by V. Briceland
Nic got the general idea of the infernal device. “Very dirty indeed,” he agreed. He thought things over for a moment. “We’ll go after them,” he said at last. “It’s clever of the comte, sending a fleet of scrubby pirates to do his dirty work for him. No offense intended.”
“I am not taking any,” Maxl agreed, amiably enough.
“He’s taking out the naval boats, of course.” Nic could map the strategy in his head, plain as anything. “A quick surprise strike. They might not be completely destroyed, but they’d be useless for several days, if not weeks. Then they’re creating bedlam at the ports.” It was too far to tell if Cassaforte’s western shipyards were under attack as well, but Nic would have wagered his own freedom that they were. “In and out, unannounced, under cover of darkness, no one to see them coming or going. People will say to themselves, ‘Oh, it was only pirates,’ tote up the losses, and let their guards down. Then the real battle fleet from Pays d’Azur moves in, and Cassaforte is helpless against them. If we capture one of the pirate cutters, we can find out from its captain when they intend to attack.” Maxl let out a huff of air through his nose. Another followed. Soon the man was laughing. “What?” asked Nic, irritated. “Do you think this is funny?”
“No. That is not what is funny. “ Maxl gestured at the city’s horizon. “All you are wanting, all this time, is this being home again. You bring the girl and her father as you promised. Your job is ended. You can drop them here, say bye-bye, then sail off again and keep yourself away from siege. So why, Master Nic? All this swashbuckling—you are not having to be doing any of it.”
Maxl had been the last man he’d expected not to support him. The betrayal stung. Through clenched teeth, Nic replied, “I am not doing it because I have to. I am doing it because I can.”
To Nic’s surprise, Maxl laughed louder. “Good, good!” he cried. He clapped a hand on Nic’s back, and nodded his blue face in approval. “You not thinking now like a boy. You thinking like captains are doing. This is what honor is being. Yes? That is why I am laughing, my friend. Come!” he said, indicating that Nic take the ship’s wheel. “We are chasing pirates now.”
It was with a flush of pride still animating his face that Nic stood at the fore of the quarterdeck a moment later to sound the ship’s bell. He had never used the pattern before that indicated the crew to fall in and assemble. Macaque’s men knew well enough what it meant, and the actors followed. Once they were in place, waiting and expectant, Nic looked at the faces below him. They were all silent, waiting for him to speak. He hoped that what he had to say would not disappoint. “My crew,” he said. “My comrades.” Nic paused while the pirates who had a grasp of Cassafortean translated for the others. “This journey we’ve taken together has been strange indeed.” A few people nodded in agreement. “I … I must thank you for your remarkable service. We would not be here tonight were it not for each and every one of you.”
“Hear hear!” shouted Signor Arturo, doffing his hat.
Thus far that night, Nic had not made any declamations as the Drake, or as anyone else. He was simply being Nic Dattore, captain of the galleon and leader of its crew, speaking from his heart. Not one of the men or women gave any indication that anything more was necessary. “This place—this city of Cassaforte—is my homeland. It is the homeland to many of you before me. I know that we pirates are men without country. We answer to no king, no comte, no counselor, save that of our own hearts and senses of honor.” He looked around the assembly. By now, the faces were as familiar to him as his own. “What I am about to request of you is not anything Captain Xi would have asked. It is nothing that Macaque would have asked—had you been able to pull him away from his cards.” A ripple of laughter sounded throughout Macaque’s old crew at that joke. “No, what I am asking is much more dangerous.
