by Dan Abnett
“Again!” said the man in the crimson sleeves, stiffening. “Another low dissent!”
“Hernan! Hernan!” Narciso said. “Settle down. My cousin, dear Sesto, these have been hard times. Trade has dried. Ships have been lost, many ships. The once-busy waters of Aguilas harbour are now empty and slow. One ship alone we keep here, the formidable Fuega, Captain Hernan’s vessel. The last of the old war pack. Hernan would have the Fuega set out to stalk this devil ship, wouldn’t you, captain?”
The man in the crimson sleeves coughed and nodded. “Yes, excellency.”
“We can’t have that! We can’t have the last fighting ship in Aguilas gone. Who would protect us then? Of course, the shipyards have laid down the keels of other warships, but it will be a year or more until they are complete. Repairing your vessels arms us much faster.”
“And we will rise to your defence,” Sesto said.
“You’ll need crew,” said a courtier nearby.
“Of course,” said Sesto.
“That won’t be easy,” the man in the crimson sleeves said bluntly. “Able mariners have fled the port. Only rats and rating-dregs remain.”
“My kind of crew,” Silvaro said, biting the end off a skewer of meat.
“Crew will be found for you,” Narciso assured smoothly. “But what of a commander? Will you captain the Demiurge, Master Silvaro?”
“No, excellency,” Luka said through his mouthful. “The Rumour is mine.”
“Aye, so it is,” hissed the man in the crimson sleeves.
“But I’ll find a commander to take the Demiurge,” Luka said breezily.
“Well, sir, if you have a hard time looking,” Narciso said, “you might consider my nephew Sandalio here. He’s an aspiring captain, trained on the sail. Aren’t you, Sandalio?”
A very plump, pig-eyed boy at the end of the table at the marquis’ right hand belched and grinned. “I tho very mutch am,” he lisped. “I thtrive to therve the offith of my uncle.”
“Yes, Sandalio’s your man,” Narciso said.
“I’ll remember that, lord,” Silvaro said. “And if I don’t find a worthier captain amongst my crew—”
“Then I hope you don’t,” Narciso said. “Sandalio would serve you well.”
“I’d sooner sail into hell than give a ship to that buffoon…” Silvaro whispered to Sesto.
“Hear him! Another slight.” The man in the crimson sleeves pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.
“Sit down, Hernan!” Narciso said.
“No, lord,” Hernan said quietly. “This man, this pirate, is an affront to our good company here. I know his crimes. I know his ignominy. Five years ago, we clashed in the Straits of the Gorgon and he left me aflame with sixty dead.”
Silvaro frowned. “The Straits of the Gorgon? The Scalabra? Was that you, Hernan?”
“It was, sir.”
“Well, joking apart, I bested you on that fair afternoon and I’ll do it again. Sit down.”
Captain Hernan did not. He hurled his glove at Silvaro so hard it spilled the dish of food into Silvaro’s lap. Slowly, threateningly, Silvaro rose.
“This is a nothing,” Sesto cried. “We can forget this old animosity!”
“Of course,” agreed Narciso. “This is just an aberration.”
“No, it’s not, my lord,” Hernan said.
“No, it’s really not,” Silvaro agreed. “Our arrangement notwithstanding—and I pray to the gods that it stays in place—Captain Hernan and I have a matter of honour to settle.”
“Oh gods…” Sesto murmured.
“When?” asked Narciso, taken aback. “Where?”
“Right here, my lord,” said Hernan.
“Yes,” smiled Silvaro. “And right now.”
XVIII
The two men strode out through the tall side doors of the grand hall into the walled flower garden outside. The rest of the fine company, bemused for the most part, got up from the table and followed them. Juan Narciso had a troubled frown on his face.
Sesto ran ahead and caught up with Silvaro.
“In the name of the gods, stop this foolishness!” he whispered urgently.
“Too late,” Silvaro replied.
“I’m a prince. I could order you to stop this,” Sesto said.
“You could try that,” Silvaro admitted.
“I order you to stop this now!” Sesto cried.
“Well, look at that,” Silvaro replied, still walking. “It didn’t work.”
