“That’s a close-range, high-impact cannon,” Hale said. “They look to be forty-pounders. Like dropping rocks onto a paper boat. But their range can’t be a hundred yards.”
“They mean to get close, then,” Lye stated.
Damrick nodded. “She can fly loops around us. She expects us to turn to her, to give her a broadside. Then she’ll use her speed to stay astern, get in close, where most ships have only a swivel gun.”
“Like we did to Savage Grace.”
Hale sniffed. “Only it’ll be us this time chasin’ our tail around till we’re in irons and she’s got us from the rear.”
A corner of Damrick’s lip rose. “So she’s a dancer after all. And she wants to lead. Let’s see what she does if we decline the offer. Hold all fire. Steady as she goes.”
“They ain’t turnin’,” the first mate said.
“I can see that,” Dancer Clang answered. “So what’s our range now, two-fifty?”
“Mebbe a little more.”
“What have they got? They’re baiting us. Why?”
The first mate had the telescope. “Nothin’ aft but a lot a men with rifles lined up across the stern. Four swivel cannon to starboard.” A pause. “That’s it, Captain.”
“What about the other two ships?”
“Same thing.”
“Let’s pull out, make a run right at the laggard. This time from dead astern.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. That oughta spook ’em.”
Damrick watched the little cutter turn away to port, retreating once again. “She’s circling away.”
Just then the captain of the Ayes of Destiny walked up. “You know your business, Mr. Fellows. But I know mine, too. If that ship runs at us again, we’ll need evasive maneuvers. We can’t let her have our stern.”
“Yes we can,” Damrick countered evenly. “She wants our stern, we’ll give it to her. Furl some of the jib and ease the mainsheet. Let’s make sure we’re in the rearmost position.”
He stared at Damrick.
“So she’ll attack us.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain, a distinguished man of sixty-two, stood dumbfounded. “You want her to attack our stern? She’ll take out our rudder.”
“We need her in range of our small arms.”
“I thought your cannon were long-range weapons.”
“They’re also small bore. We need close range to pour fire into her. Give her our stern, Captain, and we’ll take care of the rest.”
“Like I say, you know your business, but—”
“If that’s all, Captain, I’ve got a battle to fight here.” Damrick didn’t look at the officer he’d just dismissed.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said with a snarl, and then turned stiffly and walked away.
“She’s comin’ about again,” Lye noted. Then, “She’s a quick one, that Widow.”
“Directly astern,” Damrick noted. “Good. Go get the guns.”
“Now?” Hale asked.
“Keep the men astern, so they block her vision. Make sure the other ships do the same.” Lye saw the fire in his eyes now. “Come on, Dancer,” he said to her. “Let’s dance.”
“They still ain’t turnin’, Captain,” the first mate said.
Dancer shook her head. “They’re fools. I expected more. Bring all the buckets to the main deck, and fill them. We’ll take some fire. But so will they.”
The first mate went off to make it so.
“Cannon ready?” Damrick asked, tension in his voice.
“Almost, sir,” one of the sailors said, turning a wrench as he spoke. Damrick had four cannon per ship, thanks to the generosity of his patron. But he had sixteen mounting plates: four per side, four astern, four on the bows. When the Widow first appeared on the horizon, Damrick had ordered all four cannon mounted on the starboard side. Now, on Damrick’s order, all four were moved to the stern. Sailors and riflemen stood clustered around the guns at the weather deck rail, blocking all view of the activity. The cutter was coming up dead astern, with no visibility to the starboard rail. On the Blue Horizon and the Lion’s Pride, men clustered on the starboard rails as well, disguising both the removal of cannon there and the remounting astern.
In all, sixteen long-range guns were being prepared, all aimed at one sixty-foot cutter.
“Range?” Hale shouted.
“Two-fifty!” came the call from the lookout.
“And closing,” Lye offered.
“Hard aport, Horizon and Pride,” Damrick called to Lye. “Let’s give them clear shots.”
