We made port a few days later, at a city known for not checking a ship's credentials when it came to buying and selling goods. The plan was to stay for bit, recuperate from all our time at sea and celebrate the capture of two ships—the one I'd been on and one other. The crew seemed generally ecstatic about this, many of the men speaking fondly of a brothel they planned to spend the whole time at. Captain Rodrigues appeared to share their sentiment, joining in on the conquest stories. It made me feel sick to hear them talk of the things they'd supposedly done. In the end I kept to myself as everything was unloaded, until I was among the last to leave for shore.
"Not eager to get laid, eh, Samuel?" one of the men joked as he climbed into the long boat that was about to be lowered down. "That's okay, there's plenty o' whores to go around!" All of the men laughed at that, their excitement bringing a small smile to my face despite my disgust. In all fairness, the women they were talking about did have sex for money, so there wasn't really that much for me to fuss over. If the months I'd spent here had taught me anything, the seventeenth century was nothing like the twenty-first. I'd come to accept the fact that there was nothing I could do about customs and tastes that seemed purely archaic to me.
Sighing, I turned from the long boat, having a strange feeling that if I were to depart with that group I would find myself carted off to the brothel with them, unable to voice my thoughts on the matter. Tristan was on board somewhere, overseeing all the unloading with the record keeper. I'd never seen them completely empty out the ship before, which was a massive undertaking that gobbled up hours of time. After it was all on shore and stored in the warehouse, Tristan would then go make the payment arrangements with the dock master and the merchant seller.
All of this information had me feeling like I was most likely on my own for the evening. Father Torres had left as soon as possible, wanting to go to church and confess his sins. I had the sneaking suspicion that he liked being a pirate and felt he needed forgiveness for it.
I made my way to the stairs, intent on staying in my hammock for a time, thinking it best to avoid any of the men on the island. As I neared the officer's quarters, the sound of a voice coming from Tristan's room made me pause. It was definitely a man's voice, one that sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. Curiosity getting the better of me, I stood outside the door, listening to the conversation.
"You can trust me," the voice was coaxing. "No harm or ill will come from telling me where it is."
"Ye know I can not tell ye." Tristan sounded ruffled. "It's against my orders. The Grand Master would have my head if he knew I was even admitting I know where it is!"
"You didn't admit it. We all know you know it, you're the one that does the hiding. All we do is protect it on the way there, make sure you have an alibi when you slip away. We're a team, Tristan! Don't hold this back from us."
"I will not tell ye," he replied forcibly. "And that is the end of it. Do not ask again, or I'll be inclined to share these little conversations, savvy?"
"Don't make us enemies." There—the sharp tone of the voice had finally aided me in placing its owner. Thomas Randall was in the room, and he apparently wanted something Tristan had very badly.
"We're not enemies, Thomas." Tristan sighed. "As ye said, we're a team. And a team must trust its captain. Ye are no captain."
"I could be," Thomas snarled. "I could get this whole crew to vote me in, and then you'd have to do as I asked, or I'll make sure you never see Oak Isle again."
"Yer on shifty ground, Thomas," Tristan growled. "Be careful what threats ye make, and to whom. I won't be shoved around by an English dog who thinks he owns everyone around him."
I flinched at his tone, remembering his intense dislike of the English as a whole. Thomas was indeed pushing his limits.
"At least I'm not an Irish bog-jumper," Thomas spat. "From a family that fancied themselves royalty in a land that never belonged to them."
Sounds of a scuffle immediately started, grunts coming from both men as things were bumped around. I halfway wondered if I should go in and interrupt it, but this was none of my business. I wasn't even supposed to be hearing the conversation. It was best to let Tristan take care of himself—he was more than capable of doing it.
Slinking away, wide eyed, I descended halfway down the stairs and sat down, sorting through everything I'd just heard. Thomas wanted to know something, but Tristan was forbidden to tell him by the Grand Master.
"Stupid!" I clapped my hand over my mouth in shock, looking around to see if anyone had heard me. Thankfully, I appeared to be completely alone. Excitedly, I stood up, turning in a circle before realizing I didn't have anywhere to go and sitting back down.
Why didn't I see it before? John Butler had said something about an order, which was interrupted by Tristan and hastily written off as meaning the whole crew. Thomas said they were part of a team, a group that was protecting and hiding something. Tristan had used the phrase Grand Master himself. Most of all, they were referencing Oak Isle specifically.
My father's image swam before my face as I remembered him telling me his theories about the Treasure Pit. "The Knights Templar," he'd said with excitement. "They were the only ones with the man power that could have done this. All of history points to them being the creators. The Grand Master would have organized it all, a whole army of men at his disposal to carry it out."
Grand Master. The box I'd found in the vault had a Templar's cross on the lock, along with the letter "o."
O'Rourke.
Tristan was a knight, and he was hiding the treasure of Oak Isle. It all made sense! That's why he was there the day I'd washed ashore, and the reason he hadn't fought to leave me behind when the captain ordered me taken along. He was trying to protect the secret that was there!
The startling revelation showed Tristan in a whole different light. He wasn't a bloodthirsty pirate, bent on killing as many men as he could for their gold. He was a knight protecting the treasure of kings! He was part of one of history's greatest mysteries. He held the answers to Oak Isle.
Could he hold the answer I needed to get back to my own time?
