And he has shaped them, and he has taught them, and he has given them blood and gold and vengeance.
They want this, he knows. They want to pursue the vessel that runs, that stumbles away from them. If they could, they would have their ship leap out of the water and down upon it, a falcon of the waves seizing its prey in strong talons of wood and rope and steel. And, failing that, they want to fall upon the men who sail that ship, who guard its treasure and tend its course, and take from them what the oceans have allowed them to possess thus far. There is no doubt among them, and no fear, and no thought that they might not be victorious. For do they not sail with Reb Palache, the man who consults with angels every night? Do they not bear good steel made in best Damascene fashion, and have they not always triumphed before? And this is just one ship, one lonely ship against which they will strike with a sword of wrath and fire.
This he knows. This is what he must decide.
He stares through the spyglass again. The gap between the ships has closed noticeably. There are men on deck pointing now, and urging the sailors to greater exertions. Others know it is hopeless, that the race is all but run and that only an act of the Divine can save them now. Fog, wind, rain, night—these might rescue them. Precious little else might.
And so a few men climb into the rigging with muskets and pistols, and long knives at their belts. Others struggle with the ropes, looking to find hidden speed that they might yet call upon. But the ship is low, and her prow is too square, and speed is not something her builders have blessed her with. The calculation seems simple. She is weak, she is rich, she is slow, she is poorly defended.
And yet there is something that is not right. He watches the sailors again, and then he has it. It is not that one man is too slow. It is that many of them are. These are not sailors, or at least not men who are sailors first. These men struggle too much with simple tasks, move too slowly on things that should be second nature.
They are soldiers, and this is a trap. No doubt there are more of them hidden below decks, guns primed and hearts pounding, waiting for the moment when they might leap forth and fire. Perhaps some of that weight is cannon, loaded and ready, hungry to tear the sides out of his beautiful ship. Perhaps the captain of the other ship, a wily old campaigner, looks back at Palache through his own spyglass, and slows his vessel so that the battle might begin sooner.
It is all very clever, clever and dangerous. Palache thinks for a moment—how did he hear of this vessel? A rumor in the coffeehouses, a whisper swirling round the docks, manifests and bargains and a dozen little things, all of which put him on the trail. They mean to kill him, he knows. A plot of this scale has power behind it, has the will of the throne and the Inquisition and the long shadowy machineries of state and Church. He has stung them too many times, bled their shipping white and come upon their colonies with righteous wrath.
The wise thing to do would be to sail away, to tell his men of the trap and seek a different end to the day. They are not fools; they would understand. Eager as they are for battle, they do not wish to die unnecessarily, nor to fight merely for the sake of fighting.
But they are his men, and they are superb. And surely, knowing that this is a trap, he can prepare them. He can spy out the vessel, cast the gematria and know how best to attack. He can ensnare the ambushers, draw them out too soon and then bloody them, and let it be known across Iberia that no matter how they might try, they will not have his head.
He looks up at the sun. It is just past its zenith. There is plenty of time for bloody work yet before nightfall.
‘Men,’ he says, and turns to face them, ‘here is what we will do.’
*
This is how Reb Palache prepares for battle.
He winds the phylacteries upon his arm, upon his brow, upon his chest.
He dresses himself in plain linen, and surmounts it with leather: vest and boots and gloves.
He does not remove the skullcap that he always wears, for one’s head should not be bare when one stands before the Lord of Hosts. But he is a practical man, and a man who has fought many battles, and so he wears over it a cap of toughened leather, with flaps that hang down over his ears. His beard he binds, and tucks into his shirt, that it might not be seized by an enemy and used to pull him off balance, nor may it be fouled with the blood of those who stand against him.
Over his head he drapes amulets, each inscribed with skill and care and what those who do not understand the study of the Law might call magic. There are more amulets in his right hand, clay tablets imprinted with signs and powers and hung on leather thongs. Some bear the Hand of Miriam for protection. Others, the Tetragrammaton, or numbers of significance. They are black, these amulets, painted black over red clay, and the letters and numbers and signs upon them are bright gouges like unto sunlight piercing clouds.