Silvaro and Hernan arrived in the centre of the flower garden, a paved area out in the bright sunshine, with a small hour dial in the
centre. The air was warm, and heady with the perfume of the brilliant blooms in the beds around.
“Here suit you?” Hernan asked.
“Here’s fine,” Silvaro replied.
The guests and worthies from the dinner crowded around the outer paths of the garden, beyond the flower beds and the low box hedges. Some had brought their drinks.
Hernan stripped off his half-armour, tossing the pieces to a waiting soldier. Then he drew his sabre and made a few practice slashes in the air. It was a fine weapon, as fair an Estalian blade as Roque Santiago Delia Fortuna’s.
Silvaro took off his coat, handed it to Sesto, and then looked over at the waiting nobles. “Might I trouble one of you good fellows for a sword? I never seem to have one on me when a duel comes along.”
Captain Duero of the marine guard looked over at the Marquis of Aguilas, who nodded slightly, then drew his own sabre and offered it, grip-first across his arm, to Silvaro, Silvaro took it. “Thank you, captain,” he nodded, and tried its weight and balance. A good sword, service-issue. A professional’s weapon. Nothing like as fine as the blade in Hernan’s hand.
Silvaro stepped carefully across one of the flowerbeds, relieved one of the guests of his wine glass, took a swig, and handed it back.
“Thank you, sir, I was a little dry.”
He turned to face Hernan, who stood waiting, sword held at a forty-five degree angle to the ground. “Ready?”
Hernan nodded.
Silvaro looked over at the marquis. “My lord?”
“Begin, if you must,” said Narciso. His excellency glanced at the chamberlain beside him and said, “Go fetch a priest.”
Silvaro cleared his throat, shook out his shoulders, and said to Sesto, “Stand back. If I die, the ship’s yours.”
Shaking his head, Sesto retreated to the other side of the flowerbeds.
“All right then,” Silvaro said, assuming a ready stance. “Take your guard.”
Hernan lunged forward and the blades struck against each other three times, fast as a snake strikes. Silvaro broke and circled, and they came together again, their swords lashing and parrying so rapidly it was difficult to follow. The chime of metal upon metal rang like a furiously-shaken hand-bell. Such was the speed and expertise displayed by the two men that when they broke to circle for a second time, the onlookers let out a round of applause.
Keeping a skip in his step, like a dancer, Silvaro circled the little yard, making sure he didn’t box out any route of evasion by getting too close to the sundial. Sweat beaded his brow already. It was hot in the direct noon sunlight. Hernan seemed as cool as ice, following Silvaro step for step.
Silvaro pressed the attack now, sweeping in at Hernan’s right quarter guard, and the drive led to the longest rally exchange of the duel so far. Seventeen blows traded in four seconds, blade slithering against blade. Silvaro turned his last half-parry into a low lunge that grazed his sabre down the length of Hernan’s blade and in through his half-guard. But at the last second, Hernan brilliantly twitched his wrist out and over and hooked Silvaro’s swordpoint away. Silvaro had to skip backwards to avoid being run through by the riposte.
They circled again. Silvaro was breathing hard.
“My compliments, captain,” Silvaro said. “Your hand is good and your eye better. You’ve read your Bresallius.”
“From cover to
cover.”
“And you’ve studied your De Poelle.”
“I studied under De Poelle,” Hernan replied.
“Ah. Well, I’m in trouble then, aren’t I?” Silvaro said.
“Who, might I ask, did you study under?” Hernan asked.
“Study under?” Silvaro laughed. “Enemy fire, mostly.”
They closed again, and rang out five, hard chings from high, sweeping cuts, before sliding their blades together until the guards locked and they were pushing and shoving like wrestlers.
Hernan’s expertise favoured blade-play, but in more physical competition, Silvaro’s size and strength had the advantage. Hernan was shouldered backwards, and found himself forced to break in a clumsy, frantic fashion, almost colliding with the sundial in his haste. Silvaro followed him with a savage slice that lopped the gnomon off the dial.
Yet again, they circled one another. To Sesto, it looked like Silvaro was slowing down. The Estalian was still tight and quick, energised, but Silvaro looked sluggish. He’d clearly been relying on the fact that if he closed with his adversary and brought it down to brute strength, he would win. Hernan would not be fooled into a wrestling match again.
