Chapter Three
“Do you know what I hate?”
“Nay – what?”
Constantine had asked the question as he lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling of his vaulted solar. The ceiling was a masterpiece of Norman vaulting, with arches bisecting arches, and blue stars painting on the stone. He was laying on a velvet couch, something he’d stolen off of a fine Spanish merchant ship last year along with the merchant’s two very big dogs, who now lay happily at his feet. Henry and Edward, named after the fools who were vying for the throne of England, were his great companions when he was home. He never took them to sea for fear one of them might fall off the deck, or worse, become injured. Constantine had a soft spot for his dogs. He petted Henry’s broad back as he rolled his head in Lucifer’s direction.
“I hate laying on a bed that is not being gently rocked by the sea,” he said. “I can still feel the motion of the water, yet I am on land. I hate that it is only dirt beneath my feet.”
Lucifer gave Constantine a smirk as he poured himself a cup of wine. Everything at Perran Castle was the very finest money could buy, including the wine from Spain and the cups of fine Welsh pewter. He took a healthy drink of it as his dirty boots walked the fine rugs of Constantine’s solar, rugs that had come all the way from the Holy Land, made by beautiful women who covered their faces with silken scarves. At least, that was what they’d been told when they’d confiscated the rugs from an Italian merchant. Lucifer paused by a particularly elaborate tapestry, cup in hand as he gazed up at the intricate scene of an army marching on a castle.
“I do not have the sea in my blood as you do,” he said after a moment. “I am very happy on land. In fact, I do believe I am happier here than anywhere.”
Constantine lifted his head, his brow furrowed with worry. “You are not about to tell me that you are giving up the sea, are you?” he asked. When Lucifer turned to look at him, Constantine sat up on his velvet couch. “You cannot leave me. I was planning on giving you the Leucosia when we are finished with her refit. Someone has to command that mammoth warship, Lucifer. Why not you?”
He was speaking of the warship that was docked a few miles to the north, the one with twenty-two guns that they were so proud of. Lucifer was mildly surprised by the suggestion.
“You’ve not mentioned this before,” he said.
Constantine shook his head. “I have not and, for that, I do apologize,” he said. “I have been wanting to tell you and I thought to, mayhap, make a grand surprise out of it, but now you know. I want you to helm the Leucosia when she is fit for the sea again.”
Lucifer’s gaze lingered on him a moment. In truth, he was very pleased. The Flemish beauty was a great prize, but she also had a rather slippery history. She was such a prize that she’d been stolen a few times over and that was the main reason she was now up the river, in dock, so that no one could see her and consequently steal her. Once she put to sea, the odds of her being stolen would increase dramatically. Lucifer knew that very well. Scratching his chin, he wandered in Constantine’s direction.
“The Leucosia,” he said slowly, as if mulling over her name. “A ship that was originally built by the Dutch and christened the Bruges. Not a year later, Santiago Fernandez and his Los Demonios de Mar were able to damage her enough in battle so that his men boarded her, murdered the crew, and renamed her the Astorga. Fernandez’s second-in-command, Amaro de Soto, then became her captain.”
Constantine nodded as Lucifer recited the history of the grand vessel. “The man known as Diabolito,” he said, rising to his feet and going to collect his own cup of wine. “He was, indeed, a fearsome bastard until we cornered the Astorga near Arcachon and battered her so badly that we were able to board her. Diabolito was not so powerful then; the ship became mine.”
Lucifer shook his head as if disapproving of the situation. “You should have killed de Soto rather than set him and what men he had left adrift,” he said. “Now, he’s out for your blood. It would have been one less man out to kill you, Con.”
Constantine took a long drink of the sweet red wine. He smacked his lips. “You are not thinking clearly,” he said quietly. “Had I killed de Soto, Fernandez would have gone mad with vengeance. By not killing his ‘Little Devil’, I showed mercy, which means the next time any of my men are at the mercy of Fernandez, he may more than likely spare them. What I did was calculated, Lucifer. I never do anything without a reason.”
Lucifer simply lifted his eyebrows, as if Constantine’s merciful reason had just occurred to him. “You are a man with vision,” he said. “Once you show mercy to Fernandez’s men, he must return the favor.”
“Exactly.”
“And if I am caught with the Leucosia, he will more than likely not kill me and my crew.”
Constantine tapped his skull. “It is the code of the pirates,” he said. “Honor among thieves. If he kills you after I showed his crew mercy, then it shall go very badly for him. Fernandez is just arrogant enough that something such as a pirate’s honor matters to him. Now you understand, my friend.”
