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.

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Lewrie looked at the poor girl, who was pleading with her eyes as Mlavic brusquely toyed with her small breasts, forcing her to take a deep draught of brandy, then wrenching her lips to his. Lewrie could do nothing to aid her, not with a knife at his back.

He turned to look at the other prisoners instead. One was waving? One hand cautiously waving, all but snapping her fingers to get their attention? And surreptitiously rising a-tip-toe, looking desperate.

She wore all black as if in mourning, a plain, unadorned gown of conservative style, not too flounced out bell-shaped by underskirting. She'd worn a Venetian bauto, but had lowered it to her shoulders so it draped long and low. To hide…! Lewrie gasped.

Pressed into her skirts and half smothered, almost fully draped by the bauto, was a child, a boy who couldn't be more than four or five, Alan guessed. A boy breeched, stockinged and shod like his own sons!

She waved once more, then cupped her hand as if to draw him to her, fanning at herself insistently, daring to work from the rear of the huddling, wailing pack of women to the left-front, where she'd be in greater danger of being chosen for auction next. Her brown eyes flared open in misery, in pleading, almost looking like she curtsied for a moment before rising, a silent leaping plea for aid.

Lewrie mimed the guards at his back, lifting his hands in helplessness. Frustrated, she dared shout something at him, in a language he didn't understand, before the guard nearest to her shoved her back in line.

"What'd she say, Kolodzcy?" he demanded, never taking his eyes off her. Now the guard and the bidding pirates noticed her, her long, fine chestnut-roan hair and almond-shaped eyes…!

"Demotic Greek… island accent," Kolodzcy remarked, infuriatingly calmly. "She ist from Zante, in die Ionians, dherefore Venetian. She begs for help. Poor lady." He sighed, stone-faced.

"Goddammit!" Lewrie groaned, slamming a fist onto his knee to vent his powerlessness. "You leave that'un alone, ya bastard!" Alan shouted at the guard, who was just about to fondle her, draw back that bauto to see her figure… and expose her child! He got to his feet; tried to, before Mirko laid a hand on his shoulder to drag him back.

"English, my God!" the woman cried, her mouth agape in shock. "Royal Navy? My husband was English… Bristol! I am Theoni Kavaras Connor. Royal Navy… for God's sake-help me!"

CHAPTER 5

"Mlavic, you black-hearted sonofabitch!" Lewrie snarled at him, turning to face him and grabbing his arm. "She's English. British, do ya hear? Maybe the Venetians're too puny to hunt you down for murderin' and rapin' their people, but you can wager yer last penny England won't wring their hands and let you get away scot-free. There'll be a bloody fleet out for you, same as they did for Bligh's mutineers."

"Is Greek," Mlavic dismissed, leaving off gnawing on his girl's teats. "I hear Greek."

"You can hear English, too, you simpleton, do you get the dung out yer ears!" Lewrie railed, daring to rise off the log. This time, when Mirko tried to drag him down, he turned, glared at him, and jabbed a warning finger at him. "Who was your husband, Mistress Connor?" he shouted over his shoulder to her. "Tell this fool plain."

"Patrick Connor, of Bristol!" she shot back. "He and his father were in the currant trade, with the English House on Zante. We were married six years ago, when his father Sean retired to England."

"Husband dead, she still Greek," Mlavic quibbled, though with the beginnings of a worried look on his face. "Greeks dirty people."

"Makes no matter, fool," Lewrie thundered. "Wife of a British subject becomes British. You may be lawless, but that's King's Law."

Mlavic dumped his girl to the ground, tossing her away like he might a fruit-rind as he rose. He snarled a question to Mrs. Connor in Demotic Greek. Lewrie saw her tremble, look away furtively, licking her lips before she answered.

"Catholic," Kolodzcy groaned, despairing. "Vas married in husbant's faith. Deat'-sentence."

Connor, aye, Lewrie winced, Patrick Connor, surely Irish in the beginning. Which does Mlavic hate worse, Greek Orthodox or Catholic?

"Bad as Croat… Catholic, pooh!" Mlavic spat. He strode across to take a closer look at her, while his terrified girl tried to flee. She didn't get far; two of the guards snagged her and carried her kicking and wailing into the darkness beyond the firelight.

Mistress Connor shivered as Mlavic circled her slowly, stood her ground and determined to play-up brave, though her mouth and chin worked in sudden fear or loathing. He leaned close to blow in her ear, making her shy away, stroked back her hair to admire her neck, taunting her with a crooning sing-song in Serbo-Croat.

"What's he sayin'?" Lewrie rasped, getting frantic.

