Pistoleer: Pirates

by Smith, Skye

  And he would have too, if he had not dropped the gloves because an apple careened off his hand and bounced of the wall beside him. Warwick caught it on first bounce just before the rebounding apple would have conked Pym a good one on the head. All the men turned towards where the apple had come from, and there was Teesa, standing beside a bowl of fruit with the mate to the apple in one hand ready to repeat the throw if her first apple had missed.

  "How dare you two speak such foul threats in the presence of such gentile ladies?" Teesa scolded. "Now shake hands and behave yourselves."

  Essex, now befuddled, stared down at his fine gloves on the carpet, then at the handsome captain who was bending to pick them up, then at the apple in his host's hand, and only then at the wild look in the eyes of the thin but comely apple thrower surrounded by a cloud of turquoise silk. He barely noticed when Daniel shoved his gloves into place under his belt and then took his hand and shook it once, hard, before leading Britta away from him to join the rest of the women.

  It was Warwick who woke Essex out of his drunken daze by whispering, "The lass just saved your life, Robert. Yon captain rode with the Dutch Pistoleers and he most assuredly would have snuffed out your life in any duel where he could choose pistols."

  Needless to say, Warwick thought it better to weigh Daniel down with purses of gold and send him with an escort of his lifeguards back to his ships, and this he did immediately. Not that Daniel minded leaving the grand house, for Britta seemed safe enough in Teesa's care.

  He had been well fed with fine food and political insight, and he had no desire to watch the men befuddle themselves with over-drinking, as English gentlemen were wont to do. In his great hurry to be rid of him Warwick had not even weighed the gold. He and Warwick's guards enjoyed the ride across town in one of Warwick's fine carriages. It had been a short but profitable trip to London, but now it was time to return to Rotterdam for the pick up the rest of the cargo.

  * * * * *

  Cleff, the clan's elder, brought two more ships to Rotterdam, the Four and the original Freisburn, now Bermuda rigged and the word 'One' added to the name. Before the ships were even snug at the custom's quay, the port clerk handed him a message from Daniel which had him keep the crews aboard and continue on to Breda. In Breda, with four ships, and more of Warwick's pieces of eight than Daniel could possibly spend, he had the crews loaded up every Spanish musket in Breda worth buying, plus two gunsmiths and their families and a half dozen apprentices and all their tools.

  Two days after they left Breda they were unloading everything in London. Since this could be their last trip under contract to Warwick, Blake had been given command of the Two, the original conversion and therefore the least sleek of the four ships. The tasks that Blake had expected to take him all winter in the Netherlands had kept him there but a month.

  Once everything was delivered to the Providence Company warehouse, Blake made a suggestion about what to do next. "The weather is still holding, so why don't we make a wine run to Cherbourg. I will introduce you to my wine contacts in Bretagne and then lead you over to Lyme and introduce you to my wine contacts in Dorset."

  It was an offer that no coastal trader would ever refuse, so when they left the Thames estuary, it was not to take the ships back to the Wash, but to sail them down the channel to Bretagne and into the ancient port of Cherbourg. Knowing how and where to buy French wine may some day serve Wellenhay well, and this was a prime opportunity to find out.

  France surprised them all, for the folk of Bretagne were very different from the folk of the North Sea. Not just that their language was unintelligible because they mumbled it through their noses, but that they never seemed to raise their heads nor look at you in the eye, or at least the peasants didn't. It was as if the peasants had all had their self-worth beaten out of them ... which of course they had ... by the French nobility.

  To working Englishmen who were well used to complaining about the idle rich of England, and who well knew that the English aristocracy were a vicious and greedy lot, the French versions of the same were a sobering eye opener. The French nobs made the English nobs look modest and humble. Blake refused the crew the portside taverns and he and the other captains did not tarry longer than it took to load the four ships with wine. There was just too much risk that one of the crew might earn a lashing for their lack of subservience to their 'betters' or for being insolent to some passing nob. A lashing that would most certainly lead to clan-style revenge.

