Wyvern

by A. A. Attanasio

  He faced her squarely, with truthfulness in his blue stare beyond all doubt or revelation. "Then take comfort in knowing that wherever we are going, heaven or hell, we go together."

  They embraced, and their lovemaking glowed brighter in their blood, easing their apprehensions, and warming the promises in their hearts.

  *

  The wind led Amaranth and Children of the Serpent over the horizon's dark depths, through briny days and starslick nights, to the Somali Coast on the Horn of Africa.

  "Too many of our people have died in this place for us to pass here in peace," Axo Ndjobo told Jaki on the night that they lay off the littoral trading towns in the Gulf of Aden. During the two-week crossing, Ndjobo had consolidated his command of the Africans. Though only a handful of the men came from his western tribe and most of the Africans originated among disparate tribes in the eastern kingdoms of Makonde and Nyamwezi, Ndjobo's majestic mien and wisdom in settling disputes won the fealty of all.

  "With the light of day, we will see Ras Khanzira, the port where Abyssinian slavers loaded us aboard this very ship like cargo. We will see what ships are in the harbor, and we will use our cannon to take or destroy any who fly the flags of our enemies."

  Ndjobo and a bevy of Africans sat on the floor of the stateroom with the pirates who had liberated them. Three weeks of working the wind and the sea with the Africans created an argot of Bantu and European dialects, yet communication still faltered. The captain repeated his message several times in varying idioms and with clarifying gestures by the Africans who had worked most closely with the whites.

  Jaki looked to Lucinda as their meaning became clear. She took his hand. "Jaki, he wants vengeance."

  "Axo," Jaki frowned, "war is more dangerous at sea than on land. Our crews can sail with the wind, but they've never been tried in a storm or even a real head wind. Whoever we fight will have more experienced crews."

  "More experienced," Ndjobo agreed when he understood, "but not more fierce. We — all of us — are ready to fight. It is our duty to the dead. You know how to fight at sea. Together, we will destroy our enemies."

  "Jaki —" Lucinda protested.

  Jaki deferred to her with a nod. "Tell him."

  Lucinda stared flatly at the captain. "Axo — we cannot fight because we cannot afford to lose. If either of our ships is hit squarely with even one shot, the vessel could sink and your people will drown. And if we are not sunk but merely damaged, then we shall be captured and everyone enslaved again."

  Axo stirred under Lucinda's stare while he listened to his advisers hectically trying to translate. He understood and silenced them with a finger. "It is our duty," he said. "We will not leave this place without breaking the enemy who are killing and enslaving our people."

  "Then you will fight with your ship alone," Lucinda said bluntly.

  Jaki leaned toward her. "My love, there are four of us and more than two hundred of them. Where's the diplomacy you displayed so ably in India?"

  Lucinda would not give in. "Have we come this far to lose everything in a vendetta?"

  "That would be sad but heroic," Jaki said softly to her. "If Axo maroons us here among the slavers and the pirates, that will just be sad."

  Lucinda ignored him. "Axo, we saved you from slavery to return you and the others to your lands, not to murder and plunder."

  Ndjobo, placid as stone, said, "We will fulfill our duty to the dead. You have been our friends, and we would have no ship without you. But if we do not fight here, we will have trouble with all who have gone before us across the black river of time." He fixed Jaki with a penetrating stare. "You fought with your hands to free us. Does your woman speak for you?"

  Jaki raised his palms and lowered his gaze. "Axo, she is my life."

  Axo shifted his solemn gaze to Kota. "And you, captain?"

  Kota had been listening nervously, fingering the wrinkled leather of his seaboots. Under Axo's heavy regard, he quailed and looked to Jaki. "What to say, sorcerer?"

  "You are captain, Kota," Jaki replied. "Is this the crew you want with you in a sea battle?"

  The idea of plunder appealed strongly to Kota, and he mentally assessed the strengths of the crew and the ships. "Serpent Children is warship, lah," he said to Jaki. "Forty gun. And the blacks can handle big guns now."

  Jaki turned to Axo. "The captain of our ship will go with you. He has fought many sea battles. Obey him and you will not fail."

  "And this ship?" Axo asked. "You will not help us?"

  Lucinda shook her head. "We will not fight. Take from us your people who must avenge their dead, and leave with us your women and those who have no place in a battle. We will return them to their lands if you do not return."

