Chapter 12: Isabel's story

3 August, 1686 Afternoon

Isabel stood on the stern of the Maidens Revenge looking out over the bay reflecting on her past. She was born in the town of Portobello, on the coast of Central America. Her father was a farmer and he along with her mother had been among the very first to emigrate from Spain to the new world. She was one of five children, two boys and three girls and like her older sister, at age thirteen she was lost to her indifferent parents and relations, and they to her when her father sold her into slavery. All her help was but cries and tears, and these could not avail; she had been brought from a state of innocence and freedom in a parentally apathetic and cruel manner, and conveyed to a state of horror and slavery.

The man that purchased Isabel was a Spaniard named Juancho d Estrada, and the owner of a tavern in Havana, Cuba. Insisting that he confirm she was still untouched before handing over such a sum to her father, Juancho had taken Isabel's virginity that very same day, inside her very own home, in her mothers and fathers bed.

The following day she and Juancho sailed to Cuba where for a year she worked in Juancho's tavern during the day and shared his bed during the night. He had little regard for Isabel's sentiment and used her solely for his own gratification. She had twice become pregnant, but with all the stress and hard labor had had early term miscarriages on both occasions.

Juancho was a habitual gambler and on two occasions, after losing at cards he had offered the use of Isabel as payment for his losses.

Two month's prior to Isabel meeting Constance and Claire, Juancho had acquired a larger then normal gambling debt and he was forced to sell Isabel in order to clear the obligation, which he did... to Captain Shadrach Bass.

Bass raped Isabel during the sail from Cuba to Port Royal then after being shut in the dungeon of Bass' old stone fort, for almost a month the jailer had taken advantage of her as well until finally she was auctioned off to Miss Bjorn.

Isabel had little knowledge concerning the where-a-bouts of her older sister Maria who would be eighteen now. When Isabel was ten and Maria thirteen, Maria had gone away with a land owner named Pierre de Carnay from some small settlement called La Nouvelle Orleans. At the time Isabel had been told and came to believe that what had happened to her older sister was of Maria's own design and desire. Now she knew different, her father had sold Maria just as he had sold her. It had become so crystal clear, female children were of little use to her father on the farm but they were a commodity easily sold. Other than the settlement name and the name of the land owner of Maria she knew nothing else, having had no contact with her older sister since the day she left with Pierre de Carnay.

On the other hand, her younger sister Teresa, she knew exactly where she was. Teresa was now twelve; she wouldn't turn thirteen for another ten months so Teresa must still be in Portobello. Having learned from her own personal experience what in reality became of female children in her home at the age of thirteen, she had little doubt concerning Teresa's future.

It was at that very moment she recognized where her real purpose lay. For her it was an epiphany of sorts, a purpose even more compelling than that of realizing retribution from Miss Bjorn or Shadrach Bass. For more than a year Isabel had been so absorbed with her own needs and self-protection it wasn't until after befriending Constance, Claire and Carmen that she now felt save enough and comfortable enough to even think of anything other than her own self-preservation. Now feeling to some extent secure, her mind could afford the luxury of thinking of her sisters Teresa and Maria.