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The Pirate Bride

By Kathleen Y'Barbo

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The Pirate Bride
Daughters of the Mayflower Series
By Kathleen Y’Barbo

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Matthew 6:21 KJV

“As the Testimony of your Conscience must convince you of the great and many evils you have committed, by which you have highly offended God, and provoked most justly his wrath and indignation against you, so I suppose I need not tell you that the only way of obtaining pardon and remission of your sins from God, is by a true and unfeigned repentance and faith in Christ, by whose meritorious death and passion, you can only hope for salvation.”

From the Lord Chief Justice Judge Trot’s speech
pronouncing sentence of death
upon the pirate Major Stede Bonnet,
November 10, 1711 at Charles Town




Dedication:

Teachers…those who came before me and those to follow.
Had I not been taught to love history and to be curious about events in the past,
this book would never have been written

 






Maribel and the Captain


Part I:


In the waters of the Caribbean Sea
April of 1724


 


Chapter One

Aboard the Spanish vessel Venganza near Havana
Mama may have been named for the great-grandmother who traveled from England on the Mayflower, but that fact certainly did not keep her in the land of her birth. Twelve-year-old Maribel Cordoba sometimes wondered why Mama refused to discuss anything regarding her relations in the colonies beyond the fact that she had disappointed them all by marrying a Spaniard without her papa’s blessing.
The mystery seemed so silly now, what with Mama gone and the father she barely knew insisting she accompany him aboard the Venganza to his new posting in Havana. Maribel gathered the last reminder of Mary Lytton around her: a beautiful scarf shot through with threads of Spanish silver that matched the piles of coins in the hold of this magnificent sailing vessel and clutched the book she’d already read through once since the journey began.
Though she was far too young at nearly thirteen to call herself a lady, Maribel loved to pretend she would someday wear this same scarf at a beautiful ball along with a gown in some lovely matching color. Oh she would dance, her toes barely touching the floor in her dancing shoes. And her handsome escort would, not doubt, fall madly in love with her just as Papa had fallen in love with Mama.
Her fingers clutched the soft fabric as her heart lurched. Mama. Oh how she missed her. She looked toward the horizon, where a lone vessel’s sails punctuated the divide between sea and sky, and then shrugged deeper into the scarf.
Nothing but adventure was ahead. This her papa had promised when he announced that as newly named Consul General, he was moving her from their home in Spain to the far away Caribbean.
She had read about the Caribbean in the books she hid beneath her pillows. The islands were exotic and warm, populated with friendly natives and not so friendly pirates.
Maribel clutched her copy of The Notorious Seafaring Pyrates and their Exploits by Captain Ulysses Jones. The small leather book that held the true stories of Blackbeard, Anne Bonny and others, had been a treasure purchased in a Barcelona bookseller’s shop when Papa hadn’t been looking.
Of course, Papa never looked at her, so she could have purchased the entire shop and he wouldn’t have noticed.
But then until the day her papa arrived with the news that Mama had taken ill and was now with the angels, she’d only seen this man Antonio Cordoba three times in her life. Once at her grandmother’s funeral and twice when he and Mama had quarreled on the doorstep of their home in Madrid.
On none of these occasions had Senior Cordoba, apparently a very busy and very important man, deigned to speak to his only daughter. Thus his speech about Mama had been expectedly brief, as had the response to Maribel’s request to attend her funeral or at least see her grave.
Both had been answered with a resolute no. Two days later, she was packed aboard the Venganza.
She watched the sails grow closer and held tight to Mama’s scarf. Just as Mama had taught her, she turned her fear of this unknown place that would become her new home into prayer. Unlike Mama--who would have been horrified at the stories of Captain Bartholomew Roberts and others--Maribel’s hopes surged.
Perhaps this dull journey was about to become exiting. Perhaps the vessel on the horizon held a band of pirates bent on chasing them down and relieving them of their silver.
