by Ron Miller
But what could he do?
The Amber Princess was standing a few miles off the eastern shore of Tamlaght, just south of the entrance to Sommer Bay. There had not been much action for several weeks, and the crew, bored, restless and greedy, had become increasingly unhappy that Bassiliniden had, according to their lights, allowed too many likely prospects to slip away unmolested.
Rykkla and the captain were on the poop. The weather was fine, even if the wind was little more than a faint breeze, and they had only just finished their breakfast. The air, barely moving at dawn, was still and the heavy stagnation was only relieved by the draft from the courses as they flapped with the heave of the ship. The sky overhead and around was a yellowish grey with the blue rising of land to the westward, its detail hidden behind an impalpable haze. Moving across the sky, from east to west, were light, feathery, cirrus clouds. The captain pointed out the dark ruffles in the water caused by fitful puffs of breeze.
“There’s a typhoon coming, I’m afraid,” he observed.
Rykkla looked forward, not really aware of any particular reason, though some distant, intruding sound may have penetrated her unconscious, and saw one of the sailors, a grossly fat man with beetling brows whom she knew as Waterweed, in the weather main rigging shouting angrily to someone out of sight on the main deck beneath him. Meanwhile, the two bosuns came rushing up the poop-steps, along with Tholance and Thursby, looking behind them as they hurried. Both bosuns carried belaying pins and the girls were picking food from their hair and clothing. As though anticipating the coming trouble, diagnosed from the forward cabin door, the third mate appeared at the after-companion bearing three double-barrelled shotguns and three belts of cartridges while the carpenter, with bleeding nose, followed the bosuns and cook up the steps. The captain, the first mate and Rykkla, whose heart had begun pounding even though she had no idea what was going on, silently buckled on the belts that the carpenter handed to them. Taking a gun apiece, and mounting the house, they went forward to the monkey-rail, where they joined the three fugitives.
“Devil of a gang, sir,” said one of the bosuns. “Don’t know what to do with ‘em.”
“They wouldn’t eat their breakfast,” explained Tholance. “They threw their hash at me.”
The carpenter, busy with his ruined nose, made no comment.
Captain Basseliniden, Rykkla and the officers looked over the monkey-rail, upon which they nonchalantly rested their weapons, with the muzzles slightly and significantly depressed. Rykkla realized that she had not until that moment closely examined the crew. Clustered near the main hatch and looking aft curiously were the men who had been working forward, an unkempt and seedy muster of life’s failures, the material from which most pirate bands are developed. Directly beneath and looking up at the guns, the sight of which momentarily gave them pause, were more than a dozen scowling thugs in all stages of disarray. A few wore greasy caps or slouch hats while the rest were bareheaded. Here and there a tightly buttoned canvas jacket masked a hiatus beneath. One man, dressed in a complete suit of washed-out oil-skins, shivered palpably, though not in fear, as was made evident by his grey-tinged red hair, his great hooked nose, bushy, arched eyebrows and the threatening pose of his massive body, which was bent back and to the right with an iron belaying-pin extended at arm’s length. Two men were in their stocking feet; one was without even stockings, and three others owned but a boot apiece, not one a mate for any of the others. The clothing was uniformly greasy, tarred and patched, most of it constructed from canvas and blankets and not a garment among them fitting its wearer. One man, with trousers ending near his knees, was a giant nearly as large as Gravelinghe, and, aside from his bald head and a cast in one eye, was a perfect model of virile manhood. Others were stoop-shouldered and bent, and a few were nearly as fat as the man in the main rigging. All were middle-aged or older and on each face was a common expression of intelligence, resentment and disgust.
Captain Basseliniden looked them over and grew pale as he looked.
“What does this mean?” he asked, slowly.
“You know what this means, well enough!” answered the big, hook-nosed man, whom Rykkla recognized as Tuna Nose. “We didn’t sign onto this ship to take a pleasure-cruise for our health and beauty nor to play nursemaid to a bunch of females. If our present cap’n’s going to let every prize slip through his fingers, then we’ll get ourselves a cap’n who won’t!”
