Lewrie was forced to watch, seated like visiting royalty on one of the logs near the central fire-with Dragan Mlavic his regal host to his right-defenceless and closely watched by two Serbs at his back.
Mister Howse was already on his knees, spewing and weeping, but straddled by an angel-faced teenage pirate who kept pulling his head up so he must watch their entertainment through raging, howling tears.
Leutnant Kolodzcy sat erect, his nostrils pinched and his eyes slit, but giving no sign that this spectacle affected him. Spendlove was to his left, clutching his stomach, a hand to his mouth, his every breath a rasping sob. "Albanians," Kolodzcy whispered as the next victims were led in, knowing them by their desperate pleas.
Husband and wife, both young this time… a dark-haired son in his sixth or seventh year, a nursing infant in the woman's arms. Not for long, though. Pleads and prayers turned to shrieks as they tore the babe away, dashed its brains out on a rock, eviscerated it and discarded it in the leaping flames of the main fire, raising a great howl of victory… of revenge, which drowned its mother's disbelieving wail. She was worth raping, so they took her, a half dozen of them, in front of husband and surviving son. "Have Serb baby now, da?" Mlavic chortled, nudging Lewrie once more like a racetrack tout. "Keep to see… take baby, raise a Serb. Alive that long, then…" He shrugged. "Boy baby. Greet him… 'Hail, little avenger of Kossovo,' ahaha! Grow up, be Serb warrior."
"You're a dead man, Mlavic," Lewrie hissed, turning his head to glare at his merry host. "Swear t'Christ, you're a dead man!" He would have said more, but a guard behind him laid hold of his head to turn it back to the "games." "All our ships will hunt you down…"
The young Albanian lad leaped on the first Serb to rise from his rape, as he was retying his trousers. A full dozen infuriated pirates sprang up to rescue their comrade-and beat or slice the boy to bloody offal, while the brutal rape went on and on, another dozen queuing up for their turn on her.
The father-howling and out of his mind with grief-was stripped of his trousers, shoved facedown and spread-eagled. A man with a wood-chopping axe stepped forward, prancing round his victim to the catcalls and approving whistles of the crowd. Standing on the husband's pinioned shoulders, he raised his axe, teased the crowd with a practice swing or two-he knew what played well with this audience-and hacked the heavy axe-head into the crack of the man's buttocks, splitting him open as high as his waist. They pegged him down after that- so he could bleed, and scream… and beg for death as a mercy.
But there would be no mercy. They let him lie, finding it very funny, and moved on to other amusements. There were shouts from the discontented, so Mlavic called an order, and more women were dragged into the fire circle. Two of them in the front were flung to the dirt, their dresses thrown up, and assaulted right off, so the men in line didn't have so long to wait on the gibbering-mad Albanian woman.
"Dhey choose," Kolodzcy whispered from the side of his mouth, just loud enough to hear. "Cull de old, ugly… for murder. Odders, Mlavic says to auction off, vatch-against-vatch, gunners, sail-tenders… mates. Or indiwiduals, heff dhey enough plunder. Dhose vill liff a few hours more."
"I'll kill the sonofabitch!" Lewrie grated, though his vow came out more a strangled sob. "If it's the last thing I do, swear t'God I will. Never seen such a… never dreamed people could…"
"Ve match high cards, sir," Kolozcy muttered, his cheeks aflame in a face gone a pasty, deathly white. "Vinner hess pleasure."
"Do we get near cards again…" Lewrie whispered bleakly. By this point, he doubted Mlavic wished a single living witness. Was he saving them for last? Could he be that stupid, to think that sometime before midnight Knolles wouldn't send a boat ashore to find out what was keeping them? Was Mlavic hoping for that, so he'd have even more hostages to bargain his way out with? Andrews, Midshipman Hyde, eight or nine hands off the cutter, too? Knolles might waver, once. But if Mlavic threatened to keep his prisoners even longer, sail away, still holding them… didn't he know that Knolles would inform Charlton, and the squadron would hunt them down and destroy them? Or was he capable of thinking that far ahead; thinking at all? "Drink, Captain!" Mlavic hooted. "Be too pale! Brandy bring colour to cheeks, ahahah. Drink… Dragan order! Good show? Like my games? You live, you tell world Serbs fight holy fight. Drink. Or Mirko cut you… a little," he wheedled, looking back at a guard.