  * * * * *

  Lyme was the port where Blake chose to land the wine because his family had traded through Lyme for generations. A 'little bite' had the local tax man distracted in a local alehouse long enough for the cargos to be set ashore and 'hidden' from official eyes. The cargo took up the entire cellar of a family friend. Blake then sent word to the wine shops of Taunton, Bridgwater, Bristol and Bath for them to send him their orders.

  The next day was a day of rejoicing and feasting for the port of Lyme. This cargo of wine was the first such cargo from France to have been set down in Lyme for ten years, ever since Charlie’s peace treaty with the French and Spaniards had taken the profit out of small time smuggling, and ever since the larger harbours of Bristol and Plymouth had taken over the wine trade with France. Once the wine-trade had been taken over by the large Dutch style fluyts, small tight ports such as Lyme's had fallen into disuse because the fluyts had no oarsmen aboard for maneuvering.

  The celebration grew once the local men who had once sailed the Swift to the Bermuda were told that one of these Bermudan rigged ships was now Blake's, and that he wanted them to find and buy local ships for conversion based on the rigging of the Freisburn Two. In truth Blake had requested the Three rather than the Two because the Two was Wellenhay's original conversion, and so had the original smaller sails and still had the aft cabin and castle. Old Cleff had vetoed the Three.

  Even with the Two, for Blake this was still a dream come true. Not only did he have the Two to use as a model for Lyme's shipwrights, but they could also use the next low tide to inspect the other ships, the more evolved ships. With such ships his family could start up their father's Cherbourg wine trade again. With luck he would have a half dozen such ships making the crossing by spring.

  The clansmen spent an extra day in Lyme to recover from the feast, but then they set sail in three ships back to Cherbourg for more wine to take back home to the Wash to sell to the wealthy students of Cambridge. Like the Lyme men, they too would be spending this winter converting more ships to the Bermuda rigs so that in the spring they could take back the cargo business of the Wash from the Dutch fluyts.

  Daniel's own dream of moving his clan to Bermuda was getting closer. The entire clan could travel across the open sea if they used the two masted Swift as escort to rafted pairs of these smaller ships. Perhaps three rafted pairs. Thanks to Warwick they not only had the coin for provisions, but also his license to settle almost anywhere in the New World where English was spoken. The winter that was looming towards them could be his clan's last freezing cold winter.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Pirates by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14

  Chapter 20 - The Fens freezes over in December 1641

  December turned icy cold in the Fens and by he end of the month the pools and ponds around Wellenhay were covered in ice so thick that for the third December in a row, the villagers could walk on the frozen rivers all the way to Ely. Despite the cold, the traditional wattle thatch huts kept them warm, and their communal longhouse kept them amused. Things were not so warm or amusing for those townfolk of Ely and Cambridge who lived in brick and stone houses and shivered in Sunday pews in vast stone churches.

  Wellenhay followed the ancient tradition which gave the women the possession of the houses, as meager as they were. In the summer most townly women would decry the Wellenhay houses as barely fit for animals, but in the winter the wind was sealed out by the layer of glazed clay plastered over the reed mats that
formed the walls, and the thatch roof reached low except on the side where the door was. Inside was one large space that could be turned into rooms by simply adjusting the hanging drapes. The floor was of shiny glazed clay covered in rush mats that outdoor shoes were forbidden from.

  The floor was actually the top of a terp, a mound built up higher each time a house was razed and rebuilt, which was about twice a decade. The terps of Wellenhay were ancient, and so they rose quite high above the low Fens island that the village was built upon. Surrounding the terps were the kitchen gardens, already planted with winter kale and mustard greens before the ground froze, which would sprout during the first thaw. Over turned flat bottomed eel punts, now useless because of the frozen streams, stretched from terp to terp to serve as raised walkways.

  Towards the door from the center of the one large room was a fire ring, or rather a fire pentagram made from double and triple layers of fired brick. This was where the peat fire glowed, and there were collections of pots sitting on the brick points of the stars where water and stews were kept warm. When more heat was needed for a pot, some of the glowing peat was pushed into the point of the star under the pot. The smoke from the peat drift straight up and out of the crack left open in the roof's small smoke hatch.

