Beloved Warrior Read Online Free PDF Page A

The hold was utterly silent, as if every oarsman recognized the stakes. Not even the sound of a chain link hitting the floor. Thank God for that.
    The ship was moving rapidly, meaning a number of sailors were probably working the deck above, tending the sails. He prayed the movement above would mask their voices.
    “’Tis risky,” whispered the Scot.
    “’Tis death if we do not try.”
    The Spaniard stood there, listening, then spoke in Spanish, “Better to die as a man than a dog.” He bowed to Patrick in a gesture ludicrous at the moment. “What more can I do?”
    “Tell the oarsmen to stay in their places. If anyone glances down . . .” He didn’t have to finish. He saw understanding on their faces.
    “ Dios , but we need good fortune,” the Spaniard said in his cultivated voice.
    “We need a bloody miracle,” the Scot corrected.
    “Both would do, but right now we make our own luck. Can you two communicate with the oarsmen?” Patrick said.
    “I speak Gaelic and bloody Sassenach ,” said the Scot.
    “Spanish, French. Some Arabic,” said the obvious aristocrat among them.
    Patrick wondered fleetingly what misfortune had brought him among them. But that was for later. “Talk to as many as you can, but you”—he gestured to the Spaniard—“stay near the ladder. I will let you know if the guards approach. Tell the oarsmen to be silent and sit in their usual places. Find the warriors among them. A blacksmith if there is one.”
    He paused, then added, “If we . . . are taken or killed, tell them to run the chain back through their rings and lock it. Mayhap they will not be blamed.”
    The Spaniard with the fine manners but the same tattered loincloth and filthy skin that made them all one nodded. “I am Diego,” he said. “No longer a number tonight.”
    “I’m Hugh MacDonald,” said the other one. He clasped Patrick’s hand. “I will die before returning to that bench. I wouldna’ let them defeat me by dying.’Twould be no defeat to die killing them.”
    A surge of hope ran through Patrick. He had always been good at sizing up men. He had not hoped to find two like these. He prayed there would be more, that the Spaniard’s voice could imitate the dead guards, that surprise would help them overtake exhausted sailors. “I’m Patrick,” he replied.
    His glance went to the dead bodies. His throat constricted with hate. He remembered the number of bodies stacked in the aisle, waiting to be thrown overboard like so much refuse. The cries of pain, the daily struggle against thirst and hunger and exhaustion.
    The guards should not have died so easily. He wished instead they could have taken their places on the benches.
    He looked up to the grate. Occasionally he saw shadows from the men above. He wanted to climb the ladder and determine how many sailors were on deck, but that would have to wait. They had to organize below. He had to be sure no one would yell a warning in hopes of being pardoned.
    He joined Diego, who was talking to a newcomer to the benches. He was recognizable as such because of his size. In a month he would be half the man he was now.
    Tonight, though, his fists were huge. Patrick saw his naked back was crossed by new whip marks.
    “He says he’s a blacksmith,” Diego said. “He’s a French-man, a Huguenot,” he added dismissively.
    A Protestant. That explained his presence.
    “Can you break our shackles with a dagger?” he asked, stretching out his hands.
    “ Oui, but it will take time. A hammer would be better.”
    Wrists or ankles? He could use the manacles on his wrists as weapons, whereby he needed the use of his legs to mount the ladder and pull up others.
    “Are you with us?” he asked, watching the man’s eyes.
    “Oui,” he said. “But then where do we go?”
    “Scotland,” Patrick said in French. “I will help any man who joins us. I will kill any who betrays us.”
    Patrick and the blacksmith moved to where they would be out of sight of the grate.