“What has become of Sir Basil’s knife, by the way?” I asked. “Might I examine it?”
“It’s been sent to the city armory,” said the provost. “It will probably be issued to some soldier. But I have your own knife just here, in the gatehouse.”
I was handed my knife, and I thanked the provost again and was on my way. I did not glance up to view Sir Basil and his servant, not because I would have been unsettled by the sight, but because my mind was already fully occupied by the matter of the outlaw, and his ransoms, and his escape. On my way to the waterfront, I met Kevin coming to see me, and we returned to the quay together.
“If he was planning on establishing himself abroad,” said I, “Sir Basil must have been carrying a fortune with him. Have the authorities searched for it? Do you know?”
Kevin was amused. “You mean to plunder the outlaw? What does the law say on the matter?”
“Insofar as the money arrived on a damaged vessel,” I said, “it might be viewed as flotsam, and thus the property of whoever finds it. However, if the money is to be viewed as a treasure trove, hidden animus revocandi, that is with intent to recover later, then half would belong to the finder, and half to the Crown. Though sometimes the courts have ruled that lost property quod nullius est fit domini regis, that which belongs to nobody belongs to the Queen.”
“What of those whose ransoms made up the hoard?” Kevin asked. “Would they not have a claim?”
“In justice, perhaps, but not I think in law, for paying a ransom is itself illegal, as assisting the crime of kidnaping.”
Kevin was surprised. “I broke the law when I paid my family’s ransom?”
I waved a hand. “You are also in contravention of the law if you wrestle a bear, dye sheep or goats, or bury a sorcerer in a cemetery. I know of no one who has been prosecuted for such an offense, or for paying a ransom.”
Kevin was puzzled. “Why would you dye a sheep?”
“To pass it off as some other kind of sheep, I suppose.”
Kevin considered this, then shook his head. “We know not what claims may be made against this hoard if we find it.”
“Yet”—I smiled—“there can be no disposition unless we find it.”
“I think you may lead us into danger.”
“Let us make inquiries. It will do no harm to ask questions.”
“Asking questions,” he sighed, “is exactly where so much mischief begins.”
But he accompanied me to the gangboard of the Star of the North, and there asked the chief mate if the authorities had come for his passenger’s belongings. They had, he said, but they found nothing, as the passenger had been unable to sleep with the constant noise of repairs, and had taken himself and his servant ashore. The passenger had called himself Morland, and was only revealed to be the outlaw Sir Basil by those who had come aboard to search his cabin.
Sir Basil had called himself Morland when he was trying to convince me I’d captured the wrong man. I asked the mate if he knew where his passenger lodged, but he knew nothing. So, I began a search of the nearby inns, providing both a name and a description, not only for Sir Basil, or Morland, but Hazelton. I had no luck.
Then I remembered that Sir Basil had come down to the quay from the city’s square, then turned right before I apprehended him. And there we had met Hazelton—which might have been pure coincidence, but also might mean that the two of them were lodging in that vicinity.
So, I retraced my steps, and found the inn before which Sir Basil had died. No one there knew him, so I went through the district, asking anyone who might have lodgers if they had a visitor.
Finally, I found a very deaf old lady who sat before her small alehouse, enjoying the sun and the traffic that bustled back and forth along the quay. The ground floor was home to a cordwainer’s shop, but the two floors above seemed to be someone’s residence. I bought a pot of ale.
“Good morning, mother,” said I. “Have you any lodgers?” Then had to repeat myself twice before she understood me.
“I have four lodgers. Two soldiers from the garrison, my grandson, and another gentleman. And only this last pays me a rent.”
“Is that Master Morland?”
“Ay,” said she, “but I have not seen him today, nor his varlet neither.”
“He has been invited to lodge with my master,” said I, into the old lady’s ear. “I am come to pay the charges, and to take his belongings.”
The old lady was pleased to hear she was to be paid. “The governor’s billeted two soldiers on me,” she said, “and I am obliged to feed them, and not a penny comes with them. Surely not even the usurper would despoil me so.”