He moves through his men, Palache does, and he bestows the amulets upon them. Most of them are here, all but the very few needed to do the ship’s work. They are armed, and some are armored. There are sharpshooters here, and men bearing nothing but wicked swords, and one man who fights with a heavy hooked knife he swears came to him from the true Indies.
There is no rhyme or reason to those who receive the protections from him. He knows not himself why he chooses some and not others, save that once in a great while, there is an angel who whispers in his ear and guides him. These are potent amulets, he knows, strong enough to deflect a blow or staunch a wound. Theirs is not an obvious power, but it is enough, and more of his men are alive than would have been otherwise did he not gift them with these.
The angel whispers, and Palache drapes an amulet around the neck of a sallow, bearded man with a shaved head and a rich man’s gut. What the angel has said is that he will need protection in the fight that is to come, and so Reb Palache offers what protections he might. He does not like to call upon the angel for this, prefers rather to debate with him about the nature of Shekhinah and the meaning of the Law, but there is no time for that now. There is merely time for the men, and a last prayer, and a fervent hope that not too many will fall.
The bald sailor nods his head and murmurs thanks. His mind is already on the battle ahead
Overhead, men begin to shout. They are close. Soon the first shots will be exchanged, the first blood will be shed. The sailors move to their stations. The ship groans and thunders as it shoulders through the last few waves separating it from its prey. Voices—Spanish voices—cry out.
And with a sound of thunder, it begins.
*
This is how Reb Palache fights.
In his right hand, a sword, curved and edged on one side in the Moorish fashion. The blade is steel, but the hilt is simple brass, wrapped round with soft leather. On the blade is etched the letter vav, corresponding to the number six, which all good scholars of the Zohar know is the number corresponding to imperfection. For it is with this blade that he will mar God’s creation and rend the flesh of those men who stand against him. Watch him now as he brings the blade up to parry a strike, then reverses and slashes across his opponent’s throat. The man, a soldier, drops his sword and puts his hands to his neck, but he is already falling, falling, and Reb Palache has moved on, taking another man in the side as he stands over one of the Reb’s crew to deliver a killing blow. The sailor—the pirate, for we must not mince words here—utters words of thanks, and then takes his fallen opponent’s blade from stiffening fingers to dash off into the fray. Palache watches him for an instant, then runs to the rail and leaps the gap between his vessel and that of the accursed Spaniards. He bellows as he leaps, his voice cutting through the smoke and din of battle like the Great Tekiah, the blast from the shofar.
His men hear him and roar their approval, their voices echoing his. Quickly, they clear the last of the Spaniards from the decks of their vessel and then over they go, throwing themselves at the Spanish ship and at the men who still defend her. One man misjudges his leap, his foot slipping in a slick of blood at just the wrong mom
ent, and over the side he goes. . He slams against the hull of the Spanish vessel and then falls, but there is no time to think of rescue, no time for one man who might be lost.
For just as Gideon roused his tiny band, so now Reb Palache exhorts his men. In the center of the deck, he meets the Spanish captain, and their blades dance. High, low, high, dart and thrust, parry and stab, they are evenly matched, and then the press of battle closes in and they are swept apart.
In Reb Palache’s belt is a pistol, primed to fire one shot and one shot only. The stock is made from cedar brought from Lebanon, and it bears many dents and marks. When he draws it, his finger does not find the trigger, nor has it ever been fired. Instead, he uses the barrel to catch the blades of his foes, and to turn them aside. The stock, he uses as a bludgeon, striking a jaw here and a skull there as needed. Men fall, stunned or wounded, he cares not so long as they are out of the fight. He is everywhere, he is nowhere, and though the angel sings in his ear he ignores its voice, for this is a matter for men.
