Jester's Fortune

by Dewey Lambdin

  “. . . see this, ma’am. Cover his ears, perhaps?” someone said. It was the hulking thing, shuffling on its knees upward to peer into his face. Surgeon Mister Howse!

  “Bite on this,” he said, offering a folded leather strop, all foetid, dried and mangled as old shoes, and bitten by the teeth of an hundred prior sufferers. “Think of something pleasant.”

  Then the pain went indescribable, and his leg was burning, all active flames, smoke and sizzle, and charring black, he could imagine; like he’d taken a tentative dip into a red-hot stream of lava!

  “Oh, you bloody bastard!” Lewrie gritted through the gag, quivering tense as a sword-blade. “Enjoy that, do yyaaa? Shit!”

  Over the child’s redoubled wailings, he could hear Mrs. Connor shusshing and making crooning noises, holding his head in her hands to stop the sounds and sights, rocking the boy on her lap. Rocking him.

  “Best way to stop the bleeding, sir,” Mr. Howse said, looming up in his face again. “Tourniquet, then a cautering iron. Rum for a fuel, as it were, to encourage the searing. Did he not nick a major vein, you may recover. Sir,” Howse lowed, sounding disappointed he might be successful. “I’ll dress it now, sir.”

  “Marines, level! By volley . . . fire!” And the crash of another avalanche of musketry, quite near the camp, at last. “At ’em, Jesters! Sword and steel!” he heard Lieutenant Knolles cry, followed by a roaring of pagan joy. And still the clash and clang of blades. “Bayonets! At th’ double-quick . . . cold steel, an’ skin the bastards!”

  “Help me up,” Lewrie ordered. He was now wide awake, in too much pain to swoon, too angry (it must be admitted), and looked out to see his seamen and Marines sweeping into the camp, battering what bit of fight the pirates had left from them. And there were Mlavic and Leutnant Conrad Kolodzcy, still going at it, hammer-and-tongs. Kolodzcy had acquired a swept-hilt dagger for his off-hand, and was two-handing it in the elegant old Spanish rapier-and-poignard style. His balance was exquisite, his every move liquid and graceful, the minimum of effort to parry, defend . . . then burst into furious motion, all threatening swiftness, like a horde of aroused bees. A pirate came to save Mlavic, dashing in from Kolodzcy’s left, and Kolodzcy lunged at the pirate chieftain to take room, pivoted on one heel, and that pirate was stumbling past, his sword gone and his bowels spilling over his hands as he pitched onward to trip and die with a hideous screech.

  “Damme, he’s good!” Lewrie breathed in awe.

  Driving Mlavic back to the middle of the camp, both too intent on murder to think of safety, of retreat. Lewrie heard a yelp from Kolodzcy as some seamen neared: “Nein, he ist mine!”

  Back across the blood-soaked earth, Mlavic stumbling back over his tortures, his dead and dying victims; teeth still bared in a ferocious snarl of defiance, Mlavic fought to the death, knowing he’d be killed right after, should he win, but so fired, so forged by hate . . . !

  Tripped! Seized on the ankle by the groveling Albanian woman who’d been savaged nigh to death, who lashed out grief-blinded, hatred-blinded! Mlavic lost his balance, tried to recover, to shake loose of her as she clawed at him.

  “Unt, ja!” Kolodzcy cried thin and high, slipping inside guard and driving his dagger into Mlavic’s right forearm, to turn it, wring it, and force his nerveless fingers to let go his scimitar. Slip his small-sword’s narrow blade into Mlavic’s throat in the same movement, then let go the hilt and lever the plunging, thrashing knife-hand off until his opponent began to weaken. “Sterbe, schweinhund! Ich bin nicht der madchenhaft-mann! Ich bin dein tod!”

  Mlavic gargled and coughed, drowning, lowering his knife-hand.

  “Die, pig-dog . . . die!” Kolodzcy screamed, ramming his dagger hilt-deep under Mlavic’s heart.

  And Dragan Mlavic complied, his knees buckling as Kolodzcy gave a great heave and flung him back, right to the edge of the central fire, where his head and shoulders draped over the shimmering-hot stones, and his hair and his beard and his goat-hair weskit caught fire. Where, a moment later, the broken and bleeding Albanian woman crawled, to pound him weakly with a short bit of kindling, screaming and weeping all the while as that brute’s face blazed and sizzled like pork-cracklings.

