Creative Writing: The Veiled Masks

The cost to him was the loss of that wretched hat. It fell to the sea lest I would have had it burned otherwise. Though its truer purpose be a veiled mask, for the cur’s face be not a his and not so hideous as I once thought. It was hiding a radiant skin, brown and velvet, covered in a sheen of sweat and exhilaration. I caught sight of dark locks descending into spirals down her back, wild and unpinned. Long lashes framed her upturned eyes giving them the shape of olives, like the olives of Cerignola, for they be just as green. How could this be? I so believed her a man or was I convinced by the mere height of her stature. Taller still than some of our men, though I did not look down upon her, but held my eyes to a parallel gaze.

Another attempted effort with her razored dagger and I was no more the gentleman. I held the pistol to her head. “If the flint strikes, you will surely die,” I warned her. Be thou a cur or be thou a woman, I would see her die before my captain. Him being the only father I have ever known, I would not have him share Charles Doyle’s fate.
Simon Freely then appeared aft to give us the news. We had won the battle. The looters be surrounded, dead or injured. He has seen to it; it was over.
But what of this woman now aboard our ship, he asked of my captain. Simon was just as surprised to see her as the rest of us. Lo, we awaited his answer; his expression be perplexed. My captain would go to stand mere inches from her face. He introduced himself as a gentleman would do and be it his facetious manner to welcome her aboard the Edward Bonaventure, the ship of Muscovy. He sheathed his sword and I could see his infatuation of her. It was troubling to me, because, no matter her beauty, I knew her to be a knavish devil of dark curls and tanned skin, a woman of exotic nature, for what else can be said of her who keepeth the company of

‘Tis lamenting to agree with her, but he could have fallen by her hand: her dagger was razored, already he suffered injury. Now his affection for her grew with every minute in her company. 'Twas not the best of circumstances.
Although, duly sober, it was he who saw the flash of their deck guns. “Down all ye hands,” he shouted a warning. The danger had come again by way of a shot that smashed a belaying pin the closest to where I stood.
Damn the squirrelly woman cur, for she escaped me yet again by leaping between the standing rigging. She jumped o’er the taffrail into the sea and be it of her own accord. No one pushed her and I could not reach her, hard as I may. My captain lunged in his effort to save her. A second shot fired off from their deck guns very near his head. “Man overboard,” he shouted and stood to his feet. I gave thanks to God that he be not scathed, that the shot had gone right by him. Our harquebusiers laid dead the threat and I helped him to look for her. But she was nowhere; we could not find her. Dismayed, he would have jumped to save her had I not stayed his hand. I would not let him do such a thing. He is John Cain, Captain of the Edward Bonaventure, not the saviour of drab hearts. Let her die in such a way. Let us leave her to the water’s depths, a more merciful plight than death by the Gallows’