I WOKE ON my side, shivering, my clothes soaked. A cloth had been fitted over my face, tight as a birthing caul. My wrists were bound tightly behind my back, my shoulders ached a hot pain—the only warmth I felt. I moved my head ever so slightly, and a thunderous agony exploded in my skull. Memories of nearly drowning flooded back. I had been struck down and taken—
Where?
I could hear the eerie clanging and clinking of ropes and pulleys against ship masts. The unmistakable waft of fish drifted to my nostrils through the cloth. I smelled seawater. A blood-curdling scream rang out nearby, making my heart skip a beat.
“Damned seagulls,” a man said. “Pests. Fish-eating, squawking, arrogant pests. Aren’t they s’posed to migrate in winter?”
“Unless it was Roger and Jack, finishing off another
