Fortune’s Whelp by Benerson Little
Copyright © 2015 Benerson Little
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ISBN-13: 978-1-942756-60-6(Paperback)
ISBN :978-1-942756-61-3 (e-book)
BISAC Subject Headings:
FIC014000FICTION / Historical
FIC002000FICTION /Action Adventure
FIC031020FICTION / Thrillers / Historical
Editing: Chris Wozney, Danielle Boschert
Cover Illustration by Christine Horner
Address all correspondence to:
Penmore Press LLC
920 N Javelina Pl
Tucson AZ 85748
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Historical Notes
Swordplay Notes
Glossary
About The Author
If You Enjoyed this Book
Dedication
For Bree, Courtney, Margaret, and the Wee One;
And for Mary, my wife and co-adventurer.
Chapter 1
A Numerous Issue passes in the World for a Blessing;
this Consideration made a Fox cast it in the Teeth
of a Lyoness, that she brought forth but one Whelp at a time.
Very right, says the other, but then that one is a Lyon.
—The Fables of Aesop, 1724
The rencontre took place early in the evening under a storm-darkening sky, with just enough daylight remaining to preclude the accidents that plague swordplay at dusk and in darkness. The wind had risen, bringing with it the chill of river and sea; this, along with the approaching sunset, and the location on the outskirts of the city, kept witnesses where they belonged, that is to say, away.
What had come close to being a very public affray had become instead a quietly and hastily arranged duel, thanks entirely to those more mindful of the hangman than was the brandy-fired instigator.
The offense had been anything but subtle.
The bully-fool had sought to insert himself, drink in hand, at a table where two men were talking quietly. It was one of those small tables, suitable for backgammon, cards, or intimate discussions. The adventurer had remonstrated, saying that he would be happy to drink with the fool some other day, although he did not address the fool as such.
“Damn’d pirate!” the bully-fool shouted, for all in the room to hear.
Thus began what now would be settled with naked steel.
In fact, there was truth to what the fool had said, for not two years past the Scottish gentleman-adventurer had indeed been tried for piracy. He had not vehemently denied the accusation but had rationalized his plundering as justified under the circumstances, arguing that his actions were entirely within the spirit of the law, if not within its strict black letters. He had been acquitted by London jurors who would not convict a man merely for plundering a Spanish guardacosta with a valuable cargo in its hold. The fact that the guardacosta—nothing more than a Spanish pirate with a lawful commission—had fired first with the intention of plundering the gentleman-adventurer’s own privateer and claiming its cargo as frutas de las Indias, only added to the jury’s indignation at Spanish arrogance. Naturally, the jury conveniently forgot, or more likely forgave, previous English piracies that had instigated Spanish reprisals.
Even so, Edward MacNaughton had been placed under a travel embargo in order to balance accounts with the Spanish ambassador. England and Spain were not only at peace, they were allied against France, and this accused pirate had a history of depredations against Spain, some lawful, some perhaps not quite so. He must therefore wait a few more months before returning to America.
Put plainly, the gentleman-adventurer wished to avoid affairs and affrays that might get him in more trouble with the law and thereby upend his present plans, in particular his intention to sail for Ireland on the following day. All this the threatening, inebriated fool knew, and therefore he assumed he could insult Edward at will.
“Damn’d pirate!” roared the fool again after tossing back a dram of brandy. His was a physiognomy of portly muscularity, dramatic movement, and uncurbed tongue attached to a florid, sweaty visage, a combination that denotes blustering temper, loud intimidation, and occasional backstabbing.
“True enough,” said Edward, first with a sigh, then a smile. “Or so some Spaniards believe. Even so, you must excuse me, for I’ve private matters to discuss with an old friend.”
“So, you won’t answer me!”
“I have answered you,” Edward replied calmly. He took a sip from his bumper of sweet Malaga and turned his attention back to Jonathan Graham, his companion at the table.
The fool, John Lynch by name, screwed up his face. As many did, he found Edward MacNaughton annoyingly inscrutable. The self-sufficient manner bordering on arrogance, the commanding voice, the martial accents of his Spanish-French style of dress, and the sturdy, Spanish-hilted smallsword all served to warn off the intrusive.
But Lynch, arrogant and commanding in his own way, was hell-bent on a mission.
“You damn’d pushing master!” he shouted, trying a new tactic now that insults of piracy had not stuck. “Don’t think you can ignore me because a fencing master can refuse challenges! Wearing a plastron and pushing your foil onto the breasts of spindly, cowardly scholars—and into whores, too—doesn’t make you a sword-man.”
Lynch’s companion grasped him by the elbow and whispered in his ear, but the bully shoved him off.
