Pirate King: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes mr-11

by Laurie R. King

  We’d been at the theatre less than an hour, and had our day’s first bloodshed, our first narrowly averted fatality.

  Following that little demonstration of stimulus and response, Hale took care to explain the stage props. The cutlass he took from Gerald’s hand might collapse into its handle, but the blade was steel. Even dull, it could inflict damage if used for anything but a flat stab. For slicing motions, there was another tea-chest of weapons with similar looks but made of painted wood, wide and blunt enough to be aimed at clothed portions of the body. For faces, there was a third set made from rubber, although their appearance was not entirely satisfactory.

  In the matter of luncheon, compromise had been reached, on the days when a matinée was scheduled, anyway: We would work straight through, fortified in the late morning by a brief respite with the despised sandwiches, then end at three o’clock.

  So the pirates merrily slashed away at each other for a few hours, and we broke for our not-a-luncheon, after which Fflytte returned with Mabel and her sisters.

  And I had my first inkling of the true problems of a film-crew.

  By this time, the men – who, as I said, had not begun the day in the most pristine condition – had been leaping vigorously about for a couple of hours, and were not only tired and aromatic but had relaxed into the novelty of being paid to play games.

  Then the girls came in.

  I should explain that the way Fflytte and Hale intended to compensate for the lack of sound in what is basically a musical event was to design a chorus of motion instead of voices. For example, in the opera, the girls’ initial appearance is cause for a song-“Climbing over rocky mountain, Skipping rivulet and fountain”em› and so on – but in a moving picture, there would be little point in showing thirteen mouths going open and shut. Instead, they would skip gaily, a chorus of motion along a flower-strewn stream, pantomiming the incipient removal of shoes and stockings for the purpose of a paddle whilst the increasingly shocked (and stimulated) Frederic looks on from his hiding place.

  On the ship from England, I had been dimly aware that Graziella Mazzo (the tall, voluptuous, and generally barefoot Italian who had trained under Isadora Duncan [and with whom (despite a comical eleven-inch difference in height) Randolph Fflytte seemed to be much taken (which, come to think of it, suggested what, or who, had so startled the hotel cleaners)]) would occasionally assemble the girls on a free patch of open deck, or below decks when the weather was unfriendly, humming while they progressed in unison with exaggerated gestures of coquetry, alarm, or humour. They looked insane, but then, a group of girls often does.

  By now, the thirteen sisters were well practiced in coordinated movements. Shortly before mid-day, the girls came back onstage, name cards pinned to their frocks, hair freshly combed, eager to return to their alphabetical counterparts amongst the pirate crew.

  Who were instantly struck dumb. Even the older men looked down at themselves, abashed, and ran their hands over their heads. They watched the girls trip merrily over to the trays of sandwiches, commenting on the choices, exchanging wide-eyed exclamations, laughing at each other’s jests, utterly ignoring the males.

  The tension between the two groups grew like a taut-strung wire: the silent men on one side, the girls with their increasingly self-conscious laughter on the other, until I thought I should have to do something. It was Benjamin who broke it, one of the younger pirates. His clothing was a shade more modern than some of the others’, and if his hair was rather long and tousled, he had at least shaved that morning. Girding himself for battle, he swaggered across the boards to the luncheon spread, took possession of a plate, laid a sandwich on it, and raised his deep brown eyes to the girl opposite him – shy, myopic Celeste.

  “ ’Allo,” he said, and with a lift of the eyebrow, added, “I am Benyamin.”

  Titters broke out anew, but with the first venture made, the others surged forward. I watched with an almost parental pride as two cultures met, and achieved flirtation.

  Some minutes later, I became aware of a presence at my side, and looked up at Hale, then down at his de-buttoned waistcoat. “I’m glad our Samuel is fast on his feet.”

  “Not half as glad as I am. I should’ve known better.”

  “I take it one doesn’t expect a group of actors to have knives?”

  “In England, a pocket-knife might be used for opening adoring letters. Those blades were the real thing.”