  The black captain nodded stiffly as though she had cursed him.

  Kota turned to Jaki with an appeal. "Cover from sea — lah?"

  Before Lucinda could deny him, Jaki spoke. "We will stand off the gulf and guard your back. You will be alone on your raid. Choose your targets wisely, Kota — and if you are outgunned, stay here and send them in alone."

  No one slept that night, waiting for dawn to reveal the coast ports on the headland. In the crosstrees, the African watch scanned the mist-hung shore with a spyglass. He counted six ships, three cargo barges, and three warships, all flying Dutch Company banners:

  "Three — many warships," Kota moaned. Yet when Ndjobo called his warriors on Amaranth to join him, the pirate captain stood beside him. At the tender, Kota clutched Jaki to him. "I go with Pym, lah."

  Jaki smiled without mirth. "Yes, Pym would not hesitate to pin three warships at anchor. Listen to him and stay upwind. Fight with cunning, not arrogance. Remember."

  The tender carried Ndjobo, Kota, and his warriors to Children of the Serpent. Several trips conveyed all the Africans who wanted to partake in the raid, and even then there were more who pressed against the rails to go — but there was no time. The Dutch in the harbor had seen the two ships off their coast flying pirate flags, and their warships stirred.

  Jaki, Lucinda, and Maud watched from the quarterdeck as Children of the Serpent weighed anchor and unfurled canvas. Rain blew in sheets from the sea, smoking over the decks. In the stiff torrent, Children of the Serpent swooped toward Ras Khanzira, and all aboard Amaranth held silence as the Dutch ships came out to meet her. Sparks glinted as the Dutch forecastle guns fired. The shots splashed short. "Turn now," Jaki urged aloud, seeing the Dutch begin their tack. "Catch them with their sides open." But Children of the Serpent barreled straight toward them, flying within range of the Dutch cannon.

  "Kota is gambling on the stormwind to dampen the Dutch guns' trajectories," Lucinda said, almost breathless. "It's a mistake. The Dutch have the most powerful cannon in the world."

  As the Dutch ships tacked and presented their sides, their cannon winced flames. The topgallant on the Africans' foremast snapped away and rigging lashed into the air. Children of the Serpent turned athwart the wind, and her twenty larboard guns flared. At that close range and with the stormwind behind them, each shot found its mark, shredding the sails of the lead Dutch ship, smashing her binnacle, stalling her tack, and bashing in most of her cannon. The other two defenders completed their tack and moved apart to pincer their foe.

  Jaki swung half overboard, leaning on the rail with apprehension, and he threw himself back when he witnessed the enclosing Dutch fire their forecastle guns simultaneously. The crossfire smashed the foremast of Children of the Serpent and kicked timber and crewmen into the rain-spinning morning.

  "They're crippled," Lucinda groaned.

  Flames spurted from the prow of the African warship, whipped by the wind, and the royal sheets on the mainmast collapsed. "Fire!" Jaki cried. "They'll have to fight the fire and leave their cannon unmanned." The wind feeding the flames also swept Children of the Serpent hard by the Dutch ship, closing on her port. The African port guns boomed— the men in the gundeck had not abandoned their posts even though flames gushed around them, threatenin
g to ignite their powder hold. Astounded by the Africans' suicidal fervor, Jaki and Lucinda shouted warnings as their shots from the broadside caved in the gunwale of the Dutch ship. With a sundering roar, the powder hold ignited, and the Dutch vessel erupted into a convulsion of fire and black smoke.

  The Africans on Amaranth bellowed a cheer, then in the next instant fell silent as the other Dutch defender fired her cannon and the Africans' bowsprit sheared away. Children of the Serpent veered off, her prow braiding smoke. Her gunners now had left their cannon to keep the onboard fire from gutting them as it had the Dutch. The crew in the masts scurried to replace shredded canvas and catch enough wind to avoid the oncoming Dutch ship.

  "They cannot pull off fast enough," Lucinda said. "Jaki, we have got to go in after them."

  Jaki cast her a startled look, saw the concern honing her stare, and barked orders to weigh anchor. The Africans flew to their posts with a hurrah. But hard as they worked, they could not catch wind before the Dutch closed in on Children of the Serpent. Cannonfire thundered across the bay, and the masts of the African ship were blasted to stumps. With gut-wrenching slowness, Amaranth turned into the wind while Children of the Serpent lay helpless before her enemy's barrage. The Dutch fired two more rounds, collapsing the Africans' main deck, before swerving off to confront Amaranth.