“You know,” said Silvaro, wiping the back of his left hand across his dripping brow, “I had all but forgotten that day on the Straits until you mentioned it.”
“I’m not surprised, pirate,” Hernan scowled. “So many ships you’ve left burning in your wake.”
Silvaro shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s coming back to me now. Quite a scrap, as I recall. The wind was up, a fair westerly snap.”
“South-westerly,” Hernan corrected.
“Yes, you’re right. Ideal for a long run around the Straits. And you in waiting. The Scalabra. A big bastard of a ship, that.”
“She was a sweet engine of war, ready to sink a motherless dog like you.”
Hernan lunged and forced Silvaro into a double parry that kicked sparks from the blade edges. Silvaro feinted, thrust in at the lower right quarter with a dazzling down-point cut that drew gasps from the crowd, but which was squarely blocked and turned away by Hernan’s nimble hand.
“I suppose then,” Silvaro said, “it rather begs the question… why didn’t you sink a motherless dog like me?”
Hernan narrowed his eyes, but did not reply.
Their blades flickered together again, a passing clash as they rotated their circling.
“After all,” said Silvaro, breathlessly, “you had me outgunned, outrun and caught against the wind. But at day’s end, you were the one afire.”
Hernan growled in barely-contained rage and ran at Silvaro. Their swords rattled against each other, fifteen passes, twenty, Silvaro desperately short-parrying each deadly thrust and lunge. By luck, more than skill, Silvaro kept the Estalian’s blade at bay and his skin intact.
He broke again, but Hernan kept pressing. Sabre rang off sabre. Hernan pivoted forward, bested Silvaro’s guard with a half-lunge and fast riposte, and sliced round to take Silvaro’s head off.
Sesto winced. Silvaro back-stepped and ducked like he was bowing to an emperor or a dancing partner, and the stroke missed. He speared his sabre up again, and Hernan had to give ground, fending off the long lunges with three anxious, low chops of his watered steel. For a second, all grace and skill had evaporated and the fighting had become brutal and dirty.
“I had only one chance that afternoon, Captain Hernan,” Silvaro rumbled, “to ram against the wind and then gybe hard behind your stern before your guns could range me. But you knew that. You came in tight, loosing sheets, cutting me off. It was a brilliant move.”
Sabre glanced off sabre. Hernan made two extended parries to knock Silvaro’s determined swordpoint away.
“But you came in too broad, too early. You were ambitious, reckless. I like that in a man. It was bravura seamanship. Only the very best could have out-guessed you, and only the very best of them outsailed you too.”
Silvaro turned again, and sliced at Hernan’s upper right quarter, forcing the Estalian to move to his left, his blade raised to defend.
“But that’s what I am, Captain Hernan.”
Driven to his left, Hernan suddenly found that he and the sundial wanted to occupy the same place. He crashed into it and fell.
Silvaro pounced, kicking Hernan’s sword away and placed the tip of his sabre against the sprawled captain’s throat.
“I left you burning, yes, but I could have sunk you to the seabed if I’d had a mind too. I spared you that day, Hernan, because I admired you and your skill.”
“Gods receive me…” Hernan gasped.
Silvaro pushed the tip of his borrowed sabre against Hernan’s windpipe until a bead of bright red blood appeared. Then he took the sword away.
“That’s why I spared you then, and that’s why I spare you now. With the Butcher Ship abroad, Hernan, you’re too good a fighter to lose.”
Silvaro tossed his sabre from his right hand to his left and then extended his right down towards Hernan.
“I don’t want you to like me, Captain Hernan. I don’t expect you to. But this season, it seems, we’re on the same side. What do you say? Can we set our quarrel aside for the time being?”
Hernan took Silvaro’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
Silvaro turned to the audience around the edges of the flower garden. “Show’s over!” he cried. “Let lunch and drinking resume!”
Loud clapping broke out around the flower beds.
“There’s always next year,” Hernan hissed at Silvaro.
“I look forward to it, captain,” Silvaro replied. “A reckoning. You can hold me to it. I just hope we’re both still alive to see it.”
“The Butcher Ship?” Hernan said.