“There are men out there, pirates under the pay of the Comte Dumond, who are setting afire this country’s harbor using infernal devices. I believe they are trying to weaken the city so that it will be defenseless against the armada of warships we saw in Gallina’s harbor.” At the mention of the infernal devices, a number of Macaque’s men shook their heads and made signs to warn off ill spirits. None of the Arturos’ troupe knew what Nic meant, for such things were alien to Cassaforte. “Cassaforte’s ships of battle are burning even now. They are unable to defend themselves against these ruffians. But we can help.” Having to project so loudly in order to be heard over the water and wind was taking more energy than he knew. Suddenly Nic had a great deal of respect for the Arturos, who often had to struggle with noisy and unappreciative crowds. He paused and took a deep breath. “I know that asking pirates to come to a country’s aid is not usual. It’s unconventional, yes. But there is honor in it, and I cannot turn my back on my homeland. Anyone who chooses to help will receive my deepest gratitude. Any man—or woman—who wishes not to be a part of my plan may retire below deck. Neither I nor anyone else will think unkindly of it.”
The whispered translations ceased seconds after Nic finished speaking. He indicated the hatch closest to where the crew stood, and gestured to it. Though heads turned to see if anyone would step away, no one did.
After a sufficient wait, Nic nodded. It was difficult not to smile, so at long last, he allowed himself to. “Thank you, friends.”
From beside him, Maxl punched his fist into the air. “Are we being cowards?” Like a lion he roared, his long mane of hair tumbling as he shook his head in defiance. “Or are we being the kings of pirates?”
“We are pirates!” shouted the Arturos at the top of their considerable lungs. The second time, they were joined by Infant Prodigy, Ingenue, and the rest of the troupe. “We are pirates!” On the third cry, many others joined in. Nic, however, only had eyes for Darcy. Her tear-streaked face shone as she looked up from below. “We are pirates! ” Over and over the crew shouted the three words as loudly as they could, joined in by even the men who did not speak the language. They appreciated the sentiment, well enough. “We are pirates! We are pirates! ”
“First Mate Maxl,” cried Nic, ringing the bell in the pattern that dismissed his crew back to their duties. “Bring the ship ’round.”
Enough accounts were later told of that night to confuse any save those who were actually there. Ardent historians trying to make sense of the tales of sailors who witnessed the battle—stories told largely in taverns over increasingly large flagons of ale, it must be admitted—might have arrived at any number of baffling conclusions. Some said Maarten’s Folly had swooped down upon the ships burning on the outskirts of Caza Buonochio, rescued those stranded in the waters there, then swung back around to the east in order the purge the southern ports of attacking freebooters. Others would have told of a galleon captain with a shining sword and a thirst for vengeance, who ferreted out the pirate cutters with an almost supernatural accuracy and sent them all to a watery grave. Some said that the captain’s galleon swept from Caza Buonochio all the way to Caza Portello, leaving ship after pirate ship as nothing but splinters and driftwood in its wake. A few argued that the galleon set course around the entire city, from the Insula of the Penitents of Lena in the east all the way around to the Insula of the Children of Muro in the west, before coming to rest to an applauding and adoring crowd.
The real facts were these.
There were indeed many refugees stranded in the waters of the Azure Sea around Cassaforte. Some had jumped from the burning warships, but more had attempted to take their small fishing or merchant crafts away from the infernos and had been stranded or capsized in the heavy waves. They were difficult to rescue without stopping, but even more difficult to leave behind. It was the Colombos who hit upon the notion of employing a length of netting suspended from the port deck. To its perimeter had been woven a number of air-filled bladders that caused it to float, allowing strong swimmers to fling themselves into the net, cling on, and, despite the galleon’s speed, climb
up and onto the deck. Darcy and the Signora and Pulcinella saw to the bedraggled victims. Many were angry at their attackers, and experienced sailors at that; they immediately began pitching in with the sails and running down the hatch to fetch whatever Maxl ordered. Those with little experience aboard a sailing ship aided as best they could with helping other survivors to safety, so that their masses swelled aboard the Folly’s deck.
It was perfectly true as well that the galleon destroyed a number of the pirate’s vessels in one glorious fell swoop, though whether it was by sheer luck or some extramundane phenomenon, Nic could never say. Four of the tiny craft had pulled close together far to the south of Caza Buonochio so they could exchange more spirits and rags for the construction of infernal devices. Somehow they did not see the galleon’s blackened hull moving in their direction, nor did they hear the cry of its captain as he called out to pull up the net and extend the sails to their fullest. Nic wrestled with the ship’s wheel to bring the galleon around at a sharp angle, trusting on his instinct and the glorious singing of the ship beneath his feet to tell him how to proceed.