“Oh, you will, will you?” retorted Basseliniden.
“We will, indeed,” replied the spokesman. “And what about these wimmin here, eh? Ain’t we s’posed to share and share a-like in any booty? Ain’t them wimmin booty? They’s salvage, at least, I reckon. An’ salvage is share and share a-like, like it says in the Articles.”
“You’re not touching the women, not you nor any of you.”
“Well, ain’t many of us wants the big’un, it’s only fair enough to admit that, straight off. So’s if you wants her, that’s square by us.”
“It’s not a matter of who wants who. Either I’m captain here or I’m not . . . ”
A shout of “Then I guess you ain’t!” was followed by the report of a gun and Rykkla turned in time to see one of the bosuns stagger backward, both of his arms extended and his still-smoking shotgun slipping from his fingers, the second barrel detonating as it hit the deck, while the iron belaying pin which had impacted his forehead still whirled high in the air. A cry of pain rang out from the main rigging, angry and profane exclamations arose from the men on the main deck and the remaining officers on the poop sprang to the monkey-rail where Rykkla and the captain were threatening with their guns; the descending belaying pin struck Tuna Nose on his crown and he fell unconscious to the deck.
The man who had thrown the belaying pin secured a replacement from the pin-rail and resumed his position in the vanguard.
“They’ve shot Tuna Nose, too!” the sailor cried. “Let’s kill the murderin’ bastards and be done with it!”
“Back with you!” shouted the captain. “Down off my poop! If you come up here, I’ll shoot every last man of you. I am master here! Get down!”
Seeing the black muzzles of the shotguns staring steadily at them, the men slowly and sullenly backed down. When they had all returned to the deck, the new leader asked, his voice choking with rage, “Well, what are you goin’ to do now? Kill all of us?”
Rykkla leaned close to Basseliniden’s ear and said, “Captain, where is Gravelinghe?”
“What?” he replied, a little startled, then looked around the deck below. There was, indeed, no sign of the giantess. “You, men,” he shouted. “What have you done with the woman?”
He was answered by hoots and cat calls. “‘Bout time you noticed!” cried one of the sailors. “She’s all right, down below, and she’ll stay all right so long’s you do what we ask.”
Thursby wondered aloud, “How could they have taken her?”
One of the sailors, having heard this remark, replied, “She were asleep and we just beaned ‘er with a frying pan.”
“She’s trussed up like a roast,” said another, “and we’ll have no qualms about chuckin’ ‘er over the side, neither.”
It was now nearing twilight, and the wind, which had been increasing by huffs and puffs, was now blowing at gale force. The men on deck, whatever their personal wishes might have been, were forced to work against the storm. Drenched with flying spindrift and chilled with the typhoon’s cold, they labored by sense of sound and touch to save a ship they hated and a man against whom they had just mutinied, because they were sailors with a sailor’s peculiar code of ethics, which considers nothing else of importance during a time of stress. They hauled on hard, wet ropes against the counter-pull of the screaming wind, and with clew-lines and buntlines fast and reef-tackles chockablock, they scrambled aloft in inky darkness to fight out the battle on slanting foot-ropes, to clutch a handful of stiffened canvas only to have it torn away, to clutch again and again, gathering in the thrashing clot
h inch by inch, and holding by knees and elbows until a gasket could be passed, shouting cries of encouragement to one another against a wind that drove the words back into their throats, and conquering at last by pure perseverance, brute strength and endurance. By midnight they had the ship, under the three lower topsails, foresail, spencer, reefed spanker and foretopmast staysail, hove to and taking the short, vicious seas easily but drifting northwest into the mouth of the bay, with its jagged barrier reefs a menace under the lee. By daylight sail had been further shortened by taking in the fore and mizzen topsails and reefing the foresail, but the threatening reefs, a blurry line of churning grey seen through the spindrift, was well on the lee quarter and away from their line of drift.
