by Andy Marlow
forgot their present troubles and leapt forward at the possibility of adventure and loot, charging through the forest as fast as their legs (both real and wooden) could carry them. The trees flew past them: oak, pine, chestnut, they could not tell in the darkness. Under the cover of a canopy, not even moonlight can illuminate the way: instead, all they had was a strange, unidentified light ahead of them, presumably from their destination. Could it be warm, lit-up windows, or perhaps a fire in the middle of a glen? From this distance it was not clear, but they were closing in fast.
The ground was soft and muddy, coated in a carpet of autumnal leaves fallen from the trees above. The trees were spaced quite far apart: thin trunks somehow carried wide, massive canopies which stretched out in each direction and entangled in their neighbour’s branches. There was little chance, then, of bumping into any of the trees, even in this light; yet some pirates managed to do so. Princess Alice, a comparatively new recruit not used to such conditions, could be heard repeatedly grunting as she knocked now her arm, now her heard against the deciduous foliage they passed; Jake the Peg, on one occasion, got his wooden leg stuck in a boggy mire and had to fashion himself a new one from a nearby branch. Their excitement drove them forward, though, and such setbacks did not stop them or even slow them down so that by the time they were half-way there, the fourteen pirates had spread out so widely that they were no longer a group but more like a race, each one running for themselves and themselves only.
Which made them excellent and easy targets to pick off, had anyone in the woods chosen to do so. Who was there and who would have done that was a mystery, but by the time they all reached the clearing it was obvious: there was one missing. Fourteen had entered the woods and only thirteen had come out.
“Who is it?” cried Bluebeard. “Who has been taken?”
He counted those in his presence and found everyone present except for Bottle-Neck Saunders, she who had lagged at the back of the pack and become lost- or kidnapped- in the maze of trees.
“Marley, Woody, go and find her,” said Bluebeard, irritated. “The rest of us- booty time!”
He spoke now in an excited voice, and he was right to be excited: for what he had found in the clearing was a vast mansion glittering in gold and diamonds with one solitary chimney on top out of which was spewing the vast quantities of smoke they had been chasing. The door was the height of ten men and almost as wide as his ship. It was truly a spectacle to behold.
He, and the ten pirates left with him, were certain they would enjoy stripping this place bare and taking the hoard back home with them. What a pity, then, that his enjoyment of this hoard was hampered slightly by the fact that Saunders was missing. He did not know what to think of it. It was possible that she had simply got lost or lagged behind, but that was unlikely. Despite the fact that she had been uncharacteristically slow-witted today and caused the crash of his beloved ship, she was normally a sharp customer, the best navigator he had ever known. No, then, she could not have become lost in the woods.
It was the ninjas, he was sure of it. They had taken his wench and now they had taken his navigator, who just happened to be another of his wenches. If they were to take Princess Alice now, he would find himself entirely wenchless.
Princess Alice… he smiled. He remembered the day she had come aboard. She exuded simultaneously an air of class and a fiery grit uncommon to people of her social standing. Bluebeard had led a daring raid on the home of the Swedish royal family when he thought it to be largely empty, only to find this little lass sitting in the living room sipping tea. She had not been frightened, though, at the sight of a grizzly middle aged man with a sprawling beard of unnatural blue standing in her doorway pointing a gun at her; rather, she had seem positively excited at his incursion into her ordinarily drab existence. Instead of having to kidnap her, she had practically begged to be allowed on board their ship.
That had been three months ago. Now, with some experience on the sea and in the company of pirates, it was no secret that she was beginning to have second thoughts about her decision. It was like her personality was split in two: the classy princess who wanted luxury and servants took up one part of her psyche, while a gritty tomboy out for adventure and tired of regal tradition occupied another. They would fight each other and depending on her mood, you could tell which side had one. Some days she would wake up and greet her crewmates with a hearty “arr!”, and on those days you knew the rebel inside her had won. Other days, though, she would appear sullen and scared and avoid interacting with anyone. On those days, despite her pirate get-up with her torn shirt and patterned bandana, you could once more see the spoilt princess in her, longing again for the days when she would be waited on hand and foot by serving men in neat suits.