  Kolodzcy turned, grinned his weary delight and raised the hilt of his sword to his face in a formal salute to Lewrie—with a double-click of his heels and a short head-bow, for good measure. Alan lifted his own hanger and sketched what salute he could in reply.

  “And thank God for him,” he breathed.

  “Sir, you hurt?” Lieutenant Knolles was asking, kneeling down by his side. “Sorry, sir, but I wasn’t to know, ’til—”

  “You did damn fine, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie assured him, with a pat on his shoulder. “Know or not, your timin’ was splendid. You’ve done yourself proud. They break?”

  “Run off into the woods, sir, t’other side of the island.”

  “See to the stockade, then, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie said as he heaved himself up to a sitting position, no matter the pain. “There’s sure to be some they didn’t bring down to torture ’fore . . . get every civilian or Venetian sailor off the island, back aboard their ship. I think we’d best leave our pirates in the woods ’til dawn tomorrow, or we’d lose some of our men to ’em, floundering about in the dark. And I doubt they’ll be much of a threat, now we have their ship and their boats. Call everyone back near the beach and we’ll fort up. Clean up this slaughterhouse in the morning, too.”

  “Aye, sir.” Knolles nodded, taking time to look about, bewildered. “God, what’d they do, sir? How could they—”

  “Speak of it, tomorrow, sir,” Lewrie cut him short, not caring to dwell on it much, either.

  “You’re not too sore hurt, are you, sir?”

  “Spot o’ wine, and I’ll be dancing, most-like.” Alan chuckled, hoping that was true, that he wasn’t slowly puddling blood inside that seared-shut gash. “Oh . . . where’re my manners? Mistress Connor? Mistress Theoni Connor, allow me to name to you my First Officer, Mr. Ralph Knolles. Mister Knolles, Mrs. Patrick Connor. Her husband was late of Bristol, by way of Zante. Her son . . . and what’s your name, sprout?”

  “He’s Michael,” the lady supplied, cosseting the little lad a bit more, rocking him as he sat on her lap. Rocking her hip on Alan’s side, too. The lad had calmed down, was no longer crying hysterically, but he didn’t look far from a fresh bout. “And I am honoured to know you, sir . . . Lieutenant Knolles. Another of my saviours.” She smiled at him, wilting young Knolles to an aspic; but with a significant eye for Lewrie, too, openly adoring.

  “Should I get you something, Captain Lewrie?” she offered, in a maternal sort of way. “A brandy, to restore you?”

  “Had my fill o’ plum brandy, thankee,” Lewrie said with a grimace.

  “Some wine, sir. I’ll fetch it,” Spendlove volunteered.

  And there was one of those silver chalices again, brimming with restorative red wine. Lewrie took a deep draught, and felt much better.

  “Something I have to do,” he decided, after several more. “I won’t be a minute. If you’d help, Mister Spendlove? You’ve a young back, and there’s something I have to see to.”

  He got to his feet, wincing. But with Spendlove under his left arm for support, so he’d not put weight on his leg, he hobbled slowly to the centre of the camp, near the fire, to gaze down on Mlavic. The Marines had dragged him out to lessen the reek of roasting man, built up the fire to illuminate the forest where foes still hid. But the Marines stood gagging at the sights they beheld, the incredible amount of blood that had flowed, the rivened victims’ corpses. Pragmatically though, they half knelt to pluck those gold coins Mlavic had strewn in boast. The Marines froze, turned away, pretending they weren’t looting as Lewrie and Spendlove hove up.

  “No matter, lads,” Lewrie told them. “No head-money in this for us . . . just justice. So take what you may find. Corporal Summerall? Could you find five guineas for me? Just five guineas.”

  “Aye, sir.
No problem, sir!” he replied, relieved that Lewrie would look the other way. He brought them after a quick search, rubbing off the drying blood with his musket cleaning rag. He laid them on Lewrie’s palm. Lewrie peered down at them, glittering and clean again. Then folded his hand and shoved them deep into a pocket of his breeches.

  “Now get me back aboard Jester, if you’d be so good, Spendlove,” Lewrie sighed. “Away from this . . .”

  And limped away . . . with his four guineas recovered for the wine—and the last to pay for all.

  EPILOGUE

  Quod sin ea Mavors abnegat,

  et solis nostris sudoribus obstat,

  ibimus indecores frustratque

  tot aequora vectae?

  But if Mars refuses,

  and alone resists our efforts;

  shall we depart disgraced

  after traversing so many seas in vain?

