“Yes, Captain, you see? What port here do you trust well enough to try alone?”
“What port do I trust anywhere?” Blackbeard snarled. “And yet we must have one.”
“Can we not sail for the space of a day as the needle points toward the Dauphin?”
Blackbeard glared at Nairne, arm twitching strangely, and for an instant, Red Shoes was certain he would draw his pistol and shoot Nairne in the head. But after a moment of chewing his beard, he nodded brusquely. “Very well. One day. But if another storm catches us, we’re done for.”
Up above, the sailor in the crow’s nest hollered something. They all looked up as he repeated, “Sail.”
“There!” Nairne remarked. “Our discussion is moot.”
Blackbeard frowned. “Which direction does your scientific needle put the Dauphin?”
“Sou’west.”
“Then why is my man pointing east?”
“It’s probably one of the others, one of the ones we have no compass for—the Scepter, the Lyon, perhaps.”
“We’ll hope so, then,” Blackbeard snapped. Then he bellowed, “Ready her for a fight, men.”
An hour later, they grimly watched the nearing ships.
“Take her to full sail,” Blackbeard shouted.
“Damn,” Nairne remarked.
“Not our ships?” Red Shoes asked.
Blackbeard shook his massive head. “No. See there? Those three are galliots, I’ll wager. See how they jump in the water? Those are oars doin’ that. Small ships, fast ships in a flourish. Back behind them are two caravels. No, these are some of those chasing us before the storm.”
“Might they be peaceful?”
Blackbeard shook his head. “Corsairs, I’m damned sure. Merchants go under sail, real war galleys are bigger. No, these are our pursuit. Now they see us cut away from the flotilla and move in for murder.”
“I’ll trust you in that matter,” Nairne said.
“And so y’ should. It’s what I would do, were I them.”
“We can’t outrun ’em, as we did before?”
“Not with this gut full of brine. No, they’ll catch us sooner or later. But I want to make ’em work for it, especially the caravels, on account of they have the real fire. So if we can engage the galliots first, we’ll have the better chance.”
“You really think we can best five ships?” Nairne asked doubtfully.
“If we best only four, then still we die,” Blackbeard said. “Edward Teach has no desire to die this day.”
He stalked off, shouting orders.
“Can we win?” Red Shoes asked Nairne.
“Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Can you use those hands yet?”
Red Shoes curled his hand’s children. They would not fist, but he could move them.
“Enough to fire a musket, I think.”
“Have you any magical tricks to help us?”
“I will think on it,” he replied.
He did think on it, furiously, as the ships grew nearer, until he could see what Blackbeard meant. The galliots resembled long, wide canoes with sixteen oars on a side, each oar pulled by several men, and were terribly fast. The caravels—three-masted vessels—were slower but much larger. Not so large as the Revenge, but nearly so.
Blackbeard seemed more worried about the caravels. Was there anything he could do to them?
He still had his wire-melting shadowchild. He supposed he could send it over, but he doubted that the ships were held together by wire, and something more massive—a cannon, say—was too large for his servant, even if it were made of the same metal, which was unlikely. If the storm were still overhead he might call Thunder, but the clouds had fled the sky. He tried sending his shadowchild for a taste of sail, but like wood—or anything which had once been living—it proved too rich for the spirit.
He might boil some small portion of the sea, but did not think that would help very much, since he could boil very little of it.
Blackbeard was forward, shouting orders again, and in response the Revenge, creaking and complaining, finally turned to face her opponents.
Most of the crew were Blackbeard’s own, of course, and now they showed it, climbing into the rigging, shrieking curses to tell the corsairs that they had attacked no weak-willed merchant vessel, but the three galliots came on. Red Shoes could see them clearly now, the rippling muscles on the backs of the rowers, the bunched warriors with muskets or naked blades. He propped his own gun on the edge of the ship, checked the prime, and fumbled his clumsy hands to the trigger. He knew tricks for fast healing, for healing things that should not heal, but nothing he knew of could put what he had done to himself right in short order.
