Jester's Fortune

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Women and . . . children?” he softly exclaimed. “My oath!”

  How could he employ the guns, if women and children were in the line of fire? he shuddered. And how could he save his captain?

  “Ninety-five guineas, you pus-gut,” Lewrie despaired, putting a brave face on it, though, as Mlavic smirked at him, blowing a premonitory kiss towards Mrs. Connor. He was coming close to his limit; slow as he’d drawn it out, he couldn’t continue this farce much longer. Mlavic looked tired of the game, too. In the beginning, he’d played up right-mocking, taking pleasure from his crew’s reactions, and the hopes and fears that played teeter-totter on Mrs. Connor’s countenance. Lewrie was beginning to run low on insults, too.

  “Hun’red!” Mlavic roared, mopping his face with a rough hand. “Hun’red guinea!” He leered at her, thrust his hips and grimaced.

  “And ten,” Lewrie retorted. “One hundred and ten, you low-bred Barbary ape!”

  “Hun’red fifty!” Mlavic bristled, finally getting tired of Lewrie’s insults. A few more, Lewrie speculated, and Mlavic would cry off the game, stick his butcher-knife in his ribs, take the woman, and declare himself the winner.

  “Two hundred,” Lewrie drawled, affecting to study his fingernails. Perversely, the Serbs whistled and catcalled, cheering with a muttering like the House of Commons on a testy day. Mlavic paused, as one hand went to his purse by its own volition, as if he had to assure himself he had that much. That drew more cheers, of the mocking sort, which made the pirate chieftain whirl about, glowering them to silence.

  Aye, had enough o’ the game, Lewrie bitterly told himself; and enough o’ bein’ hooted by his own side, too! It’s all up.

  “Five hun’red, British boy-fucker!” he spat, a triumphant grin on his face. “Show me! Show guinea, now!”

  “Six hundred,” Lewrie countered, stepping forward and hefting his heavy wash-leather purse, jouncing it like a juggler’s ball. “All two-guinea coins, Venetian ducats, Austrian guilders . . .” Mirko the guard didn’t follow, and Kolodzcy, Howse and Spendlove had been allowed on their feet long since to root for him bid-by-bid. Far enough away from their captors, he wondered? This ain’t goin’ t’work, but . . . !

  Lewrie turned, a mocking, jeering smile on his phyz, one brow raised in celebration, to face them. He winked and nodded, slow and significant, jutting his chin up slantwise towards the nearest armed men. Spendlove went pasty-pale, and Howse began to tremble. From Leutnant Kolodzcy there was a fatalistic bow of his head, and a quirky grin.

  “Bid was six hundred guineas to you, Mlavic,” Lewrie taunted, stepping within a long arm’s reach. “Put up or fold.”

  “Fun with me, hah? Fun with Dragan, hah?” Mlavic roared, and fumbled for his heavy money-bag. He ripped it open and spilled money on the ground in a glittering golden shower. “One t’ousand guinea, I say! You no got that much, you . . . !”

  Lewrie tensed, ready to spring, planning to go for one of those pistols first, then for Mrs. Connor. Shoot Mlavic in the belly, then take his scimitar or his butcher-knife? Mlavic half turned, though, of a sudden, raising his arms to jeer and show his empty purse to his men, who began that hackle-raising wolf howling song.

  BOOOMMM! though. The harsh barking of a 9-pounder! The Rwarkk! of rivened timbers by the beach. Mlavic turned to face it, goggling at the sight of one of his forty-footer boats in midleap after being struck by round-shot and grape in a froth of spray and splintered wood, blown clean from the water!

  His back was to Lewrie. In that split second before he could turn, Alan dove forward, stung into sudden motion without thought. He got hold of both pistols by the butts and leaped free, levering back their dog’s-jaws with his wrists. “To me!” he howled, backpedaling towards where he thought Mrs. Connor had been. He collided with her, as she was of the same mind and had rushed to him, almost knocking them both off their feet. He had a quick glance to see Howse cowering away, Kolodzcy smashing a handy bottle over a guard’s head and seizing his sword arm and wrist. Spendlove was kicking the angelic-looking tormentor in his “nutmegs” and lifting his knee in a rough-and-tumble “Dutch Kiss,” a trick he’d obviously learned on the lower decks from the hands.

  And BOOOMMM! again, and the second boat was leaping skyward.

  “Stay at my back, don’t let go of me or the boy!” Alan warned Mrs. Connor as he turned to face Mlavic. His sword was drawn, and he was crouching to fight! Lewrie leveled a pistol at his heart and began backing away towards that hut. Mlavic sneered at the threat, pacing forward slowly, just out of sword-reach.

