Pirate meets princess - unfini

     Rose paced the Throne Room with a fury while Gallagher began to negotiate with Beolagh. How could they have forgotten the princess? It was one thing to have captured the king, and his own vanity might have sufficed, but without the child to threaten, how could they force him to do anything?
     “Each of my men get an equal share of loot, save for me and my mate.”
     “I’ll give you nothing but a long-winded death!”
     “I want them each pardoned under law for all prior crimes.”  
     “Your scum dogs will hang before you like the pukepaste they are!”
     “Each of them gets an estate without the kingdom.”
     “My guard will flay every last one of you alive and dress my horses with your flesh!”
     “That’s uncivilized, that is,” piped Terfin. The boys sniggered. Rose and Gallagher both shot them withering glares, and they fell silent.
     Rose resumed pacing, berating herself - why didn't she check? How in the name of all things worth swearing on had she forgotten? She kicked at a heavy wooden chair in anger.
     "Release me now, you worthless waste of slubbering rat meat, or I'll have your throats torn out with-"
     "Ugh, shut him UP, I can't THINK!" she moaned.
     Gallagher shrugged and stomped hard on Beolagh's throat; the king choked and coughed again, turning an uncomfortable shade of pink, and the echoes stopped for the moment.
     "CAPTAIN!"
     Rose and Gallagher both jumped to thier feet. Morris dashed into the Throne Room, panting and grinning like a dog come back with a fetching stick.
     "We got 'em!"
     "The princess?" Rose could have hugged him, in another life.
     "Yup! Her and four others, tryin' to help her escape!"
     Beolagh finally twitched at the word 'princess', not unnoticed by Gallagher. "You go on and see," he said. "Make sure its the right lass, and see about these others. I'll make our proposal again, see if I have any more success." She returned his grin and shot a menacing smirk at Beolagh, pleased to see the worry interspersed with the rage and hate on his bloated features. Now he would know, slimy pig.
     She ran ahead of Morris to the drawbridge, now manned by pirates who teased the bound guards at swordpoint, the gate hanging open like a dog's tongue. The ship gleamed in the little natural harbor, its decks flanked and patrolled by the men who had gone searching. From somewhere inside the castle, Beolagh's screams erupted again, a thousand times louder and more horrible than ever.
     "Where is my daughter, you rat?!"
     Morris cringed beside Rose. "That's what me uncle Argus sounded like 'fore he croaked wiffa choked up heart and boffed up half 'is weight in blood."
     Rose didn't reply as she ran to the waterline.
     The waiting dinghy brought them to the bow of the ship, the mintues crawling by with the slow rhythm of the oars; she hastily climbed the hull and pushed past the men towards the hatch that led to the brig, only distractingly returning their salutes. Halfway to the ship, Beolagh's screams had abruptly stopped, and the silence pressed on her like fog.
     The brig was dark, dank, and damp, echoing with drips of moisture that had already begun to form cave creepers on the heavy metal bars and chains, and now filled with the heavy breathing of six prisoners. Morris handed her a lit lantern, which she held up to see, though it was barely enough to make out the line of figures staring back at her - detail was lost.
     The first was a thin, pale man, clad in only a tunic and some strange puffy fur thing that he tried unsuccessfully to hide behind his back. The second man was also pale, young and lean-looking, and not at all unattractive. The third was also a man, tall and dark-haired, wearing faded but well-kept foreign clothing, with a gaze that pierced her with hate. She caught herself and smirked back at him for a quarter of a second.
     The fourth figure was an old woman, hanging limply from her manacles, her stark white hair matted around her face, obscuring it. The fifth, a much younger woman, muttered what sounded to Rose like a village prayer - a prayer of vengeance, rather than safety or deliverance. She rolled her eyes and turned to the sixth, a skinny little girl with wide sunken eyes and yellow hair. Rose knelt down in front of her, holding up the lantern to peer into the girl's face.
     She had not seen a portrait of the princess for over three years, and the kid would have only been ten or so, but the face was the same - small and round, with striking blue eyes, framed by platinum locks that clung to her light, moist skin. The nightgown she wore under the nondescript cloak was silk, lace all the way to the collar, and to top it off, a gold pendant in the shape of the Ethelstan coat of arms glittered on a thin chain around her neck, next to a chipped old seashell on a piece of rusted fishing twine. Odd, but Rose didn't care enough to spare a second thought.
     "Princess."
     The girl jerked her head up, startled, and terror filled her face. Suddenly, the woman next to her let out a sniff.
     "Excuse me? I am the princess, slugwench."

***

     Beolagh howled and howled. The servant girls huddled in the corner began to cry, not because they felt sorrow for him, but because of the fury he fumed. Gallagher barely lidded his impatience, and the groups of pirates that trickled in smelling fresh food turned on heel and stuffed bits of the shredded tapestries into thier ears.
     Suddenly, the howling stopped. Gallagher whipped around to see Beolagh coughing. Hard. Then, with a horrible sucking breath, the Walrus retched and spewed a lungful of blood all over the stone floor, his purple face paling to sickest white. He gasped and coughed again, blood oozing from both corners of his mouth, his eyes rolling back in their sockets. They watched helplessly and dispassionately as he twitched and drooled and moaned, flailing arms bound behind his back in a fruitless attempt to clutch his failing heart. One blue vein near his balding temple pulsed faster and faster, grotesque and telling. Then, with a  slow shuddering moan, Beolagh fell limp. Dead.


     "Red! Red!"
     Terfin burst through the hold out of breath and flailing and ran straight to Rose, the expression on his face like that of one who has met a taint in a foul mood. He cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered, "Walrus is dead. Cap'n said he choked on blood 'cause he burst 'is heart." He shrugged as though to say he thought a burst heart was the least likely cause, but his superstitious face was frozen in fear.
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