Beloved Warrior by PATRICIA POTTER Page A

her a lesson,” he said in bad Spanish.
    “Nay,” el diablo said. “I will tend to her myself in good time.”
    “We should share,” another man said in Spanish. “She is nothing but Mendoza’s whore.”
    Others agreed vocally. Voices rose. They moved forward, almost as a whole.
    The man she had wounded turned around and faced them. Blood dripped from him, from the wound she had made and another. He disregarded both.
    “There will be but one leader here,” he said in Spanish and in a voice as cold as his eyes. “If you want to live to see your homes again, you will do as I say.”
    “You cannot tell us what to do. We ’uns had enough of that,” said one man stepping forward. “We all fought. You have no right to take her for yourself.”
    “Can you sail a ship?” the giant asked. “Do you know navigation?”
    She noticed the burr sounded even stronger, though his Spanish was good. There was an air of a natural leader about him.
    Perhaps . . .
    Angry muttering. Oaths.
    “Take what clothes you can find,” he told those still in the cabin. “Have those manacles struck,” he continued in Spanish. “There’s spirits aboard, but do not take too much or you will sicken.”
    The muttering faded, but one man objected. “We will take what we want.”
    Her captor stared him down. “We are in the sea lanes. I will have to turn you into sailors if we are not to be taken by the English or Spanish. Then you will have a rope about your neck if not worse.”
    She saw some turn to one another, obviously not understanding. There were simple translations dotted by crude words she recognized by tone if not by language. Still, they did not leave.
    Juliana saw the tension in her captor’s body. He was asserting leadership to a bloodthirsty rabble. She tried to shrink into the wall. She was helpless now without the knife. But she understood what would happen if the devil’s apprentice did not convince them. She would be taken then and there by all of them.
    A few hours. Perhaps we will encounter another ship.
    One of the mutineers still held her wrist. Her hand shook slightly. She looked up at her captor’s face. It had not the ice of the el diablo , but she did not like the speculation in it as he glanced at her and then at the man who appeared to be the rabble’s leader.
    Then a third man pushed through the door toward her. He still wore manacles on his wrists and ankles, though the chain linking them was broken.
    His face was thin but aristocratic.
    “And what is this?” he asked in perfect Castillian Spanish, his gaze roaming over her.
    “A woman,” said the apparent leader. “And a wee lass. A servant, I expect. Neither will speak, but the woman shook her head when I asked if she was Mendoza’s wife.” He shrugged. “Mistress, mayhap.”
    The Spaniard looked at the man’s chest. “Another wound, Scot?”
    “The lass.”
    The Spaniard roared with laughter. “You take a ship with this tattered crew, and a wisp of a senorita wounds you.”
    The Scot shot him a sharp look.
    But the Spaniard didn’t pursue it. Instead, he took his place next to the Scot in an obvious gesture of support.
    Muttering, the others started to back off.
    “Is there a cook here?” el diablo asked of the men crowding into the room, obviously trying to divert them.
    One man advanced. Like the others, he was filthy. “Si.”
    “Go to the blacksmith. Tell him I said to strike your irons first. Then prepare some food. You,” he said to another, “ration the spirits aboard. Give every man two cups. No more.”
    To another, he said, “Make sure all the bodies are overboard. I want every man here to be dressed and look as if they belong here as crew.”
    Charged with duties, the oarsmen backed off, some sullen, some responding to having something to do.
    El diablo said something to the man holding her, but it was in a language she did not know.
    Then he turned to the Spaniard. “Now take the two of them to a cabin,” he said in