Little Jane Silver

by Adira Rotstein

  Half the crew couldn’t even hear her and the half who did just stared at her confounded, the ropes slack in their hands.

  Ned Ronk, of course, was the first to intervene.

  He had been standing by the cutter, smoking his pipe, the heavy shadow of the tarp hiding him from Little Jane’s view.

  Now he favoured her with a sly grin. “What?” He gloated as he noticed Little Jane’s shocked expression. “Don’t suppose you’re the only one ever played hide and go seek, did ya? Now I think it’s time you got off me deck!” He closed the gap between them in a two massive strides.

  Before Little Jane could flinch, he grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and dragged her away. With the other sailors all still tangled up in the rigging or too scared to challenge the mighty boatswain’s authority, and the captains out of sight for the moment, it was Ned’s turn to get even.

  With Little Jane in hand and the fresh whip scars on his back tingling with anticipation, Ned slipped into the gap between the cutter boat and the railing, taking care not to let Little Jane wriggle free.

  “Oh, this is mighty rich,” he sneered. “Wait till old Mummy and Poppy hear tell of this t’do! Getting all them blokes tangled up in the rigging — they won’t take kindly to that, I dare say! Not that they’d ever fault their perfect little Princess Janey for it, oh no.”

  As his fingers tightened around her arms Little Jane shivered.

  “You really are so little lass, so very light. Why, you know, I think all it would take is one little gust of wind to blow you clear overboard!”

  What did he think he was doing? Looking into Ned’s hard, depthless eyes on that deceptively sunny morning, she could see her future as an infamous privateer truncated by a sudden act of base murder …

  Such was her terror that she little registered the boatswain’s rough hands as he hoisted her up by the armpits and held her over the railing.

  She hung from his powerful arms, staring at the ocean below her with detached fascination, as if viewing one of Ishiro’s charcoal drawings come to life. There was the huge grey sea framed by her feet, and nothing but constantly shifting waves below, rolling along in mesmerizing motion. Though they were high up on the deck, still the sea spat its spray up at her, stinging her eyes and chilling her bare toes. She trembled with cold and fear. And was it her imagination, or did the hands at her armpits began to loosen? Fingers letting go … Oh! She was too afraid to turn around …

  And then, above the roar of the sea, the comforting sound of wood treading on wood — step-scrape, step-scrape, step-scrape, followed by a shower of oaths in that cracked tenor voice she knew so well.

  “Blast it!” swore her father. “I told them to swab this bleedin’ deck! Ned!”

  The boatswain was so startled that he nearly dropped Little Jane into the drink then and there. Instead, he deliberately steeled himself to calmness before setting Little Jane back down on the sturdy timbers of the Pieces in the narrow space between the cutter and the rail.

  “Pa—” Little Jane began to cry, but Ned Ronk clapped a huge hand over her mouth.

  “Mention any o’ this,” he whispered menacingly, “and you make the acquaintance of me good friend here in your sleep.” He whipped out his clasp-knife, its point glinting deadly silver in the sunlight.

  Silently, she nodded, and the knife vanished back into its sheath.

  Little Jane’s legs melted away beneath her like two soft sticks of butter as Ned let go of her. When she looked up again, the boatswain was gone. She was alone.

  Little Jane stood up, still shaking, and went to find her father.

  Chapter 5

  Melvin

  After the shock of Ned Ronk’s threat, Little Jane took care to avoid the midships or any places the terrifying boatswain was wont to frequent.

  When Long John asked her over breakfast the next morning if she was interested in helping her mother below decks with the maps and navigation, Little Jane was only too eager to escape the surface. For the moment, at least, she had lost all interest in her quest to become a serious pirate. Instead her thoughts were exclusively occupied by an all-encompassing fear of Ned Ronk and his wicked clasp-knife.

  Alone in her narrow little bed that night, she spent hours trying to get to sleep. When slumber finally did come, she was awakened by a sharp, pointy pain at her back. Instantly, she recalled Ned Ronk’s gruesome threat. Her corresponding scream was so loud that the gulls sleeping in the barrels of the ship’s cannons fled, exploding out like so many feathered cannonballs.