  “Perhaps for safety’s sake, we ought to collect their armament each day. It would be unfortunate if one of them grabbed a real weapon by mistake.”

  “That’s an idea.”

  “Interesting, how many of them speak some English. I haven’t found that among the populace in general.”

  “Yes, I was just noticing that. I wonder if La Rocha specified English speakers when he put out his casting call?”

  “Whatever, it’ll make things easier for you and Mr Fflytte.”

  “In some ways,” Hale said. “Perhaps not in others.”

  I followed his gaze to the far end of the luncheon table. There stood Annie and Adam, the two tallest among their respective choruses and thus our designated eldest. He was holding out a plate to her. Her peaches-and-cream complexion had taken on a becoming degree of pink, her eyes were downcast; his dark stubble looked romantic rather than unkempt. He was all but crowing with manliness.

  “Oh, dear,” I said.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SERGEANT: When the enterprising burglar’s not a-burgling,

  When the cut-throat isn’t occupied in crime,

  He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling

  And listen to the merry village chime.

  THE NEXT DAY was Sunday. This being an emphatically Catholic nation, an odd assortment of things were shut. Which included our theatre, whose management was not about to provide the keys and electricity for a group of Protestant (or Jewish) heathens to risk their immortal souls by committing labour.

  Instead, the cast was set adrift to see the sights. The weather was not inviting; on the other hand, it was not pouring, and we were, after all, Englishmen, to whom a drizzle is a summer’s day. Over breakfast tables, train schedules were consulted, cars were hired, and a giddy sense of holiday prevailed.

  Fflytte and Hale observed the spirit with looks of gloom, since the cost of a workless day remained on the company’s books. I watched with an equal lack of enthusiasm, since I suspected that a number of the girls had arranged rendezvous with their piratical counterparts. I told myself that I had not been hired as a governess, and drank my coffee in peace. As I passed through the dining room afterwards, Hale waved me over, to ask how I intended to spend my day.

  “I thought I’d see something of the city, and do a bit of reading.” And with luck, find the two men (and their guests) gone from their rooms and resume my Scotland Yard – sanctioned burglary.

  “What about coming with us?” he said. “That Pessoa chap is showing us around the city, in case there are places we might want to use. It would be helpful if you were there to take notes. If,” he added, “you don’t mind working on a day off.”

  Damn. “Of course not. When are you going?”

  “Twenty minutes?”

  “I’ll go change my shoes.”

  The shoes I’d worn the first night were still damp, but they were less likely to result in a broken neck than the pair that had been my attempt at fashion. I retrieved my overcoat from its place across the radiator, and put my notebook in my pocket.

  Ten minutes after I went down, Pessoa came in – Pessoa this time, I was relieved to see, not the flighty and enthusiastic Senhor de Campos. He removed his gloves and shook my hand, immediately taking out his pouch of tobacco (cheaper, and less vulnerable to the elements, than the packaged variety of cigarettes).

  “I trust my … demeanour last night was not disconcerting?” he asked, sifting leaves onto paper.

  “Disconcerting? No.” Of course not; I often dine with heteronyms.

&
nbsp; “Even my friends occasionally find him so,” he remarked. “Senhor de Campos can be … fervent.”

  He licked the paper to seal the tobacco in, lit the end, and raised an innocent gaze. So I made a remark about the weather.

  We chatted about the relative miserableness of London and Lisbon in November and whether such climates drove countries to become world powers, that they might gain a foothold in the tropics, until Fflytte and Hale appeared. They greeted me, greeted Pessoa, held back that I might go out the door first, then put their heads together and ignored me completely. Pessoa led the way, followed by the two Englishmen, with me on their heels, straining to hear as they discussed the theatre, the mechanics of filming, and how best to weave together the fight scenes and the girls’ chorus. I was soon hoping that I would not be called upon actually to write anything down, since the frigid damp that radiated off the pavements and walls found its way into the bones in no time: I was not certain that my fingers would be able to manipulate the pencil.

