Morgane grew up at sea, daughter of the fierce pirate captain of the Vengeance, raised to follow in her footsteps as scourge of the Four Chains Trading Company. But when Anna-Marie is mortally wounded in battle, she confesses to Morgane that she is not her mother.

The captain of the enemy ship reveals he was paid to kill Anna-Marie and bring Morgane home to France and her real family. Desperate to learn the truth about her lineage, Morgane spares him, leaving the Vengeance and everything she knows behind.

Her quest reveals a world of decadence and darkness, in which monsters vie for control of royal courts and destinies of nations. She discovers the bloody secrets of the Four Chains Trading Company, and the truth about her real mother’s death, nearly twenty years before…

The Vengeance is out 8th May – you can order your copy HERE

CHAPTER ONE

If she had known that it was the last hour of her mother’s life, Morgane would have done things differently. But that was the thing about a life at sea such as they had; there was no way to tell where death would come from. They all expected it at every moment, so usual a threat that it became oddly comfortable, sinking into the background like a storm front on the horizon that never quite arrived. It was going to hit at some point. They all knew it. It was going to toss everything around and potentially wreck it all, but until that day, Morgane somehow hadn’t ever believed it would come for the captain of The Vengeance, the Scourge of the Sea.

Morgane had watched her mother pacing the deck since leaving their latest victim, a French trading ship, stricken in the water some miles back. She was finding fault with repairs, snapping at anyone who had the misfortune of needing to speak with her. Morgane was glad to be out of the way, sat as she was straddled across the bowsprit right at the front of their brigantine, her back to the sea as she sanded down the repair she’d worked on long enough to make her back ache. They were all tired and short-tempered, only a day from Port Royal and ready to spend the gold from their labours, but she knew the captain was bothered by something else. Something to do with the ship they’d just ransacked.

There had been nothing remarkable about it, just another Four Chains Company trade ship that had surrendered to The Vengeance, as they all did in the end. The captain of the captured vessel, trembling like a palm leaf in a brisk wind, had readily accepted her mother’s terms without any need for further violence. The haul was so good that they were now low in the water and as slow as a man who’d just feasted to the point of discomfort. There was gold aplenty to divide between them, and bundles of goods ready to be sold on for more. No one had died, and the only injury had been to Bull’s left cheek, hit by a splinter. Jacques, the quartermaster and best with needle and thread, had already sewn it up.

So, what then could explain the foul temper? Her mother was usually high spirited after each victory. One more notch in the beam across her bed, a further insult to the one who’d wronged her all those years ago. She’d watched her mother run a fingertip across those notches every night before they slept, her mother in the captain’s bed, herself in the hammock strung up in the corner of her cabin, as it had always been. Those few silent moments of satisfaction before climbing into bed and stretching out, hands tucked behind her head, a smile playing across her lips. 

Sometimes they took a Spanish ship, just for the gold, but they didn’t earn a notch in that beam, nor did any lovers. Only the taking of a Four Chains Company ship would merit one, and there were dozens of those marks in the wood. They kept a tally of her career of piracy rather than privateering, something that the captain considered a matter of personal pride. There was no letter of marque to protect her, and no bending of the knee to any king, French or not, as Anna-Marie had been known to boast when in her cups. All the crew benefitted from all the spoils, not just a portion left over after payment to the king as the privateers had.

Even if there were a king in Europe willing to sanction Anna-Marie’s hatred of the Four Chains Company, Morgane was convinced that her mother would not accept any permission to do as she did. It was too personal, too important a matter to involve anyone else, and she was too proud to hide behind a piece of paper giving her permission to enact her vengeance.

Something had soured of late, though. The past few months had been as successful and as lucrative as ever, but her mother’s mood had become volatile. She’d taken to brooding alone rather than drinking with the rest of them in Taverners, their favourite hostelry in Port Royal. Nothing Morgane could say or do seemed to shift those black moods that settled on her mother, just like the one setting in before her eyes. She watched her mother say something briefly to Jacques and then go below, just as the wind snatched Morgane’s headscarf clean off.

“Shit and blood!” She failed to grab the scrap of fabric before it was out of reach. The sun was beating down on her scalp and she hated the way the wind was now tugging her bright blond hair free from its braid to whip her cheeks.

She finished the sanding and then scooted along the bowsprit and back onto the forecastle deck, heading for the hatch on the main deck to go below and towards the back of the ship to the cabin she shared with her mother. Over on the quarterdeck, Jacques beckoned her to join him, but she wanted another scarf, indicating that she’d only be a moment before disappearing below.

Descending into the bowels of the ship, she listened to itscreaks and moans. Even if she hadn’t been above all day, she’d still be able to tell how the sea lay and what the wind was doing, just from what the ship said and how she moved.

