by Dan Abnett
Luka smiled. He tossed the knife aside and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his freed hand. “And is this submission witnessed?” he asked loudly.
There followed a pandemonium of cheers, applause and thumping.
Luka acknowledged the tumult with a few smiling nods and a wave of his free hand. He took the blade off Guido’s neck. A hush fell.
“My first act… is to exact penalty.”
Guido looked up and whimpered. “Spare me…” he gasped.
“What is the penalty?” Luka called to the onlookers.
“Death!” someone shouted, and this notion was loudly cheered in some quarters.
“Please…” whined Guido, gazing up at Luka.
“Well, Guido, what do you suggest?”
Feeble, reluctant, Guido slowly raised his left hand and stuck out his index finger, one of the last four digits he possessed.
Luka smiled and nodded.
The sabre flashed and Guido screamed. His left hand lay on the flags. Blood pumped from his severed wrist.
“You bastard! Aaaah! The whole hand!”
“Consider yourself lucky,” Luka said. “It’s a bloody wonder I’ve never killed you.”
Grecco hurried out to staunch the stump with a tablecloth. Some of the mariners came forward and helped to carry Guido’s kicking, shrieking body back into the cave so that the stump could be cauterised.
“My second act,” shouted Luka above the din, “is to rename this company the Reivers.”
More full-throated cheers.
Better, thought Grecco, hearing this above the fizzle of burning flesh as he pressed a red-hot skillet against Guido’s truncated wrist.
Guido howled, retched and passed out.
“Why didn’t he kill him?” the companion asked.
The Estalian shrugged.
“I mean, he deserved it. From his lack of fingers he’s been given many chances already. Why didn’t he kill him?”
The Estalian smiled. “He has to cut him some slack. He is his brother after all.”
III
The sun had been up for three hours, and a breathless heat lay upon the harbour side. Beyond the immense stone quay, an ancient structure built by other races long before the rise of man, the tiled roofs of Sartosa rose in banks and clusters up the hillside. Stucco plaster gleamed white in the sunlight, alongside mouldering grey stonework and antique timber frames. Sartosa’s port was a patchwork city, sewn together by many different cultures at many different times. It was as if the buildings had been looted from all over the world, and piled here together to fade and rot. A plundered town. It seemed appropriate.
As it was early in the season, Luka was surprised by the number of ships careened on the long-beach spit beyond the bay. Gangs of ratings carrying pitch ladles, ramming irons and mallets were threading their way down to work at caulking the hulls. The thick stench of heating pitch filled the air, almost, but not quite, blotting out the acrid fumes of boucan curing in the smoking huts along the harbour side.
“Early to set up dry,” commented Luka. He took a swig of watered rum from the earthenware bottle he was carrying and rinsed the taste of the night’s carousing from his parched mouth. He’d walked down to the dockside with his nervous and still unnamed companion, and Benuto, the boatswain.
“Many masters have had enough for the year, so tell,” Benuto said. He was an older man, from Miragliano originally, his face lined from years of sun and salt. He wore black buckle-shoes, stained calico trousers loose at the ankle and a crimson jacket so the crew could pick him out easily. Perched on his head was a black hat that had so many corners and so little shape that the companion was at a loss to tell its origins.
“With the summer pickings yet to be had?” Luka asked.
Benuto shook his head and sucked on his clay pipe. “No pickings at all, sir, the seas are dry. You must’ve heard? About the Butcher Ship?”
“I’ve heard a thing or two,” Luka remarked carelessly, casting a look at his companion. “Though I’ve not been abroad so much of late to hear the gossip. A few tales of woe. I see they’re true… or at least the masters of Sartosa think they are.” Luka flexed his right arm thoughtfully, nursing the gash Guido had put there the night before.
“Oh, they’re true, so tell,” said Benuto. “Ten months now, the Butcher Ship’s been out there. We all thought it fancy at first too. But the trade routes have emptied, and many of Sartosa’s own have gone missing, to boot.”
“So he preys on more than merchantmen?”
