Dewey Lambdin - A Jester’s Fortune

• Название: A Jester’s Fortune
• Автор: Dewey Lambdin
• Жанр: Морские приключения

The year is 1796 and the soil of Piedmont and Tuscany runs with blood, another battle takes shape on the mysterious Adriatic Sea. Alan Lewrie and his 18-gun sloop, HMS Jester, part of a squadron of four British warships, sail into the thick of it. But with England's allies failing, Napoleon busy rearranging the world map, and their squadron stretched dangerously thin along the Croatian coast, the British squadron commander strikes a devil's bargain: enlisting the aid of Serbian pirates.

---

"A case'd do me, Mister Giles, aye," Lewrie replied, feeling a bit nettled to be interrupted when dealing with Mlavic. "Captain!" He shouted, regaining his feigned air of pleasance. "Congratulations for your splendid capture, sir. You've had better fortune than even your leader, Captain Petracic. How did you take her?"

"Ah, Ratko." Mlavic grinned, splitting that bearded face with erose teeth. "Great man… leader, da. Want drink, captain Lev… Lew… here!" he offered, shoving the opened bottle at him, sloshing some more. Mlavic had tricked himself out in a pair of blue trousers, down inside a new pair of what looked like cavalry boots, a fancy-laced new shirt-though he clung to that foetid goat-hair weskit. And all his weapons. The shirt was already spotted with wine-stains, and he wasn't doing his cabin-servant any favours with new ones, either.

"Feeling a bit dry, I will allow, Captain," Lewrie told him as he fetched an unopened bottle from a nearby crate. It'd be the last thing he'd do, to share sip-for-sip from Mlavic's. "Thought an entire bottle'd do me better," he explained.

So I don't die o' Plague or something! he thought with a shiver. Without a cork-puller handy, he undid the lead-foil and knocked the top off on the edge of a washtub, then had himself a careful sip. It was a very good wine, he had to admit.

"Congratulations on your prize, Captain," he said again, lifting the bottle to make a toast. "Did you take her recently?"

"Da." Mlavic nodded, looking away. "On way here. Fall in lap, hah? Rich prize." He shrugged as if it was of no matter. "All this, ver' rich, oh yayss. Yayss, hah-English? Come! Sit!" Mlavic said, more animatedly. "We drink, eat, sing songs. Plenty food… come!"

"My purser Mr. Giles wonders if he might purchase some of your foodstuffs, Captain," Lewrie said, waving Giles forward. "Meat on the hoof, some grain, pasta or flour? Some wines?"

"Da, have plenty!" Mlavic said with a crafty look. "One guinea each!" He roared as if he'd just asked the moon. "I know guinea, in gold… guineas good. One cow, one guinea. You pay?" he leered.

"Aye!" Giles cried, before Mlavic could rethink his price. "A guinea per cow… one guinea, two sheep or goats? Sack of flour for a guinea? Case of wine… two guineas," he proposed, dropping into the same sort of fractured trade-pidgin.

"Da, is good price. But you pay now!" Mlavic insisted with a hearty rumble, stabbing at his palm with a calloused, tar-stained finger. Giles made a quick estimate of what would feed the hands at least one fresh meal, what the gun-room wished, what might live aboard for a few days more on fresh fodder, and opened his purse. Mlavic eyed each coin pile avidly, his countenance piggish. Lewrie rued it, but he doled out four guineas of his own for two cases of that excellent wine.

"Might I have some hands, sir… to round everything up and get the goods into the cutter?" Giles asked, once the transaction was done., "Mister Hyde? Assist the purser, would you? And warn Andrews 'bout the people. There's an ocean o' spirits here. Keep them away from drink, the both of you. Busy with the livestock, then get them back aboard. Else…" Else, like all British Tars, they'd treat it like feast or famine and go on a prodigious tear, no matter the floggings to follow-they thought a few lashes a small price to pay for a drunk. Should half his crew get drunk, though, here in the midst of cutthroats, there was no power in the world that could control them. Or save them.

"I'll tend to it, sir," Hyde assured him, though not without a long, longing peer at the many crates or bottles, and a furtive lick or two of his tongue over his "parched" lips.

"Come, sit!" Mlavic coaxed once more, waving a hand toward the rough seats by his hut door and night-fire-which were nothing better than some log sections, adzed somewhat flat on top.

Lewrie took a seat, hitching his sword out of the way. Kolodzcy dusted himself a spot first with his handkerchief, looking dubious in spite of that effort, before he sat. Right next to the opened case of wine, of course. He drew out a bottle, undid the seal and reached into his waistcoat pockets to produce-should there have been any wonder!- a cork-puller, then wiped the neck down before essaying a sip. Mlavic nudged Lewrie in the ribs with a hearty elbow, muttering Serbo-Croat crudities, and Lewrie was forced to show a brief, tight-lipped smile.

"Sdrasvodye!" Mlavic proposed, clinking his bottle against the one Lewrie held. "Toast! Ratko Petracic!"