  She turned around expecting to see Ronk’s sneering countenance as he jammed the knife in her back, only to realize she had fallen asleep on a pencil she had been writing with.

  Little Jane awoke late the next morning to find her mother done with her charts for the day and busy on the foredeck practising her fencing with Jezebel Mendoza, the weaponsmaster. There were a few other crewmembers around watching, but luckily Ned Ronk was not among them. Little Jane sat on a stack of coiled rope and observed Bonnie Mary closely, scribbling down notes in her book.

  When the fencing practice was done, Little Jane approached her mother.

  “Captain!” Little Jane greeted her with a sharp salute and Bonnie Mary laughed as she always did when her daughter let her pull rank. “I want to learn to fence like you do, please.”

  Bonnie Mary smiled at her daughter with a warm, gap-toothed grin. Secretly, she’d always longed for the day when she might impart to her only child a skill so highly prized by all those in her profession.

  “Come,” she said, taking Little Jane’s hand and leading her back to the cabin. “If you’re going to take up fencing, there’s something you ought to have.”

  Bonnie Mary closed the thick cabin door and the noise of clanking pulleys, creaking timbers, and billowing sails faded away. All thoughts of Ned Ronk forgotten for the moment, Little Jane could barely contain her excitement as Bonnie Mary pulled a long case out from under the wide bunk she shared with Little Jane’s father. With an air of solemn gravity, Bonnie Mary blew the dust off the surface of the case. Its hinges were old and rusty in places, further proof of its age and importance.

  Bonnie Mary touched the gold hoop in her left ear. Threaded through it was a tiny golden key that flashed in the sun streaming through the porthole window. Little Jane had seen that key nearly every day of her life, but it never occurred to her that it might serve any purpose other than decoration. Now, as Bonnie Mary removed the earring and slid the key out of the hoop, Little Jane felt every sinew in her body go taut with excitement.

  “This was mine when I was very young,” said Bonnie Mary as she inserted the key. The lock opened with a click. Visions of elegant silver rapiers, shining cutlasses, and gilded broadswords flooded Little Jane’s brain.

  Bonnie Mary opened the lid and reverently lifted an object out. It was as long as a sword and thickly wrapped in sail cloth.

  Little Jane waited with bated breath as Bonnie Mary unwound the cloth to reveal the treasure within.

  It was a sword all right. Little Jane had been right about that much. But the sword that met her eyes was no silver saber or gilded rapier. The sword her mother held out to her was made of wood!

  As her Mama beamed at her like it was the greatest thing in the entire universe Little Jane felt like smashing her fist through the cabin wall.

  “Your very own practice sword!” sighed Bonnie Mary wistfully. “Your grandfather taught me to parry and thrust with this beauty. Ah! If he could only see you now …” Her good eye misted up as she cradled the wooden monstrosity.

  Little Jane suffered her mother to hand over the silly wooden thing and tried to look happy.

  “His name is Melvin,” Bonnie Mary explained.

  “Who’s name?”

  “Why, the sword’s, of course,” her Mama replied, as the thick seam of the scar that ran down the right side of her face bunched up in amusement. “Every good weapon must have a name. Oh, and he comes with this, too.”


  “This” was a dusty old book.

  “Admiral Hillingbottom’s Guide to Swordplay, with 64 Fun-Filled Exercises,” read Bonnie Mary off the cover. “Now you can do one exercise in it each day, and before long you’ll be ready—”

  “For a real sword?” asked Little Jane expectantly.

  “—to train with weaponsmaster Mendoza,” continued Bonnie Mary. “Now that you have Melvin, use him always. He may not look like much, but he is a precious member of the family.”

  Then why don’t you keep him, Little Jane nearly said, but the words stuck in her throat. Bonnie Mary was looking at her with such pride that Little Jane felt compelled to glance away. “Whatever happens to me and your father, swear you’ll keep this sword. It can help you,” she said earnestly.

  “Yes, Mama,” replied Little Jane, feeling utterly ridiculous and more like a child than ever. “I will.”

  “I know you don’t think him much, but in time he’ll become as precious to you as he once were to me.”

  Not bleedin’ likely, Little Jane thought tartly.