  Argonautica, Book V, 667–669

  Gaius Valerius Flaccus

  CHAPTER 1

  “This, sir, is for you,” Lewrie announced, handing over a canvas binder that contained documents for Captain Charlton, as soon as he’d been admitted aft in Lionheart’s great-cabins. “I fear they may be bad news, after getting ashore at Venice. Our consul told me.”

  “And what led you as far afield as Venice, sir?” Charlton asked, with a dubious brow up. “And off-station more than a week?”

  “My written report, sir, will discover all to you,” Lewrie said, presenting him with a second folded-over sheaf of papers. “One from Leutnant Kolodzcy is included, as well.”

  Charlton looked puzzled, but he broke the wax seal on the orders first, waving Lewrie to a chair and a decanter of wine while he took a seat behind his desk and began to read.

  “Oh, bloody . . .” Charlton nearly moaned, dropping the orders to his lap and staring off into the aether, looking aghast. “It’s true?”

  “Aye sir, sorry,” Lewrie confirmed. “Bonaparte’s repulsed the Austrians again, round Bassano . . . taken Trent, up in the passes in the Alps and sent ’em running. French troops landed at Bastia, and we had to evacuate, so Corsica and San Fiorenzo Bay are gone. We still garrison Capraia and Elba, but . . . And the Spanish, sir. Consul told me—”

  “Spain’s declared war on Great Britain, aye,” Charlton sighed, with an uncomprehending shake of his head. “Thrown in with France, and the Coalition’s broken. We’re on our own, with half of Europe against us. Dear Lord . . . !” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in weariness. “That’s it for us, too, it seems. Admiral Jervis has been ordered by London to evacuate the Mediterranean . . . retire upon Gibraltar. Therefore, he writes, we’re to leave the Adriatic, and are to make ‘the best of our way’ there for further orders. At once.”

  “Our consul suspected, sir, but couldn’t confirm that.” Lewrie coughed into his fist. “He did suggest all British subjects get out of the way of the fighting, return home, so I surmised it would be coming. Leave Venice, too, he thought, and get to Denmark or a neutral Baltic port as best they’re able . . . or take passage west on neutral ships. I beg your pardon for the delay, sir, but I took the liberty of informing Lord Rushton and Sir Malcolm Shockley. Whilst tidying up the . . . matter which forced me to Venice. Wouldn’t do for the Frogs to capture members of our peerage, or one of our greatest manufacturers. Lord, and a Member of Parliament?”

  “And what matter was that, sir?” Charlton enquired, sounding a touch frosty.

  “Clearing our escutcheon of murder, rape and torture, sir. And destroying the pirate Mlavic, who took a Venetian ship, slaughtered all the French prisoners held at Palagruza,” Lewrie bluntly replied. “Making hostages of Kolodzcy and me . . . It’s all in our reports, sir.”

  “Hang yer reports!” Charlton blazed. “Tell it me!”

  And Lewrie did, paraphrasing, of course, but leaving few of the lurid details out, letting his unresolved revulsion and anger mask his duplicity. Quite well, he thought.

  “So we dashed off to Palagruza, sir, hoping to find Mlavic. Not as mystical as his chief, d’ye see, sir?” Lewrie spun out, glib at his tale by then. “Since neither of us could talk Petracic out of his scheme, we thought Mlavic could . . . convince him there was a job of work still to be done for us, first . . . and that he wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to launch his holy crusade yet, for the second. Wasn’t time to inform you, sir, given Petracic’s state of mind. He might’ve begun before Mlavic could get to him, so . . .” He shrugged, dipping his nose into a wineglass for cover. “Got there just in time to be made prisoner, forced to watch his butchery, and found he’d pissed in the font and taken a Venetian ship out of greed and simple stupidity. It was neck-or-nothing there for a while, but . . . we beat him. Killed him and most of his men, freed the women and children, got the survivors on their own ship and back to Venice, sir. Had a good word from their authorities for that, sir. Oh, by the by . . . sorry. This letter from the Doge is for you, sir. A vote of thanks. Sorry I was remiss. They’re grateful to us! Swore they’d alert their garrisons and naval units to hunt Petracic down ’fore he does a mischief. Though we know what that amounts to, sir.”

  Alerts sent to empty forts, skeleton garrisons, abandoned fleets rotting at their moorings, with but one sailor each as harbour-watch?