"Ratko Petracic," Lewrie and Kolodzcy were forced to echo. "He great man… holy man," Mlavic commented. "I bring you word from him, by the way, Captain," Lewrie began. He felt a tap on his left shoulder and turned to see Kolodzcy offering him a looted silver wine-chalice, a mate to the one in Kolodzcy's hand.

"Trink from neck, vill cud your lip, sir," Kolodzcy said. "Vit your permission, Kapitan Mlavic… ve use your ceptured goblets?"

"Da, use," Mlavic most genially urged. "Welcome. Tonight have great celebrating. No keg-meat, poohl No hard biscuit. Serb food is best in world. Good wine, no ratafia, poohl Plenty food, plum brandy. Boats go mainland, bring much! Ah, you like plum brandy, Capitan? I remember… see you ver' drunk… drink like man! Ostereicher girlie-man drink tea, ahahahah!" Mlavic slapped his thighs, he found it so amusing. And then had to rise and share it with his compatriots, so they could jeer at Kolodzcy, too.

It was growing dark, nigh on sunset, and pirates leaped and did fantastic gyrations as they danced and celebrated their prize, crying out boasts, jests, snatches of song as they capered round the fires-much like, Lewrie thought, the Muskogee and Seminolee Indians he'd seen in Spanish Florida, back in early '83.

"I have come from Ratko Petracic, sir," Alan tried once more, hoping that once he'd relayed Petracic's orders, he could go back to his own ship, keeping his visit brief and himself both unsullied by contact with Mlavic and relatively sober. "With his orders, sir."

"What he want?" Mlavic almost sneered, surprising Lewrie. He had taken Mlavic for a docile, adoring follower up 'til then.

"He wishes you to come join him at once, sir. He needs every ship and man, he said. He has something planned."

"What he plan?" Mlavic pressed, frowning and squinting, leery. "No rich ship, there. Far from home."

"He worries, he says, Captain," Lewrie told him, patiently as he could, "that without some successes, he might lose the enthusiasm of his men-some of his men, at least-and that they'd drift away."

Are you one? Alan wondered; more a pirate than a patriot?

"Da, can happen." Mlavic nodded, getting shifty-eyed again. "So what he do, he need Dragan?"

"He said he would find a place to strike a blow. A blow against his enemies. Don't know quite what he had in mind, really, but-"

"He say that?" Mlavic questioned, sounding suspicious.

"He did, sir," Lewrie reiterated, wondering if this 'did he, did he?' would go on all night. "Something… holy, he said. He said to inform you that he needs your ship and your men, and for you to go to the coast and raise as many fighters as you can immediately. And go to him right after. I suppose he'll wait for your arrival, since he seems to think he needs all he can muster."

Mlavic passed a gnarly hand over his face, as if he could wipe away semi-drunkeness. "Kossovo Polje," he whispered to himself with a grim shake of his head, as if he'd just seen the first glimmer from the Second Coming on the horizon. He was stunned, shaken to his roots.

"He recited Knez Lazar's lasd orders to us, Kapitan," Kolodzcy prompted. "Zo, id gannot be he plans a furder act ohf piracy." Lewrie turned to see that Kolodzcy was still red-faced from Mlavic's insult, prim and grimly bland-faced-though with one brow up in sly chicanery.

"Where he strike blow?" Mlavic demanded, quarrelsome.

"Don't know," Lewrie admitted truthfully, taking a sip of wine to cover his own duplicity. "Not a Venetian port, he assured me. An act against his… your enemies, not ours, I gathered. Something that would keep his fleet eager, put heart in all your people, and… scare foreign traders, as well."

"Kossovo Polje," Mlavic whispered again, sounding reluctant, as if the Second Coming were real and he were about to be eternally damned as a hopeless sinner. He took a deep draught of wine, then tossed the bottle away like he'd tasted poison. "Time? Time?" he muttered. He got to his feet awkwardly, crossed over to a stone crock sitting on a crate and opened it to take another slug. Plum brandy, by the smell, Lewrie reckoned; more powerful "Dutch Courage."

"Too soon, sir," Kolodzcy whispered softly. "He thinks id ist too soon. A pragmadic man, dhis Mlavic. In dhis for de money, sir, nod glory or holiness. Vhadeffer Petracic does, dhis one vill nod be vit him. He vill sail off, you see." Kolodzcy sneered, making one of his "poof!" conjuring motions again. "He hess no vish to die for a cause."

Lewrie thought that Dragan Mlavic certainly appeared to be a man of two minds at that moment, struggling with his inner demons. Growling and muttering to himself, pacing fretful a step or two right, then left, pondering and sipping, pondering and sipping…

Let Petracic lead the bulk of the fleet to ruin, Alan wondered, then take over the remnants… and keep his ambitions small? That was one choice he imagined Mlavic was weighing. Simply toddle off and forget he'd ever heard the orders-ever heard of Ratko Petracic at all-was another. Survive, hole up somewhere safe and anonymous for a time, 'til it was safe to resume his filthy trade? Perhaps Kolodzcy had the right of it; at heart he was a follower of Mammon, a pragmatist or a coward who knew certain death awaited just weeks or months away if he obeyed. Lewrie took a draught of wine, most smugly enjoying Mlavic s dilemma of how he'd avoid his martyrdom.