She unhooked the lantern from the top of the staircase and then headed down the steps, needing its light after being out in the blazing sunshine.

“HONK!”

She gasped and almost dropped the lantern as a flurry of white feathers barrelled up the stairs towards her. The goose tugged at the pockets of her jacket, hoping she had a treat tucked away for him as she sometimes did when she wanted to go belowdecks without the entire ship knowing about it.

“Quiet, you noisy bastard!” she yelled at him, but he carried on honking as if his private home were being invaded – even though he usually slept up on the deck or in the bosun’s hammock if it was raining. “Quiet, King Charles, or I’ll chop off your head!”

His full name was King Charles the Second, out of the proper disrespect for the English king, but as long as his rank and name were spoken, he always settled. She’d never hurt a single feather on his body – she loved the stupid bird – but strangely enough, that specific threat always got him to be quiet. He settled on the top step and stared at her until she scratched the top of his head.

He nuzzled her hand with his bill and then she continued through the space filled with empty hammocks, past cannon, canvas and piles of rope, then through the open doorway partitioning off the upper storage area, the lantern light picking out the edges of the crates, bales and barrels that held the spoils of recent weeks. She picked her way through the narrow corridor left between them all to the captain’s cabin door and pulled out the key she wore around her neck, only to see that it was already open, just a crack.

The hinges on the door to the cabin were well-oiled as they were both light sleepers and it meant fewer fights if either of them came in after the other had retired for the night. Morgane opened the door as slowly and silently as possible, revealing the sparsely furnished cabin. Her mother’s bed was built into a nook with its own heavy burgundy velvet curtains to give her privacy. The leaded glass of the rear window allowed sunshine to cast a gridded square over the faded rug in the centre of the room. The captain’s desk and chair were to the left, her hammock in the corner next to it, swinging gently back and forth, her personal chest beneath it containing her worldly goods.

Morgane froze in the doorway when she saw her mother kneeling in front of one of the chests they’d looted from the captured vessel earlier.

She watched silently as Anna-Marie picked the lock, opened the chest, and lifted out two letters that lay on top of what looked like a pile of linens. After reading the names written on them, she stuffed one down her shirt and broke the other’s seal to unfold it and read the contents.

Whatever the letter said made Anna-Marie crumple forwards for a moment, before crushing the letter in her fist and slamming the chest shut. Swearing beneath her breath she stuffed that letter down her shirt, too, and then twisted round, suddenly aware of Morgane’s presence.

“You spying on me?” she shouted.

“I just need another scarf, the wind took mine.” She stepped inside, refusing to let her mother’s baleful glare stop her from entering their cabin. “What was that letter about?”

“It’s no business of yours!” Anna-Marie snapped, smoothing down her shirt as she stood.

“How could it be any business of yours, either?” Morgane asked. She wasn’t trying to push back, it just made no sense to her. They’d pulled the chest off a random ship they’d raided, one of dozens of Four Chains trading vessels they’d looted over the years. Whatever the letter had said, it couldn’t be personal.

Anna-Marie snatched one of her own scarves off the hook by her bed and pressed it into Morgane’s chest as she pushed her back towards the door. “There! Get out!”

“Tell me what—”

A final shove and she was out of the door before she could finish. She listened to it being locked from the inside. She hammered on it with her fist. “If something is making you sore-headed enough to take it out on the crew, you should—”

“Bugger off, Morgane!”

She was about to unlock the door with her own key and have it out with her, when she heard a sharp whistle. It was so faint below deck that she fancied she’d imagined it for a moment, but then came the sound of heavy boots runningoverheard – Jacques heading towards the hatch down to this deck, to come and fetch the captain, she was certain – and she immediately tensed.

King Charles started honking and then Jacques appeared at the partition between the storage area she stood in and the cannons.

“She in the cabin?”

Morgane nodded.

“Ship sighted.”

Morgane shrugged. “We’re fully laden, we’ve no need to attack another ship before landfall.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you captain now, chère?”

“Is it Four Chains?”

He nodded.

“Blood and sand.” She banged on the door. “Captain! Ship sighted!”

The key turned in the lock and Anna-Marie looked past her to Jacques. As close as she was, Morgane could have sworn she’d been crying from the red blotches just beneath her eyes. But she never cried. 

“Dill spotted a schooner,” he said. “South by sou-east, just come over the horizon.”

“One of theirs?”

He nodded. Dill, a woman so small in stature that she was often mistaken for a young boy when they were in port, had the sharpest eyes of all of them and was rarely wrong. The captain darted back into her cabin, heading for the extra pair of pistols hung beside her bed. Morgane followed her in.