“That’s true enough, too,” replied Edward calmly. “If you like, I’ll teach you something of pushing when I return from Ireland, although not of pushing into whores. I hear you’re already well-acquainted with Bristol bawds and the burnt buttered buns of their buttocks and don’t need my instruction.”
A nearby wit sniggered at the knowing alliteration. Bawds were madams, buttocks those they employed.
“Damn you, sir, do you mean to insult me?”
“No, sir, it is you who mean to insult me, yet you are too mean to do so, and anyway I’m too busy to mind your meanness.”
The wit sniggered again, adding to Lynch’s brandy-stoked fury. Edward was gambling that a public mocking might best settle the issue.
“By God, then, I’ll call you this: whoremaster! You seduced then abandoned that long-shanked Lydia Upcott!”
Edward suppressed a laugh and shook his head.
“All becomes clear. She’s put you up to this misadventure, perhaps to challenge me in revenge for some perceived slight. And you probably hope I won’t fight, given my current circumstances, thus you can safely earn her favor. Take my advice, Don Borracho: she’ll nae reward you for your pains, and certainly not in her bed. Neither of u
s are wealthy enough to keep her happy. Now begone, sir.”
Lynch stood for a moment with an expression of vacuous perplexity as only the half-inebriated can wear. He took a deep breath; his face flushed red around an already ruddy nose.
“Then here’s a word you can’t ignore: Jacobite! You damned Jacobite, everyone knows you’re a plotting traitor!”
The atmosphere in the tavern, already hushed as patrons strained to catch the exchange of words, became tense and silent.
Edward stood. Jonathan shook his head in warning and tugged gently at Edward’s sleeve.
To be fair, there had always been more than a hint of suspicion that Edward MacNaughton was inclined toward the Jacobite cause. He had been charged with manslaughter for killing a man in a duel associated with the first accusation of piracy. By good fortune, James Stuart, more formally King James II, had pardoned him prior to conviction; but James was soon afterward deposed, and now reigned only as a prince plotting in exile on a pretended throne under the protection of Louis XIV of France, who presently waged war on nearly all of Europe.
Feeling obligated to King James, as well as to kith and kin, and notwithstanding his political agnosticism and bemused contempt of monarchy, Edward had joined the Highland clans at Killiecrankie soon after James lost his throne, proof to some that he must therefore be a Jacobite, a supporter of the Stuart king in exile. That he later served honorably in King William’s cause had not quieted the rumors.
Yet even were the accusation true, Edward could not let it lie. He intended to serve England again as a privateer, impossible with a cloud of treason hanging over him.
With a smile, he gracefully flung his Malaga into Lynch’s face.
“Damn you, bilbo’s the word!” the fool shouted as he tried to draw his sword after a moment of shock at the liquid assault. “Have at thee, damn!” he continued in the same comically dramatic vein, using language he had doubtless heard in the theater.
Several patrons pinned Lynch’s arms to his side so that he could not draw his sword and attempt murder.
“As I said, I’ll give you a lesson when I return from Ireland,” Edward replied phlegmatically.
“By God, I’ll lesson you today!”
“I have affairs to attend, including travel tomorrow, wind and wave permitting. Were I unfortunate enough to find myself attacked by a Jacobite who falsely accuses me of the same, I’d have no choice but to grant him a lesson; however, I don’t recommend one today, for you are too far into your cups and I’m soon in a hurry.”
Edward picked up his sword and scabbard and slid them into the carriage on his narrow sword belt, over which was tied a Highland plaid sash.
“I say it again! Jacobite! Jacobite and coward!”
“Ignore him, Ned,” Jonathan said, pulling again at Edward’s elbow. “He’s drunk, and no one doubts your courage. No need to fight today when a month from now will do—if this loudmouth is even so foolish as to meet you sword-in-hand today or any day.”
“I will have satisfaction!” Lynch shouted.
Damned drunk, Edward thought, and worse, challenging me over a lie told by a woman.
He was no misogynist, this adventurer: he had too much respect for the courage, cunning, and fortitude of women, in many ways a match for his own, and superior more often than he liked to admit. But too many times had women served as Fortune’s minions bearing ill tidings, and so had he sworn to have no close association with them until he had made his own fortune. Best, therefore, as Jonathan advised, to ignore the challenge. His left hand strayed to his sword belt, beneath which a wallet containing two secret letters lay, reminding him that his missions in Ireland were far too important to jeopardize by engaging a jealous fool.
“Let it lie until I return, Lynch,” Edward said coldly, then relaxed a bit. “Lydia Upcott will make fools of both of us if we let her. Come, let’s drink and pretend we’re friends. Your quarrel with me can wait.”
“The hell it can!” Lynch sputtered loudly. “I know you for a damned Jacobite who intends to sell his ship and soul to Prince James! I’ll name you a Jacobite to the authorities!”
“Ned….” Jonathan warned, but Edward ignored him.