  But the fire was not why the folk of this traditional village stayed so warm and healthy. That was due to the bedding that the Fens marshes provided. The reeds and rushes of the Fens were woven into mats that were laid down on top of the floor mats and thus could create a bed of any size or any thickness just by adding more mats. The countless migrations of birds through the Fens did not just supply meat, but also feathers and down. Just as their pillows were linen sacks of feathers, so were their mattresses and their blankets.

  The beds kept them so warm that the only clothing they wore under the covers was a long, clean, linen night shirt. None of this linen was pure flax linen, of course, because that would not only be more costly but not so comfortable or hard wearing. This linen cloth was made from weaving cotton and flax together in the Flanders’s way with a linen weft and a cotton warp.

  The traditional complaint that the clanswomen made about spending the winter in these houses was that they were so dark, but not this year. Wellenhay had bought many oil lanterns for their new ships, so this winter the houses were not just warm and dry, but well lit. Since the houses belonged to the women, any men staying in a house were there by invitation. For men without such invitations, there was the longhouse.

  The village had two longhouses. The smaller, older one was now used as a stable for the more valuable of the animals, the breeding stock. The larger, newer one was the communal center of the village, where any women were there as guests of the men. It was in this longhouse that the lad who had just slipped and slid his way along the frozen ponds all the way from Ely was now being warmed beside the fire while his hands and lips were being warmed by a cup of hot broth.

  With a low moan, Daniel passed the letter the lad had brought to him over to Venka. She read it slowly, saying each word as she recognized it. "In London. Robert Blake wants you to meet him in London? But why? He is no longer a Member of Parliament. And in this weather? Must you go?"

  "If I don't meet him there then he will think the worst and rush here to make sure all is well. London is almost the same distance from here as it is from Bridgwater, in travel time if not in distance, but for me to meet him in London has other advantages. Warwick should have our license signed and sealed by now, and that commission will allow us to settle on any lands that any of his companies have a patent on. If it isn't yet ready, then I can pressure him in person. We need it in hand before we leave for Bermuda."

  "Tell us again,” some nearby children called to him, "about these wondrous trees with the nuts as big as your head that grow on beaches where the water is so clean and warm that you can wade into it without your teeth chattering." During the long frigid nights the favourite stories in the longhouse were from Daniel's memories of the Caribbean Islands.

  "Later,” he called back, and then to Venka, "Tomorrow I will walk to Cambridge along the frozen rivers and take the Post Coach to London. If you need me, send a message to Blake's sister Alice in Cheapside."

  * * * * *

  Times must be bad in London, Daniel thought as he walked along the streets of the old town to reach Cheapside, which would lead him to Tom and Alice Smythes goldsmith shop. The cold was not as severe here as in the Fens, for in the Fens the north winds rushed unabated down across the North Sea. In London, however, the streets of cobble and the walls of brick never seemed to warm up no matter how many chimneys were smoking.

  It was only the end of December and already anything burnable had been scavenged and used. Even wood with proper uses was, well, disappearing into the smoky, foul smelling fog that Londoners breathed instead of fresh air. Planks from wooden walkways were missing, as was wooden siding from sheds and stables, and from rain barrels.

  Coal was expensive this winter because the Lords of Coal from Newcastle were trying to make back the profits they had missed last year when General Alex Leslie and his Scottish army controlled the River Tyne. London had long ago reached the size where there was just not enough firewood to keep it going. In this city coal was a necessity of life.

  He sneezed, sniffed, and coughed and what he spat out was bespeckled with black grit, the black grit of coal smoke. It had been a mistake for him to come here. The folk walking the streets, or leaning against walls, or sitting on any dry curb did not look healthy ... worse, they all looked sickly. They were wearing many layers of clothing, all of which was grimy and smelled funky, and even their faces and hair were grimy. Everyone had a runny nose, and the disgusting sounds of hacking and retching and spitting was constant.