Today she was in one of the latter moods. The mud and darkness and fighting and danger were taking a toll on her mood and she stood in the midst of her pirate brethren and yet at the same time distant from them, arms folded and face glum. Bluebeard was very protective of her, though. To him, she was like living booty, better than any crown or necklace. As he had said to her on her arrival, “why have the gold when you can have the princess instead?”.
“Look after this one,” he indicated to his crew, and they needed no coercion. They, too, being red-blooded male pirates (and hence having little respect for women), treasured their last remaining (and, if it may be said, most conventionally beautiful) maiden more than most of their gold and bullions. Liu and Saunders were gone, so this one needed more protection than ever.
Bluebeard stepped forward towards the mansion with one eye on the forest behind him at all times, and his crew followed. There was a path to the front entrance leading out of the woods which had many signs adorning it, each one flashing messages such as “Beware- Danger of Death” and “Enter at Your Own Risk”. Such warnings merely act as catnip to a pirate, though; they simply increased their sense of adventure and excitement at the booty they could steal.
The door was locked. Apparently whoever lived here was out, which was a good sign. Eagerly the pirates began shooting and slicing at the door with their guns and cutlasses until it swung open to reveal a wondrous sight to all those looking on.
The door opened onto an elaborate hallway. A red velvet carpet stretched out ahead of them towards an enormous staircase with handrails of gold leaf and mahogany. The carpet continued all the way up the stairs and split into two paths, one leading right, the other left, onto a landing just a little too high for the pirates to see. The size of the hall and that of the steps was literally gigantic. Just one stair was almost the height of a single man, leading the crew to speculate in wonder and awe that this may be the home of a giant.
Everything was in vast proportions. The suits of armour which decorated the hallway’s walls and the doors leading off the sides appeared designed for a man twice, thrice, four times the size of any normal human being. In fact, it may not have been designed for a human being at all: for the suits of armour possessed one small extra detail which pricked the curiosity: a space for a tail, jutting out where the buttocks should be.
A grin grew on Bluebeard’s face and he could not have stopped it if he wanted to. He was in pirate heaven. All thoughts of the stolen booty were gone now, for Saunders’ mistake in crashing the ship had turned out to be a godsend. They could abandon their treasure to the ninjas quite happily and replace it all, and more, with the gems they found here in this strange, huge mansion in the middle of the forest.
“Drink up, lads,” he called out, “We’ve got some collecting to do!”
“Consider it shore leave,” he continued. “Take as much time as you like to find the choicest items you can and get as much as you can carry back to the ship. I make it about half past five in the morning now; I want to be gone by midday at the latest. So enjoy yourselves! You have over six hours to explore and play.”
Bluebeard’s glee was shared by all around him; the greed in their faces was impossible to ignore. They split up into pairs and darted
off in all directions: into the rooms adjoining the hallway, up the stairs, into the cellar. Bluebeard was left alone in the hallway, relishing the opportunity before him. Yet he could not enjoy it properly knowing that several of his crew were still missing so, unknown to his crew, he slipped out of the mansion making a mental note to return before midday.
The three beards- Yellow, Green and Red- had all gone off together, as always, and found themselves in the dining room. You can imagine what they looked like based simply upon their names. They were born as identical triplets with only one distinguishing feature between them: their hair colour. Yellowbeard had been alright, for blonde is a fairly normal colour. Redbeard had not suffered too much either. Sure, he may have been picked on for being ginger, but he could have had worse. He could have been Greenbeard. Being born with Green hair instantly marks you out as freak; it means your childhood will be plagued with bullying and teasing about “mossboy” and “the mouldy man”. Yellowbeard and Redbeard had, truth be told, been reluctant pirates; it was only upon the insistence of Greenbeard that they had joined him and their older brother in starting up the pirate trade.