  "Hard ahead!" Jaki shouted. "Full canvas!"

  Lucinda took his arm. "The wind is too stiff," she warned. "We'll throw ourselves past the Dutch, and they will rip us apart when we come around downwind."

  Jaki smiled coldly. "And that's what the Dutch are thinking." He waved Maud to him. "Go below, both of you."

  Lucinda protested, but Maud, heeding his grim insistence, took Lucinda in a firm embrace and guided her off the quarterdeck.

  Rain and the Africans served Jaki's strategy. Timing summoned animal clarity, and he stood atop the binnacle to gauge speed and distance, realizing that he had just enough time to call the Africans down from the masts. They came reluctantly, not comprehending why he would command them to abandon their posts at that crucial moment. He ordered the pilot on the whipstaff to hold a hard course, and he ran to the voice tube and shouted for swords. When the gun crew scrambled to the main deck with arms full of sabers, he gave one to each of the men on the masts and sent them up again with the order to cut the free rigging at his command. Then he sent the gun crew back to their cannon, ran to the quarterdeck, and leaped atop the binnacle again.

  Timing flexed his attention on the decisive moment. Too soon and their shots would fall short. Too late and they would drift helpless into their enemy’s gunsites, for he intended to cut their ship's wings. Such an audacious gamble extended their only chance to crush the Dutch without a long battle.

  Face raised to the stormclouds, he prayed aloud. "Powers of the world, strike with me. Lend me your strength."

  The moment to act loomed as the Dutch held their fire and did not tack, fully expecting Amaranth to glide past them. "Cut the free rigging!" Jaki yelled.

  The Africans hacked at the ropes bracing the canvas, and all the sails dropped away, muffling the speed of the carrack as she narrowed closer to the Dutch warship.

  "Hard alee!" he shouted to the pilot below, and the big ship tilted abruptly, almost careening. Jaki leaped from the binnacle and threw himself at the voice tube. "Gundeck, fire! All larboard guns fire!"

  Amaranth cut before the Dutch vessel so sharply and so closely that Jaki could read the shock on the faces of the crew — men with blond hair like himself, like his father. For a moment, guilt touched him. Then his ship's guns blasted, and the Dutch vessel disappeared in smoke. Her cannon replied before the smoke cleared, guns awry and the rainy wind stalling the shots' spin. Amaranth's guns roared again, the wind tattered the gunsmoke, and the Dutch vessel appeared in a whirlwind of flames. Her crew rushed madly to leap overboard. Few made it before the powder hold caught fire. Stunning blasts rent through the warship in a rising crescendo of destruction. Amaranth accepted her surrender.

  Jaki's ship towed the Dutch vessel and Children of the Serpent into the harbor of Ras Khanzira. There the Dutch factor waited at the wharves to relinquish the port for the lives of the men saved from the futile defense. Men in beards and ruffs stood in a nervous cluster at the levee under a red leather canopy drooling rain.

  Trailed by his African clansmen still bloody from the battle, Axo Ndjobo stepped ashore. The astonished Dutch commanders, solicitous of the safety of their people, readily accepted Ndjobo's conditions: the yielding of arms and the release of all slaves in the town. Jaki acted as translator, assuring the factor of the security and well-being of the small Dutch population in exchange for the cargo then in port and for use of the harbor in repairing his ships.

  After the settlement surgeon tended the African wounded, a horse-drawn wagon collected them and joined a caravan bound for the interior. Most of the freed slaves and the crew from the pirate ships went with them. The ones who remained, like Axo, came from tribes on the far side of the continent; they would sail around the Cape to the rocky coast of Whydah. Under Kota's direction, they dry-docked Amaranth, Children of the Serpent, and the captured Dutch warship and rebuilt them.

  For Jaki and Lucinda, the three weeks ashore provided a giddy respite from the crowded life of the crossing. They stayed in an elegant Muslim-style house with tiered rooms, flame-shaped windows and doors, all enclosed by an oasis garden overlooking the sea. Just a year earlier that they had been married in Dagon, and they celebrated their first anniversary with a party. Axo Ndjobo, drunk, wept for the broken tribes of the world, and, in a tranceful swell of prophecy, declared that Lucinda carried a child, a girl destined to begin a dynasty.

