Page 4 of Mardon

“Can I please see it, Grandmother?” Aaron held out his hand and Nairnie graciously gave it to him. Aaron looked over at Mardon and smiled. “Mayhap someday you’ll learn how to deal with women,” he said with a chuckle.

“Shut up, Aaron. I have women falling at my feet and you don’t, so that should tell you something.”

“Are ye speakin’ of whores again?” asked Nairnie, causing both Aaron and Stitch to start laughing.

“Read the parchment, little brother,” warned Mardon, purposely referring to him in a manner that Aaron despised.

Aaron glared at him but didn’t say a word. “All right,” he finally answered. “Let me see.” Aaron looked down to the parchment in his hand. “There are only half the words here. It looks like it says Sh . . . ad . . . nn . . . eat . . . mouth. Eat mouth? I’m getting hungry reading this.”

“You’re always hungry. Let me see that.” Mardon snatched the parchment away from him, studying the half-words that made no sense. “Eat mouth. Eat mouth . . . I think this is a bunch of gibberish and doesn’t mean a thing.” He pushed the parchment back into Nairnie’s hands and headed down the stairs.

“Perhaps it means Great Yarmouth,” came Nairnie’s words from behind Mardon. He suddenly stopped. Turning around, he darted back up the stairs.

“Let me see that again.” He reached out for it, but Nairnie held the parchment to her chest.

“Is that how ye speak to yer grandmathair?” she asked him.

The old woman wasn’t going to make this easy. Her antics were already driving him crazy. He glanced around, seeing Stitch at the helm and Pate down by the burned galley talking to a few of the crew. Coop, his barrel maker, was fixing a hole in a barrel, and Goldtooth was swabbing the deck. They all seemed busy, so he said under his breath, “Please, may I see it, Nairnie?”

She started to hand it to him, but pulled it back once again. “Aaron calls me Grandmathair. And even Tristan did when I asked him to.”

“Well, my brothers are damned fools. Now give it to me. Please,” he added, stressing the word.

“Ye’ve called me Grandmathair before, Mardon. I’ve heard ye.”

“All right my dear, conniving Grandmother, can I see the clue . . . please?” He felt like a danged fool doing this, and hoped to hell none of his crew heard him. He knew now why Tristan had never wanted to call her Grandmother and only did it at the end to satisfy her. It made men like them look weak in front of the others.

“I dinna like the connivin’ part, but I suppose I’ll show it to ye anyway.” She handed it to him and Mardon eagerly took it, running his finger down the jagged page. “I think I ken what this means.” He shoved it back at her and turned and headed over to Stitch with Nairnie and Aaron on his heels.

“What is it?” asked Aaron. “Where does the clue lead?”

“Stitch, take us to Great Yarmouth,” he told his navigator.

“We ken that,” spat Nairnie. “But what is the rest of the clue?”

“It’s leading us to a place I know well,” said Mardon, feeling that they might actually find the king’s treasure and, hopefully, before Nereus could figure out the clue. “We’ll find our treasure at the Fish Head Inn on Great Yarmouth. Tristan will regret leaving us now. With the king’s gold and jewels, we’re going to be rich for the rest of our lives.”

“I dinna think Tristan will regret stayin’ behind,” Nairnie told him. “After all, he has Gavina, the girl he loves. She’s his wife now. That is the best treasure he could have ever found.”

“Far from it,” snorted Mardon. “No woman could ever take the place of treasure, and don’t even try to change my mind. I’d die before you ever hear me agree to that!”

Chapter 2

Lady Emmaline de la Croix disembarked the fishing ship on the port of Great Yarmouth, thankful to have escaped the convent in Canterbury before she actually had to take any vows. Her true home was England and although she was happy to be back from France, this wasn’t the way she wanted to live her life.

Looking down at her drab, black robe, she longed for her colorful, fancy gowns she’d left back in France during her quick departure. The one gown she’d still possessed had been confiscated by the nuns. What little she owned now, she had with her – a black gown and wimple, plus a rosary that she wore around her neck.

Emmaline’s father, Lord Bernard Sutterland, was on his deathbed thinking she was naught but a strumpet right now, but it wasn’t true. Emmaline loved her father and always longed for his approval, so this felt like a knife going through her heart.

With her stepmother, Lady Aldusa’s persuasion, Emmaline had been married off to an evil Frenchman last year and was sent away from her father’s side. The man she’d been forced to marry was the cur responsible for ruining her reputation. She despised him. Because of what he did, Emmaline had been disowned by her family and told never to return. She was condemned to live the rest of her life in a nunnery, praying for forgiveness for her sins.

The last year of being married to that evil bastard, Lord Jean Philippe de la Croix, had been a living hell. Her only consolation was that he was now dead. If pirates hadn’t killed him when his ship was raided last month, she swore she would have ended up killing the man herself.

Emmaline’s hand went to her chest as she thought of the small vial of poison she had hidden in her cleavage beneath her clothes. She had taken the vial from her stepmother’s dressing table, thinking it was perfume. Emmaline had meant to hide it from the nuns, and to wear it on occasion. But when she’d opened the bottle at the convent, she recognized the scent of belladonna and hemlock. Why would her stepmother even have a bottle of poison?

Emmaline was all alone now and without an escort. That made her nothing but prey to any lust-filled man who’d want to have his way with her. The poison was her only means of protection if she should get into trouble. That, along with the dagger tied to her thigh that she’d managed to steal from the fishermen who gave her passage here. While the hidden dagger and bottle of poison helped to ease her mind, her real weapon that would assure her safety was being dressed in the robes of a nun.

“Are you sure this is where pirates often come?” she asked one of the fishermen as the crew hurriedly departed their boat and made a beeline to the tavern. She took a quick look around her. Quite a few ships were docked, mostly smaller ones. Fishing nets were spread out on the shore to dry. Little shacks dotted the area up and down the coast, this being the best place to fish for herring, according to the fishing crew that brought her here.