“The Butcher preys on everything. Mainlander and pirate alike. He is the sea daemon himself Benuto spat and touched the gold ring in his ear to ward against bad fortune. Jacque Rawhead’s boat, both of Hasty Leopald’s, the Windrush, the Labour of Love, the Espiritu Santo, the Princess Ella and the Lightning Tree, unless old Jeremiah Tusk went south around the Horn of Araby this year like he’s always been threatening.”
“So many…” breathed Luka.
“I told you,” said his companion.
Benuto glanced at the long-cloaked stranger who had been at Luka’s side since his reappearance. The man looked clean and manicured, and his clothes, though plain, were finely made from quality cloth. A mainlander, if Benuto had ever smelled one, and from Luccini, by the accent.
Luka Silvaro had been captured the year before during a battle with two of that city-state’s man-o-wars, and the company had thought him either rotting dead in a gibbet cage on the headland, or rotting alive in a rat-swarming ponton, one of the notorious prison hulks on the estuary. The former, most likely, for Luka Silvaro was an infamous pirate prince. But the night before, it had turned out neither was true. Luka was alive, and come back to them, with a gentleman from Luccini at his heel. There was a mystery there, Benuto thought, one he hoped his captain would not be long in unwrapping.
“We ourselves have just got back from a run, empty-handed,” Benuto told Luka. “Guido was thinking of having us careen now too.”
Luka shook his head. “We’ll be putting to sea,” he told the bo’sun. “I’ve called in the company and already told Junio to make up the stores.”
“You have the funds for that, sir?” Benuto asked.
“Indeed. I want you to get everything seashape, as fast as you can.”
“My, there’s plenty o’ work there,” said Benuto, his voice trailing off.
Luka looked at his companion and held up three fingers. The man reached under his cloak and carefully drew out three leather moneybags. Luka hand-weighed them and gave them to Benuto. “Seashape, and no corners cut.”
“No, sir!” said the boatswain sharply.
They had reached the pier end and stood by the windwall, looking over at the ships of Luka’s company. The Rumour was a twenty-gun, two hundred tonne brigantine, one hundred paces long at the keel. She had two masts, both fully square-rigged, with a fore-and-aft sail on the lower part of the mainmast. Her low, sleek hull was painted black except for a stripe of red along each flank from which the gunports stared. A fast ship, quick in the turn and sharp of tooth. A hunter’s ship.
In her shadow lay her consort, a sixty-pace swift sloop called the Safire, a little beauty of twelve guns. Her hull, golden oak above the waist and white below, was made of butted planks so she would slip like a sword through the water. She was fore-and-aft rigged on the shorter mizzen mast, and could raise a square sail from the main if the wind was running, but her exceptionally long bowsprit, which almost doubled her overall length, could rig a great lateen sail and make her very fast indeed.
The company was already gathering around the ships, running repairs or loading victuals under the direction of Junio, the company storekeeper. Four men were parbuckling kegs of water, oil and beer up the side of the Rumour, using a rope over a bitt. Up on one of the yards, Luka could see Largo, the sailmaker, hard at work with his needle, fid and seam rubber. Luka’s eye drifted along to the head of the Rumour and the figure there, painted gold, a woman with one hand cupped to he
r mouth and the other cupped to her ear.
It would have been a crime to careen these two so early: to beach them and heel them over and caulk the hulls, stranding them when there was so much summer and sea left in the world. They were like greyhounds or thoroughbreds that needed to be run out.
No matter the hazard.
“Who’ll master the Safire?” asked a voice behind them. It was the lupine Estalian who the companion had encountered the night before.
“That was always Guido’s ship, till you went from us, and I’ll doubt you’ll give him command again.”
“I don’t even know if he’ll be joining us, Roque,” replied Luka. “Who did he have master the Safire?”
“Silke.”
“No surprise. Though I am surprised Silke didn’t jump in at his crony’s side last night.”
“Silke’s always had an early nose for the way a tide is turning,” said Benuto.
“Well, I’ll keep Silke in his place for now. Test his loyalty,” Luka looked at the Estalian. “My thanks for your sabre, by the way.”
The Estalian nodded politely. The companion now noticed that the fine blade Luka had used in the Hole-In-By-The-Hill was hanging from the Estalian’s wide leather baldric.