One of the silver chalices was shoved into his nerveless hand, some brandy sloshed into it, over it, onto his breeches. He gagged as he looked into it, feeling the keen razors-edge of a knife beside his throat; seeing his wavering reflection so filled with fear; seeing for the first time how craven and helpless he looked, no matter his fight to mask it.
And, admitting to himself for the first time that he was about to completely unman himself, should they turn their attentions to him; sure he'd scream, grovel, plead, curse God then beseech Him. Offer up wife, children, good friends, anybody but himself for a minute more… "Drink, Captain. Is good for you." Mlavic snickered. "To your death, Mlavic," he said, though turning to bestow on that hulking hirsute brute a glare that could have slain all by itself. "To your long, slow, agonising death… soon," he hissed; then drank.
God! he prayed. Don't hear much from me, do Ya? Just help me kill him, let me stick a knife in the bastard and know I've sent him t'Hell, that's all I ask. Ev'ry last mother-son of 'em! That's holy, ain't it? He means t'kill me first, though… can Ya help me go like a gentleman? Spit in their faces? Not shit my breeches?
He took another sip. It seemed to calm his shudders. He took a third, then a deep, quaking breath; found the wherewithal not to cry out or flinch when Mlavic clapped a huge paw on his shoulder, laughing at him and thinking him thoroughly cowed.
"Good, good!" Mlavic cruelly teased. "Make new man. We sell women now. You want buy woman, ahaha? We sell you. But cost much guineas!"
"Fuck you," Lewrie said with a snarl, through a taut, deadly grin. "Go fuck yourself… with bloody bells on!"
Kolodzcy coached from the far side, actually blushing! "Ah, aye… the Serb way, thankee," Lewrie jeered, turning to Mlavic once more. "Fuck your mother. Or did the monkeys wear her out?"
"Brandy good for you, have much courage," Mlavic cooed, not the slightest bit insulted. "You may die well! 'Blood-ey bells on,' hah. I like!" So did Mirko and the other guards, once he'd passed it on.
"Doing it again, sir. Rowing people, when you shouldn't. Like that time on the beach at Toulon?" Spendlove warned.
"Can't help it, Mister Spendlove," Alan confessed. "When it's all I have left, I like insulting people."
Mlavic got to his feet and paced before the clutch of terrified women, ogling them. He snatched out a wee young lass, all black hair and wide eyes, not over fifteen, dragging her by the wrist back to the logs and pawing her. The pirates cheered his choice, and then a mate began to work the crowd, encouraging them to bid on the first girl to be hauled out, stripped down to her chemise and pinioned to display her charms. Most of the prisoners were poor coastal folk, attired in local garb like Turks, or in something similar to what the girls at Corfu had worn. The old, the ill-favoured and the unpleasing the pirates just booed down and murdered, their throats cut, and left to bleed to death, expiring with blood-sobs and gurgling screams as they sank to the earth.
"Savink de European ladies for lasd," Kolodzcy spat, turning his head to see Mlavic peeling the peasant blouse off his choice, putting a rough hand under her skirts. She sat numb, too scared to wail, on Mlavic's lap, tears coursing down her cheeks, hiccoughing in fear. "For de richer mates vit bigger share in prize."
Lewrie looked at the poor girl, who was pleading with her eyes as Mlavic brusquely toyed with her small breasts, forcing her to take a deep draught of brandy, then wrenching her lips to his. Lewrie could do nothing to aid her, not with a knife at his back.
He turned to look at the other prisoners instead. One was waving? One hand cautiously waving, all but snapping her fingers to get their attention? And surreptiti
ously rising a-tip-toe, looking desperate.
She wore all black as if in mourning, a plain, unadorned gown of conservative style, not too flounced out bell-shaped by underskirting. She'd worn a Venetian bauto, but had lowered it to her shoulders so it draped long and low. To hide…! Lewrie gasped.
Pressed into her skirts and half smothered, almost fully draped by the bauto, was a child, a boy who couldn't be more than four or five, Alan guessed. A boy breeched, stockinged and shod like his own sons!
She waved once more, then cupped her hand as if to draw him to her, fanning at herself insistently, daring to work from the rear of the huddling, wailing pack of women to the left-front, where she'd be in greater danger of being chosen for auction next. Her brown eyes flared open in misery, in pleading, almost looking like she curtsied for a moment before rising, a silent leaping plea for aid.
Lewrie mimed the guards at his back, lifting his hands in helplessness. Frustrated, she dared shout something at him, in a language he didn't understand, before the guard nearest to her shoved her back in line.