“Fire!” He heard Blackbeard bellow, but he held, knowing he would hit nothing at this range, and then realized he had misunderstood anyway as the Revenge roared and rocked back as twenty cannon unleashed nearly in unison. Smoke and spray hid the approaching ships for a moment, but when it cleared, they had the satisfaction of seeing one of the small craft spun about in the water and the bloody swath a charge of grapeshot had cut through its gang of rowers. Blackbeard’s pirates redoubled their cries, and a volley of musket shots erupted.
Their attackers, however, suddenly changed tactics. One came on, but the other two swung broadside, each in a different direction, one toward their bow and the other aft. Soon they would be fighting in three different directions. Both flanking ships unloaded their guns, and the deck quivered from the dull crunch of impact. Nearby, Tug waved his cutlass and whooped. “Six pounders if even that!” he howled. “Darlin’ baby guns! They’ll have to do better ’n that!”
But Tug was an exception; a lot of the men seemed worried. And beyond the immediate fray, the sails of the caravels were growing by the moment.
Red Shoes sighted carefully at the oncoming ship. After a second’s consideration, he chose the drummer, the fellow whose booming strokes timed the pull of the oars. If any one of these was a sorcerer, it would be that one. He had to move his whole hand to squeeze the trigger; but when the weapon kicked him in the shoulder, it was worth it, for the drummer thrashed to the deck, his rhythm broken forever.
Wood chipped near him, and the air sang with returning fire, but Red Shoes ignored it, methodically reloading his weapon. It was a clumsy business.
“Sweet Jesus,” said the fellow next to him, a straw-haired man named Roberts. One of his ears was now missing. He sounded surprisingly calm, considering.
For a hundred heartbeats after that, there was no sound audible save the peal of cannon, as all four attacking ships fired at will. Ten paces from Red Shoes, the rail blew apart, and wooden shrapnel stung his cheek. He winced and continued trying to load his musket, but using the ramrod was almost impossible.
The air slapped him, hard, and the eye of the world blinked. He came back to awareness with Tug shaking him.
“… boarding,” the big man was saying. “You stick next to old Tug, y’ hear?” It sounded as if Tug were a very long way away.
Men were fighting on the deck. Some looked like Fernando, with his almost black skin, but most were the color of cypress, clad in colorful pantaloons and head wraps not unlike his own. They swarmed over the gap in the rail, pushing Blackbeard’s men back, the fighting spreading to the center of the ship.
The caravels were very near, now.
Red Shoes noticed Nairne, not far away, hanger in hand, hacking at the boarders; and he stumbled in that direction, fumbling for his kraftpistole. If he could get a clear shot, he could kill many at once, and then perhaps they could stop the rest from boarding. Unfortunately, Nairne and the rest were in the way.
One of the corsairs hurled himself at them, but Tug hammered him into the deck with a blow from his cutlass, swinging twice more to sever an arm; but after that at least ten corsairs came over the rail. Nairne was still in the way, and Red Shoes found himself having to dodge back from a man in a red-and-black-checked turban. He hated to waste a kraftpistole shot on a sing
le man, but it seemed he had no choice, as his attacker drew his own sidearm.
And then his opponent faltered, his face become a mask of terror. Red Shoes did not waste the opportunity; as the man stood transfixed, he clubbed the heavy iron point of the kraftpistole across his face, wondering what the man had seen to shake him so.
Then Blackbeard swept by him, a pistol in each hand, and he knew. Teach had plaited his beard and hair, tying each braid with black ribbons. His head was wreathed in smoke from perhaps twenty match fuses stuck under his hat brim, and from that cloud stared eyes bereft of sanity, mercy, and humanity. Blackbeard was death, and any who saw him knew it.