Lucifer did, indeed. “I fear that I have underestimated you. Forgive me.” Then, he lifted his cup. “If you want me to command the Leucosia, then I shall. It will be an honor. But you know she will be a target to every pirate in these waters.”
Constantine nodded. “That is why my best commander must be in charge of her,” he said. “But tell me it is enough to keep you at my side. It frightens me when you speak of your love of the land over the sea.”
Lucifer wouldn’t look at him. He was a man of great introspect, and a man of great mystery. No one really knew anything about him other than he had once been a priest, but something had happened that had caused him to forsake his vows. He’d never spoken of it to Constantine, and they had been close friends for over ten years. Constantine figured that when the man was ready to speak of his past, he would. But upon the seas, a man’s background didn’t matter. Only his love of glory and his loyalty to his fellow pirate were of interest.
“My love of the land,” Lucifer finally murmured as if lost in thought. “I do love the land. I never put to sea until those years ago when we first met, so the land has always been my first love.”
Constantine drained his wine cup and poured himself more. “For me, I have been to sea from my earliest memories,” he said. “You will recall that my adoptive father was a merchant.”
“I do.”
“He had an entire fleet of ships,” Constantine continued. “Ships that would sail all the way to the Holy Land, down to Africa, or up to the north where the Northmen live. I have been everywhere on those ships with my father. I have always felt at home on the sea.”
Lucifer listened to the fondness in the man’s voice as he spoke. “It is said that you were borne of the waves and lifted up by the gods of the sea as their most prized possession,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “Everyone believes that you are a god, you know.”
Constantine shook his head, grinning that easy smile he had. “I am not a god,” he said. “But I will let men believe what they would. I would rather be borne of the waves than borne of a woman who was the mistress of a king, a bastard who was conceived in lust. There is something dishonorable about that. Even so, it makes me a man of royal blood and, even now, there is a kingdom ruled by a pious fool that should belong to me.”
Lucifer pondered that for a moment. It was no secret that Constantine was the bastard son of Henry V, a man who should have been given his royal due but who was denied it because of his illegitimate birth. Constantine rarely spoke of it, however, so moments like this were few and far between. It was usually when he drank, which he rarely did, so the quickly-consumed cup of red wine was already having an effect. He was weary; they were all weary. Sometimes, exhaustion had a way of loosening a man’s tongue.
“If it belongs to you, then press your claim,” Lucifer said. “With your money, you could raise such an army that neither Henry nor Edward would be able to stop it.”
Constantine shrugged. “That is of no interest to me,” he said. Then, he grinned. “I could not have nearly the fun that I have now should I be forced to live on land and deal with men’s petty squabbles. Nay, my friend, I am better off where I am. It is where I belong.”
Lucifer held up his cup, clanking it against Constantine’s in a gesture of cheer and goodwill. “And this is where I belong,” he said with some warmth in his tone. “I am not going anywhere, Con. I was merely reflecting on my love of the land and the days of my youth. They were happy days in the north.”
“North?” Constantine asked casually, interested that Lucifer should actually speak of his past. “North where? You have never told me where you are from, you know. I am coming to think you were born nowhere. You simply appeared one day.”
Lucifer laughed softly. “I was, indeed, born,” he said. “In Northumberland.”
Constantine lifted his eyebrows as if he’d just been told something amazing. “Northumberland?” he repeated. “I do not believe it. Will you tell me more?”
Lucifer shrugged. “There is not much to tell,” he said. “I was born, I fostered and trained as a knight. But instead of becoming a knight, I became a priest and then I found you one day when you were raiding a priory near Caernarvon. Do you recall?”
Constantine nodded, gulping more of the sweet wine. It was delicious, and warm, and very comforting. “Of course I do,” he said. “You told me to repent. Then, you grabbed a broadsword and tried to force me to confess my sins.”
“I only joined your band of pirates to save your soul, you know. A man like you should not be relegated to hell.”
Constantine laughed. “You told me and Remy and Gus only yesterday that there was a special place in hell waiting for us.”
Lucifer fought off a grin. “For them, aye. But you still have a chance to be saved.”
Constantine slapped him on the shoulder. “If my men are not to be saved, then I do not wish to be saved. I will gladly go to hell with them.”
“Then you are well on your way.”
Constantine laughed heartily. “You would know, my friend,” he said. Then, he sobered as he realized that his wine was almost gone. He cast Lucifer a side glance as he went to pour more. “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Is your real name Lucifer?”
Lucifer didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, with a smile playing on his lips, he shook his head. “It is not. My mother did not hate me so much to name me that.”
“Will you ever tell me your real name, then?”