  Alice's shop seemed to be shuttered and out of business, but the door opened to his knock and he was warmly welcomed in by Robert Blake who had been here for two days already. "Business is slow in bad weather,” Blake explained. "This year Tom has been specializing in gilded fancies so most of his customers are wealthy women. What wealthy woman in her right mind would leave the warmth of her salon to come to the old town in weather such as this? Since the shop is closed, he keeps the shutters barred just in case there are more riots."

  "What riots?" Daniel asked, and then at the look of shock from his hosts, he added, "We don't get much news in our village when the rivers are frozen and the boats and ships aren't running. This is the worst winter I can remember. How is it in Somerset?"

  "Badly flooded but not iced over,” Robert replied. "Back in drier years many new houses were built on land that seemed dry enough. Well this winter those householders are learning the difference between seemed-dry and high-and-dry. There are a lot of flooded ground floors."

  "What riots?"

  "Walk about and see how most Londoners are living," Tom Smythes told him. "Not enough work, not enough dry beds, not enough food, not enough coal. And when I say not enough, I really mean not affordable. Everyday now there is a protest somewhere in the city. If a protest grows and becomes a march, they first go to the king's palace at Whitehall, and then on to Westminster Palace. At first they were peaceful protests, but they are not so peaceful any more. Londoners are angry because they can no longer afford to live here."

  "I suppose this hard winter has brought a desperation to the folk that is breeding violence,” Daniel said thoughtfully.

  "Perhaps that is what is causing the protests, but not the violence," Tom told him. "The violence is the fault of Colonel Lunsford, the King's Lieutenant in command of the Tower of London. His cavalry have been using their sabres on the folk to stop the protests from growing into marches."

  "Using sabres against the folk? Not against the apprentices, surely. If he does that there will be war in the streets. Why doesn't Parliament stop this Lunsford idiot?" The name Lunsford brought a bad memory into Daniel's thoughts. It had been a Colonel Lunsford who had given him his fine navy blue cloak, a reward for Daniel saving him
from being scalped by Scottish Highlanders during the Battle of Newbourne. The cloak was not a bad memory, far from it, but the memory of the carnage caused by the grape shot of the Scottish cannons was very bad.

  "Parliament has politely approached Charlie to have Lunsford replaced,” Robert explained. "The truth is that they are in no hurry to have Lunsford replaced, because Charlie is becoming more hated by Londoners with every head that Lunsford bashes. As for the rest of the kingdom, parliament's pamphlets tell them that the Londoners are protesting against the Bishops and of the Papist plot which is putting the lives good Protestant English families at risk in Ireland."

  "The English plantations have torn Irish families apart for a hundred years,” Daniel sighed, "but I suppose that is never mentioned in English political pamphlets." With a deeper sigh Daniel dropped the discussion. If he didn't drop it he would eventually begin cursing all politicians, Catholic and Protestant alike, but that would never do in Robert's presence, since he used to be the MP for Bridgwater.

  "Our neighbour's lad volunteered to go to Ireland with General Harcourt,” Alice told them. To Daniel's querying look, she added. "Parliament has recruited a thousand volunteers to go to Ireland and protect English families."

  "Why just English families, why not all families?" Daniel mumbled. "Can't any of you tell me any good news?"

  "Yes," Robert was quick to respond. "The Bishops have been banned from the House of Lords by Parliament, and Charlie has offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer to John Pym."

  After an hour long visit with Alice, Tom and their son, who was now old enough to be walking, talking, running, and yelling; Daniel settled himself down on the spare bed in Robert's room. Finally he had privacy enough to ask Robert why he had summoned him to the-big-smoke.

  "Why to pay you your share of the profits from the French wine, of course,” Robert said as he tossed a small purse onto Daniel's bed. "That is all in gold eights,” he said as if apologizing for the small size of the purse. "As well, I made one whisky trip to Dublin in my new ship. By the way, it is now called the Alice rather than Freisburn Two, so your village can have that name back. I thought you should be told what is happening in Ireland in person."