He walked into the crowd of men as if they were not armed at all, firing his pistols point-blank, and two heads exploded like melons. One of the corsairs shot back, but his hand must have been shaking, for the ball merely snapped one of the matches from Teach’s hair. The pirate didn’t even blink, but drew two more pistols from the braces crossing his chest, fired, drew the last two, fired again, and then pulled out his cutlass. The nearest corsair raised his hand in defense and had his forearm splintered into his face. They fell away from Blackbeard, and still he came on.
Red Shoes followed.
At the rail it finally seemed to occur to the men that they were ten, facing a single man, but by then it was too late. Aiming around the pirate captain, Red Shoes finally had a clear shot. Holding his weapon with both hands to keep it steady, he pulled the trigger, and white fire jagged through the corsairs, pitching all but three of them, burning, into the sea.
The surviving three jumped.
Blackbeard swept his lethal gaze about the ship, and his own men, probably from experience, scrambled out of the way. All their attackers had been driven from the ship. For an instant, there was silence, as if the world were drawing a breath, and then a single cannon shot whizzed over the bow.
Both caravels were drawn up close, broadside, thirty guns between them trained on the Revenge.
Panting like a wounded bear, Blackbeard moved up to the rail. A hundred paces away, on the corsair ship, a man in a bright yellow turban held up a cutlass. He must have had a fine voice, for despite the ringing in his ears, Red Shoes could make out his words.
“Surrender. Surrender and accept our escort, and not another man among you shall die.”
Red Shoes thought that Teach’s eyes would bug from his head.
“Escort to where?” Nairne called.
Blackbeard moved like lightning, whipping his remaining pistol up to Nairne’s temple.
“Shut up,” he hissed.
Nairne stared into the muzzle without the slightest indication of fear.
“For the sake of intelligence,” Nairne whispered back. “Not for the sake of surrendering.”
“Shut up,” Blackbeard repeated, and then, deliberately, faced the other captain.
“I will make you a better offer,” he roared. “Give me one of your ships, and I won’t sink the other.”
Even at that distance, Red Shoes saw the other captain’s eyes widen. A sprinkling of laughter traveled around the corsair ship.
“You misunderstand,” the Barbary captain called back. “I may make such offers and demands. You may not.”
Blackbeard nodded, and turned to his master gunner, Josiah Warn.
“Blow them out of the Goddamned water,” he said.
12.
Jealousy and the Moon
Duke Francis Stephen of Lorraine raised his wineglass. “A toast,” he said, beaming. “To Mademoiselle de Mornay de Montchevreuil, our savior and beloved guest.”
Adrienne humbly inclined her head as the duke, Hercule, and Crecy drank the toast.
“I would rather drink to the recovery of Mademoiselle Crecy,” Adrienne said, lifting her glass.
“Hear, hear,” the duke seconded, finishing what remained of his wine. His valet quickly filled his glass again, and he sipped before addressing the company.
“I have been among the men today, and they send their regards. To tell you the truth, I believe that many had begun to fear for the success of our quest, but you have restored their hearts, lady. What man does not take hope when the new Joan of Arc rides with him?”
“Sir!” cried Crecy. “Do not curse my friend so by bringing that name upon her! I, for one, would prefer not to see her martyred.”
“Of course,” the duke replied, “but Saint Joan was martyred because she was surrounded by fools, and I hope that the present company is not comparable!”
“There are fools in any company,” Crecy remarked.
“I suppose you speak of the chaplain,” Hercule said.
“He did refuse to join us,” Adrienne murmured.
“You must understand that he is not so much a fool as a jealous man. That he, a man of God, is not so favored by God as our dear Adrienne.”
“Jealousy is foolish in and of itself,” Crecy avowed, with perhaps a hint of irony in her voice. “And in this case, leads to foolish comments. He has been heard to swear that our Adrienne is in league with the devil.”
“An unheeded remark,” Francis asserted, “for every man among us knows that were she diabolic, she would not have delivered us from the Russians. No, pay no attention to that one, I beg you. He serves his purpose as confessor to the men, but no one will listen to him in this.”