“You’re not thinking of going for her?”

“Why would you think otherwise?” Anna-Marie slung each baldric over her head so they crossed over her chest and then settled the extra pistols into place so they didn’t interfere with the pair she wore at her hips. The guns were the most elaborately decorated things she wore, not being one for fancy jackets and waistcoats, unlike some of the others in their industry. She wore plain black breeches, leather boots that went past her knees and a plain linen shirt, not unlike what Morgane preferred to wear. Practical to the last, both of them.

“Because we’re already low in the water and there’s no room for—”

“Surely you are not arguing for leaving them be?”

Morgane tied the scarf over her hair and tucked in the wayward blonde strands. “We’ve a fine haul and we’re ready for port. Why—”

“Enough, Morgane. I’m taking it.”

Morgane grabbed her pistols from where she’d left them in the folds of her hammock, cleaned and ready to load as she always kept them, and slung the baldric round her hips.

“It’ll take us off course,” she said as she buckled it and checked there was powder and shot in the pouches. “We’ll be at Port Royal by morning if we—”

Out of nowhere, Anna-Marie grabbed her shirt and smashed her against the wall. “I said, enough! It’s a Four Chains ship! There’s no debate to be had.”

“We’re too slow to attack a bloody schooner!” she yelled into her mother’s face. “Just think for a bloody minute!”

A pain exploded through her jaw and then, after, the realisation that the captain had backhanded her. Her mother had never been loving, and had shoved her around all her life, but this was the first time she’d ever hit her so hard. She couldn’t quite believe it. “I am thinking!” Anna-Marie’s yelling snatched her out of the shock. “I’m thinking of what they took from me! I’ll sink every one of their damn ships and ruin them for what they did to me!”

“And it won’t change a bloody thing,” Morgane said through the blood welling in her mouth. “You’ll still be an angry bitch who hates the world.”

With a guttural sound, Anna-Marie threw her to the floor, stepped over her feet and pushed past Jacques to run to the hatch.

Morgane sat up, surprised to see Jacques standing over her, offering his hand. “Anyone else and you’d be dropped off this ship faster than a wet shit.”

She laughed and grabbed his hand to pull herself up. “Well, if I can’t use the fortune of my birth to speak my mind, what is it even worth?”

“Your gob will be the death of you, Morgane.”

“Nah, it’ll be being too bloody slow to duck.” She prodded her jaw gently.

“She’s not herself,” Jacques said quietly. “But now is not the time.” He patted the top of her head gently, as he’d always done since she was tiny. For such a tall, broad man, he was very gentle. At least he always was with her. She’d seen him smash heads against masts with enough force to cave in skulls like ripe melons. But not often. Only when he needed to. Where many of the crew revelled in any violence they could find – and groaned whenever a target vessel surrendered – Jacques never did. “You ready?”

Morgane looked into his dark brown eyes, seeing nothing but concern. She took in the scar across his right cheek, the battered tricorn hat worn over the tight black curls of his hair, the dark brown of his skin. She knew his face as well as her mother’s, and just like her, he’d been there on the ship for as long as she could remember. Where exactly in France he’d come from, what he’d left behind and why and how he fell in with Anna-Marie were mysteries to her, and everyone else in the crew. There were stories about how he’d saved the captain’s life when Morgane had been a babe in arms, and many drunken nights of trying to get him to confirm whether this was true. But Jacques, after declaring that he would never talk about such a thing while sober, would accept all the liquor given to him before staggering off to bed with his lips still sealed. She was nineteen years old, and she’d never seen or heard of him betraying a confidence. That was why he kept several of hers, too.

“You agree with me? That we should leave that ship be and carry on to Port Royal?”

After a few moments, and a quick glance at the doorwayto check the captain really had gone up on deck, he nodded. “But we’ll follow her, chère, we always do, and we always profit from it.”

Morgane let her frustration out with a sigh and they left the cabin together, taking care to lock it behind her.

The Vengeance is out 8th May – you can order your copy HERE

Emma Newman’s short story “A Woman’s Place” won the British Fantasy Society Best Short Story Award, and her novels Between Two Thorns, After Atlas and Planetfall were shortlisted for the BFS Best Novel and Best Newcomer awards, the 2017 Arthur C. Clarke award, and the BSFA Best Novel award. Emma co-wrote and hosted the Hugo and Alfie winning podcast ‘Tea and Jeopardy‘ which involves tea, cake, mild peril and singing chickens. She has just launched a new podcast ‘Starship Alexandria’ with her co-host Adrian Tchaikovsky. Her most recent novel, The Vengeance, is her first book in The Vampires of Dumas universe, the sequel The Fearsome Heart is coming out in 2026.