Lions of the Sea

69

The night fell on the captured city, lit here and there by the flames of a house on fire. While the pirates gave in to a reckless, frantic looting, Laventry gathered the fleet captains. He appointed Hinault to gather the plunder and the important prisoners in the Governor's palace, sent Charron with a hundred men to keep the castle and he went back to the harbor with Harry.

At the pleasure house, he met with the owner and dropped before her on the table a bag overflowing golden coins and jewels. The house became his headquarters, but the access was heavily restricted. Only him and Harry, Marina's companions and a group of trusted men, to keep the house secure and carry messages. And the women, of course, who took care of them with their usual diligence. The doctor was accommodated in a service room. He got a handful of golden coins and the warning that if Marina's health didn't improve soon, his wouldn't either.

Marina fell in a light, upset sleep. Captive of the laudanum, tears kept rolling down her pale cheeks and her lips trembled in words from which they couldn't understand only one: Lion.

"We need to get her out of here," Morris repeated, oblivious to the echoes of violent chaos coming from the street. "This damned city makes her sick." He refreshed the cloth in the washbasin on the nightstand and stretched it again on Marina's forehead.

"What do you mean?" asked Harry, standing by the foot of the bed with Laventry.

"She needs to go back to the sea," De Neill replied.

Morris nodded, grimacing. "If only we had a ship. But your men set on fire all the boats they found in the harbor."

Laventry raised his eyebrows. "The Phantom is waiting in Willemstad," he said. The others turned to him in surprise. "Aren't you slow. Why do you think we let the others take the castle and hurried ahead?"

"We found the Phantom north of Curaçao," said Harry. "In bad shape, hardly crewed, but still kicking."

"It was heading to Willemstad to replace the masts and patch the hull up enough to go back to Tortuga with us. Jean La Ville told me about your crazy stunt, and that our pearl was captive here."

"I'm going to get it," said Maxó.

"I'm going with you," said De Neill. "Let's size a fishing boat like we'd planned."

"Two days to get there, another to get back here. We can have dinner so you leave with the midnight tide," said Laventry.

"Meanwhile, there's somebody who could calm our friend down with only the sound of his voice."

They all turned to Dolores. She'd accepted the clothes the women of the house had lent her. But nor her simple attire, nor being surrounded by the worst, most dangerous corsairs of the Caribbean, lessened her regal ways.

"Somebody?" Laventry repeated. "What are you saying, ma'am? Do you know a wizard or a better doctor than the one we brought?"

Morris sighed. "She's talking about Castillano."

Laventry and Harry were so baffled that they stepped back.

"The women told us that when he brought her here, the pearl wouldn't allow anybody else to touch her, and only his voice calmed her down," said Oliver.

"Touch her?"

Dolores chuckled at that gang of unscrupulous lowlifes at the brink of a heart attack out of horrified shock because a man might have touched their pearl. Her reaction was enough to let them breathe again.

"And where the hell is that bastard, that he's not here with her?" asked Laventry.

"How would we know?" De Neill shrugged. "Maybe he's already dead. He doesn't look like one to surrender."