Princess of the Blood. Roxana Malaventura

necklace of scrimshaw wolf-skulls encircles her shapely neck. Some who have seen her gain the impression that she is my own portrait, but none who voiced this opinion has lived long or fathered a child.

      Gunnery Master is a Dane who served under the Swedish King Gustave Adolphus. He it was who fired the famous cannon-shot that killed General Pappenheim at the battle of Lützen in the Thirty-Years’ War, taking him clean off his horse with a four-pounder at a mile and-a-half. Some while ago I was able to procure for him an advance copy of Robins’ Principles of Gunnery and he sleeps with it under his pillow. His name is Günnar Günnarsson and he is always addressed, explicably, as “Guns.”

      Finally, my Helmsman is a Navajo witch-doctor. His name may not be uttered, nor his image depicted (not even in words) lest the spell that grants his extraordinary gifts be broken. Only ever addressed as “Helm”, when the mood strikes him he can see a cable’s length into the future and, when pressed, summon a fair breeze out of a clear sky.

      These, then, are my officers – under them are two watches of seamen, fourteen men each, and every one a skilled and ready cut-throat of peerless loyalty. I profoundly hope the Reader will not be disappointed to learn that there is neither an eye-patch, nor a peg-leg, nor a pet monkey, nor even a parrot among them. I have neither use nor room for cripples and vermin.

      Dear Reader, in the time it has taken me to set down what you have just read, Hecate has been made ready for sea, with all the bustle of fresh food, water and other stuff that business requires, and has pushed off from the Jamaica wharf. The tide is against us and no breath of wind stirs in Montego Bay, so Ned O’Sullivan has called for the sweeps and set a course across the harbour, holding the golden beams of sunset full upon the mahogany brow of my Hecate-Medusa. Our course takes us under the very guns of the fort guarding the entrance – guns emplaced by Oliver Cromwell himself, and scarce a man among us passed beneath their open mouths without a glance of apprehension.

      “Helm,” I say, “mark our position.” The finest navigator in the world is lost if he knows not his starting-point, and Fort Frederick, as it is sometimes known, is at 18° 28.695 North by 77° 55.562 West.

      “Mark.” Helm turns the sand-glass and winds what looks to the casual observer exactly like the handle on a very old gramophone. As Hecate’ passed the tip of the breakwater a fair breeze began to swell her sails.

      “Mr. O’Sullivan?”

      “Aye Ma’am?’

      “Ship the sweeps and set course for Tortuga. A-hunting we shall go.”

      “Aye, aye, cap’n. And when would ye land thither?”

      “Yesterday, Mr. O’Sullivan.”

      With the happy grin Nebuchadnezzar always wears when taking such an order, he relayed it to the Boatswain who shot a few threatening glances around the deck and within a minute we were under way, the prow hissing sleekly through the swell. Moments after rounding the headland, Hecate’s timbers began to drink the full sea-swell, springing a gentle, exhilarating shiver through the soles of my sea-boots.

      “I shall be in my cabin, Mr. O’Sullivan. Pray send cookie up.”

      Little Michelin knocked at my door a few moments later. “Dinner in an hour, thank-you, Masters Bonaparte and O’Sullivan will dine with me.”

      “Oui, oui, Mam’selle. Avez-vous quelques préférences?”

      “Nothing extravagant, Michelin – just bring us something tasty and fresh.”

      Standing at the chart-table, my sense of the huntress’ exhilaration is diminished by the realisation that I know neither my enemy’s location nor strength. “God’s guts!” I think, “I do not even know his name!” My decision to make for Tortuga was made entirely to put my keel in familiar water, to view the horizon’s uninterrupted circle, and to think clearly – what would my mother have done next? Flinging myself upon the bunk, I feel my anxiety supplanted by boiling, bloodthirsty rage at the objectionable situation in which I find myself. My first and strongest urge is for revenge, to hear the gentle pitter-pat of my enemy’s blood dripping from my cutlass onto the deck, to see his voiceless lips trying to frame the words of a plea for mercy.

      That he should wish to claim my head for reward I can forgive – that is but the carrying-on of trade in these parts, but that he should anonymously send the filthiest cur in the Caribbean to take it is an insult too vile for a decent woman to abide. The moment my inner fury reached that pitch at which my knuckles whitened on the hilt of a dagger, Polly’s knock came upon the door. While he busied himself setting for dinner I realise an hour has passed in which I have generated not a single useful thought.

      Dinner is a simple yet delicious affair; a creamy lobster bisque followed by escalopes de veau in a piquant sauce with a hint of roquefort cheese and pink peppercorns, then a delicate lemon soufflé. Having observed my state of annoyance, Polly even undertook to mollify me by serving us bare to the waist, his incomparable torso scented with rosewater and glistening with oil. As he cleared away the dessert-things my attention was suddenly fixed on my own reflection on the side of a silver coffee-pot, compressed to the proportions of a Borneo head-hunter’s trophy. Leaping to my feet, I ask my trusted lieutenants,

      “Gentlemen, who, where and what is he, this Frenchman?”

      IV The Spanish Letter

      My Sailing-Master was the first to answer. “How do ye even know, Ma’am, that the wretch is French?”

      “That, Mr. O’Sullivan, is plain logic. His note was written in Spanish and he sought to trap me aboard an English ship. He can only be French.”

      Bonaparte, the Quartermaster, interjected. “Beg pardon, Ma’am, but how could a Frenchie know the Orion would have been deserted that night? Or that a squad of Royal Marines would be there to arrest ye on the dock and cart ye back to Kingston?”

      “Obviously they were there to arrest whomever came ashore alive – my enemy did not expect it to be me. Commodore Barnet is ambitious – that much is common knowledge – and hopes for the hand of the Governor’s niece. Barnet is as low-born as either of you, and His Excellency detests him, so it pleased him, I’m certain, to order the Commodore to put Orion up as bait. Never under-estimate the Governor – he knows perfectly well the tale I told him was a parcel of lies; he is as ruthless as a Mongol and twice as cunning. What he wants is to see Barnet chasing me all over the ocean while he gets his precious little niece married off to someone with a seat in the Lords.”

      Nebuchadnezzar O’Sullivan’s bearded face wore a perplexed expression – “Beg pardon, Ma’am,” he said, “but how does any o’ that bear on this unknown Frenchie’s plan to trap ye aboard Orion with a note writ in Spanish?”

      “Ned, do not act the dunce,” I snapped, “Polly, fetch me my note-case at once.” Polly was at that moment reclining on his couch, a thin trail of perfumed tobacco-smoke curling from his perfectly oval nostrils as he stared languidly into the bubbling water of his elegant Moroccan sheeshah. Leaping to his feet with the grace of a cat, in a second he had placed my note-case before me. Opening it, I withdrew the Spanish note and unfolded it upon the table. Written by an elegant hand in flawless Castilian, on thick, white, watermarked paper; it was signed Su amigo secreto.

      As the language was unfamiliar to my companions, I began to pronounce a translation – keeping as close to the literal words of the original as sense permits:

       Most esteemed Señorita of beauty most terrifying,

       From my patron, his Grace the Duke of X, whose identity I would give my life to keep secret, greetings.

      “And who in all the seven seas might the Duke of X be?”

      I met the lanky quartermaster’s interruption with a look, and continued:

       As a sorry consequence of treason and treachery erupting from the late wars, my master invites the Lady Malaventura