It felt like I was coming out of my skin, all of the new information swirling around in my head like a hurricane. How many of the other men were in on it? Obviously John and Thomas were, so there were at least three of them. I'd received the impression that Thomas didn't get along with either of them, so there must be even more Knights on board, secretly transporting their treasure from the Old World to the New.
Frowning, I suddenly realized the weight of the threats I'd heard Thomas spouting out before. If he were to control the ship, Tristan would be forced to tell him what he wanted to know, or abandon his mission from the Grand Master.
Thomas is a cunning devil, isn't he? The thought settled in my mind for a moment, his sneering face burning behind my closed eyelids, the cut I'd given him during our little fight having scarred him. I'd made a powerful enemy that day, for sure.
The longer I thought about it, the more I was convinced that Thomas wanted to know where the Treasure Pit was. If Tristan was the one doing the hiding, then no one else knew how to get in to it. They were operating on a need-to-know basis. There was something in Thomas's tone that made me think he knew where the treasure was, but not how to get to it. Perhaps the pit was already there and he didn't know how to get past the booby traps? But that didn't make any sense; it would have to be dug out and refilled each time more treasure was hidden, and Tristan couldn't do that all by himself. No, there had to be another way into it.
Thinking over everything I knew about the pit, I was soon lost in my own time, remembering things we'd discovered and trying to tie them in with what I was learning now.
A door slammed open and shut above me and I jerked out of my musings, looking up at the bruised and bloodied face of Thomas Randall.
"What are you looking at?" he hissed, storming off in the direction of the remaining long boats.
The door opened and closed again and Tristan appeared at the top of the stairs, his lip bleeding and one eyebrow slightly swollen. "Mr. Smith?" he asked in surprise. "I thought ye'd gone ashore with the padre hours ago."
Shaking my head, I tried to keep my excitement to myself. Was I looking at him differently, I wondered, now that I knew what he really was?
"Aye, come with me then. We'll get ye some supper."
Rising, I joined him on the gun deck, ascending the stairs to the uppermost deck and getting in a long boat with him. Thomas appeared to have taken off on his own, his figure rowing steadily towards shore, anger rolling off his jerky form.
"It was nothing," Tristan said, dismissing my look of curiosity. "Just a little misunderstanding, is all. Here." He handed me a rope and motioned for me to begin letting it slide through the pulley, at the same pace as he did on the other side. Within a few moments, we were in the water, each holding an oar, setting off towards shore.
"Are ye doing all right, Sam?" I knew instantly that he was speaking to me as myself from the tone of his voice. It had gone soft, caring even, and he stared with a look that said he saw something he liked very much.
"I'm fine," I said, clearing my throat. It was always hard to pick up talking right away after being silent for so long. "Would you like me to take care of your face?"
"It's just a bloody lip." He shrugged, grinning lopsidedly and laughed. "Thomas got the worse end of it."
"I saw that," I agreed, entertained. "What was your disagreement about?"
"Nationality and patriotism."
"I'm glad you put him in his place," I said forcefully, earning a raised eyebrow from him.
"Are ye then? Ye do surprise me, lassie. Firing guns, winning fights, taking an interest in the affairs of men. It is most unlike any other woman I've met, to be honest."
"I'm not that different. Most women are like me, at least where I come from anyway. I imagine there's a lot of women here who are the same as well, they just have more tact than I do and are better at hiding their interests."
"Hmmm." He watched me carefully, slowing his rowing, lips pursed.
"What?" I snickered, matching his speed again. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I'm trying to decide what it is ye are. Ye say there are other women like ye here, but that just isn't true. I knew right off that ye were different than any I've come across before."
"And why is that?" I chuckled, enjoying the freedom I felt around him.
"Well, for starters, yer hands don't look like they've seen much work in their lifetime. That says to me yer a lady, only just required to do hard work. But, then ye didn't know how to do any of the things a lady would, like getting dressed." He cleared his throat and I blushed, remembering how stupid I'd felt looking at all the layers of clothing I was supposed to wear and having no idea how to put them on.
"So, then I thought maybe ye were a witch. Ye made my head feel funny and my heart race with yer spells. But if ye were a witch, why not just curse the old captain and get him to leave ye alone?"
"I'm not a witch, you're right." I grinned, actually enjoying his musings. It was nice to know he'd been thinking about me all this time, even if it was to figure out what I was lying about.
"Are ye an mhaighdean mhara then?" He looked serious as he asked, but I had no idea what he was saying. Something of my confusion must have shown on my face because he laughed, clearing his throat. "A sea woman, lass. A siren?"
"Oh!" Realization dawned on me and I laughed, hard. "A mermaid, you mean?" Giggling strongly as he nodded, I felt tears gather in my eyes and reached up to wipe them away.
"It makes sense," he argued, smiling all the same. "Ye were on the beach, calling out for help. Ye'd been in the sea. Ye were hurt. Yer clothes about drove the men insane, they hid so little of you."
By this point I was gasping, not believing that he actually thought that it was a real possibility. "I'm not a mermaid," I said between breaths, trying to regain control again. "I'm honestly just a normal girl. No magic or anything." My nose twitched at the lie—there had been some type of magic involved in my getting here—but nothing like he was imagining.
"There's something," he insisted. "I'll get the truth out of ye eventually, one way or another." His eyes flashed dangerously and I felt my stomach dip pleasantly, as I instantly caught on to his flirtations.
"Where are we eating?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Somewhere where I'll finally be able to listen to yer voice for more than ten minutes at a time," he sighed. "Thank the heavens."