"What'd she say, Kolodzcy?" he demanded, never taking his eyes off her. Now the guard and the bidding pirates noticed her, her long, fine chestnut-roan hair and almond-shaped eyes…!
"Demotic Greek… island accent," Kolodzcy remarked, infuriatingly calmly. "She ist from Zante, in die Ionians, dherefore Venetian. She begs for help. Poor lady." He sighed, stone-faced.
"Goddammit!" Lewrie groaned, slamming a fist onto his knee to vent his powerlessness. "You leave that'un alone, ya bastard!" Alan shouted at the guard, who was just about to fondle her, draw back that bauto to see her figure… and expose her child! He got to his feet; tried to, before Mirko laid a hand on his shoulder to drag him back.
"English, my God!" the woman cried, her mouth agape in shock. "Royal Navy? My husband was English… Bristol! I am Theoni Kavaras Connor. Royal Navy… for God's sake-help me!"
CHAPTER 5
"Mlavic, you black-hearted sonofabitch!" Lewrie snarled at him, turning to face him and grabbing his arm. "She's English. British, do ya hear? Maybe the Venetians're too puny to hunt you down for murderin' and rapin' their people, but you can wager yer last penny England won't wring their hands and let you get away scot-free. There'll be a bloody fleet out for you, same as they did for Bligh's mutineers."
"Is Greek," Mlavic dismissed, leaving off gnawing on his girl's teats. "I hear Greek."
"You can hear English, too, you simpleton, do you get the dung out yer ears!" Lewrie railed, daring to rise off the log. This time, when Mirko tried to drag him down, he turned, glared at him, and jabbed a warning finger at him. "Who was your husband, Mistress Connor?" he shouted over his shoulder to her. "Tell this fool plain."
"Patrick Connor, of Bristol!" she shot back. "He and his father were in the currant trade, with the English House on Zante. We were married six years ago, when his father Sean retired to England."
"Husband dead, she still Greek," Mlavic quibbled, though with the beginnings of a worried look on his face. "Greeks dirty people."
"Makes no matter, fool," Lewrie thundered. "Wife of a British subject becomes British. You may be lawless, but that's King's Law."
Mlavic dumped his girl to the ground, tossing her away like he might a fruit-rind as he rose. He snarled a question to Mrs. Connor in Demotic Greek. Lewrie saw her tremble, look away furtively, licking her lips before she answered.
"Catholic," Kolodzcy groaned, despairing. "Vas married in husbant's faith. Deat'-sentence."
Connor, aye, Lewrie winced, Patrick Connor, surely Irish in the beginning. Which does Mlavic hate worse, Greek Orthodox or Catholic?
"Bad as Croat… Catholic, pooh!" Mlavic spat. He strode across to take a closer look at her, while his terrified girl tried to flee. She didn't get far; two of the guards snagged her and carried her kicking and wailing into the darkness beyond the firelight.
Mistress Connor shivered as Mlavic circled her slowly, stood her ground and determined to play-up brave, though her mouth and chin worked in sudden fear or loathing. He leaned close to blow in her ear, making her shy away, stroked back her hair to admire her neck, taunting her with a crooning sing-song in Serbo-Croat.
"What's he sayin'?" Lewrie rasped, getting frantic.
"… rich man's whore," Kolodzcy mercilessly supplied. "A Greek whore who leafs de Orthodox Church to wed rich, turn stinkink Catholic. Rich, soft-skinned, faithless traitor whore. Ach, nein!Scheisse!"
Mlavic seized her right wrist to drag her away, back to his seat on the logs, his little black-haired Bosnian victim quite forgotten in the light of this finer choice, sure he was going to take vengeance on a three-in-one. But he drew back the bauto to discover the child!
He roared with surprise and sudden delight, grabbing the young lad by the scruff of the neck and parting mother and son, though she screamed and tore at him, hauling the boy aloft to shake before his pirates like a filthy rag. And laughing fit to bust!
"Hands off, damn you!" Lewrie barked, so loud he stilled that rabble s heathen howls for a moment. "You put that English boy down… you get your filthy hands off an English lady!"
"You make me? Or what you do, pooh! I have power, you no. I take her." Mlavic spat. "Be fucking English… lady, ahahaha!"
Do something! she mutely pleaded.
Like what? Alan wondered.
"They're for sale, ain't they, Mlavic?" he shouted of a sudden, feeling something nigh to inspiration. "She's for sale? Her, and her boy? That's what you dragged these women down for, wasn't it? Offer 'em up for a good knock-down price? Well, I'll buy 'em. Didn't you offer to let me bid on a woman a little while ago?"
