Sonja Nehalenniasdóttir is finally free. After a daring escape from servitude and a sharp rise to first mate of the North Sea's most notorious pirate crew, she's survived punishing storms, several double crosses, and even diffused a mutiny against t...
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SAILS OF WRATH AND SILVER ✵ II. ——————————————————
After making port, habit proved Strijk was likely to step off the ship into a tavern instead of a brothel like the majority of the crew. Instead of troubling herself with tracking him, Sonja had ducked into one close to the cove and bought herself a coffee and brandy.
They'd reached Porpoise at the earliest morning hour, when the first beams of dawn were dripping down the cliff faces like molten gold. Sunlight had yet to burn away the bluish fog that wreathed flat-faced houses and cobbled streets, but now the watch still aboard Nehalennia's was dimming her lamps. Because of the storm, the island's sheltered cove was brimming with sloops and schooners, the most ambitious among them already drawing anchor and sailing into whatever wickedness the North Sea had to offer.
Sonja stirred her second serving of brandy into her mug as she waited for Strijk to show. The tavern, like the rest of the port at Porpoise, sat on the slope that rose above the cove. From her window-side table, she could see the island breaking the bounds of its slumber. Fishermen with lines and creels headed for the shore. Lamplighters toured the streets with dimming poles, and the seagulls were already squabbling over crumbs caught between the cobbles.
Yet it was the Dutchman who paraded into the tavern in a cloud of citrus perfume that caught her attention. Sonja recognized his scent; she had worked in the orangery that produced such a strangling sweetness. Bile swelled in her throat and she turned to watch him in the window's reflection instead of head on.
Even in the glass, the blue-gold of his embroidered waistcoat and the flowing lace on his cravat were preserved. His coiffed ginger curls and silk breeches were more than enough to make him stand out in the tavern's seedy, scar-faced crowd, but he also wore a feathered hat.
His bulging blue eyes swept the smoke-shroud room. Sonja shriveled. Where was Strijk? On his way? Being held at by a pair of pistol-wielding slavers demanding he surrender and follow them to the docks? She threw back the last of her brandy. He wasn't coming to save her a second time. Men like the merchant were why she carried her flintlocks and the dagger on her belt. She reached for her sash as his perfume jammed its sickening fingers down her already tight throat.
"Miss Berg?"
When Sonja met the merchant's gaze, he gave her a mocking bow to mask the gratification that'd twisted his face. They both gathered he'd done what his employer, and Sonja's former one, had sent him across the sea to do. There was no point in Sonja trying to win their exchange, only to escape with her freedom intact.
"It is you," he said. "They say you stowed away to Sweden and turned pirate along the way. A pirate who lowers itself to be under the command of property, no less."
"Captain Strijk is a free man, and I a free woman." Sonja replied, her voice strangled by his scent and her fear. She swallowed both with the dregs of her coffee. "But what business brings you to Porpoise, Mister Mooren? Cacao? Tobacco?"