  Soberly, Bonnie Mary threaded the key to Melvin’s box through the golden hoop in Little Jane’s own ear. The key was so light that Little Jane barely felt it, yet when she tossed her hair it jingled so sweetly that she grinned in spite of herself. Bonnie Mary’s own earring was now no different than that of any other sailor — a simple circle of gold. With all the cowry shells, pearls, and golden beads woven through Bonnie Mary’s braids to attract the eye and tinkle softly in the breeze, the absence of a tiny key wouldn’t be noticed by anyone, but Bonnie Mary missed it already.

  “Good girl.” She spoke softly to Little Jane. “Now why don’t you go help Ishiro with the potatoes.”

  That evening, with all the potato-peeling done for the day, Little Jane gave the wooden sword a thorough examination.

  Melvin, she thought with distaste.

  She instantly disliked it, if for no other reason than its idiotic name. What was it with her family and names? Swords were supposed to have women’s names. Certainly, she had no desire to do sixty-four exercises with a wooden sword called Melvin, no matter how fun-filled this Admiral Hillingbottom claimed them to be.

  She noticed that Melvin’s handle was wrapped in an old red rag, nearly fused to the timber with rot and age. Certainly, no suitable weapon to take on Ned Ronk with — and at the returning thought of the fearsome boatswain, she shivered. Rethinking her strategy of hiding Melvin until she could safely toss the sword overboard, she thrust him into the gap between her bed and the wall. Here he could remain indefinitely, at once out of sight, but accessible in case of nighttime danger.

  After only two pages of clumsily executed book exercises, per Admiral Hillingbottom’s instructions, and two days worth of perfectly executed emotional blackmail tactics employed on her unsuspecting parents, Little Jane was set to commence her first lesson with the weaponsmaster, Jezebel Mendoza.

  At first Little Jane watched, taking notes. “Without proper supervision, adults should never be allowed to use swords, knives, or a brace of pistols,” she wrote, and indeed this was her conclusion after observing the other sailors trying to make pincushions out of each other while engaging in hand-to-hand combat drills. Even with corked swords, there was no shortage of dodgy manoeuvres, as Cabrillo, the sailmaker — unfortunately struck with a sword hilt in the unmentionables — could well attest to.

  The weaponsmaster, Jezebel Mendoza, was a slight, cinnamon-haired Englishwoman. She was the unlikely widow of a notorious Mexican revolutionary and Jonesy had once referred to her as “a former member of the upper crust.”

  This confused Little Jane as she had no idea what the weaponsmaster had to do with pies and pie crust specifically. (Personally, Little Jane thought it would be more fun to be the fruit filling, rather than any other portion of a pie whether upper of lower, but no one was asking her.)

  What she presumed Jonesy meant was that Jezebel Mendoza was a little on the flakey side. Though the weaponsmaster had always been a close friend of her mother’s, Little Jane often felt uncomfortable in her presence. Her eyes had a disconcerting tendency to dart around a room in search of armed threats, even in the midst of conversations. When she did focus on you, her gaze was so intense, her questions so prodding, that no one but Bonnie Mary could remain long under her stare without squirming.

  It was this intense stare that focused on Little Jane now. “Come along, child,” Mendoza commanded her, “we have much work to do. Far be it from me to criticize your mother, but she has delayed teaching you the proper defensive techniques for far too long.”

  Little Jane swore silently to herself. Whatever else happened, she did not want to look like a rank amateur. Having wooden Melvin at her side did nothing to help her self-esteem.

  Someone at the back of the group sniggered.

  “Don’t worry about them,” said Mendoza dismissively with a swish of her own Spanish-gripped steel rapier. “You’ll do fine — you’re a Silver. Duelling is in your blood. Now don’t look so incredulous, Little Jane, it’s true. You know George Silver was the first Englishman to publish a thorough analysis on the strengths and weaknesses of the various Continental fencing styles, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “The Paradoxes of Defence. Remind me to lend it to you sometime. Very forward-thinking for the time with regard to proportioning the length of the weapon to that of the arm and the necessity of light materials for increased speed in the parry.”

  “Huh?”

  “But enough of old George. Let’s fight!”

  With that, Little Jane was thrown right into the thick of things. She had fenced a little before with her mother and father, so some of the moves were familiar, but she knew her parents held back when they duelled with her.