Which meant that Greenbeard was the more enthusiastic of the three of them. He was the grittier, fiercer, angrier one, more excited by gold and more indignant that he had never been given a chance at the captaincy. Bluebeard’s suspicions earlier had been right: although he had only heard his brothers mumbling incoherently, they had, as per his doubts, been mumbling about their Captain’s incompetence and how they should take over. Greenbeard had been the most vociferous critic of his leader, but now he was his most enthusiastic fan.
“Our captain is good, yes he is,” he said happily.
“Led us to the treasure, that he did,” concurred his red-headed brother.
“We should not try to topple him, no we should not,” confessed Yellowbeard.
“I’d be a good captain, though, I would,” mused Greenbeard.
“A better one I would be,” disagreed Redbeard.
The two of them glanced at Yellowbeard for his turn in the conversation. It had become almost a ritual now that each time they talked it would follow this exact pattern, and now it was up to Yellowbeard to say his piece. Yet he was too mesmerised by the gold around them, distracted in particular by a golden goblet designed by none other than Golbline himself- Golbline, the famous Austrian jeweller whose very signature could sell at auction for thousands, if not millions, of pounds.
“I want this one, I do,” he interjected, taking the goblet and stashing it in his pocket.
His brothers forgot their debate about who would be the best captain and turned their attention to the treasure surrounding them.
“This one is mine, yes it is,” announced Greenbeard as he grabbed an ornate shield of Greek design.
“I’m taking this, yes I am,” called out Redbeard as he pounced upon a jewel-encrusted necklace just lying on the floor.
It was inconceivable how obscenely rich the owner of his house must be. Every piece of furniture was made from some precious metal or expensive jewel; every space occupied by necklaces and broaches simply lying about the place. The three brothers soon abandoned their conversation and went about greedily, busily, collecting anything and everything that shined in the light from the sun.
Yes, the sun! For it was now approaching sunrise and the red haze of the rising star shining through the clouds was beaming down through a vast window in the east side of the room and giving everything in its gaze a warm, red glow. The combination of sunrise and abundant gold, and the passing of the hangover from last night’s partying, made the pirates even more merry than they had been and they began to hum a famous pirate ditty about mermaids and sea monsters as they busily worked, cramming every pocket and crevice full of anything valuable they could find.
The dining room itself was an ornate affair. It had a superhuman sized dining table in the centre and huge windows on three of the four walls. Near the ceiling was a second storey with a balcony hugging all four walls and leading out into other rooms, along which Pointy Pete and Jawface Jones came presently ambling, themselves with pockets bursting with booty.
They barely noticed the bearded brethren below as they gazed in wonder at the silver decorations hanging from the walls around them.
“Look at this!” exclaimed Pete, his greedy hands holding onto a particularly fine example of sixteenth century art.
“Hmm,” mumbled Jones, uninterested. His attention was taken up by an ornate cannon ball encrusted with gems. The pirate in him wanted to be enthralled by the beauty, but the gunner in him was disappointed. “Not very practical, this fellow,” he mused aloud. “I mean, a jewel encrusted cannon ball? Wouldn’t do very well in a fight.”
Pete wheeled round on his colleague, aghast.
“Wouldn’t do very well in a fight?” he exclaimed, gobsmacked. “That’s hardly the point Jones. Look at the sparkle! The value in that thing! Why, we’d be king of the pirate world just by having it.”
“Imagine the fights,” he continued, holding the uncomfortable Jawface Jones by the shoulders. He was so called because of his prominent chin and propensity to casually hang his mouth open when social custom should tell him not to. This was something he did especially during emotional or disturbing situations, exhibiting his impressive collection of abnormally large teeth. Now was such a time- he did not much care for intimacy.
“Imagine the faces of our scurvy foes when they find a jewel-encrusted cannon ball flying at their ship. Imagine what they’d be thinking! Why, we must be up against some skilled raiders if they can afford to throw around booty like that- that’s what they’d be thinking. The Merry Martin would become the talk of the sea, the pirates with infinite gold. No, I’m taking this- I’m taking this and putting it in my gunnery.”