Only too late did the men in the boats see what was happening. “Lyria! Lyria! ” Nic plainly heard them yelling, perhaps warning each other. Maarten’s Folly slammed its nose into the grouped vessels, crashing through three of them as if they had been matchsticks. The fourth managed to evade the impact, but in his panic, its captain failed to steer completely out of the galleon’s course. Its wide aft slammed against the little boat, sending all ten of its pirates overboard into the rough seas without taking on so much as a scratch.
The crew cheered at that maneuver, but the survivors that had been brought aboard the ship began to ask questions: who was this bold captain in the strange and unusual garb? Where had he come from? When they learned from the crew that he was known as the Drake and that he was a man of Cassaforte defending his city, their respect grew.
The galleon was not everywhere at once on that night, much as its captain wished it could be. It cut a path from Buonochio to the east, collecting more survivors close to the southern ports before sweeping past Caza Divetri. A lone pirate cutter there had pulled close to the Divetri docks at the island’s lowest point. From his high vantage point, Nic could see that the pirates aboard the vessel had lit the wicks of two infernal devices and were preparing to hurl them onto the highly-flammable wooden piers. The sudden appearance of Maarten’s Folly, however, caught the attention of at least one of the pirates. He pointed and yelled something at full volume, the only word of which Nic recognized was that word again: “Lyria! ”
The roar of disapproval from the survivors caught the pirates off-guard. Several of those Darcy and Jacopo had rescued from the waters only minutes before dove from the sides of the ship to board the pirate cutters. Overwhelmed and totally unused to being attacked when they had always been the attackers, the pirates panicked. Some jumped. The two holding the infernal devices had the presence of mind to haul back and toss them with all their might. Twin balls of fire arced through the night onto the galleon. One hit the lower deck, crashing on impact. The spirits within caught on fire immediately, licking high into the air. A woman survivor clutching her infant son to her breast shrieked and ran, so close she had been to the explosion. The other burst near the mizzenmast, its contents roaring into a blaze that seemed to roast Nic’s cheeks. One of the pirates let out a catcall of triumph. It was cut short when a survivor, a deep-chested fisherman who had lost the means of his livelihood that evening, punched him squarely in the face.
The twin infernos flared higher. The galleon’s crew was more than ready for them, though. Maxl had earlier set some of the survivors to fetching several of the heavy bags of sand used as ballast in the ship’s depths, and given them spades. Wherever the flames licked, there the survivors scooped the sand. Infant Prodigy led the effort to douse the fires. When the blaze near the mizzenmast was gone within seconds, she swung from a rope over the quarterdeck rail, somersaulted across the deck, leapt to her feet, grabbed a free spade, and smothered the rest of the second blaze by herself.
Nic had kept an eye on the pirates as the galleon had approached. He knew which one had been shouting out orders while the others had followed commands. Over the deck rail, he pointed to the man in the water, recognizing him immediately by the pad of fabric covering one eye. “Give me that one,” he told the survivors in the water. Instantly they swam to the man and overcame him. It was only a few moments later that his drenched and unconscious body was restrained and locked in the hold. “I always knew an eyepatch was a bad idea,” Nic muttered to himself. He gave orders to those swimming below to guard the Divetri docks and not to let any of the pirates set foot in the city. The waterlogged pirates, for the most part, would rather face the wrath of the sea than that of the angry mob. They swam away into the night.
The galleon enacted a similar scene near Caza Portello’s private docks, and then prevented the depleted crews of two cutters from scaling the rocks of Caza Cassamagi. By the time Maarten’s Folly changed course once again and had swung back to the city’s southern docks, the pirates were on the run. The mere sight of the galleon coursing across the waters set the remaining cutters scattering. They vanished as silently as they had come, back to the western seas. The renegade pirates had done the damage they had intended, anyway. There was nothing Nic could do about the navy’s ships burning to ruin all around the city’s perimeter, nor about the sorry state of the city’s southern seaport.