I sympathized, and helped her rise from her chair. In a great roaring voice she called for a man named Alfred, who came out of the cordwainer’s shop in his apron, the sun gleaming off his bald head. Alfred was told to take Kevin and me upstairs to Master Morland’s room, and help me pack, while she made out the bill. We went up the narrow stair to a garret, and were obliged again to explain why we were taking Morland’s belongings.
“Who is your master, then?” Alfred asked, as he produced the keys.
“An old friend of Morland’s,” I said. “Sir Andrew de Berardinis.”
Kevin gave me a look of horror at this, but the governor’s was the only name I could think of at that instant. Besides, Sir Basil was in a manner of speaking the guest of the governor, even though the lodgings would not have been to his liking.
Alfred turned the keys and opened the low, narrow door. “You know my grandmother is billeting two soldiers without pay,” he said. “She was depending on Morland’s money to make ends meet.”
“The Estates General is meeting in Selford,” I said vaguely. “These money matters are their province.”
Sir Basil’s room was small and damp, with a fireplace that smelled of two-day-old cinders. It was probably the best place available in a city full of soldiers. The bed was narrow, and apparently Sir Basil shared it with Hazelton, for there was no room elsewhere—the place was filled to the rafters with trunks, bags, and crates. My heart leaped at the sight, and the thought of Sir Basil’s treasure-trove, but I put on a face of distress and dismay.
“I wasn’t told that Morland had so much gear.” I turned to Kevin. “Go down and find us some fellows to help us carry this.”
Kevin left, and Alfred and I started shifting boxes and bags into the hallway. There were a few loose articles of clothing, and some finely made items such as hair- and toothbrushes, and these I put in a bag. While Alfred was moving boxes into the hall, I searched the pillows, and looked under the mattress to see if anything had been hidden there, but I found nothing.
Kevin arrived with some sailors from the Meteor, and the outlaws’ dunnage was carried down the stair. I left last of all, which allowed me to search the bed again, as well as the frame of the little hemispherical window, the hearth, the chamber pot, and the low rafters. Finding nothing, I went down to the ground floor, where the old landlady presented me with her bill.
The sum was outrageous enough that I felt obliged to protest, even though it might well have been fair, given the scarcity of lodging in the city. I was eventually granted a small reduction, so I paid and insisted on having a receipt so that I could be reimbursed by Morland. After which we carried our booty to Meteor’s cabin and began our search.
There was, first of all, no treasure. I found a bag filled with fifty crowns, to pay for expenses on the voyage, and another bag with a few gold rings too wide for Sir Basil’s narrow fingers—the general lack of gems and jewelry was understandable, since I’d already stolen every jewel I’d found in the outlaw treasury. The weightiest of the bags held beautifully crafted armor, all with the dimple-marks certifying the pieces were proof against gunshot. There were several broadswords, two with gold wire inlay, two pairs of heavy horse-pistols, and one small pocket pistol. I felt grateful that Sir Basil hadn’t been carrying this last when I encountered him.
Many of the
bags held only clothing, for the most part dazzling satins, silks, and velvets suitable for making a show at court, or for playing peacock among the highest in the country. Both these and the armor I assumed came from prisoners, most likely members of Stayne’s party.
I also found Lord Utterback’s slinkskin gloves, which I decided to return to him when I next saw him.
“Was Sir Basil tall?” Kevin asked. “Would the armor suit you?”
I laughed. “I have no plans to join the army!”
“You plan to go privateering, do you not? You would cut a great swashing figure on the quarterdeck.”
“And attract the enemy’s fire, no doubt.”
“Which the armor would repel. Do you not see the proof marks?”
I scorned this simplistic notion. “Only a fool trusts a proof mark. I’ll test the breastplate myself, with one of those pistols, ere I trust it in the war in which I have no desire to fight.”
To please Kevin, I tried the armor on. Sir Basil and I were of a height, but I had broader shoulders, and the armor pinched above the arms.