  Lucinda, pleased with Ndjobo's prediction, blushed. The morning that they departed Ras Khanzira in three well-provisioned and seaworthy ships, leaving the slave harbor in flames behind them, she declared that she wanted her child born in the New World, and she began plotting an itinerary that would hurry them around Africa and across the Atlantic to the Antilles within nine months.

  Sobered, Ndjobo recanted his prophecy, embarrassed that Lucinda had taken his exuberant babbling so seriously. She consoled him with news of her pregnancy. To pacify his own conscience, the captain promised the unborn child his scepter, a manta ray stinger with which to rule her kingdom in the New World.

  *

  Ras Khanzira stood vacant, cantonment and warehouses empty, a city of ghosts. The Dutch had emerged from their compound unscathed yet aghast at their demolished harbor. Fire had gutted the anchorage, and the powder kegs that the pirates had exploded in the breakwater had clogged the channel with boulders. The company decided to forsake the port, and Arab merchants gathered their goods and moved west to Djibouti. Quarles arrived to find monkey hordes occupying the abandoned buildings and goats foraging in the sorghum fields.

  Quarles' ship, a massive galleon he had dubbed Revenge, had cost him all the gold he had saved from his years of naval service, and to pay his dangerous crew — Hindu and Persian felons, Portuguese drunks, miscreants retrieved from the colony jail — he had promised them booty. In the fortnight since departing Swally, no prey had offered itself, and the crew grieved for plunder. At Ras Khanzira, Quarles turned them loose. They ravaged the deserted port, and before they returned to the ship they set the city ablaze in their frustration at finding nothing worth pillaging.

  Quarles cruised the Horn, capturing dhows and interrogating denizens about the fate of the ghost harbor. Upon learning that Wyvern had driven off the Dutch and razed the port, he ordered full canvas slapped on. The satisfaction of closing again on his mad daughter and her pirate lover ran cold in his veins, and he determined with silent ferocity that this time they would not elude him. He stood on the quarterdeck, spyglass to his eye, and resolutely searched for ships on the horizon.

  *

  Mirrorflash messages spiked the morning air with urgent warnings of a galleon flying British colors that had harried the vessels trailing Amaranth. Durin
g the night the big ship had taken one of the caravels. "It's Father," Lucinda said at once. Jaki, though dubious, organized with Axo Ndjobo a defensive ploy to trap the galleon. A cargo galley lingered behind the fleet as a lure, and Axo's two warships waited on the horizon for signals of an attack. The signal came at dusk, and the warships swooped in to smash the galleon. Instead of the British vessel, the pirates found the caravel that had been lost the night before, now outfitted with a new crew and harassing the cargo galley.

  Only after the warships had closed in did the British galleon loom out of the gathering night, cannons ablaze. The pirate ships, pinned against the shallow coast, engaged in a brief exchange of cannon-fire before the tide began to sweep them landward. One warship squeaked out of the inbound current by taking a battering from the galleon. It limped northward to rejoin Amaranth and Axo's flagship.

  Aboard the galleon, William Quarles watched the burning pirate ship until certain she had withdrawn. Then he gave the command to stand off the floundering galley and warship. By midnight the pirates had run aground, abandoned their vessels, and scattered into the African jungle. Quarles' crew boisterously cheered their captain’s name. After weeks of relentless pursuit and no booty but the livestock they rustled from seacoast villages, they had taken three ships in two days.

  By dawn’s green light, the captain lumbered to his stateroom and laid out the few remnants of Lucinda's life that he possessed: the tiger's beard necklace, Lucinda's tawed leather journal of her caravan trek, her calfskin-bound English Bible, and Gefjon’s Bible cover with the nailhole in its spine. Wounded with malaria and desperation, he let his hands flutter over these meager tokens.

  *

  "Is it Father who pursues us?" Lucinda asked. Jaki did not know for sure. After the loss of three ships to the mysterious British galleon, Amaranth and Axo's two vessels flurried north more swiftly. Off the turbulent coast of Whydah on the Bight of Benin, Axo Ndjobo returned to his people, and Amaranth picked up a crew of Africans eager to cross the sea to the New World. The pirate flotilla dispersed, many of the captured ships adopting the colors of coastal kingdoms and becoming vessels of trade. Two warships elected to accompany Amaranth to the Americas.