“Mayhap someday.”
It was as close as Constantine had ever come to nearly wresting something personal out of the very private man. But he didn’t push; he knew not to. Laughing again, he put a hand on Lucifer’s shoulder in a brotherly gesture as Kerk le Sander suddenly appeared in the solar doorway.
“My lord,” he said. “There is a woman at the gates, asking to see you.”
Constantine looked at him. “A woman?” he repeated. “What woman?”
The man gestured with his hands; very big hands that were rough with the life he’d lived. “The same woman who came several days ago, asking to leave you a message,” he said. “Do you recall, my lord? Upon your return, when you asked the men for a report on the situation since your departure, they told you that a woman had come to see you. She said she bore a most urgent message and would await you in town at the One-Eyed Whale.”
Constantine began nodding even before Kerk was finished. “Aye, I recall now,” he said. “But I will be truthful when I say that I did not think anything of it. But she is here again, you say?”
Kerk nodded. “At the gatehouse. She has asked to see you again.”
“Is she pretty?”
That caused the man to grin, displaying a mouthful of straight, white teeth. He was a very handsome man, someone that Constantine considered strong competition for female attention.
“Most beautiful, my lord,” he said. “I am rather sorry that she asked for you and not me.”
Constantine slammed his cup down swiftly and headed for the door; there was no way he’d let Kerk get to a beautiful woman before he did. “Then let us not keep the lady waiting,” he said, weaving a bit because of the two cups of wine he’d ingested. “Did she give a name?”
Kerk shook his head. “She did not.”
“It does not matter. If she is beautiful, then beauty is the only name she needs.”
Slightly drunk, Constantine left Lucifer behind as he quit his solar with Kerk and headed out into the dusk. The sun was nearly gone on the horizon to the west, leaving a sky blanketed in stars and a soft sea breeze blowing in from the water.
As Constantine headed for the gatehouse, he managed to look at the mighty castle that he’d built. As the Earl of West Wales, he had lands and money at his disposal, and using pale Cornwall stone, he’d hired craftsmen and stonemasons from as far away as Italy to build his masterpiece. It took three years to construct, and had only been finished a mere five years before, but already Perran Castle was legendary in the annals of Cornwall history.
Perched on a cliff overlooking the sea, Perran was built down into the very cliff itself, dug in deep, with two enormous towers that faced the ocean, manned with eight nine-pounder cannons each, on different levels, that gave the towers a full range of fire over the ocean for miles in all directions. There were two more towers on the land side, each of them manned with six four-pounder cannons each, and there were four-pounder cannons on the battlements surrounding the castle was well. As far as fortified castles went, Perran was the envy of every warlord on land or on sea. Only a fool and his army would try to breach the seat of England’s fiercest pirate.
And Constantine was well aware of it. He was as proud of Perran as one would have been over a son. It was manned by a mercenary land army he paid extremely well and they were fiercely loyal to their liege. They were different from the pirates that put to sea with him; the army at Perran was comprised strictly of land-lovers.
It was these land-lovers who acknowledged Constantine as he approached the gatehouse, a two-portcullis monstrosity that was a marvel of architecture unto itself. The first portcullis, the one nearest the bailey, was lifted but the second portcullis was closed, as were the gates beyond. Only the small, fortified mangate built into the southern gate was open and there were men lingering near it. When they glanced up and saw Constantine approach, they backed off, clearing the path so he could see just what had them so interested.
It was, indeed, a woman.
The first things Constantine saw were bright blue eyes of the most beautiful shape. The woman was finely dressed, clutching a big satchel against her, and wearing a heavy cloak with fur lining in this damp, cold weather. But all he could see were her eyes because she had the hood of her cloak pulled down, partially covering the right side and lower portion of her face. Intrigued simply by the beauty he was witnessing, Constantine went up to the portcullis.
“Who are you, lady?” he asked. “I understand you are asking for Constantine le Brecque.”
The woman nodded eagerly. “I am, my lord.”
“What business do you have with him?”
“I will only tell the earl.”
The earl. That wasn’t something Constantine heard very much but, clearly, this woman knew it was his official title. Truthfully, that made him a little suspicious. His eagerness to get close to her beauty dampened a little; assassins could be in beautiful garb, as well. He’d seen that before.
“I am Constantine le Brecque,” he said, making sure there was enough of a distance between them that she couldn’t thrust a dagger at him between the iron bars and make contact. “Who are you and what do you want?”
I am Constantine le Brecque…
It was those words that marked the beginning of the end. For them both, or only for him, only time would tell.
Now, the game was afoot.