It was just turning dark outisde when the young woman stirred from sleep. The dying light spilling through the dirty window in her room made her brassy red hair look a bright orange, and her creamy white skin to appear darker.
Finally she opened her eyes drowsily and turned her head with a groan when the light hit her in her green eyes. Reluctantly she sat up in bed causing the blanket to slip and show she was wearing a man's oversized white shirt for bed clothes and a crucifix of pewter was hanging around her neck.
The room the woman had woken up in was located in one of the more upstanding boardinghouses in Tortuga. It came cheap to rent because it was such a small, dirty room, and mostly used by sailors to bed prostitutes. But at least the linens were fairly clean. Not that clean sheets mattered much to the woman when she all but collapsed into bed to sleep away the afternoons after working in the early morning hours when most of the town's inhabitants were passed out or crippled with hangovers.
If the woman could have chosen to be any place in the world right now it would definitely be far from this dank room in a town overrun with shiftless sailors, whores, and con men. But this was where she would stay until she could find another ship that she could join and sail far away on.
The woman in question had been names Briana nineteen years ago by her mother when she was born in Limerick, Ireland. Briana's voice still held a slight Irish lilt in her light flowing voice even if her mother had taken them away to England for a better life when Briana was, but eight. It had been a hard necessity for the mother and daughter to leave the beloved Isle of Erie with a father dead and buried in the ground and a landlord hounding them for rent on their tiny cottage.
Briana got out of bed and slipped into a pair of black pants that conformed to her shapely legs, before pulling stockings on, followed by sturdy black boots that covered most of her calves. She then pulled her shirt of and set to binding her full breasts using a long strip of the sheets she had slept on. Now when she dressed in her shirt and vest, no one would give her chest a second look when it was flat enough to pass for a man's. Finally, Briana pulled her long brassy tresses into a bun which she secured with a black ribbon. When she slid on her round brimmed hat, along with a silver pin to discreetly hold it to her head, she was certain to be able to pass as a man; even if she appeared to be lighter in build than most males. That wouldn't matter so long as she could prove to be capable of working hard. That was never a problem.
She was just buckling her belt that bore her sword when a shout was heard in the distance accompanied by the sounds of glass shattering.
"Sounds like the early risers are up," Briana chuckled in the deep tone she would have to use if she wanted to be convincing as a male. She tugged the brim of her hat down so that it almost covered her eyes and stepped out of the room to pay a visit to town.
