward the spot the orange had been thrown from, and soon a brawl with punches, insults and sprints ensued there. Some women pushed the escort out of the way, Alonso included, to help Marina. The girl had grasped the chain and tried to get back to her feet, but her bleeding soles slipped on the street, and the cart dragged her a couple of yards.

The women surrounded Marina and held her up. They cleaned the dust and the sweat from her face, gave her water, put her ragged clothes together. Alonso sent soldiers to help her, but as soon as they stepped up, women multiplied, and in a blink they were about two dozen of them, shoving and slapping the soldiers to keep them away.

Castillano circled the racket, leaving Alonso to his own device to protect his men, and approached Marina, intending to get her on the cart and put an end to that disaster. He found her resting against the back of the cart, among the women, catching her breath. One of the women had sliced the bottoms of her petticoat and wrapped strips of cloth around the girls' feet.

He stood before her, his face stating loud and clear he wouldn't fall for all that pathetic sappiness. "Enough, Velazquez," he grunted.

The women came between them. Marina kept them from attacking him, and met his blue eyes as she rested her chained hands on their shoulders.