"… rich man's whore," Kolodzcy mercilessly supplied. "A Greek whore who leafs de Orthodox Church to wed rich, turn stinkink Catholic. Rich, soft-skinned, faithless traitor whore. Ach, nein!Scheisse!"

Mlavic seized her right wrist to drag her away, back to his seat on the logs, his little black-haired Bosnian victim quite forgotten in the light of this finer choice, sure he was going to take vengeance on a three-in-one. But he drew back the bauto to discover the child!

He roared with surprise and sudden delight, grabbing the young lad by the scruff of the neck and parting mother and son, though she screamed and tore at him, hauling the boy aloft to shake before his pirates like a filthy rag. And laughing fit to bust!

"Hands off, damn you!" Lewrie barked, so loud he stilled that rabble s heathen howls for a moment. "You put that English boy down… you get your filthy hands off an English lady!"

"You make me? Or what you do, pooh! I have power, you no. I take her." Mlavic spat. "Be fucking English… lady, ahahaha!"

Do something! she mutely pleaded.

Like what? Alan wondered.

"They're for sale, ain't they, Mlavic?" he shouted of a sudden, feeling something nigh to inspiration. "She's for sale? Her, and her boy? That's what you dragged these women down for, wasn't it? Offer 'em up for a good knock-down price? Well, I'll buy 'em. Didn't you offer to let me bid on a woman a little while ago?"

"Da," Mlavic allowed cagily. "Other woman. This, I keep."

"Selfish bastard!" Lewrie cried. "Kolodzcy, help me here, put it to 'em. Leader gets first choice free, hey? What're the rules of the house after that, though? Mlavic gets first pick, then they're all up for grabs? He's had his first pick. Now he should bid, same as everybody else. Else he's a selfish bastard… a cheap, greedy bastard!"

"Oh, shit!" Spendlove could be heard to mutter, burying his face in his hands. "God, sir, please don't… he's rowed enough!"

And please let 'em be so drunk by now, they think I make sense! Alan silently pled; seen sailors do "Oo shall 'ave this'un, then?" I have, every time a ship's out o' Discipline an' the whores come aboard. Sailors… even this lot… surely have a fair streak; can't stand for officers t'put it over on 'em. Nice little show, ya bastards, a spirited auction? String it out long enough, Knolles wakes his sorry arse up and comes t'save us…? "Dhey fint it… just, sir!" Kolodzcy marveled. "Vish to see us con-founted. Bud vish to see Mlavic confounted, too. He does nod heff military control ofer dhem. He may not like it, bud he musd go along."

There was a change in mood round the central fire and its horrid scene of slaughter now, Lewrie sensed. The boos and catcalls sounded less threatening, more like good-natured taunting, which forced Mlavic to smile, nod and placate them with raised hands in allowance.

Two guards off rapin' that poor girl, Lewrie noted; several women auctioned off to small groups, and they're busy, too. Could we? He wondered, a rising hope filling him. Gull 'em peaceable, then take us a hostage'r two… Mlavic?… and get down to the beach? There's your biter bit, by God!

"How much do you have on you?" Lewrie whispered, rifling into his purse, where he found but Ј30 and change. "Mister Howse? Mister Spendlove? Quick sums, then hand your purses over."

"Surely, sir, you'd not countenance white slavery, allow these cutthroats the slightest bit of credulity?" Howse huffed, getting his indignant demeanour back. "Mean tsay, English or no…!"

"Do you not, sir, and Mlavic wins, I'll slit yer throat first chance I get and blame it on them!" Lewrie hissed. Howse tossed over a fullish purse, and slumped down into another miserable sulk. Lewrie did a quick addition; not near enough! Spendlove had a miserly eighteen shillings and some pence. Kolodzcy, however, offered up an embroidered poke simply stiff with "chink."

"De equivalend ohf your seventy pounds, sir," Kolodzcy said.

"Listen, then.,. we get into the spirit of things, they'll drop their guard, we can stand and move about a few feet," Lewrie schemed in a harsh mutter as they put their heads together. "If it looks like we've lost, and Knolles still hasn't come, then we take what chance we may, and grab Mlavic and a few others, get some weapons and the woman, and head for the beach. Hear me? It may be our only chance. The men at your backs are thinned, might stay thinned! Others are off havin' themselves a bare-belly romp, or they're three sheets to the wind. If a chance comes… I'll give you sign."

He looked at their glum, frightened faces, then turned away for the final addition. He'd garnered nearly Ј130 and change. Best start low, he thought… string it out as long as he could.

"Right, then… you miserable excuse for a man," Lewrie shouted with an avid smile. "I'll bid three guineas."

"Five guinea!" Mlavic grinned back, just as evilly, still with a firm grip on both woman and child.

