Pirate Code by Helen Hollick Page A

shaking, breath hissing through his clenched teeth. The blood ran in streaks down his back soaking through the thin cotton of his shirt.
    The rain squall that had come in so fleetingly hushed away towards the sea, the raindrops shimmering in the brilliant sunshine creating a series of rainbows across Sea Witch ’s deck. The ship bobbed, dipping her bowsprit as if in homage.
    Tiola kissed Jesamiah’s rain-damp hair. “You are a silly, stupid man who never listens to what I try to tell you,” she whispered. “All the same, thank you.”
    She kissed him again as his arms tightened in an acknowledging squeeze around her waist. She added, “And I love you.”

Nine
    Taking extreme care not to hurt him, Tiola helped Jesamiah to the great cabin and to the smaller side alcove where, with a sigh of relief, he lay face down on their bed. Chippy, the ship’s carpenter, had made it for them; a wooden box-bed slung from ropes secured to the underside of the decking above, and just large enough for Tiola and Jesamiah to snuggle intimately together. She turned away hurriedly as his hands gripped the pillow and he buried his face into its sanctuary of privacy. All the same, she saw the agony ripple through his rigid body.
    “Fetch me a bowl of hot water with a handful of salt in it please,” she said to Finch who had followed, trotting at their heels.
    Expecting the request he answered, “Which is ready. I left the kettle singin’, Ma’am.” Did not comment he had assumed its need would be for her, not their captain. He did add, “Will ye be wantin’ the vinegar and paper?”
    Tiola shook her head. The traditional sailor’s treatment for a flogging; swill the lacerated back with seawater then liberally apply vinegar-soaked brown paper. A cure that sounded as brutal as the punishment itself, but in a world where few understood infection and medical practices were governed by superstition and false ideas, a cure that was at least effective. Tiola had better healing methods, ones she used with guarded care as they ran against the orthodox ways of thinking. Her healing came with the ability of Craft; inherited knowledge handed down from the ancient and long-gone civilisations of India, the Far East, and Arabia. A sophisticated knowledge which in the present bigoted world, despite the supposed new age of science and enlightenment, would have had Tiola marked as a witch faster than a spider traps a fly.
    As far as the crew of the Sea Witch were concerned, they never questioned her methods. All they cared about were the results. They were healthy, their wounds healed fast, broken bones knitted straight and only a few of them carried the cock-pox. And those few were the ones who did not have the courage to seek Tiola’s assistance in matters relating to the frequent visiting of whorehouses, or who would not contemplate using the lamb’s intestine cundums she insisted on issuing them all.
    From a small, rowan-wood chest she produced rolls of clean linen, cleansing herbs and salves. She was a White Witch of Craft with the gift of healing, but even she did not know where to start with the mess that was now Jesamiah’s lacerated back. A small portion of his shoulder blade showed white where the skin had been flayed to the bone; the rest was mangled, bloodied, bruised and swollen. He sucked in his breath as she bathed the congealing wounds, tending and inspecting the damage as gently as she could.
    “You are an idiot to have done this,” she said tersely as he flinched and gasped aloud as her touch probed a little too insensitively.
    “What was I supposed to do then?” he objected into the pillow. “How could I have stood where you are now, looking at you lying here?” He shifted position, eased onto his side and half raised himself to face her, suppressing the groan. “How could I have lived with myself if I had let you suffer?”
    As she had to watch him suffer; Tiola said nothing, instead, showed him her answer by bending