  The weaponsmaster, however, showed no such restraint and would shout out the name of each perfectly executed manoeuvre just as she performed it — Straight thrust! Advance! Advance! Disengage! Feint to the head! Advance, advance! But Little Jane could not concentrate on the proper names of the moves as Mendoza’s sword seemed to be everywhere at once — coming at her from the right, the left, down, sideways, above. She backed down under the assault.

  “Arrêt!” shouted Mendoza, but Little Jane kept striking away. “Stop,” she added, gracefully sidestepping a thrust before it clipped her in the hip.

  Little Jane quickly lowered her sword. “My apologies, Weaponsmaster.”

  “No need. Even I did not reach perfection in the art of fencing instantaneously. Before one can speak intelligibly, one must learn the words.”

  “Words?”

  “Mix up the letters in sword and that’s what you get — words. You see, learning the sword is like learning to talk. You learn the words and what they mean and then how to put them together. Now, you can still be understood if you don’t know many words, but you won’t be considered well-spoken until you master the technique of proper speech. Fencing is the same. You must learn the proper movements and stances and what each one does. Only then can you string them together.”

  “Couldn’t I just learn to brawl like all the other fellows around here? I mean, no offence, but it does seem that fine speech and courtly swordplay might serve no point here. I doubt any o’ them,” Little Jane said, jerking her thumb and her adult compatriots, “was properly trained.”

  “More’s the pity. I have to go back and try to make them unlearn all their bad habits. These poor sods might be all right in a scrap, but they only know how to fight in one way. They each have their own modus operandi, and I respect that, I do, but once their opponent is onto it, then they’re lost, you see?”

  “No,” said Little Jane. “What’s a modus opera?”

  “Your modus operandi is the special way you work, your trademark, your gimmick,” explained Jezebel Mendoza.

  Little Jane stared blankly back.

  “Your special trick that only you know, unique to you. That surprise you give your opponent when all seems lost. U
sing what you have in natural abundance to replace what you lack. That sort of thing.”

  “And does everyone aboard have a moder — a gimmick, I mean?”

  “I suppose so. Your mother, for example, she uses an extremely light sword, but with a very sharp tip. Her footwork is unbelievably fast. When she comes at you it’s like a needle in and out and side to side, and every stroke she makes, even if there’s not a man’s physical strength behind it, with such a thin, sharp blade, every thrust is deadly precise and hits home.” Mendoza spoke quickly as she demonstrated with her own sword, a blur of silver motion. “She bobs around you quick as a fox and the moment you leave even the tiniest part of yourself undefended — zzziiippp!” and here Mendoza stabbed Little Jane with her finger, making her jump.

  “Aye, I believe I get the picture,” said Little Jane. “What about my father then? Don’t see him lollygagging around studying lessons, wasting time practising.”

  “Just because you’ve never seen him at it, doesn’t mean I don’t instruct him privately,” revealed Mendoza.

  “What? Really? By himself? Is he an absolute disaster, then?”

  “No, actually he’s quite good,” said Jezebel Mendoza, staring down the length of her blade, studying its perfect line for any hint of deviation from absolute symmetry. “Just not terribly graceful, that’s all. And he’s rather vain about such things.”

  “Oh,” said Little Jane, disappointed. Her father just couldn’t be good at fencing! Couldn’t she ever be better than her parents at anything? It wasn’t fair! “But surely he must have some truly spectacular gimmick to make up for his bad leg?”

  “Well, he’s crack with a pistol, no question. Excellent aim and a speedy loader, too. With the blade, he’s got a nice supple wrist, I suppose. But above all that, I’d wager your father’s tongue against even George Silver’s sword any day.”

  “His tongue?” asked Little Jane incredulously.

  “Don’t look so surprised, my dear, it is the strongest muscle in the human body, and the courtly art of interfering with another fellow’s mind is not to be underestimated. To make an opponent so angry he strikes without judging, to force your enemy to question his motivation and delay in attack for just that one crucial moment, to surprise a foe with your level of expertise when he anticipates a quick and easy victory — that, my dear, is real talent. Pure skill with a sword can only get you so far.”