The message was relayed, and the two sister ships, both downwind from the Destiny, began to drift away from formation. As they did, their sterns faced directly at the Widows Might.
“Let’s load them up,” Damrick said to Hale.
“Hot loads!” Hale Starpus yelled, and he rumbled off to supervise, his long side-whiskers blowing in the breeze.
Dozens of shooters now left the rails, joining those already standing at the ovens. Smithies began dropping bright-red musket balls down barrels. As soon as a man had his load, he rushed to the stern rail.
“We’re closing in on one-fifty, Captain.”
Dancer Clang said nothing, but peered through her spyglass.
“What’s happening?” the first mate asked his mistress. “Them ships leavin’ formation?”
She lowered the telescope. Doubt floated up behind her eyes. She had been watching the activity at the stern, but there were too many men crowded at the rails for her to fathom what it meant. None of the three vessels had stern cannon. Why would they separate now, and expose themselves even more? She looked through her telescope again. Then the crowd of sailors at Destiny’s rail suddenly parted, revealing four guns where none had been.
“Retreat,” she said.
“What?” the mate asked.
“Pull out! Hard to starboard! Now!”
Damrick gave the order. On Hale Starpus’s command, all stern swivel guns fired: sixteen cannon blasts came in the space of a few seconds. Every one of them found a target. These long-range cannon were fired at short range. Each missile penetrated the hull twice: once entering, once exiting. Sixteen cannon rounds opened thirty-two holes in the little cutter. And since the angle of the guns was steep, firing down on the smaller ship, the cutter’s exit wounds were all under water.
The fury of the blasts jarred the ship; the deck shuddered violently, knocking pirates off their feet. Four of the twenty-five souls aboard were knocked into the ocean. The Widow’s efforts to turn and flee were slowed as sailors regained their feet, and moved back to the rigging amid flying debris and fallen comrades.
And then came the rain of fire.
Hundreds of bright-red musket balls traced paths through the air, all drawn, it seemed, to the Widow. Men staggered, cried out, fell. The boom of the mainmast came free, then swept across the stern, battering two more sailors into the ocean.
The array of tin and wooden buckets set out on deck to prepare for fires, those that weren’t already toppled by cannon fire, now collected some of the errant shot. Musket balls plinking through metal pails made a sound oddly like a coin hitting a tin table. Dancer Clang heard it. She saw and heard it all, the red tracers, the slap of iron into wood, the flying splinters, the steam and sizzle of hot iron into water. The steam and sizzle of hot iron into flesh. Smoke rising where heated shot struck wood. Then the flames. Men crying out in pain. Gasps, bodies thudding to the decks. And the endless, nonstop crack, crack, crack of rifle fire like a drumroll, all from the weather decks of three slow, lightly armed, heavily laden freighters. And in her grew the realization that this voyage was over. There would be no gold coins today.
And then came a second round of cannon fire. Large chunks of the small ship flew into the air. The deck shuddered, cracked. The cutter listed hard to starboard. The Widow was sinking fast, and burning as she went down.
And then suddenly it stopped. The rain of fire ended. The smoke
drifted clear of the stern of all three ships. And the three ships sailed on silently, somber men watching as though at attention.
Dancer Clang stood at a shattered rail, now angled severely as the ship began to heel over. The mast, cut almost in half by a shell from the second volley, now cracked, then broke just above her head. It groaned and splintered like a tree falling. Canvas floated down from the sky and rested in the sea. Her instinct was to assess the damage, to count the casualties. But she couldn’t bring her mind to the task. The losses were total. Instead, she watched the three ships sailing under red flags as they left her behind, just so much wreckage in their wake. And a bitter truth rose in her. They hadn’t slowed. They’d lost no time. She’d been no more than a minor inconvenience.
“Hey! Come back!” a pirate called out. And then another shouted, “We surrender!”
“Buck up, men!” Dancer bellowed at them. All heads turned to her. “They beat us. They’re leaving us here. Grab something that floats, and abandon ship.”
But then, one of the ships, the laggard they had tried to attack, began a turn to starboard.