“Well met again, gentleman,” the Estalian said suddenly, looking over at the companion. “We’ve not yet been introduced.”
The companion shuffled awkwardly. Luka glanced from one to the other and shrugged. “Sesto, this is Roque Santiago Delia Fortuna, the company’s master-at-arms. Roque, I present Sesto Sciortini, a gentleman of reputation from the mainland.”
Roque made a bow, his long straight hair hanging down like a glossy black curtain. The Estalian had fine manners, finer than might have been expected from a Sartosan sail-thief.
“Delia Fortuna… Roque Santiago Delia Fortuna…” murmured Sesto, returning the courtesy. “I have in mind a fellow of that name, of the Estalian nobility, who rose to fame some years past by making great voyages of discovery to Araby and the Southlands. I seem to think he disappeared on an expedition to the west. Are you by any chance… related?”
“No,” replied Roque. “But I met him once, before he died.”
“It seems, though, a coincidence—” Sesto began.
“I will make allowances for the fact you are a stranger to the customs of Sartosa, friend Sesto,” said Roque. “We seldom press with questions where questions are unwelcome. There’s not a man among us who hasn’t secrets he would not part with. That is, in fact, why many come here and make this reckless life their own. I would say to you, for instance, your name is intriguing. ‘Sesto’… the sixth born son, and ‘Sciortini’… which means a watchman or sentinel. A name right enough, and a fine one, but also a mask, I fancy. A meaning to hide behind.”
“Not at all,” said Sesto quickly.
“Then why, pray, do you wear that signet ring turned in, so that only your palm may read the emblem upon it?”
“I…”
“There’s not a man among us who has not secrets he would not part with, Roque,” said Luka. “So you said yourself.”
“My apologies,” said Roque. “I meant no harm.”
“That’s what all pirates say,” chuckled Benuto, “afore they slit your neck.”
Aboard the Rumour, in the great cabin, Luka called up the lamp trimmer to set the lanterns, for even on a bright day, the low-beamed chamber was gloomy. Then he laid about the untidy quarters, hurling items of clothing and other oddments out through the gallery lights. Sesto sat and watched, sipping brandy from a thick glass chaser with a squat stem. Grumbling, Luka threw out a shoe, a doublet, an empty powder horn, a tricorn hat, another shoe, a bundle of bedclothes, a mandolin…
He caught Sesto looking at him.
“Guido’s stuff. Traipsed about here like he owned this cabin. My cabin! Mine!”
“I suppose he didn’t think you were coming back,” said Sesto.
“I didn’t think I was coming back. That’s not the point. Ahhh. Look. My chessboard! Manann take him, he’s lost half the pieces!”
“I gather Guido is your brother,” said Sesto.
Luka frowned. “We share a mother. That’s not quite the same thing.” He made to throw a grey velvet frock coat with wide button-back cuffs out of the window, then stopped himself. “Mine,” he remarked, then sniffed it. “He’s worn this, damn him!” He raked around in the mess of clothes and pewter vessels on the floor boarding, and fished out a sash of scarlet silk, some brown moleskin breeks and a pair of black, thigh-length cavalry boots. Oblivious to Sesto’s presence, Luka began to strip off and rid himself of the plain, cheaply-made garments he’d been wearing since he came ashore. Sesto was intimidated by Luka’s massive naked frame: the huge musculature of his arms and back, the fading cicatrices on his skin, the pallor of his flesh from too long out of the sun. Too long in the dungeons of Luccini.
Luka dressed himself in the clothing he’d selected from the floor. They were his clothes, it seemed, for they fitted well enough. He pulled on the breeks, then the boots, slouching the wide tops down around his knees, then tucked in a white linen blouse with full sleeves, tied the scarlet sash around his waist, and dragged on the grey frock coat.
“How do I look?” he asked, tightening the laces up the front of his shirt.
“The very model of a pirate lord,” said Sesto.
“The desired effect. But not pirate now, eh? Not now.”
“No, indeed. When are you going to tell them?”
“Them?”
“The company. The Reivers. Your crew, sir.”