  Up and down the two men went while on their heels I trod, hands in pockets and making the occasional memorandum on my mental note-pad: Find silver paint to touch up the rubber knives. Ask Sally (the seamstress/costumer) whether we need any traditional Portuguese clothing. Find out what traditional Portuguese clothing might entail. Cable to America to find out if Howard Pyle is still alive; if so, contract with him to illustrate the one-sheet poster. Tell James-the-Composer (whom I hadn’t met) that the sheet music needs a lot of minor chords. Check with Will-the-Camera to see if the girls will need darker make-up under the bright African sun; if so, check supplies; if needed, help Maude-the-Make-up find some before leaving Lisbon.

  Occupied with the two English voices, I was but dimly aware of our guide’s occasional contribution, until he pointed to a church and said that the convent was where the autos da fé took place beginning in 1540.

  Fflytte’s ears perked up. “The Inquisition, eh? I don’t suppose it was still active fifty years ago?”

  Hale hastened to squelch any idea of incorporating a nice stake-burning into the tale, and we went on, my mind trying to reassemble my mental list, which had been rather shaken by the knowledge of what these stones had witnessed.

  The list was running to eleven items when I found that we were boarding a tram car, and that I was expected to come up with the fare.

  I fumbled my small purse out of my pocket without dropping it, turning it over to Pessoa so as not to further irritate the driver and the other passengers. When he had paid, we claimed seats, separated from the other two. I took out my actual note-pad to laboriously transfer memory onto page. Between the jolts of the little car and the state of my digits, the result was hardly legible, but I thought I should be able to make out a few key words to jog my mind onto the correct path.

  I hoped I wasn’t missing some essential secretarial function: Whenever I glanced at my employers, the two men seemed fascinated by the houses built along the ever-climbing tram line. Fflytte would point at one tile façade; Hale would scrunch up his face in thought, then point at another; Fflytte would respond with his own lack of enthusiasm. Every so often the two would agree. I wondered if I was supposed to come up with an address en passant, then decided it would be simpler to put Will on the tram and just tell him to film the buildings with the most startling colours, since that seemed to be the criterion on which they were choosing.

  At the top of the considerable hill, the poet and all non-Lisboans disembarked – that is to say, the three of us and one elderly Scotsman, who had perhaps come to Lisbon for the balmy November weather. I looked around to see what attraction had caused the city fathers to run the tram up here, and found we were at the castle that brooded over the city, a run-down but impressive pile with a spectacular view.

  I think Fflytte had some vague idea of filming a scene or two within the walls, although I’m not sure how he would fit it into the story. It was a barracks now, with a gaol that had to be the most miserable place in the city. While Fflytte and Hale argued amiably and my nose began to drip, our guide went in search of the day officer to request permission for a visit – taking with him my note-purse.

  When he returned, he was accompanied with a round man in uniform, unarmed, who shook our hands, welcomed us in what he believed to be English, and ushered us inside the castle of St George, former site of a Moorish citadel, before that the centre of Roman Felicitas Julia, the second largest city in Lusitania.

  Eighty generations of soldiers had nursed their chilblains on this very spot.

  Inside the castle walls, we circled around to the right, and although our military escort clearly did not approve, nothing would do for Fflytte but that we climb one or two very hazardous-looking walls. Pessoa took one look and stayed resolutely on the ground. I decided that if the men went up, I might have to – although I let them go first, and farther. Teetering atop one such precipitous barrier, peering over into a lot of nothingness, Hale remarked that anyone who tried to get reflective screens and camera up here would be guilty either of suicide or homicide. Fflytte, much smitten by the scenic possibilities, vehemently disagreed until his foot hit a loose stone and he nearly disappeared over the edge himself. We picked our way down to a dank and dreary courtyard, to the relief of Pessoa and the escort. Hale pointed out various pieces of wall and ancient stone stairways that would film well; Fflytte found something wrong with all of them. Finally, we emerged from the more hazardous portions of the castle onto a sort of esplanade that overlooked the city and most of the harbour. Hale and I followed Pessoa to the low wall, and let him proudly point out the sights: the Rossio below (its wavy black-and-white pavements covering the ashes of the Inquisition), the train station beyond it, the long stretch of the Avenida da Liberdade, its trees going bare.

