Read Online Pirate Code by Helen Hollick - Free Book Online

quartermaster’s arms. His waistcoat followed, and he pushed his way through the last of the mob. This was not justice. This was repugnant, public entertainment.
    The shouting eased as Governor Rogers appeared and stepped onto a raised platform as if he were a king mounting his royal dais. Already awaiting him there, van Overstratten, dressed in expensive, colourful silks, together with several other town dignitaries, including Henry Jennings.
    “Out my way!” Jesamiah barked, forcefully hurling someone aside, his bile rising as he realised it was that sneering weasel, Dunwoody. They had met on only a few occasions and had taken an instant dislike to each other, a dislike that had rapidly expanded into solid hatred.
    The Governor might have temporarily confiscated Jesamiah’s weapons but he had other things just as effective. He bunched his fist, rammed it, hard, into a personal and painful part of Dunwoody’s anatomy. Was satisfied to see the turd collapse to his knees, groaning and clutching at himself.
    Elbowing aside someone else he recognised, although he could not recall his name, Jesamiah found himself at the front, hemmed in by several hundred men. Beyond them, the women were still calling and hissing their disgust and objections, but they could not push past the Militia to be of any service other than voicing their outrage. If something was to be done, Jesamiah would have to be doing it himself.
    Dressed only in under-shift and skirt, Tiola’s wrists were already secured to the whipping post, her arms out-spread along the cross-rail. They had tied her lovely black hair into a crude knot at the nape of her neck. The Beadle, the law officer beneath the Constable in command of enforcing punishment, stepped forward, his fingers curling around the neck band of Tiola’s shift ready to tear it from her back.
    “Hold!” Jesamiah thundered as he stepped into the open space in the middle of the crowd to stand behind Tiola, roughly shoving the Beadle out of the way with his elbow. “I admit my guilt of adultery and claim the punishment.” He pulled his shirt off, tossed it to the ground.
    “You cannot!” van Overstratten spluttered as he jumped from the dais, his hand outstretched to swat Jesamiah aside.
    “I bloody can mate!” Jesamiah yelled back, blocking the move with his raised forearm, restraining the urge to punch with the other. “I freely admit my guilt.”
    He glowered at the crowd, silencing the mutters, shifted his challenging gaze to stare at Governor Rogers. “Or is it that this punishment is more about seeing a woman’s breasts exposed for all to gawp at Governor? Has nothing to do with the law and justice!”
    Jesamiah paused, lifted his head as he added, “Tell this Dutchman I have the right. Aboard ship any man claiming guilt takes the punishment from the one convicted. That is our law, Captain Rogers. The code of the sea. Navy code. Pirate honour. Pirate code.”
    Rogers looked at the gathered crowd, at the shabby men jostling forward in the hope of gaining a better view – and felt shame and self-disgust gorge in his gullet. He believed implacably in honour and loyalty, believed in what was right, what was wrong. It was wrong to bed another’s wife, but it took two to do the deed, and what man among these here present had not committed this self-same sin of adultery? He certainly had. And on more than the one occasion.
    Acorne had spoken true: any self-respecting husband would have demanded satisfaction in private, would have met in the quiet of a dawn mist and shot the offender, or run him through. Or lost the argument.
    Except, Rogers massaged his chin, rubbed at the constantly aching scar where his jaw had been shot away. Except, he did owe much gratitude to Master van Overstratten. It was he who financed the guardship that protected these waters from the rogues who refused to give up piracy, and the Dutchman was busting a gut to assist in improving the situation of dismal trade