Princess of the High Seas
Princess of the High Seas
Brief Description
Plot
Style
Setting
History
Characters
Locations
Openings
The royal procession draws half the kingdom into the streets.
Bright banners hang from windows and balconies while musicians, mounted guards, nobles, and royal carriages make their slow passage through the crowded city. Street vendors fill every open space along the route, calling over one another as they sell food, ribbons, flowers, and cheap keepsakes to the packed crowd.
Among them stands Nastasha.
The scarlet dress is finer than anything a blacksmith’s daughter could ever hope to own. That was the bargain: wear the princess’s beautiful gown to the procession, stand at the appointed place for a little while, and afterward the dress would belong to her.
Several streets away, the king has a clear view across the procession route. Distance, banners, horses, and the shifting crowd obscure faces, but the scarlet dress remains unmistakable.
Then several men begin moving through the crowd.
They do not look toward the royal carriage.
They are looking for the dress.
The first reaches Nastasha without warning. Another comes from behind while two more force a path through startled spectators. Steel flashes as royal guards realize something is wrong, but the pirates have already committed themselves.
From the king’s distant vantage point, armed men have just seized the woman wearing his daughter’s dress.
The street erupts.
The pirate reaches Nastasha just as the crowd begins to understand that something is wrong. His hand closes around her upper arm with practiced force, firm enough to keep hold without wasting time trying to overpower her through brute strength. Around him, startled spectators stumble backward into carts and vendor stalls, scattering baskets of fruit and overturned cups beneath trampling boots.
He had expected this part to be difficult. Raven had made the order plain before they came ashore: find the woman in the scarlet dress, get her away from the procession, and bring her to The Scarlet Lady. No hesitation. No arguments. No returning without her.
And there could be no mistaking that dress.
A royal guard shouts somewhere behind him.
The pirate glances toward the sound and sees steel clearing a scabbard through the shifting bodies. His jaw tightens. They have seconds now, perhaps less. The king’s men are beginning to understand what is happening, and once the mounted guards break through the crowd, the narrow advantage Raven’s crew created will disappear.
Two of his companions force themselves between Nastasha and the approaching guards while another clears their route toward the horses waiting beyond the procession. People scream and press against walls as the pirates move through them, the brilliant scarlet of Nastasha’s dress making secrecy impossible.
He tightens his grip and leans close enough to be heard over the uproar.
“Come willingly or come fighting, lass. Captain wants you aboard, and aboard you’re going.”
His eyes flick once more toward the advancing guards.
Then he raises his voice toward the other pirates.
“Move! Now!”
By the time the pirates reach the waterfront, the alarm has spread far beyond the procession.
Church bells ring across the city while mounted soldiers thunder through streets already clogged with frightened spectators. Somewhere behind the fleeing men, orders are being shouted from one checkpoint to another, gates are closing, and every guard between the palace and the harbor is being told the same thing: the princess has been taken.
At the end of a narrow pier, The Scarlet Lady waits with her sails already beginning to fill.
The ship is alive with urgent motion. Sailors race across the deck and through the rigging, hauling lines, freeing canvas, and preparing to cast off before the king's men can reach the harbor. The heavy smell of salt, tar, wet rope, and old wood hangs over the water. Boots hammer against the planks as the returning pirates bring Nastasha aboard and the last mooring lines are thrown free.
The harbor begins to fall behind almost immediately.
Wind catches the sails and draws them taut with a crack like distant gunfire. The Scarlet Lady heels beneath the sudden pull, cutting through choppy water while smaller boats scatter from her path. Behind her, soldiers spill onto the docks too late to stop the departure.
Nastasha is taken below and confined in Raven’s cabin while the crew concentrates on escape.
The city shrinks slowly into the distance. Stone buildings become pale shapes along the coast. The crowded harbor becomes a blur of masts and sails. Before long, even the royal banners are impossible to distinguish.
Signals are already passing along the coast. Naval ships will be warned. Every loyal harbor ahead may soon know Raven's vessel by name, and turning back toward the kingdom would mean sailing directly into the forces now searching for a kidnapped princess.
The Scarlet Lady presses farther into open water.
Only when the coastline has become a thin dark line against the horizon and the immediate pursuit has fallen behind does the frantic rhythm aboard ship begin to ease.
(Raven)
Raven waits until The Scarlet Lady is well beyond the harbor before leaving the quarterdeck.
For the better part of an hour, he has given orders, watched the coastline, and measured every sail appearing against the horizon. Only when open water surrounds them and the kingdom has dwindled to a distant smear behind the ship does he finally allow himself to think about the woman waiting in his cabin.
The princess.
A faint, satisfied smile touches his mouth as he descends the narrow companionway. Months of planning, one dangerous raid ashore, and enough noise to have half the king’s navy hunting him—and somehow his men had pulled it off.
He reaches his cabin door, pauses long enough to straighten his coat, and pushes it open.
The smile disappears.
Raven stops just inside.
The scarlet dress is unmistakable. He knows every fold of it, every bit of embroidery, every detail he had been told to look for.
The woman wearing it is not.
His eyes travel slowly from her face to the expensive fabric and then lower to her hands. They are not the soft hands he remembers. Faint burns, small scars, and the unmistakable marks of hard labor trace her fingers and palms.
For several seconds Raven says nothing.
Behind him, the ship creaks and rolls beneath a steady wind. Footsteps cross the deck overhead. Somewhere outside, a sailor laughs, completely unaware that an extraordinarily expensive mistake is standing in the captain’s cabin.
Raven closes the door behind him.
His jaw tightens.
“You are not the princess.”
The words come quietly, more accusation than question.
He looks at the scarlet dress again, as though staring at it long enough might somehow change the woman inside it.
It does not.
A slow understanding begins to settle over him, followed immediately by something considerably less pleasant.
The princess had known.
She had received his message. She had understood exactly what the dress meant, exactly where she was supposed to be, and exactly what his men had been ordered to do.
And she had sent someone else.
Raven drags one hand down his face and turns toward the stern windows, staring out at the widening stretch of sea between The Scarlet Lady and the kingdom they have just thrown into chaos.
Going back is impossible.
Not inconvenient.
Impossible.
He turns toward Nastasha again, studying the furious stranger his men have delivered in place of royalty.
“Well,” he murmurs, the last trace of amusement gone from his voice, “this is going to be a problem.”
(Nastasha)
Nastasha stares at him for one long, disbelieving moment.
Then her expression hardens.
Hours of being grabbed, dragged through screaming crowds, hauled aboard a ship, locked inside a stranger’s cabin, and treated as though someone had every right to decide where she belonged finally find somewhere to go.
She steps toward Raven rather than away from him.
“A problem?”
Her voice is low at first, almost dangerously calm.
“You had your men snatch me off a public street, drag me through half the kingdom, throw me aboard this floating pile of timber, and carry me so far from home I can no longer see land.”
She lifts one scarred hand and points directly at his chest.
“And now you have discovered you kidnapped the wrong woman, and somehow I am the problem?”
The ship rolls beneath her feet, but Nastasha barely seems to notice.
Her eyes narrow.
“I am Nastasha. My father is a blacksmith. Your princess gave me this dress and told me where to stand during the procession. She said if I did as she asked, I could keep it.”
Nastasha catches a fistful of scarlet fabric and gives it an angry shake.
“She neglected to mention that a pack of pirates would come tearing through the crowd and carry me off.”
She releases the skirt and folds her arms.
“So, Captain, unless you intend to explain how you plan to undo this remarkable display of stupidity, I suggest you turn your ship around and take me home.”