“They’re comin’ back!” one man cried out. Other men cheered.
But Dancer Clang just watched, recognizing a maneuver she herself had performed more than once.
“You’re circling back for survivors?” The speaker was Windall Frost. The old gentleman clung to the starboard rail of the quarterdeck as the ship shuddered through the surf.
Damrick lowered the spyglass. He wasn’t looking at what he’d left behind, but what might be yet to come, scanning the horizon in all directions. “I’m circling back. But not to pick up survivors.”
The old man seemed agitated. But he said no more.
Damrick looked down at his boots, then back up to the sky. “Should we leave them to tell the Conch and his hordes how we win our victories?”
“I see.” Windall Frost sighed. “Nasty business, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Damrick showed no patience. “If you’re having trouble with it, sir, perhaps you should go back to your cabin. I suspect there’ll be more of the same soon.”
Frost just sighed. He looked old. “I own much responsibility,” he said, “for the outcome of this voyage.”
“Then I suggest you shoulder it, and carry it. Sir.” Damrick meant the statement to have a knife’s edge, to cut short the conversation.
But Frost just nodded and looked out over the ocean. “I wonder…how does one develop a fist of iron, to hammer back at injustice, without developing a heart to match?”
Now Damrick said nothing.
“I paid a visit to Runsford Ryland,” Frost suddenly confessed.
“Ryland? When?”
“Two nights back. I called on him late, hoping to find out whether there was any chance he’d align himself with us. I couldn’t even get to the subject, because of his anger at, well, at you.”
“That was a big risk. You might have told me.”
“You might have stopped me. I needed to visit a former employee of mine. She lives on Ryland’s estate with her daughter, Wentworth’s fiancée.”
Damrick’s eyes flashed.
“Well,” Windall explained, reacting to the look, “It might have been quite awkward to be spotted on his grounds late at night, if I hadn’t bothered to announce myself to him. So I had to stop in.”
But that’s not why Damrick’s pulse had quickened. “Jenta’s mother…worked for you?”
“Yes. For many years.”
“Doing what?”
“Shayla was a household servant.”
“A household…” he shook his head, as though trying to clear it. “I thought she was…you know. Born noble, or something.”
“Who, Jenta?” Windall eyed Damrick carefully. “I didn’t realize you’d met.”
“We’ve met.”
“Well, the royalty rumor has been going around in Skaelington. Runsford may have started it, actually. Wouldn’t put it past him. But no. I can assure you that Jenta grew up in the cellar of my home. Her mother had a bit of bad luck with the girl’s father, and found herself with few choices. It was Ryland moved them both to Skaelington, promising a better life.”
Damrick turned to look out over the sea. He saw nothing but Jenta, ascending a gangway, waving from a carriage. Those eyes, so sad and worldly, now meant something completely different. The girl was not at all what she seemed. Even at that first dance.
But then, perhaps that meant she was not out of reach, either. He raised his telescope, scanned the horizon. Wind flapped at the canvas and the bosun called out orders. Timbers creaked and waves dashed themselves against the hull. The burning wreckage of the Widows Might grew larger as they approached. But Damrick saw only Jenta’s face; heard only Jenta’s voice.
…This time, you will come find me?
Runsford Ryland’s desk was covered with ungainly piles of books of accounts, contracts, and notes. He had pored over the history of the small fleet he’d entrusted to his son, and now he stood, leaning heavily on the dark, polished walnut. He hung his head.
“Sir? Is there something I can do?”
Runsford raised his head slowly, looked at his assistant. “Yes.” He looked with empty eyes at the bustle of his office through the plate-glass windows that surrounded him.
“Sir?”
Ryland nodded. “Have my yacht made ready. I’m sailing to Oster.”
“When, sir?”
He turned on the man. “Just as soon as my yacht is ready! Now, go!”
It was one week later when the three rogue Ryland ships unloaded their goods in the Port of Oster, south of Mann. Though they’d seen many ships on the horizon, some certainly pirates, and several followed at a safe distance, no more had attacked Damrick and the Gatemen. Wentworth’s little fleet arrived intact, and without another shot fired.