It was at Piratimare’s extensive private docks that the galleon finally came to rest, with no less than four disgruntled and dripping pirate captains in tow. Somehow the word had spread of how to douse the infernal devices, for everywhere Nic looked he could see little piles of sand. Members of the household, noble and servant alike, stood over them with shovels. Those who had caps waved them and cheered as Nic ordered the anchor dropped.
The confusion that followed on that fateful night was to Nic little more than a blur. There was a moment when he realized that he had done what he had set out to do. Instead of feeling glad for it, though, all he wanted was to make sure Darcy and the rest of his crew were all right—but especially Darcy. He found her wet from grappling with survivors. The long waves of her hair were matted with sand. Yet she was safe, and her eyes shone at the sight of him. That alone had been worth any risk he had taken. There were the Arturos, too, and the rest of the troupe, whole and unharmed and glowing as if they’d taken six curtain calls.
Macaque’s men were cheering as loudly as anyone else assembled on shore as the crew and the survivors swept Nic down a gangplank that the people of Piratimare had with all haste brought to the galleon. And what an assembly there was. It seemed as if the entire population of Cassaforte had squeezed onto the caza’s grounds. At the sight of Nic and his crew stepping onto dry land, they all shouted and cheered. Nic was conscious of some of the survivors pointing him out to the crowd. The roar in his ears deafened him.
“It’s all for you, lad,” he heard Signor Arturo announce. When he turned to try to find the actor in the crowd around him, though, it seemed composed only of unfamiliar faces. No, there was Maxl, his blue face immediately distinguishable. Darcy was pushing her way to Nic’s side, overwhelmed by the closeness and the noise. They clutched hands, feeling more lost and stranded than they ever had on that distant, deserted shore.
Several minutes of confusion and uproar followed. All Nic could do was gape at the sheer number of people who still were crowding into the caza to see the ship that had vanquished their attackers. He felt not so much the center of a successful production as the star attraction of a freak show. Come see the pirate boy! the broadsides would announce. Gape at the blue-faced man and marvel at the fat lady! Toss lundri to the girl in boy’s clothing! It was not what he would have pictured at all, had he ever stopped to imagine this night. He and Darcy looked at each other with wide eyes and clung tight.
Some semblan
ce of order was restored when, after what seemed like an eternity, the crowd near the Piratimare lower bridge was parted in two, divided by a crimson arrow that shot in Nic’s direction. It was a contingent of palace guards, moving swiftly in formation and coming to a stop in front of him. Despite the rigid postures of the uniformed men and women, they looked as weary as he. Many of their gold-trimmed tunics were dirty and covered with sand. To his surprise, the leader of the group saluted him. The crowd immediately hushed, anxious to hear what followed. “I am Captain Esparsa. Am I addressing the man known as the Drake?” asked the man.
“Indeed,” Nic replied, automatically in character. He was surprised that the guard knew his name. Then again, there had been more than ample time for the survivors who had stayed behind on the Divetri and Portello docks to have spread the word. “I am, sir.”
There were some spontaneous cheers. Captain Esparsa waited for them to die down before he asked his next question. “And are you the captain of this craft, the Allyria? ”
“The … ?” Surprised, Nic turned to regard the Folly. He heard Darcy gasp beside him. Vanished were the last tracks of blackness from its hull. The galleon seemed bathed in a golden light. The figurehead, previously obscured, stared out at him from beneath the bowsprit, her face serene, her eyes stern. Where before they had only been able to make out two letters, they now could see the ship’s true name, spelt out in flowing script: Allyria. So that was what many of the pirates had been shouting, at their approach.
Still astonished, Nic returned his attention to Esparsa. “Yes, Captain. I am. I have brought to you four of the pirate leaders responsible for the attack.”