A squall, thick with rain and the spume from wind-truncated combers, was rushing down upon them, pressing the heaving turmoil of sea to a level, adding a louder note to the storm’s song. It struck the Amber Princess and under the impact she lay over until the lee rail was buried in the indigo water. Rykkla and Tholance gripped the quarter-rail and sheltered their faces from the stinging fusillade, while behind them Basseliniden, acting for the striking helmsman, scowling viciously, bore down with all the strength of his muscular body. “Take in the foresail!” he shouted against the howling wind. “Look out for yourselves on the fo’c’sle deck!”
The first violence of the squall had passed, and the seas were again lifting their heads. The men had manned the weather clew garnet and buntlines, and the taking in of that foresail in such a furious wind promised to be an interesting spectacle, worthy of attention, had it not been for the distraction of the sudden, shrill cry of “man overboard!”
As the ship reeled and shivered, shaking itself like a wet dog, a mighty sea boarded the weather bow, tearing Rykkla and Tholance from their places and rolling them to the lee rail, where the almost weightless Tholance would have been lost had not Rykkla gripped the tiny waist with one arm while hugging the railing with the other. Once she saw that the girl was secure, she picked herself up and descended to the flooded main deck, where she saw that the foresail was thrashing over its yard and was going to pieces. Half a dozen men were scrambling to their feet, where the water was waist-deep in the lee scuppers. Once again, someone cried out, “Man overboard!”
Less fortunate than Tholance, Tuna Nose had lost his footing and had been swept off the forecastle. With all the agility of an acrobat, naturally enough, Rykkla scrambled up the main rigging and scanned the waste of grey water to leeward. A yellow sou’wester showed for a moment a hundred feet away, puffed up with trapped air, bobbing like a bouy. “He’s a goner!” she heard one of the men say, by way of eulogy. Just at that same moment, a huge figure suddenly loomed alongside her; she glanced, startled, in time to see the towering nude prolongations of Gravelinghe as she paused for a brief second before diving into the leaden waves.
Another sea, the last of the usual three, and the mightiest, lifted above the Amber Princess and dropped aboard. It was a deluge; it crushed in the weather side of the forward house, but left it otherwise in place; it tore men from their grips on ropes and belaying-pins and washed them about helplessly; it surged against the lee bulwarks and rose, a moving mountain, high over Rykkla’s head. It wrenched her from the rigging and bore her away, struggling weakly in her tightly buttoned coat and long rubber boots.
Few saw her go, but one was ready for action. Basseliniden, in his shirtsleeves, rushed across the deck and caught her in a flying tackle just as she was about to be swept over the railing. “Gravelinghe!” choked Rykkla, spitting and retching. “She’s gone over!”
Without a word, the captain snatched at the end of the forebrace, which he tied in a long bowline over his shoulder, rose out of the surging water and climbed the rail. Crying out, “Stand by to haul in!” he sprang overboard, and those who climbed the rail, not the least of whom were Rykkla and Thursby, watched him swimming bravely towards what seemed at first to be nothing but a floating oil-skin coat and then was revealed to be the body of Tuna Nose kept afloat by the big woman, who was even then drawing closer to the ship, paddling as efficiently as a machine with one long, powerful arm. Basseliniden reached her just as the men on deck had cleared away the last tangled coil of the forebrace. Rykkla saw him slip the loop around the waist of the unconscious man and wave at her by way of signal. She called for the men to start hauling.
The fourth and following seas had not boarded the ship, and in the comparative tranquility the crew hauled first their companion, then the captain and Gravelinghe to the side, where the latter caught the main-chase and climbed aboard unaided. The sailor was lifted up, weak, full of water, but still living. He was assisted aft while the captain, disdainfully avoiding the hypocritically hearty words and claps on his back offered by the men, made his way back to the poop. Gravelinghe merely stood among the cheering sailors, as oblivious to their attentions as the ship’s carved figurehead.
“I’ve had it with this business,” Bassiliniden snarled to Rykkla, as he rejoined her. “This sort of thing isn’t worth it. Once upon a time, I could get a crew of dedicated Romantics who were damn good pirates and enjoyed every minute of it. But now . . . ”
“What are you going to do? You can’t let them take your ship.”