"Da," Mlavic allowed cagily. "Other woman. This, I keep."
"Selfish bastard!" Lewrie cried. "Kolodzcy, help me here, put it to 'em. Leader gets first choice free, hey? What're the rules of the house after that, though? Mlavic gets first pick, then they're all up for grabs? He's had his first pick. Now he should bid, same as everybody else. Else he's a selfish bastard… a cheap, greedy bastard!"
"Oh, shit!" Spendlove could be heard to mutter, burying his face in his hands. "God, sir, please don't… he's rowed enough!"
And please let 'em be so drunk by now, they think I make sense! Alan silently pled; seen sailors do "Oo shall 'ave this'un, then?" I have, every time a ship's out o' Discipline an' the whores come aboard. Sailors… even this lot… surely have a fair streak; can't stand for officers t'put it over on 'em. Nice little show, ya bastards, a spirited auction? String it out long enough, Knolles wakes his sorry arse up and comes t'save us…? "Dhey fint it… just, sir!" Kolodzcy marveled. "Vish to see us con-founted. Bud vish to see Mlavic confounted, too. He does nod heff military control ofer dhem. He may not like it, bud he musd go along."
There was a change in mood round the central fire and its horrid scene of slaughter now, Lewrie sensed. The boos and catcalls sounded less threatening, more like good-natured taunting, which forced Mlavic to smile, nod and placate them with raised hands in allowance.
Two guards off rapin' that poor girl, Lewrie noted; several women auctioned off to small groups, and they're busy, too. Could we? He wondered, a rising hope filling him. Gull 'em peaceable, then take us a hostage'r two… Mlavic?… and get down to the beach? There's your biter bit, by God!
"How much do you have on you?" Lewrie whispered, rifling into his purse, where he found but Ј30 and change. "Mister Howse? Mister Spendlove? Quick sums, then hand your purses over."
"Surely, sir, you'd not countenance white slavery, allow these cutthroats the slightest bit of credulity?" Howse huffed, getting his indignant demeanour back. "Mean tsay, English or no…!"
"Do you not, sir, and Mlavic wins, I'll slit yer throat first chance I get and blame it on them!" Lewrie hissed. Howse tossed over a fullish purse, and slumped down into another miserable sulk. Lewrie did a quick addition; not near enough! Spendlove had a miserly eighteen shillings and some pence. Kolodzcy, however, offered up an embroidered poke simply stiff with "chink."
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"De equivalend ohf your seventy pounds, sir," Kolodzcy said.
"Listen, then.,. we get into the spirit of things, they'll drop their guard, we can stand and move about a few feet," Lewrie schemed in a harsh mutter as they put their heads together. "If it looks like we've lost, and Knolles still hasn't come, then we take what chance we may, and grab Mlavic and a few others, get some weapons and the woman, and head for the beach. Hear me? It may be our only chance. The men at your backs are thinned, might stay thinned! Others are off havin' themselves a bare-belly romp, or they're three sheets to the wind. If a chance comes… I'll give you sign."
He looked at their glum, frightened faces, then turned away for the final addition. He'd garnered nearly Ј130 and change. Best start low, he thought… string it out as long as he could.
"Right, then… you miserable excuse for a man," Lewrie shouted with an avid smile. "I'll bid three guineas."
"Five guinea!" Mlavic grinned back, just as evilly, still with a firm grip on both woman and child.
"The management instructs you, sir… kindly unhand the merchandise 'til the last bid's in!" Lewrie cajoled, elbowing Lieutnant Kolodzcy to say that to all observers. The pirates found that hugely amusing.
"Six guineas… you foul lump of shit!"
"Ten!" Mlavic countered, but letting them go and stepping off.
"Eleven… you ditch-dropped whelp of a Turk hedge-whore."
"Bosun Mister Cony… SAH!" the Marine sentry right-aft by the passageway to the gun-room cried, stamping his boots and musket-butt.
"Enter," Knolles said, sopping up the last gravy on his plate with a crust of fresh-baked bread and motioning for their steward-Sprinkle-to have away his plate, the water-glasses and the tablecloth. With Mr. Howse away, the gun-room had fed more than well this evening, with fewer to share a whole leg of roast pork. Mister Buchanon, Mister Giles and Midshipman Mister Hyde completed the table, looking sated but eager for the sweet biscuit, the last of the Venetian-bought confections and the port.
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