  “No loaded, British,” Mlavic sing-songed.

  “We’ll find out, then, won’t we?” Lewrie grinned back, praying he was lying. “Care to lay a guinea on it? What’s your bid now, hey?”

  At Mlavic’s beck, a pirate rushed from the right, sword back for a head-lopping slash, and Lewrie aimed, pulled the trigger as the child and Mrs. Connor screamed. It fired! And the man pitched over backwards!

  “One!” Mlavic laughed. “Have one left.”

  BOOMM! BOOMM! BOOMM! Sweet music, those three more shots from Jester’s 9-pounders, this time loaded with grapeshot and canister, and fired a tad high, Lewrie took time to note. The trees and bushes on the desiccated island thrashed with the impact of a thousand musket balls or plum-size shot, a bit over the height of a man. But they drove nearly everyone to their faces or knees—Mlavic, too!

  “Run!” Lewrie cried, dropping the empty pistol and grasping Mrs. Connor by the hand in the short moment of grace that partial broadside had bought them. He made it to Kolodzcy and clubbed down one of the guards from behind, freeing the Austrian to pick up a sword and that man’s pair of pistols. A moment more and they were with Spendlove, who was hewing about with a cutlass, keeping two at bay. A quick shot and one was down with a bullet in his kidneys, and their swords were clashing. Spendlove, freed, turned his attention to the other and began the cutlass drill . . . left foot stamp and down-left slash, right foot stamp and back-slash right, balance step and recover. He beat the Serbian’s scimitar aside and round-housed a back-slash that laid the man open.

  “The hut!” Lewrie shouted, stooping to retrieve a Turk-style sword. “Out of the line of fire . . . go!”

  BOOMM! BOOMM! BOOMM! This time, aimed lower, and men who had leaped back to their feet were swept away in a howling, shrieking horror. Not just pirates, unfortunately, but some of their victims as well, who’d been dashing about witless. Mlavic had dropped once more to his belly, barely ten paces behind. He was up in a flash, bellowing orders and trying to muster his chaotic, half-drunk men into a fighting force. They came from the woods or huts where they’d been sporting, down from the stockade, running for stands of muskets, then drew swords and began to form a rough protective line above the beach.

  This kept Mlavic too busy to deal with Lewrie, for a moment. They dashed for the hut, Alan dragging the woman almost off her feet in his haste, now they had another shot-bought moment of grace. A pistol lit off and Lewrie turned to see another pirate spin about and drop, just by the hut’s side. Kolodzcy growled something in German and cocked his other pistol. And there went the little fifteen-year-old girl Mlavic had his eye on at first, stark-naked and screaming up the hill for the prison.

  Howse leaped to his feet, almost under Lewrie’s, to run whining ahead of them, still weaponless. Spendlove had armed himself with two more pistols by then, and shoved one at Howse, who took it in passing, still intent on some dubious safety. “Can’t find more pistols, sir,” Spendlove confessed as Lewrie reached him.

  “Three shots, then,” Lewrie noted, looking to the beach for a sign of a landing-party. Could they hide somewhere? But where would be safe? And where the hell was Knolles? Surely . . . !

  “Four . . . I reload dhese,” Kolodzcy panted. “Ged our swords, I beg you, sir. Gif me your pistol. Herr Spentluff unt I, ve vill hold dhem off.”

  Lewrie ducked into the hut, tearing away the flimsy sail-cloth door, and scrounged about for weapons, leavi
ng Mrs. Connor and her boy shivering outside, the boy crying incessantly. He found his sword and Mr. Spendlove’s prided dirk, the elegantly ornate small-sword Kolodzcy wore. But no more firearms.

  “Down to the beach, ma’am,” he urged as he came out. “Take the boy and go, now, while there’s time. Our landing-party—”

  “If the pirates are between here and there . . . ?” she whinnied in a breathless pant, half out of her wits with terror, but fighting hard to master herself. “We all should go?”

  “Might as well, we’ve ruined supper!” Lewrie cracked, happy to have his hanger once more in his hand. He looked at her, and was most surprised to see her smiling! She still shivered with fright, but she was smiling, tittering on the verge of semi-hysterical humour, like a doomed man who’d rather not weep, thankee.

  And noticed for the first time, by the amber light of Mlavic’s campfire, what a stunningly handsome woman she was! So exotically high-cheeked, with a squarish jaw that tapered to a pert chin and a wide, full-lipped mouth. Large amber eyes aslant like almonds, heavy-lashed and browed . . . ! Her classically sculpted little nose . . . !

