Bandry
The Reluctant Pirate
by
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Quickly stuffing his finery back into his sea trunk, Count Francois Denoux closed the top and shoved it over under the window seat where it might go unnoticed by a quick glance. He corked the bottle of wine on the table and tossed the dirty glass out the porthole. He took a long last look around the room. Satisfied that it appeared to be unused, he bolted for the door behind him. The mist lifted, the black flag of the pirate ship became visible to the naked eye as she closed in on the Indigo Sea. Captain Juarez shouted from the deck. "Secure the ‘fore topgallant. Drop the gunports. Rig for battle." The crew took to the rigging and climbed to the top yard. Dropping the canvas to let them fill with the wind they swung back down to the deck. Jeremy Blackwell, ship's gunner, climbed into the hatch and disappeared below decks. Less than two minutes passed before the eight starboard gun ports slammed against the hull. "Lock and load." Jeremy called out. The ends of the cannon barrels poked through the ports and sat ready to fire. Francois stepped up to the bunt line from the snatch block and pulled with everything he had. An explosion of canvas dropped from the yard. The sail unfurled, billowed full out with the morning breeze, the Indigo Sea's speed increased. The Sea Dragon, a much lighter vessel, easily overtook the heavily laden merchant ship. Keeping his eye to the intruders, Francois worked side by side with the crew. Though his muscles ached and his hands were blistered and bleeding, he kept working while the galleon closed on the merchant vessel. Before a shot was fired from the Indigo Sea, the Sea Dragon's cannon roared in the silence of the open sea. Clouds of smoke rose from the deck of the Sea Dragon. The stench of burnt black powder crossing the air to the Indigo Sea. Cannon balls flew through the air dropping aimlessly into the sea. A moment later the crackle of splitting wood ceased all movement on the deck for the instant it took to find the source. The stump of the mast spewed splinters of wood into the sails when the main mast fell into the sea dragging the tops'l and mains'l with it. Lines snapped, their unraveling ends whipping across the deck. A man's scream sent a shudder through Francois. Death, the unfamiliar scent of spent lives filled the air around him. The gunner on the merchant ship hadn't been watching the deck beneath his feet when a flailing rope end whipped into a tangle of hemp around his ankles. Feet-first he slipped across the ship and over the side. Weighted down by the blocks and canvas, he never returned to the surface. Brandishing boarding pikes, daggers and cutlasses, the pirates swung across the short span of water, down onto the deck or into the rigging of their prey. They slid down the ratlines from fore and aft at the same time. The crew of the Indigo Sea grabbed swords, and belaying pins against the experienced raiders from the pirate ship. Francois tried not to think about what was going on around him while he watched the men he had come to call friends, literally being hacked to pieces and murdered by thieves and cutthroats. His head ached, his stomach churned at the smell of warm blood. When a severed arm came flying through the air at him, he ducked and batted it aside. Taking just a second or two to collect himself, he glanced up at the Captain. Between opponents Captain Juarez glanced down and shook his head in defeat. Francois called up to him, "This isn’t the way I intend to die!" He took up the sword that was lying at his feet, checking the balance, he nodded approvingly and stepped into the fray. A quick parry and thrust and he killed his first pirate. His face paled as he stared at the man lying on the deck in a pool of his own blood. Undisciplined in the finer arts of sword play, the pirates were no match for the expertise he’d cultivated since childhood. "There’s no time for that. We have a battle to win." Juarez side-stepped the two men he was fighting. Francois jumped into the skirmish and took one of them on. He maintained his position and one attacker at a time, took four of the boarders down in rapid succession and was waiting for anyone else to come at him. An explosion of pain in the back of his head sent him to his knees, everything was silent, everything was dark. "Bring him aboard. We can use a man that handy with the sword." The mate off the Sea Dragon called down from the helm. Bigger than most of the men, one of the pirates picked up Francois’ limp body stepped onto a boarding plank and across the short span of turbulent water. Unceremoniously dumping him on the deck, the big man laughed and returned to the captured ship.
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About the Book
In the Age of Adventure, a French Count, on his way to the New World to improve his family’s fortune, loses his wares and money and is forced into a secret identity and a new career as a pirate. Using his education and leadership skills, Bandry rises to the top of his new profession in a quest to restore the family honor and fortune. In the process, he creates another identity to help him escape the constraints and guilt of piracy that torment him. While leading this life of duel identities, both of which could cause instant death, Bandry discovers his essence and value as a human being. Struggling to extricate himself from his pirate identity, Bandry’s life in complicated by Solene’s rescue and subsequent guardianship driven by a suppressed sense of nobility. Solene’s youth, inexperience, and struggle to escape her gilded prison test the limits of Bandry’s resolve. This jeopardizes and adds unneeded complications to his plans to restore himself to his previous status. Can Bandry succeed in his mission or will he be exposed and face a horrible death at the hands of the Pirates or the authorities.
About the Author
M. R. Miller was born in Long Beach, California, on the leading edge of the post-WWII baby boom. In the custom of the time, she went from high school to marriage and family. At the end of this bow to convention, she spent three years in Washington state before returning to Southern California, her present home. She used the Washington recovery period to resume her education, racking up two years of business-related courses between college and business school attendance. She has been taking writing, editing, proofreading and composition courses at the college level for the last ten years, while raising the third generation of family. Although she has been writing off and on since high school, she began pursuing it seriously over the last decade. Her preference for writing late at night has, usually, meshed well with her "day job" as a department secretary, riding herd on two hundred engineers and technicians. She has been a member of the Romance Writers of America and the National Writers Association (nine years). She likes to read action, adventure, sci-fi and books that are entertaining, when there's time. Fascinated by the romantic lore of pirates at sea, she has researched and read everything she could find on them and written an adventure to please those looking for something to entertain them.