By habit, Maribel looked up into the riggings where her only friend on this voyage spent much of his day. John Wallace, a gangly orphan a full year older and many years wiser than her, was employed as lookout. This, he explained to her, was a step up from the cabin boy he’d been for nigh on seven years and a step toward the ship’s captain he someday hoped to be.
Their passing annoyance began when she nearly pitched herself overboard by accident while reading and strolling on deck, had become something akin to a alliance during their weeks at sea. To be sure, John still felt she was hopeless as a sailor, but his teasing at Maribel’s noble Spanish lineage and habit of keeping her nose in a book had ceased when she discovered the source.
John Wallace could not read. Or at least he couldn’t when they set sail from Barcelona.
He’d been a quick study, first listening as she read from Robinson Crusoe and The Iliad, and then learning to sound out words and phrases as they worked their way through Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. By the time she offered him her copy of Captain Jones’ pirate book, John was able to read the entire book without any assistance.
She spied him halfway up the mainmast. “Sails,” she called, though he appeared not to hear her. “Over there,” Maribel added a bit louder as she used her book to point toward the ship.
The watch bell startled her with its clang, and the book tumbled to the deck. A moment later, crewmen who’d previously strolled about idly now ran to their posts shouting in Spanish words such as “pirata” and “barco fantasma”.
“Pirates and a ghost ship?” she said under her breath as she grabbed for the book and then dodged two crewmen racing past with weapons drawn. “How exciting!”
“Don’t be an idiot, Red.” John darted past two men rolling a cannon toward the Venganza’s bow then hurried to join her, a scowl on his face. “This isn’t like those books of yours. If that’s the Ghost Ship, then you’d best wish for anything other than excitement.”
Shielding her eyes from the sun’s glare, Maribel looked up at John. “What do you mean?”
“I mean they’re bearing down on us and haven’t yet shown a flag. I wager when they do, we won’t be liking what flag they’re flying.”
“So pirates,” she said, her heart lurching. “Real pirates.”
“Or Frenchmen,” he said. “A privateer ship is my guess if they’re not yet showing the skull and cross bones.”
She continued to watch the sails grow larger. “Tell me about the Ghost Ship, John.”
“Legend says the ship appears out of thin air then, after it’s sunk you and taken your treasure, all twenty-two guns and more than one hundred crewmen go back the same way they came.”
“Back into thin air?” she asked.
“Exactly, although I have always thought they might be calling Santa Cruz their home as it’s near enough to Puerto Rico for provisioning and belongs to the French settlements.” He paused to draw himself up to his full height. “And care to guess who the enemy of the men about the Ghost Ship is?”
Maribel leaned closer, her heart pounding as she imagined these fearless men who chased their prey then disappeared off to some mysterious island only to do it all over again. “Who?”
“Spaniards, Red. They hold license from the French crown to take what anyone flying under the Spanish flag has got and split it with the royals. And they don’t take prisoners.”
She looked up at the flag of Spain flying on the tallest of the masts and then back at John. “No?”
John shook his head. “No. They leave no witnesses. Do you understand now why you do not want that ship out there to be the Barco Fantasma as these sons of Madrid call it?”
She squared her shoulders. “Well I care not,” she exclaimed. “There are no such thing as ghosts. My mama said to pray away the fear when it occurred, so perhaps you ought to consider that.”
Of course, if she allowed herself to admit it, Maribel should be taking her own advice. Much as Mama reminded her of her status as a woman not born in Spain, her father’s lineage and the fact a Spanish flag waved in the warm breeze above her head would seal her fate.
“I’m not scared,” John exclaimed. “If those fellows catch us, I’d rather join up with them than stay here. Wasn’t asked if I wanted to sail on this vessel, so I figure I might as well invite myself to sail on theirs.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she exclaimed. “You’re not the pirate sort.”
“Privateer,” he corrected. “And who says I’m not? I read those books of yours. Sure, I’m not one for breaking the law, but if Captain Beaumont offers honest work for my share of the pay then I’d be better off than I am here. Besides, I can always jump off at the nearest island and stay there like Mr. Robinson Crusoe did. If I tried that now, the Spaniards would come after me and beat me senseless.”