He had no choice now but to answer the insistent accusation, his plans be damned. As the Spanish would put it, he was “entre la espada y la pared”—between the sword and the wall. To fight a duel might see him arrested and spoil his plans, but to depart with the accusation unresolved would mean that would race in Bristol from tavern to coffeehouse to Tolzey, no matter what Jonathan, his friend and business partner, said or did.
Edward smiled coldly, leaned forward, and whispered into Lynch’s ear: “If you won’t drink friends with me here, perhaps on the Hill?”
Lynch, perhaps fearing that his ardor, brandy-fortified courage at best, might diminish significantly with waiting, answered in a coarse whisper: “As soon as possible! No longer than it takes to walk there!”
Separately they hastened casually away, Edward and Jonathan first, then Lynch and his drinking companion in the opposite direction in a form of misdirection.
“Maybe he’s just a blustering bully-rock, a pretend bravo, Ned, and won’t show,” Jonathan said, as they walked nonchalantly down the quiet lanes between the orchards north of the city, in order to attract as little attention as possible. “He’ll pretend he left his fighting sword at home, or that he lies under a cloud from a previous killing, or that his arm is still sore from his last rencontre. The fool probably intended no real offense, he’s just drunk and quarrelsome, trying to incite you by whatever means he could, and all over a woman.”
“Whatever his reasons, I can’t ignore such an accusation made among so many ears,” Edward said, to which Jonathan shrugged his agreement. “Come, let’s walk faster.”
“You’ll be winded, Ned.”
“The hell I will. Soon enough some turd of a gossip will snitch to the watchmen, and if we’re caught swords-in-hand, or worse, if one of us is killed, there’ll be hell’s own jailors, judges, and juries to pay—and perhaps a hangman, too.”
Chapter 2
‘Tis safest making Peace, they say, with Sword in Hand.
—George Farquhar, Love and a Bottle, 1698
Within an hour the four men approached each other on Nine Tree Hill, a mile north of Bristol proper, beyond the ominous gallows where the Welsh road forked to Henbury.
“I’m here for my lesson,” Lynch called as he paced the dueling ground, furtively sucking at a small flask of brandy. Edward noted that the heat was gone from Lynch’s tone.
“I’m here to give it to you,” Edward replied casually.
“He doesn’t look drunk anymore,” Jonathan whispered.
“Then maybe he won’t fight. And if he does, at least he won’t do anything completely unexpected. I’d always rather fight a sober swordsman than a drunk of any sort. You can never tell what a drunk will do, nor when he’ll do it.”
The four went over the ground to make certain there was nothing that might give one of the swordsman an accidental or incidental advantage, although in fact it was impossible to keep chance entirely out of these encounters. Fortune herself seemed devoted, not only to watching duels, in that peculiar, invidious way in which some women are drawn to dangerous competition between men, but also to subtly intervening in them, as if she had already chosen sides. Or perhaps the fickle goddess simply enjoyed the thrill of changing sides with the changing turns of skill and accident in combat.
“We fight with our coats on, agreed?” Lynch hissed. “Quicker to escape this way if we’re discovered, and no evidence left behind.”
“And easier to hide tricks of foul play,” Edward replied matter-of-factly.
“I need no tricks to prick a Jacobite pirate.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Enough words! Let’s settle this before the watchmen discover us!”
“Not yet!” Edward commanded, holding up a hand as Lynch’s companion, Richard Hardwood, n
ervously began to draw his sword too soon. “Only you and I will fight.”
“It’s customary for seconds to fight!” Lynch swore, his tone more angry than perplexed.
“Not today. We’ll let them keep watch for witnesses and bailiffs, not to mention that four of us fighting are more likely to draw attention than two.” Edward nodded to Jonathan, who removed a brace of turn-off pistols from his coat pockets and cocked them. “And Mr. Graham will ensure there’s no skullduggery.”
Lynch glared, his nostrils flaring. He sucked again at his flask; then, in a curiously sympathetic gesture, offered to toss it to Edward to finish.
“We’re drinking friends, then?” Edward asked with a grin.
“Only in hell.”
With a polite nod Edward declined.
“You really should search each other, Ned,” Jonathan warned. “Him especially.”
“What? I have no pistols on me,” Lynch spat as he drew on a pair of heavy leather gloves.
“Let’s hope not,” Edward replied grimly, “for should you try to snap one at me in desperation, my friend Mr. Graham will pistol both you and your second.”
Hardwood’s eyes grew and he stepped back several paces, but Lynch merely exhaled dismissively. Edward looked Lynch in the eye and drew a glove onto his left hand, with which he might oppose or parry. He kept his right bare for a more sensitive grip on his sword.
“Will you at least measure swords, Ned?” demanded Jonathan.
“Nae, no time to fetch a matching blade.”
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