“Soon. When we’re at sea.”
“Aha,” nodded Sesto.
“I miss my gold and my stones,” said Luka, flexing his fingers and staring at them. “Your soldiers took it all when they fettered me. Took it and sold it, I’ll wager.”
“You have that ring still,” Sesto said, nodding at the thick gold band that had spared Luka his little finger in the fight the night before.
Luka looked at it as if he’d forgotten about it. “That one. Yes, well I wouldn’t let that one go. Hid it under my tongue for six weeks, then under a loose slab in my cell. Lose that and I lose myself.”
“It has meaning?” Sesto asked.
“When I embarked on my career, I took a gold ducat from the first treasure ship I captured, and had it melted down and wrought into this. This is a part of me, a part of who I am, as surely as my hand or foot. But it’s been without company for too long.”
Luka strode across to the lazarette behind the screwed-down chart table. Guido had evidently secured the locker with a new padlock during his tenure as master. Luka rummaged around in the mess and found a marlinespike, which he used to pry the door open. Inside was a pile of waggoners and furled charts, tide-books, almanacs and a double-barrelled pocket pistol. Beneath them, three brass coffers. Luka dragged them out, wrenched off the clasps, and emptied the contents across the tabletop.
Precious, glinting treasures scattered out. Garnets, rubies, malachite rings and bloodstone pins, wedges of Arabyan silver, enamelled crosses, opals, pearls, emerald pins, amethyst brooches, rose-sapphire pendants, gold snuffboxes, Tilean-ducats and doubloons, square-cut tierces, Estalian cruzados and peso octos, Arabyan rials, Imperial crowns and aquilas, rupeys from the Ind, Bretonnian guilders, yuans from Cathay, Kislevite roubles and all manner of gold and silver currency, including some hexagonal and crescent-shaped issues that Sesto had never seen before.
Luka rattled around in the glittering spread, trying rings for size and tossing them back if they were too small or too big. He eventually decided on a fat green tourmaline for his right middle finger, a blue sapphire for his left ring finger, a round, rose-blood ruby for his left middle, and a gold Ebonian thumb ring, coiled in the shape of a snake, for his left hand. Then he slipped a chunky gold loop into his left earlobe, rubbed it and spat for fortune.
“Gold in the ear improves the eyesight,” he told Sesto.
“I’ve heard that sup
erstition.”
Luka winked. “You’ll not think it a superstition when we close with the Butcher.”
“When that hour comes, will they stand?” Sesto asked.
“Who?”
“The company. The Reivers. Your crew,” Sesto said, repeating his earlier remark like a refrain. “When the time comes.”
“For what you’re offering, I damn well hope so.”
For two further days, the victualling and repair of the brig and its consort continued apace. Sesto kept himself apart from the gathering company, fearful of every single one of them. They were free men, free in the worst way, their violent, vulgar souls loyal to no state or throne or prince. Only to themselves and their own selfish lusts, and to the creed of their criminal fraternity.
Sesto lingered around the poop and the quarterdeck of the Rumour, watching the graft. He got to recognise their faces, some of them at least. Junio, the storekeeper, a tall man who fussed around the provisioning work, his big eyes and long nose reminding Sesto of a goat’s. Casaudor, the stern, robust master mate. Tende, the massive helmsman, bigger even than Luka, his skin black as coal. Fahd, the shrivelled cook, happily clucking in Arabyan as he worked in the sweaty confines of the galley to serve up strongly-spiced meals twice a day. One-legged Belissi, the ship’s carpenter. Vento, the master rigger, surprisingly nimble for a heavy man, fond of a chalk-white frock coat the tails of which he had to tuck into the waist of his breeks every time he ran aloft up the ratlines. His hands, like the sailmaker Largo’s, were calloused and leathery from sewing and splicing. Benuto, the boatswain, oversaw all the work, always visible with his shapeless hat and crimson coat.
One of the common ratings stuck in his memory too. He was a dirty, narrow-eyed man whose name Sesto had yet to learn, a true boucaner by the scabby leather hides he wore. Wherever Sesto went, the boucaner seemed always to be nearby, watching him.