  The director listened with half an ear, busy framing with gloved hands an olive tree that looked like the play-thing of a petulant elephant. Eventually rejecting the tree as insufficiently picturesque for his purposes, he drifted over to join us. There we stood, hunched into our coats while Pessoa valiantly lectured on the glories that were Lisbon, a brisk wind out of Antarctica making it difficult to admire the view through watering eyes. Fflytte seemed the most impervious, and the most appreciative, visually devouring the red tile, the white walls, the noble dimensions of the plaza far below, the ruler-sharp line of the Avenida. On the rising hillside across from us, a patch of green among the red tiles indicated a garden at the back of the Teatro Maria Vitória.

  Pessoa, dressed in the thinnest coat of us all, methodically worked his way down the central valley of Lisbon: here the skeletal remains of a famous convent, there the lines of the shopping district and the roof of our hotel, across from us the odd construction of an outside lift used to raise pedestrians up yet another of the city’s cliff-like hills. I muttered that the city must have been originally settled by mountain goats, a jest that either Pessoa did not understand or did not appreciate, because after a glance at me, he led us down the esplanade towards the waterfront, where the buildings at our feet grew smaller, their right angles grew skewed, and the streets, to all appearances, disappeared completely.

  And there the director froze. He stood with his toes against the stones of the wall, bending his waist forward, his attitude so fervent one expected a vision of the risen Jesú to glisten against the faraway southern shore. A hand shot out, forefinger extended – then, as if leather made an intolerable barrier between himself and the object of his attentions, Fflyte tore off his glove and extended the bare finger, trembling gently with passion, or cold.

  “Look!” he breathed.

  We looked. At a harbour, a nice large harbour with the ocean off to the right somewhere. We studied the hills across the water, and boats of all sizes and descriptions, sailing or (more often, it being Sunday for fishing-folk as well) resting at anchor. From Fflytte’s attitude, I expected a cavorting whale or mermaid, or someone strolling on the surface of the grey water. I took a closer look at the angle of his pointed d
igit, then tried again.

  “The boat?” Hale asked, after a similar reconsideration of the forefinger. Which words didn’t help me much, since there were perhaps a hundred boats out there, but Fflytte looked up at his cousin with a face lit with the joy and yearning of a young girl cajoling for a Christmas pony.

  “Oh, it would be perfect.”

  As my eyes continued to examine and reject one floating object after another, my memory dug out and brushed off for my consideration a topic that had been touched upon during our meandering walk to the tram: Fflytte saying that we should need a boat in Morocco for one or two shipboard scenes. However, since this was still Lisbon, and since I knew the director well enough to suspect that his needs changed by the hour, much less the week, I had not inscribed his remark onto my mental to-do list.

  However, it had concerned a boat, and there were a lot of boats before me. I cleared my throat. “Er, which …?”

  Fflytte whirled on me with an outraged look, as if I had failed to pick out which in a group of otherwise unremarkable girls was his own adorable, beautiful, and in all ways unique fiancée. “That one!”

  “Two masts,” Hale murmured, rather more helpfully.

  Having had it both confirmed and narrowed down, I looked along the waterfront until I indeed came to a two-masted sailing boat.

  Or what had once been a two-masted sailing boat. At a distance, I could not be certain, but it did not appear to me as if the masts stood quite parallel to each other. And as a non-sailor, I could not be certain, but drunken masts did not strike me as a promising start.

  Fflytte whirled, his eyes burning with need. “How do we get down there?” he demanded of Pessoa, who for once seemed prepared for the strange impulses of his temporary employer. He pointed so readily at the exit that he might have been expecting the director’s demand. Fflytte seized the translator’s arm and hurried him towards the exit. I glanced at Hale, whose expression was, as I’d feared, somewhere between irritation and amusement.