“It can be adjusted,” Kevin said.
“I do not see myself in armor.”
“You should have your portrait painted. You look admirable, just like Lord Bellicosus in the play. Could you not utter at least a few of that worthy’s lines?”
“I am not in a swaggering mood.” I pulled the pintle from the gudgeon on my left side, separated the two halves of the cuirass, and let it drop to the deck. “We are allowing ourselves to be distracted. I cannot believe that Sir Basil intended to pawn his armor once he arrived in the Triple Kingdom, and live on what it brought him. He must have had a treasure with him, or something that represented that treasure.”
So, we searched through everything again, very thoroughly, and eventually I found a piece of parchment stuffed into the toe of a battered old boot. It was sealed with an elaborate seal featuring whales, ships, and sea monsters, and I heated a knife over a candle and freed the seal from the document.
The parchment certified that fourteen thousand, eight hundred thirty royals were on deposit in the Oberlin Fraters Bank, in the account of one Charles Morland. I looked at the document, laughed, and gave it to Kevin.
“Do you have business with Oberlin Fraters?” I asked.
His eyes scanned the page. “I do not.”
“So, you do not know how Master Morland would reclaim his money, once he arrived in Steggerda?”
“A seal and a signature,” said Kevin, “and possibly a password.”
The fourteen thousand royals would have supported Sir Basil in great style for the rest of his life, assuming that he didn’t spend it all in quarrels and lawsuits.
“There is an Oberlin bank in Selford,” said I. “We should make a deposit there, and see how it can be drawn from another branch.”
Kevin carefully folded the parchment, and put it on the dinner table. “Do you seriously intend to defraud the bank of this money?”
“The bank has no more right to the money than Sir Basil.”
“They may disagree. And though I am no expert, I believe the law supports them.”
I shrugged. “Laws are not invariable. They are tools, not absolutes handed down from the Mount of the Gods.”
“Tools may turn on their masters.”
I took the document from the dinner table and put it in my doublet. “I know not what I will do with this. And should I do anything at all, I will be very careful.”
Kevin looked in dismay at the riot of steel and fabric that covered his cabin. “Let us see about stowing away this rubbish,” said he. “And then see about getting to sea.”
I looked at him in surprise. “You haven’t heard? We are blockaded.”
I told him what the provost told me, that a large galleon of Clayborne’s navy was taking prizes right off the mouth of the Brood.
Suddenly decisive, Kevin rose and reached for his boat cloak. “This useless hoard-hunting has distracted us from our proper duty,” he said. “We must view this sea-monster.”
In just a few minutes Captain Oakeshott had joined us, and we were in the sternsheets of Meteor’s longboat, with six oarsmen taking us down the river. It was a voyage of eight leagues to the river mouth, and though we caught the last of the ebb, the tide was making for the last part of the journey, and coming in frothing great waves up the channel. Fortunately, we were able to set a sail, and the oarsmen could rest unless they were needed to drive us through one of the oncoming waves. Still it was the middle of the afternoon before we arrived within sight of the galleon, a tall, dark shadow tacking back and forth on the glimmering western horizon.
Kevin and Oakeshott viewed the intruder with their long glasses, and murmured their conclusions to one another.
“She is a high-charged galleon,” said Kevin. “But I can see only her upper works; I can’t count the gunports.”
Oakeshott curled his lip. “I can say with all confidence that there are more gunports than we possess, and the guns heavier. For that ship is no less than eight hundred tons, and we are but an hundred fifty.”
We saw a group of gentlemen on the sandy strand, and came ashore to join them. Some were ship captains that Oakeshott knew, and others military men, among them the governor, Sir Andrew de Berardinis. He was a stout, sturdy gentleman with long white hair that flew like a flag in the fresh wind, and he was accompanied by other men who formed his military family.
I borrowed Oakeshott’s glass and found the nautical stalker wearing round onto the larboard tack, the sun flashing off the high sterncastle with its diamond crosshatch pattern, lapis-blue alternating with ochre-yellow.