There is a shout behind him, and the whistle of air being sliced thin by steel. He does not turn. Rather, he brings the pistol up over his head and twists, and the sword that strikes it glances harmlessly away. With his other hand, he reverses his own blade and drives it back, under his arm. It finds flesh, the meat of the man who would have killed him, and it is a killing blow. The weight of the collapsing man pulls the sword downwards, and he draws it free before it can be wrenched from his fingers. Blood drips from it, smearing his shirt and leggings and painting rough round spatters on the deck. He does not notice; his mind is on other things.
He looks around.
There is the sound of metal on wood, and metal on metal, and the Spanish musketeers are fighting for their lives as Palache’s men swarm upon them. They are swinging their muskets like clubs, or reaching for daggers, for they have not had time to reload after a volley that was fired too soon, and from too far away. His own men, Palache sees, are saving their pistols for close work, and deadly.
There is a clanging in the air now, a sound he knows well: more grappling hooks thrown from vessel to vessel, more iron teeth biting deep into wood to bind the two ships together. And, hot on its heels, the cacophony of running feet and men landing on the deck of a ship not their own. The battle is going his way. Were it not, it would be his ship feeling the tread of invaders’ feet, and his men calling out to fall back, and his sailors’ blood running out the scuppers into the ancient sea.
The Spaniards shout. An officer has rallied a band of them and they charge, blades out, at a knot of Palache’s men who have just come aboard. The pirates hear them and turn to meet the charge, rushing forward pell-mell and hungry. These are his men, his sea-wolves, his spirits of vengeance clothed in flesh, and they shatter the Spanish charge as they meet it. There is screaming, and the thud of dead meat still warm hitting the reddened timbers, and then suddenly the Spanish officer is fighting alone. One man’s thrust he parries, and then another, but a third of Palache’s men has gotten behind him and brings a belaying pin down on his head with a broken-kettle crash. The Spaniard collapses, blood leaking from beneath his dented helm, and the pirates sweep onward, howling in triumph.
It is not a slaughter yet, but it will be soon.
‘Enough!’ he calls out, and his voice is as thunder. The angel in his ear falls silent. He is watching now, waiting to see what happens next. Perhaps the angel thinks that he is still in Canaan. Perhaps he wishes Palache were striding into battle with naught but the jawbone of an ass. But it is not his to decide what happens here, not any more.
All around Palache, men stop. Swings end, half-completed. Fingers freeze on triggers. Sparks gutter out too close to black powder. A hush falls over the entangled vessels. Even the creaking of spars and snap of canvas is muted.
And again, Reb Palache says, ‘Enough.’
One by one, the swords fall. They hit wood with bright clangs and dull thuds, and the odd round sound of metal rolling away. Palache’s men do not strike, nor do they drop their weapons. Instead, they herd their surviving foes to the rear of the ship, and set guard upon them. Belowdecks there is more of the same, shuffling feet slowing and the moans of the wounded replacing the cries of the freshly killed.
The Spanish captain is still standing, Palache sees. He alone has not dropped his sword, and he waits before the mainmast. The deck between them clears, and once again they stand face to face.
‘So,’ says Palache. ‘Do you yield?’
The captain regards him. He is a proud man, Aragonese by blood, and his features are hawk-sharp. He wears leather gloves and fine clothes, and a hat with a long trailing plume. But his clothes are rent in a dozen places, and his hat has been notched, and there is dull dried blood on the silver of his blade. ‘You are Palache,’ he finally says, and raises his sword. ‘I have been ordered to kill you.’
‘I do not think you will,’ says Palache, very softly. ‘You should put down your blade, and we will make terms.’
The Spaniard’s sword does not waver. ‘I think not. I do not parley with a man who consorts with devils.’
‘Devils?’ Palache is shocked for a second. ‘I do not consort with devils.’ He thinks for a moment. ‘I have fought a few, and a few more men who were like unto them, and I have conversed with angels. Is that enough to get you to lay down your sword?’
‘I have been charged to cut out your heart, and preserve it in salt, and deliver it in a box made of cypress to my king. He will be most displeased with me if I return to him having failed.’ The Spaniard stares at Palache, unblinking. The tip of his sword cuts tiny circles in the air.