“Why not? All the fun of piracy is gone, anyway. For years I’ve wanted to get into something simpler and safer, import and export, perhaps, or law. I’ve always wanted to paint, too. Might as well do it right now as any other time. I’m not getting any younger”
“You mean to turn the ship over to the men now? Here?”
“Why not?”
And he meant what he said. The worst of the storm had passed and the ship was now climbing and descending long, low rollers like a stagecoach on an undulating road, a heavy, oily movement. The captain called those of the crew who were not needed at the moment to watch the ship, which was most of the men, and they gathered in front of the poop, wary and hostile.
“Men,” said Basseliniden, raising his hand to quiet the murmuring, “this will be simple: you want the ship; all right, it’s yours.”
There was a long silence, until the crew realized that nothing more was going to be said. There was a confused stirring, a considerable mumbling, before one of them was relunctantly elected to be spokesman. It was the fortunate and abashed Tuna Nose. He was pushed ahead of the gang, hanging his head, wringing his watchcap, shuffling his feet.
“Well, cap’n, that’s right gen’rous and I, we accept. Um, just zactly what did ye have in mind now? I mean, uh, what are ye goin’ to do?”
“Why, leave the ship, of course, not that I can see where my plans are any concern of yours,” the captain replied. “I don’t have any more interest in it. Choose a new captain among yourselves if you want, I don’t care. Give me one of the longboats, some provisions and a little water and you’ll not hear from me again.
“And have no fear,” he added, seeing the uneasy look on the mutineer’s faces, “of reprisals. I’ve no more love of the authorities than you. In fact, they’d be so glad to see me that I don’t think that they’d listen to anything I’d have to say about a bunch of pirates somewhere on the high seas. The first thing that I plan to do is change my name and head as far inland as I can get.”
“I want to stay,” said an oboe--like voice that cut through the miasma of uncertainty, distrust and hostility like a foghorn. Rykkla had not heard that voice, nor even such a voice, before and looked for its owner. Gravelinghe had both of her hands held clenched above her head, as though that might make her more conspicuous, an unnecessary gesture in Rykkla’s opinion, and repeated: “I want to stay.”
Thursby stepped to Rykkla’s side and said quietly, “I think that I do, too, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“But I planned to go with the captain!”
“I thought that you would. I’d still rather stay here with Gravelinghe and the men. It sounds like a lot of fun.”
Rykkla looked down at Tholance, who was shyly grinding her right to
es into the deck. “I suppose that you’re turning pirate, too?”
“I guess so. I believe that it would please my father. I think that the experience would make a wonderful chapter in my memoirs.”
“Is it what you really want to do? You could start a new life in Tamlaght, if you wanted. I think that there may even be an estate waiting for you.”
“This is a new life. And if there is an estate that’s waited this long, it’ll keep a little longer.”
“If you’re certain . . . ”
“What’s certain? I just figure, what the hell?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MERMAIDS
Bronwyn awoke to an overpowering sensation of déjà vu. She opened her eyes but they seemed to be obscured by some sort of shimmering film that softened, tinted and distorted her vision, as though she were looking through a piece of fine, green, wrinkled silk. The minty emerald light pressed against her body evenly, everywhere, with a chilly firmness. There was a strange flow within her body when she attempted to breathe, she could only inhale and the oddly thick atmosphere seemed to pass directly through her head.
There was a face regarding her, beyond where her vision lost its sharpness, quivering as though it had just been released from a gelatin mold. It was a handsome face, she decided, even if it weren’t in focus: broad, set on a thick neck, with large, wide-spaced eyes, thin, almost lipless mouth with corners upturned in amusement, wide flat nose . . . but the head was completely bald. It looked like the face of a successful prizefighter, albeit a good-humored one who would never think of beating another human being to a pulp outside of the ring, the sort who wrote poetry or collected stamps on their days off. She was pleased being able to make such a detailed assessment so soon after her trauma, but some of this pleasure was a little spoiled when a brightly-colored fish drifted like a wayward butterfly between her face and that of the man.