  “More effectively, sir,” Lewrie went on in the stunned silence, “our consul said they’d also sent notice to Ragusa, Dulcigno and some of the Croatian navy bases. I expect it’ll be they who’ll do the hunting, and the bringing to book.”

  “Did they, indeed!” Charlton goggled. “Vote of thanks? But . . . Jesus Christ. Had you come to me first, I might’ve been able to talk to Petracic—”

  “With this order to evacuate, though, sir, isn’t that moot?” he pointed out. “And us gone, ’fore anyone linked us to the taking of the Venetian ship? Or whatever bloody raid Petracic had in mind?”

  Charlton opened the Doge’s letter, done in both flowery Italian and even more florid English, just in case. He swelled with pride for a second or two, then deflated just as quickly, dropping that one into his lap, too, and looking bleak.

  “Christ, we were a single step away from infamy,” Charlton realised. “Gulled us, they did. Had this in the back of their minds from the start. Would have shouted our involvement to make them sound legitimate! Oh, Dear Lord . . .” he groaned, passing a hand over his face. “I’ve been a fool, Lewrie. A total, purblind, goddamned fool!”

  And a hearty “Aye aye, sir!” Lewrie rather doubted would be necessary, nor desired, at that moment.

  “Tried to warn me off it, God knows,” Charlton sighed, looking ready to weep, staring at nothing—possibly a vision of a completely ruined Navy career? “But no, I had to be so damned calculating, sly-boots . . . so damned clever and . . . improvising!” he chid himself, sneering at his pretensions. “Thought a brilliant coup, great results, the master-stroke’d . . . hmmph! Broad-pendant, that sort o’ fancy? Should have known, clever ain’t in my nature. Not that sort o’ subtle back-biting clever. Best left to your sort, Lewrie . . . no slur on you, sir. Hope you won’t take it as such. You’re one of the truly clever, more suited for subtle endeavours. I’m just a straightforward sea-dog . . . give me a proper fight, nothing too taxing on my poor modicum of wit? And, a total failure, it would now appear. Too lack-wit for this . . .”

  “Not at all, sir!” Lewrie felt it politic to toady. “Why—”

  “Well, at least I’m man enough to own up to my idiocies,” Captain Charlton sighed, patting his greying, frazzled hair. “Write a report for Admiral Jervis, no wheedling or hair-splitting. S’pose I’m still man enough to do that . . . when I can’t seem to manage much else. He’ll string me up from a yard-arm by my thumbs, I’d expect . . .”

  “You mustn’t take it quite so hard, sir,” Lewrie objected, in true sympathy for Charlton; he had no wish to see the man ruined! He had made one mistake out of hundreds of decisions, and it wouldn’t be even a minor footnote in anyone’s history, since the
ir folly had been nipped in the bud. “Managing the diplomatic niceties, sir? Directing an under-strength and far-flung squadron well as you did? Swept every French trader into harbour quaking in their boots, sir. Scared every large vessel from the trade, too. I doubt Petracic or Mlavic took more than four or five, not counting the Venetian, o’ course. And he burned all but one of those, sir! Acting under our aegis, sir, so to speak . . . that is to say, we eliminated four or five more, in toto. I burned that brig I took for Mlavic, too, so . . .”

  “Aye, one might look at it that way, couldn’t one?” Charlton brightened. Only for a second, though—then he reached out to pour himself a glass of wine. “Thing that irks, though, Lewrie is . . . e’en so, well as we did, really . . .”

  That’s the way! Alan noted; “we did well,” now. You did!

  “. . . end result of our efforts, we didn’t make a tinker’s damn’s worth of difference. French fleet’s at sea, what we hoped to prevent. Allied with the Dons, so we’re beaten. Skulking away with our tails between our legs. And I don’t much care for it!” Charlton fumed.

  “Our turn’ll come, sir, just you watch,” Alan tried to cheer him. “A good, clean gunnel-to-gunnel fight or two. Win ’em, too.”

  “Well, then . . .” Charlton huffed, looking more businesslike. “We’re probably the last Royal Navy vessels east of Corsica, and this may be an int’restin’ passage out. Our British civilians at Venice . . . we should put in there, take aboard as many as wish—”

  “Beg pardon, sir,” Lewrie exclaimed, quite happy to discuss any other matters. “I took the liberty as well of embarking Lord Rushton, his traveling companion Mr. Chute, Sir Malcolm and Lady Lucy Shockley, their servants, and a Mrs. Connor. In my report, sir . . . third page . . .”