Beware, the angel whispers.
Palache nods, and thinks. ‘I do not think I can oblige your king, for he is no longer mine,’ he says. Then, with shocking suddenness, he drives his sword into the deck of the ship. It holds fast there, quivering. ‘But your king’s words no longer hold sway on my vessel. For your ship is mine now, and you are a prisoner of war.’
‘This is not war. It is piracy, and you are but a corsair. And this is my ship, and—’
‘And you are my prisoner, and a fool.’ There is a heaviness to Palache’s words now, and a finality. He steps back and forth, ever conscious of the sword tip following him. He is out of range, or near to it. This is a risk, a calculated one even with the angel shrieking warnings in his ear. His pistol is in his belt. His sword remains where he has left it, impaled in the deck. He has angels and amulets, and he is utterly unarmed.
The Spaniard knows this, or thinks he does. For he may be a true son of the Church, but does not believe in angels, not in those who might perch on the shoulder of a man such as the one before him now. And amulets are devils’ work, and not proof against the true steel of the faithful, and in any case the hand of protection he sees around Palache’s neck is a Moorish thing and of little worth.
‘I offer you your life,’ Palache says. ‘Your crew as prisoners, your ship as mine by right of salvage, and its cargo payment for my men. You will be put ashore by a prize crew when it is safe; you will not be treated badly.’
A sneer crosses the Spaniard’s lip. ‘And I am to believe this from the legendary Reb Palache? The spy who converses with the Devil and negotiates treaties good Christian kings must sign in blood? Who claims to study the word of God and yet sails the seas to commit bloody murder? Whose beard is shamed by his deeds, so that he dare not show it among decent and honorable men? What surety do I have, what surety can a man like you provide?’
He will try to make you kill him, the angel says. Will you?
Palache ignores its voice. ‘What surety would you take? An oath? Blood? None would satisfy you. Instead, I give you this—those men who have thrown down their arms are still alive. Were I the beast you think I am, they would not be.’
‘I do not think you are a beast,’ the Spaniard says, and his blade is suddenly very, very still. ‘I think you are a fool.’
And from the crowd a man rushes forth. He is sc
reaming, and there is a hooked dagger in his left hand. Palache’s men move to protect their captain, their teacher, but the would-be assassin is too quick. He dodges one, cuts the throat of a second, and then he is upon Palache.
Who has not moved.
And the killer swings, and the dagger comes down, and suddenly another man is there, the bald-headed Calatan who was given an amulet before the battle. His sword comes up but it is slow, too slow, and all who watch know where that dagger will end its stoke.
And Palache does not move, does not reach for his sword, does not reach for his pistol.
The dagger comes down. The tip tears at the fabric of the Catalan’s shirt, cuts through it and continues, and then there is a sudden sound.
It is the sound of the blade upon the anvil, and the hammer upon the blade. It is the sound of a dagger shivering to fragments, and of clay cracking, and of a leather cord snapping. Pieces of the broken blade fall to the deck, and so does the amulet, sliced neatly in twain. And a moment later, so does the man who wielded the dagger, run through from behind by another of Palache’s men.
‘It’s a miracle,’ the Catalan breathes. ‘Reb Palache works miracles.’
‘Devil,’ the Spanish captain says instead, but he reverses his sword and extends it to Palache. After a minute, the Reb takes it, and the killing is over.
*
This is how Reb Palache deals with the aftermath of the battle.
The dead are collected, and washed, and prepared for their final journey. The decks are washed clean of blood and offal. Kaddish is said for those whom would have wished it. With reverence, they are given to the sea.
The wounded of both sides are brought to him and to the other physicker who sails with him, for Reb Palache has studied medicine as well as Torah, and the hands that wield a sword in battle can also heal. With tinctures and amulets, scalpels and herbs and prayers, he tends to those who are suffering. The ones who will live receive all his skill and attention. Those who will not are dispatched swiftly, so that they might not suffer.
The New Hero: Volume 1 Page 9