“I do not take him to heart,” Adrienne added, trickling a little more of the dry wine upon her tongue—watching amusedly as the duke tried to keep his composure, despite the fact that Crecy was stroking his leg with her bare foot. Privately, she believed that the men in general simply did not care whether she served good or evil, so long as she was on their side. When she rode along the train, she caught a distrustful glance now and then—but always it melted into a simulacrum of adulation when it found itself discovered. No, she would not be named a witch until either her powers failed or the company reached a secure place and festered there a while. In peace they would turn on her, not before.
The next round was brandy, not wine, and Adrienne took only a bit, having proven in the past unable to withstand the effects of strong liquor. Crecy, however, did not hesitate, matching the men glass for glass, until all three were rather unsteady.
After dinner, they left the duke’s tent, Crecy swaying and linking arms with her as the two men smoked what little tobacco remained.
“You are feeling well, Veronique?” Adrienne asked. “Is the brandy well in your belly?”
“Ah, very well, my dear,” she answered, her words scented with apricot. “It is good to be drunk again, to be impaired from choice rather than from wounds. And how is it with you, O Sorceress? I note you drank little.”
“I have a lot to think on tonight.”
“Tha’s Adrienne,” Crecy slurred. “Always much to think about. I wonder—I wonder …”
“What do you wonder, my dear?”
“I wonder what you think of me these days?”
“How do you mean?”
“You used to be so helpless. Such a little girl. You needed Veronique then, to wield her sword, to teach you what a woman can do even without a sword. I wonder if you need Veronique anymore.”
“Of course I still need you. You are my friend.”
“Yes, yes, your friend. Of course I am! And yet, I notice, Adrienne, that you came by less to see me when I could not walk than you might. And that you have seemed less than eager to see me put my sword back on.…”
“I only fear for your health, Veronique. What is this? You’ve never spoken like this before.”
“I’ve never—” Crecy suddenly pushed away from her, so violently that it bruised her arm, reminding her how terribly strong the other woman really was. “I’ve never been the weak one before,” she snapped.
“Weak? You aren’t weak.”
“No? Who is the stronger now? And you surrounded by all these able men, ready to lay down their lives? What need have you of me?”
Adrienne folded her arms. “I am no longer a helpless
child who needs your constant protection. Is that so terrible?”
“Or perhaps we became friends merely because you had no choice, no one else to guard you, and now that that condition is removed you disdain my company.”
“Veronique, when have I ever disdained your company?”
Crecy pulled her arm away. “Now you treat me like a child.”
“Veronique! Stop this. I have given you no cause for this.”
“No? And yet you avoid me, preferring d’Argenson or the duke or even that little tart Nicole. How am I expected to feel?”
“Crecy …”
Crecy’s eyes flashed silver in the moonlight. “You will never understand what I gave up for you, Adrienne. But if you don’t understand, I at least hold you to remembering.”
“Veronique, that is unfair. For more than two years I have been your friend, though you have lied to me time and again. For all that I know, you are lying yet.”
“Yes, for all you know, I am. What does Crecy know of truth? Or of love?”
“Hush, Veronique. You have gone too deep into your cups tonight.”
But the redhead gathered herself and straightened. “Not too much,” she murmured, “not too. I am sorry, Adrienne. Come and walk with me. Tell me of the stars while still they shine.”
Adrienne hesitated. The duke of Lorraine had taken leave back to his tent, and she noticed that Hercule was wandering slowly away.
“You should rest, Veronique. You are in a mood tonight, and I have no patience with it.”
“You must have patience with me,” Crecy whispered. “I am unused to this, Adrienne. I am not used to being the feeble one.”
Adrienne peered into her friend’s slightly stupefied eyes and kissed her lightly. “You are not feeble Veronique—merely drunk. Now, hush and good night.”
Crecy drew back, her face working through three or four expressions, and then she finally said stiffly, “Good night, in that case.” And then, with a touch of her old sarcasm, “And flights of angels sing thee to thy sleep. For they no longer sing for me.” She winked and leered slightly. “I think I shall see what sort of man this young duke is—or would like to be.”
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