She recalled the bruises she’d seen on the boy’s arms and nodded. “If you go, I’m going with you. I’ll join up with this Captain Beaumont and climb the riggings just like you do.”
“You’re just a girl,” he protested. “Don’t you know girls are bad luck on privateer’s ships? It was right there in the book.”
“It was indeed,” she said as she cradled the book against her chest. “But I don’t believe in luck. If the Lord allows, then it happens. If He doesn’t, then it doesn’t. That’s what my mama says, and I believe it is true. So I’m going to pray that Captain Beaumont is a good man.”
“That’s ridiculous, Red.”
“The praying?” she said in a huff. “Prayer is never ridiculous.”
“No, of course not,” he hurried to say. “But to suggest that Captain Beaumont might be a good man--”
“You there, boy,” a sailor called as he jostled past John. “Back to your post and look smart about it.”
John fixed her with an impatient look. “While you’re doing all this praying, go down to your cabin and hide,” he told her. “Bar the door and no matter what, do not let anyone inside except me or your papa, you understand?”
“Papa,” she said as she looked around the deck. “I need to find him.”
“Likely he’s helping prepare for the attack and won’t want a child bothering him,” John said. “Do as I said and make quick work of it. Oh, and Red, can you swim?”
“I can,” she said even as his description of her as a child stung. “My mama taught me but said we couldn’t tell my papa because he thought swimming was undignified and beneath our station. Why?”
“Then if all else fails and you’re faced with being captured or the threat of death, jump overboard. It’s a known fact that most pirates cannot swim so you’d be safer afloat in the ocean than aboard a sinking ship.” He nudged her shoulder with his, a gesture that reminded her once again of their friendship. “Now off with you, Red. I’ve got work to do.”
“But what about privateers and Frenchmen?” she called to his retreating back. “Can they swim?”
“You better hope you don’t find out,” was the last thing John said before he disappeared into a crowd of crewmen.
Maribel stood there for a full minute, maybe longer, surveying the chaos unfolding around her. Though she was loathe to take John’s advice—he was always such a bossy fellow—she did see the wisdom in making herself scarce until the fuss was over.
Oh but she’d not run to her cabin where she would miss all the excitement. There must be a place where she could stay out of the way and still watch what was happening on deck.
Pray away the fear.
She raised up on her tiptoes to look over the men gathered around the cannon. The sails of the approaching vessel were much closer now, their pristine white matching the clouds on the horizon.
A roar went up among the men of the Venganza, and then the cannon fired. Covering her ears, Maribel ran in search of the nearest shelter and found it behind thick coils of rope and stacked barrels. Only when she had successfully hidden herself inside the coil did she realize she had dropped her prized book. Nothing would do but she had to retrieve it.
She rose slowly, clutching the ends of Mama’s scarf just as the vessel made a turn to the right. With the tilt of the deck, the book slid out of her reach. Braving the throng of people, she headed toward the book, now lodged against the mainmast.
Pray away the fear.
She removed the scarf from her neck and tied it around her head like the pirates whose likenesses filled her books. The ends fluttered in the breeze, and if she thought hard, she could remember Mama wearing this scarf.
She did that now, thought about Mama. About how she loved to tie the scarf around her waist when she wore her pretty dresses. Someday she would tie this scarf around her waist like Mama did.
Someday when she was a grown up lady.
A cannon sounded from somewhere off in the distance and then the vessel shuddered. Stifling a scream, Maribel took a deep breath and said a prayer as she grasped the edges of the scarf.
Smoke rolled toward her as Maribel struggled to remain upright on the sloping boards beneath her feet. She reached the book and then slid one arm around the mainmast to steady herself against the pitching motion.
Pray away the fear. Pray away the fear. Pray away…
The cannon roared again. A crack sounded overhead and splinters of wood and fire rained down around her.
Then the world went dark.

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