“The Butcher Ship, sir, indeed.”
XIX
The next morning was fair and breezy. Sesto woke early, but found the Aguilas dockside already bustling with activity. Gangs of shipwrights, chandlers, carpenters and labourers had arrived, bringing with them carts of tools and wagons laden with seasoned oak, green-cut deal and pine, cauldrons of pitch and bundles of tarred horsehair. Hoists had begun to unload the materials, and the air was full of shouts and the drumming of hammers and mallets. A smell of hot sawdust and stewing pitch lingered on the wind.
Sesto pulled a light cape around his shoulders and walked along the quay, observing the work. Up in the yards of the Demiurge and the Rumour, teams of men clambered amongst the swifting tackle and the shrouds, little monkey-shapes against the bright sky. Acres of holed and burnt sailcloth were being lowered to the decks, and torn rigging lines re-spliced or wound in. Along the body of the wharf, victuallers had already begun stacking the barrels of salted meat, biscuit and dried fruit that the longshoremen would soon be transferring to the holds. Sesto saw Fahd standing amongst a group of free merchants, sampling the spices they had brought on their handcarts, haggling over the price of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and white pepper. Elsewhere, Benuto and the boy Gello were examining the quality of planked timbers, and Vento was supervising a team of men as they rolled out new rope along the flagstones and paced the measurements.
At the far end of the quay, Silvaro, Roque, Silke and Casaudor were inspecting the first of the would-be recruits. Captain Duero’s men had scoured the taverns and stews the night before, and drummed up as many potential ratings as could be found. Some of the recruits looked like experienced mariners, if a little old. The rest were just scared-looking youths.
Dodging past a wagon bringing in fresh blindage screens for the Rumour’s damaged pavis, Sesto spotted Ymgrawl. The old boucaner was sitting on a mound of hemp-rope, eating something out of a muslin bag.
Sesto wandered over to him. Ymgrawl was breakfasting on little sugar-dusted twists of fresh pastry. The arrival of the three ships had brought traders down to the quay in droves, eager to make money from the newcomer crews. Cobblers, tailors, knife-sharps, musicians, tinkers and a good few bawds had congregated along the landwa
rd side of the docks, creating a noisy, ad-hoc market. The best of the trade went to the vendors of food and drink, the bottle-men, the confectioners, the barrow-cooks and the fruit-girls. After a long time on meagre sea-rations, the Reivers flocked to them, hungry for the delights of sugar-sticks and oranges and sweet loaves, the temptations that had lingered in their dreams night after night.
Ymgrawl was consuming his pastries with an expression of almost beatific content. Sesto smiled when he saw there were actual tears of pleasure in the boucaner’s eyes. To a citizen of the land, the little pastries would be an everyday inconsequence, a snack for the sweet-toothed. But to the raw dogs of the open sea, they were wonders, extraordinary treasures beyond compare, luxuries that a Reiver might sample only a handful of times in his life.
Ymgrawl saw Sesto approach and, reluctantly, offered him the bag.
“My thanks, no. I’ve already eaten,” Sesto lied. He hadn’t the heart to deprive the boucaner of even one of the delicacies.
Ymgrawl rose and, finishing his breakfast, walked the quay with Sesto.
“They’re pressing new crew,” Sesto remarked.
“Aye,” replied the boucaner. The pastries all gone, he was running his grubby fingers up and down the inside seam of the bag to capture the last crystals of sugar. “But they’ll need them a captain.”
“I thought Casaudor, or Roque.”
Ymgrawl shook his head. “Thee thinks it wrong. Silvaro’ll not part with his master nor his arms-chief. He’ll look wider abroad.”
They passed by old Belissi, the master carpenter. He had set up a small bench on the quay and was planing down a rough block of pine, crooning as he worked. Sesto saw that the old man was shaping another crude copy of his false leg, like the one he had cast into the sea as an offering the morning they had departed Sartosa.
“What is that about?” Sesto whispered to Ymgrawl. Licking his thin lips, Ymgrawl had been staring at the traders down the quay, considering whether or not to purchase a second bag of pastries. Turning away, he took out his clay pipe instead, and tamped smelly, black leaf into the bowl.