The imagery was lost of Pete’s practical crewmate. “All the same, it wouldn’t be very good as a projectile.” Jones was examining the ball with his eagle eyes, seeking out clues as to how aerodynamic it would be in flight and how much damage it could do to an enemy ship. “It’s so heavy it would just sink to the very bottom of the sea. Our enemies wouldn’t even see what it looked like, so the effect would be lost.”
Pointy Pete looked down on his subordinate disappointedly. “Romance is lost on you, isn’t it?” he snapped, to which Jones simply shrugged.
“I’m just being practical,” he replied.
The two of them continued through the myriad of potential trinkets separately, as if browsing through a supermarket or shopping centre, entirely unconcerned that this was the house of a giant and his goods were not up for sale. They picked up the odd item that grabbed their interest, often following the same process that they had for the cannon ball: Pete would wax lyrical about its value as booty while Jones would point out its practical problems and irritate his boss.
“All I’m saying is that gold is really not a very good material for a blade,” explained Jones on one such occasion. “It’s too weak and floppy and would break so easily.”
“Yes, but- a golden sword!” exclaimed Pointy Pete. “A golden sword! Surely even you can appreciate that value of that? The prestige? The fact that even if it lost you a battle, you’d be remembered forever by your conqueror as the man with the golden sword?”
“Not really,” shrugged Jones. “I’d prefer a steel one.”
Pete sighed with exasperation and continued his search slightly ahead of Jones. The two of them were browsing differently: Pete’s efforts were characterised by excitement and boundless energy, while Jones was simply lazily picking up trinket after trinket and not giving any of them much thought save for practical criticisms of their usage. It went on like this for a further few minutes until Jones noticed something through the southern window.
“Pete,” he called. “Look at what I’ve found.”
Pete reluctantly turned back to his crewmate expecting yet another argument about the practical uses of an essentially aesthetic object, but found that his f
riend was pointing to something different entirely.
“Out the window, on the path. Look who’s there.”
Pete focused as well as he could on the shapes of two figures walking side by side towards the mansion. Though the hazy glow of a risen sun was obscuring his vision, it looked as if it was the Captain, returning (from God knows where, for he had not told his crew he was going anywhere) with the silhouette of a boy.
Of Jack the Boy.
As he drew nearer, Pete could see that Bluebeard was grinning from ear to ear with his pistol drawn and pointed towards the Boy’s head. He was kicking the traitor’s shins as he walked and openly mocking him with a constant stream of tyrannical laughter assaulting his ears. The Boy looked pained, but more than that: abandoned, distressed. His new ninja friends had apparently forsaken him to the whims of his furious captain.
The three bearded brethren were still browsing and bumbling downstairs, crowded around one another and engaged in innocuous chatter. They were oblivious to the approach of the Captain, currently engrossed in a monosyllabic discussion of who had the best beard, so Pointy Pete took it upon himself to bear the good news.
“Brothers! Look lively!” he called down. “Bluebeard is returning with the treacherous Boy as prisoner!”
Yellow, Green and Red all turned away from their discussion at such glad tidings and ambled quickly out of the dining room back into the hallway to greet their victorious captain. They all looked jubilant at the Boy’s capture, except one: Greenbeard’s expression was one of fabricated approval, a cynical edge just visible beneath the surface if one looked closely. The cogs of his not-so-sharp mind were working on some as yet unformulated theory which took his attention away from the present situation and into the murky lands of half-baked pirate logic.
Yet this was not noticed by anyone around him; rather, for all he, his brothers and the two gunners up on the balcony were concerned, this was a victorious event for all of them; not one of them had reason to be doubtful or unhappy about it. So they all filed out into the hallway where they found Princess Alice, Simon the Holy and Ethelred already waiting, while Jake the Peg and Timmy the Brick were emerging from a room opposite with pockets bursting with bullions. There were now ten assembled in a group before the doorway and all were eagerly awaiting the arrival of their captain and the treacherous thief.
The entrance was dramatic. Bluebeard’s black leather boot was the first to make its entry, crashing through the broken wood and letting
