"Look! There she is!" someone shouted.
A shot licked her hair before she got the chance to duck.
Wolfe placed his body firmly between the belligerent drunkards and his captain.
"This is not your business, Wolfe," a burly man warned.
"It is my business, my captain, my business, understand?" The first mate cracked his knuckles. "And if you are going to attack her, you are going to have to go through me first."
While Mariana was flattered to the core by just how much dedication Wolfe was showing to her right now, hiding behind him only made her look bad.
She stepped up and cleared her throat.
"If you fine gentlemen made me aware of what I have done to you, I would appreciate it, thank you very much."
A red-haired man glared at her. "You know you had that surgeon steal the box. Now the pirate king boycotts everything that has anything to do with the White Horse. Our business companions are suffering."
Then he paused for a moment, drawing in a deep breath.
"While I would like to kill you right here and now, Cap'n, I know how much your mad dog here likes you." He pointed towards Wolfe. "And this is why I simply tell you to stay far away from this place. This city is free for you…except for the White Horse."
"All right, then," Mariana said. It was not like she would miss this den of debauchery too much. In fact, she had always wanted an excuse to stay away from the White Horse. Now she had one, but she still felt both insulted and enraged.
She left, intending to go back to Roinar and ask for directions.
All of a sudden she noticed that Wolfe was no longer walking behind her.
When she turned, someone threw a bag over her head and punched her in the back of her head so hard that she lost consciousness.
She came to her senses in a little cellar room with nothing on its walls, not even shelves. She had been stripped from everything that could feasibly act as a weapon, but she still had her clothes on. Examining herself, she noted that her kidnappers had either failed to do her any lasting damage or succeeded in capturing her unharmed. The door was locked, and the room was pretty much soundproof. She could not tell what was going on out there, or where she was, for that matter.
There were no clocks, just gray stones on top of other gray stones. She was not tied up or chained to anything; her movements were unrestricted within the space she was confined in.
She threw herself against the door.
She felt the pain of the impact shot up from her arms.
She did it again.
The purpose of this little play was not to harm herself or to get out. She simply wanted to see the ones who had taken her, although she did already have a little theory about their identities…or his identity.
She had banged on the door about fifty times when someone slammed it into her face.
"Sorry about that," Sam said.
"You," Mariana said. She couldn't think of anything smarter than that.
"Well, you stole my heart and my chair, so I stole you." The high cor paused. "I think it's a pretty decent trade."
Mariana didn't want to waste any of her precious energy in an argument she could not win. She knew she was the underdog here; he held the metaphorical chains.
Unless she could…no, she could not beat him in unarmed combat. It was not good to entertain such folly in her head.
"Did you bring me food?" she asked.
"Anything for the princess," the cor said sourly and threw a fish pie at her. "I expect you to eat it without using her hands."
The humiliation was a bit easier to bear when Mariana thought about all the violent things she was going to do to this man. Unlike with Daniel, she had nothing tender for Sam in her heart, there was nothing to contrast this pure hatred with, nothing redeeming about this slimy, slick excuse of a person. She ate like a dog, cheeks all red, but what the captor failed to calculate for that it was not a blush of shame.
No, as far as Captain Mariana Adams knew, an individual could only be brought to shame by their own choices. Her cheeks turned pinkish red because of her sheer anger.
She hid it well enough that on the next day, she was allowed upstairs.
She was not going to have lunch with Sam. That would have been too dangerous, with all those pesky forks and knives.
No, she was allowed to listen to him playing the violin.
She hated to admit that he was not exactly mediocre. While he was not a natural talent, it was not pure torture, either, and Mariana claimed to enjoy it.
"Don't try to lie," Sam said. "I know you hate me."
Oh, what a hatefully petulant man! Everyone had to fall over to convince that he was good and wise…Mariana wanted to nail his tongue between his buttcheeks.
"I hate you, I just don't hate the way you can work a violin," she said, and that was the most honest thing Sam had ever gotten out of him.
They were quiet for a moment.
Mariana had an inkling of a realization. Something about them both being misanthropes, that kind of a connection of shared disdain, well, it was certainly something to think about, except that she still hated the high cor.
"Are you going to keep me here forever?" she asked.
"Yes, until I get bored of you and kill you with a pistol and then shoot myself," he said. "I mean, if you want the truth. You are so truthful and your hands are so soft."
At times, Mariana suspected that this man was drunk around the clock. Or maybe he was a lesser demon. Or both.