"The management instructs you, sir… kindly unhand the merchandise 'til the last bid's in!" Lewrie cajoled, elbowing Lieutnant Kolodzcy to say that to all observers. The pirates found that hugely amusing.

"Six guineas… you foul lump of shit!"

"Ten!" Mlavic countered, but letting them go and stepping off.

"Eleven… you ditch-dropped whelp of a Turk hedge-whore."

"Bosun Mister Cony… SAH!" the Marine sentry right-aft by the passageway to the gun-room cried, stamping his boots and musket-butt.

"Enter," Knolles said, sopping up the last gravy on his plate with a crust of fresh-baked bread and motioning for their steward-Sprinkle-to have away his plate, the water-glasses and the tablecloth. With Mr. Howse away, the gun-room had fed more than well this evening, with fewer to share a whole leg of roast pork. Mister Buchanon, Mister Giles and Midshipman Mister Hyde completed the table, looking sated but eager for the sweet biscuit, the last of the Venetian-bought confections and the port.

"Beggin' yer pardon, sir, but th' wind's shiftin'," Cony told them hat-in-hand. "An' that prize-ship's but 'er best bower out. No kedge'r stream-anchor t'check 'er swingin'. 'Er stern's comin' round towards our bows, an' 'er 'arbour-watch'z drunker'n Davy's Sow, sir. Can't raise a 'hollo' from 'em, Serb or English."

"Damn sloppy folk, pirates," Buchanon grumbled. "Ha! Did a Bora take her, she could just as well swing aground onshore."

"Very well, Mister Cony, well be up directly," Lieutenant Knolles sighed, savouring a last sip of wine before rising. "Belay the port and biscuit, Sprinkle. Might summon a boat-crew to row over, Bosun. Take in on her anchor rode, if her watch is blind-drunk, I s'pose."

"Aye aye, sir," Cony replied, backing out and loping easy for the com-panionway ladder to the weather decks.

Once on the quarterdeck, Knolles eyed the captured ship. Sure enough, she was swinging to stream alee of the wind, which had come more Sou'westerly. Jester was anchored fore-and-aft from first bower and kedge, with springs on the cables to heave her round, should some enemy ship loom out of the night from the east; a prudent caution.

"Hasn't dragged, has she, Mister Tucker?" He enquired of the Quartermaster's Mate.

"Don' think so, sir… swingin', though. Looked t'have 'er at middlin' 'stays.' Forty foot o' water, yonder, so she couldn't have let out more'n five-to-one scope-say, a hun'r'd eighty t'two hun'r'd foot o' rode, sir?"

" At'd be cuttin' it damn fine, sir," Buchanon groused, with a thumb lifted to measure her. "I think she'll come aboard us… into th' bowsprit do we not look sharp."

"Right, then!" Knolles snapped. "Mister Cony, cutter away to the prize-ship! Boat's crew, plus six more hands for muscle on their capstan, should her watch be as drunk as you suspect. Keep ours sober, hear me?"

"Aye, sir!" Cony shouted back, having mustered a boat-crew upon the gangway already, and snagging the first available hands of the duty-watch he could lay hands on.

"Might even have to row a kedge out for 'em, too!" Lieutenant Knolles added, seeing them scramble over the side. "Idle bastards," he murmured under his breath.

"Havin' 'emselves a rare ol' time, aren't they, sir?" Buchanon pointed to the leaping flames ashore, the faint shouts, the yells of merrymaking. "Wonder what 'ey fed th' cap'um an' 'em?"

"Mister Sadler?" Knolles called for the Bosuns Mate. "Do you pipe 'All Hands.' We may have to fend that old bitch off, should she come close enough. Muster forrud. Spare spars and rig fenders!" "Aye, sir!"

They went forward along the starboard gangway themselves, as the off-duty crew boiled up on deck, up as far as the cat-head, which poised the second heavy bower horizontally. That three-master now lay aslant the starboard bows, looking uncomfortably close and tall, at a forty-five-degree angle, just as Cony's working-party reached her main-chain platform. And there was still no response from her, no matter how they shouted from the cutter, or Jesters forecastle.

"Drunks'z lords, sir," Buchanon sighed. "Dear God!" "She'll collide?" Knolles quailed, assuming that the Sailing Master had worked out the angles in his head already and was certain the two ships would entangle. And pleading with God why such a thing had to happen on his watch, with the captain away and him in temporary command!

"Her transom-board, sir!" Buchanon gasped, pointing to the ornately carved, gilded nameplate which was flickering with faint light as her stern swung enough to bare it to them. Below her master's windows and stern-walk, above her wardroom's windows, she bore a name: Nostra Signora di Santa Maria Delle Salute, amid wee angels and cherubs.