"Hah!" Mlavic cried aloud, in a bellow that could have carried through a full gale, of a sudden. He put both arms on high and dashed out into the centre of his capering sailors, crying at the top of his voice. With a smile of such pure ecstacy it damn-near ripped his face in half, his mouth a gigantic red hole. "Kossovo Polje!" he cried, followed by a flood of Serbian, which stilled that jangly, jumpy music, turned the dancers to stone in an instant. Mlavic was the only one dancing then- seeming to lope in a wide circle amid the leaping flames of the cook-fires, snouting to all, then to individuals, snapping his fingers with urgency. The only other sounds were the crackling fires and the sizzling of meat juices, the soft bubblings of stews or gruels.

"Perhaps, sir," Lewrie muttered from the side of his mouth, "he ain't as pragmatic as you suspect, what?"

"Perhabs he ist a fatalist." Kolodzcy shrugged, as if it was no matter. "Eastern folk vill make de besd ohf efen crucifixion."

"Like 'if rape's unavoidable, relax and enjoy it'?" Lewrie felt like snickering.

"Zomethink like dhat, ja," Kolodzcy tittered, finishing his wine. "We heff deliwered de orders, Kommandeur Lewrie. Time to leaf, I am thinkink. Dhey vill get blint-trunk unt vork dhemselfes into frenzy. Unt vhat heppen afder to foreigners…"

"Aye, good thinkin', sir. Let's steal away, supper or no." A ferocious din erupted from the Serbs, who were cheering and crying to the first star of the evening. Swords and scimitars were flashing red and amber in the firelight, and they were capering, dancing with glee, and making a wolf-howling noise. A wolf-howling that turned into some sort of hill-singing, or a long, involved battle cry, Lewrie noted as they began to steal away. Pagan, heathen singing, barbaric and bloodcurdling, like packs of wolves in a call-and-response chantey, from one mountain peak to the next.

Just then, though, up trotted Mr. Howse with Midshipman Spend-love, both panting and out of breath. "Sir!" Howse gasped. "Oh, it is ominous, Captain… ominous indeed, sir. You must do something, at once, I say!"

"What's ominous, Mister Howse?" Lewrie snapped, leading them further away from the singing and cheering.

"Prisoners, sir!" Howse tried to thunder indignantly. "Won't let us in the stockade to see to 'em, sir. I've a dreadful feeling… there's something horrid happened." He gulped. "Knew this would turn out badly, right off, sir… you must put it right, sir. At once!"

As if anyone asked yer opinion. Lewrie sighed, still leading them down from the camp toward the beach.

"Wouldn't let you in, sir?" he quizzed. "Mr. Spendlove?" "Don't speak any English, sir… the guards," Spendlove said, also out of breath, and sounding genuinely shocked.

"But we've seen the prisoners before, sir, no trouble before," Howse insisted. "This time, though-"

"Waved us off, sir… drew pistols when we got impatient," the young midshipman carped. "Could see through the logs, sir…"

"I could still see enough, sir," Howse announced, getting some of his old irritable-with-the-world back. "Been 'round sailors enough by now to recognise 'em, sir. I've eyes, haven't I? There are damn-all seamen in the stockade, and when I called out to them in French I heard no French in reply. Italian, some other foreign jabber neither of us could fathom-"

"Women and children, sir!" Spendlove burst forth. "Started up a fearful racket, soon as they heard our voices."

"What the Devil…?" Lewrie gasped.

"And dark as it's got, sir," Howse rumbled, beginning to sound like himself again, "I could swear, the brief glimpse I had, some of 'em are a tad swarthy… dressed in Eastern garb."

"Like Turks in turbans, sir," Spendlove contributed quickly.

"Just what the bloody Hell's Mlavic done?" Lewrie griped, with a searing glare at the prize-ship at anchor. She showed but one light on her tall poop-deck, aft. All else was fading into the twilight and held no answer for him. A closer-in look at the beach showed him that both gig and cutter were gone, and now nestled Jesters hull near the starboard entry-port. Working-parties were busy along the gangway to hoist up a sack or two of flour or a struggling beast. The funnel at the forecastle showed a thin plume of cook-fire smoke as the cooks got the steep-tubs ready for the evening meal. A cable off from shore, he reckoned, and every man-jack busy with doings inboard.

Might'z well be 240 miles, not yards. Alan shivered, feeling a sudden, premonitory chill. We're for it, do we handle this wrong!

"Who's a good swimmer?" he asked.

"I am, sir," Spendlove piped up. "Well, adequate, really…"

"Get back aboard Jester, quick as you can, then," Lewrie said. "Mister Howse?"

"Not a stroke, sir," the surgeon confessed. "Why, sir? I say, sir… you must do something, enquire… demand, rather…!"

"Then find a safe place to hide, Mister Howse," Lewrie ordered. "As far from the beach and the camp as you can. Have you a weapon of any kind with you? In your kit-box?"