Now sugar, tea, and coffee were hoisted up from the holds, swung out onto the docks, accompanied by the grinding of chains, the screech of gulls, and the shouts of deckhands and shoremen. Chests of gold coin were carried under heavy arms to the local bank, where it would be divvied up among merchants whose goods had been sold in other ports.
News about who had accompanied and protected these ships, and what famous pirate they had defeated, spread quickly. Within hours, the piers and docks were filled with citizens come to welcome conquering heroes just in from glorious victories at sea.
“I guess they’ve heard of the Gatemen up here in Oster,” Hale Starpus commented, looking down from the quarterdeck onto the crowd. People held up the flags of Nearing Vast, and even a few crudely made, crimson-stained flags of the Gatemen, swords crossed in a ragged “V.” The people waved, they clapped, they chanted.
“Damrick should see all this,” Lye marveled.
“Aye,” Hale answered. “But the boss don’t like to come out much.”
Lye watched Hale, saw no apprehension. His eyes drifted back over the crowds. “You know he don’t like a fuss. Makes ’im nervous the pirates’ll come after us in port again, I reckon.”
“I reckon he’s right about that.” Hale rubbed his hairy cheek with a knuckle. “What do you s’pose he does in there by hisself?”
Lye shrugged. “He thinks.”
“About what?”
“About plannin’.”
Hale considered that, looking back toward the cabin. “That’s a whole lot a’ plannin’, then.”
A fiddle player jumped up onto a dock post below them, facing the crowd. A smattering of applause met his short effort to tune up.
“He gonna sing one of them songs about the Gatemen?” Lye asked.
“Maybe. There’s some still spreadin’ around, I hear.”
“I think Slow Slim’s kinda squashed most a’ that.”
The fiddler tapped his toe, nodded his head, sawed his bow, and began singing. Very soon the crowd was clapping along with the lively rhythm, some even singing snatches of the words.
Young Damrick, he got angry
; When they let ol’ Sharkbit be,
So he took a pint of whiskey
And some pistols out to sea,
And he boarded Savage Grace
Just as pleasant as you please,
Said right to that pirate’s face,
“You’re a comin’ back with me!”
Here the crowd cheered as the fiddler played a tuneful bridge. Then he began another verse:
Ol’ Sharkbit shook his fist now
And he told his men to shoot,
But Damrick had four pistols
And a fifth one in his boot.
Four pirates fell in order,
Then he made the others dance;
And Sharkbit, he boiled over
When his cutthroats soiled their pants!
The crowd crowed their pleasure.
“He didn’t make no one dance,” Lye informed Starpus. “No one messed his britches neither, that I saw. That’s all made up.”
“Folks seem to like it, though,” Hale noted.
Sharkbit pulled a knife to slit him,
But young Damrick pulled his gun;
Those pirates all yelled “Get him!”
But ol’ Sharkbit was outdone.
Yes sir, Damrick pulled the trigger,
And there’s no need to explain
What happens to a blaggard
When a Gateman takes his aim!
A great cheer arose, and then a smattering of calls for Damrick himself.
“Not much mention a’ yours truly,” Lye muttered.
“I thought you fell into the drink and missed it anyways,” Hale offered.
“Most of it. So maybe it’s better this way.”
Very quickly the entire throng began chanting Damrick’s name, demanding he come forth.
“I’m not going out there,” the head Gateman told his two lieutenants, as they stood in his cabin. He was lying on his bunk, head and shoulders against the bulkhead. He needed a shave and his hair was mussed. He looked like he hadn’t slept. Books were scattered about, some open. A quill stood up in an open inkwell beside several sheaves of foolscap covered with a careful, precise hand. A lamp and two candles burned, adding a soft haze to the direct light from the single open porthole.
“Listen to ’em!” Lye pleaded. “They started out happy, but you keep not showin’ up. Now they sound about to turn mean.”
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