“Blue and yellow diamonds,” I said. “And there is a device painted on the main topsail, but I can’t make it out.”
Kevin looked surprised, and put his glass to his eye. “That device is the blue sea-wolf,” he said. “I know that ship. She was built for the Mercer Aubrey Jenkins down in Bretlynton Head, and made at least one voyage to the Candara Coast for spices before the navy bought her a couple years ago for four thousand royals. She’s Wolf Azure, renamed Royal Stilwell, eight hundred fifty tons and at least forty guns, probably closer to fifty.”
Oakeshott and I exchanged glances. Royal Stilwell so outclassed Meteor that there was no hope of our fighting a successful engagement, nor was there any ship in harbor that could match her.
I turned to Kevin. “May we hope that Stilwell is a right hooker, and that we can outrun her?”
He looked dubious. “Close-hauled, may be. But she can carry such a spread of canvas that I wouldn’t dare to fly before her on a wind.”
And with the wind holding westerly, if Meteor left harbor close-hauled, we would be running toward the enemy, not away.
Oakeshott walked to the other captains to tell them the bad news, and I considered the consequences of our being blockaded in Longfirth. At best, our privateering expedition would be cut short, and there would be no income from Sea-Holly if she weren’t carrying supplies and troops back and forth to Selford. In the worst case, we might be held here until Clayborne’s army came, and lacking reinforcement the city fell, and we would be prisoners for having taken the Duke of Andrian’s Lady Tern.
Suspicion stabbed at me, and I wondered if Orlanda was behind this somehow, and was even now prompting Clayborne to march.
But I banished such thoughts as unprofitable, and I could not in any case stop Orlanda from doing anything she cared to do.
I glanced over the flat country, the low dunes with their sparse grasses stooped in the wind, and the two lights behind. The city was well out of sight, beyond the misty horizon.
I looked at the lights again, and again out to sea where the Royal Stilwell patrolled, and then I returned to Kevin.
“I think I may have an idea,” said I.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
* * *
he sun glowed gold on our sails, two days later, as Meteor and Sea-Holly dropped down the River Brood just before sunset. Roy
al Stilwell paced back and forth like a shadowy predator against the setting sun, a dark, ominous silhouette on a sea sparkling with diamonds. Two transports had been taken by the big galleon in the last two days, and carried by prize crews off to one of Clayborne’s ports.
The anchor cables roared and rumbled as they plunged into the river, and the ships checked in their motion, then swung with the wind and tide. The wind had backed to the southwest, still blowing hard and providing a challenge for any vessels trying to leave the port. Yet we hoped to seem exactly those vessels, intent on making a dash for freedom right under Stilwell’s stern counter. We left our sails clewed up but not furled, ready to sheet home at a moment’s notice, and hoped that the officers grouped on Stilwell’s poop would see what we wanted them to see.
Apparently they did, for Royal Stilwell moved closer to shore, ready to come down on us if they saw us running.
As the sun descended, the mist on the far horizon was turned briefly to gold, and then the winter’s dark descended. Flames sprang up from the summits of the two wooden towers that served as lighthouses. The tide slapped against the sides of the ship. I supped in the cabin with Kevin, Oakeshott, and the pilot, Foster, a lank, longshanked man who would guide us to the sea if all went well.
After supper, I put on my overcoat and went on deck with a long glass, and saw that the cabin lights of Royal Stilwell were just visible. At night, it was impossible to tell how close the lights were, but the ship seemed close in, two or three miles. I went below, into the warmth, and shared a bottle of wine with Kevin.
Shortly after midnight, the ship swung as the tide shifted, and I took a night glass aloft to the maintop. Royal Stilwell was easy to find, with some lights burning in its stern cabin, though it took some time to accustom myself to the inverted image displayed in the glass. I watched the enemy ship as it paced back and forth in the channel, like a sentry before a gate, and I studied it as it made its maneuvers, how the configuration of the masts and lights changed as it wore from one heading to the other.
Quillifer Page 35