  Damme! he goggled. Splendid poonts, too! ’Bout t’be knackered or no, and I’m gone calf-eyed over—

  “Whatever shall we do now, sir?” Mr. Howse interrupted, coming from God knew where, which apparently he hadn’t deemed completely safe. Lewrie had the thought he could hear that worthy’s teeth knocking together. But the man had a pistol!

  “Mr. Howse, make yourself useful. See Mrs. Connor and the lad down toward the beach. Take that harem pig-sticker yonder and gimme your pistol.” Howse stooped for a massive chopper of a blade, handed the pistol to Lewrie— who winced as the fool offered it half-cocked and barrel-first, with a hellish-shaky finger still on the trigger!

  Thank God for small miracles, Alan thought wildly; my own side hasn’t gut-shot me! Yet, he amended.

  “We’ll be close behind you, fending ’em off. Now go, sir!”

  He turned to face the pirate camp, which was sorting itself out at last, with Mlavic the loudest and fiercest, about thirty yards off. And felt a light tap on the back of his coat collar. He turned . . .

  “Patrick always said”—she shuddered, looking achingly lovely for someone who could still get chopped—“Have a ‘touch for luck.’ Touch a sailor’s collar. Thank you!” She smiled once more.

  “Hope it works, Mistress Connor . . . for somebody.” He grinned. Then she was gone, gathering up her half-stunned and wailing child, to join Mr. Howse by some low bushes further down the slope to the beach.

  “Achtung, eine Angriff kommen!” Kolodzcy warned. “Mlavic!”

  With most of his men sorted out, Mlavic had turned his attention to them again, him and a dozen others, coming at the trot.

  “Captain, I kill you!” Mlavic howled. “Kill you slow!”

  “Carefully . . . aimed fire,” Lewrie ordered, leveling his first pistol at full-cock, waiting ’til they got within ten paces. Furious for blood or not, the pirates shied a bit, none of them wishing to be in the lead, with Mlavic howling and driving them on.

  BANGG! The harsher, chuffing bark of a 2-pounder boat-gun down near the beach, spewing canister in an expanding cloud of lead pellets. BANGG! came a second, slashing at the centre of the pirates’ camp and flinging men off their feet. The landing-party was within yards of the shore, Alan most gratefully realized, the small guns mounted in the bows of their boats! Those shots raised a wailing from the wounded, behind and to Mlavic’s rear, and froze his men for a second to peer or check their progress, wondering what new deviltry was coming.

  Lewrie took aim and fired, and one pirate dropped his weapons to grab at his shattered thigh, but Lewrie had been aiming at his chest! He tossed that one away, brought up his last. Spendlove fired but missed, then Kolodzcy lit off his first, taking one man in the throat and throwing his blood-spouting body back into another.

  But then they were dashing forward again, and Lewrie fired that last pistol as Kolodzcy did his. One went whirling down, with a wound in his shoulder, Lewrie’s target screamed rabbity as he was plumbed in his stomach; Lewrie had been aiming for his upper chest!

  So much for Arabee pistols, Alan thought, tossing away his last and drawing his hanger. The odds were better, though, he told himself grimly; four down—that’s eight-to-three.

  Lewrie took stance, hanger held low before his middle at Tierce, and it took an unthinking second to go from Third into a box-defence, then riposte, and sweep his keen Gill’s across his first opponent, to rip his belly open! There was a shrill scream from his right, as one more pirate came lurching backwards, pedaling to stay upright, clutching his skewered stomach to plop and thrash. Then it was Mlavic before him, stepping over that mortally wounded man and snarling defiance!

  At low Third again, the first engagement ringing, Mlavic beginning with a slash down from high-right, easily parried, turned over by a flying cut-over, then a lunge low, and Mlavic was backpedaling, too, suddenly wary. He came on as Lewrie stamped forward a foot or two, with a back-slash from his left, again easily parried. Mottled Damascus met British Gill’s, sparks flying from edge-to-edge, and that curving blade singing as it carved the air!

  No swordsman, Alan exulted, already panting for air. A quarter-circle scimitar’s made for cuttin’, not the point . . . get inside! And he don’t know anything else.

  “Marines!” Came a distance-thinned bray from Sergeant Bootheby, on the beach at last. “Cock yer locks . . . lev- el? By volley . . . fire!” Then the welcome rattle of musketry, and over Mlavic’s right shoulder Lewrie could see Serbs falling back in disorder, right to the edges of their encampment, even as he and Mlavic still fought, their hands and eyes performing without conscious thought in furious melee. Lewrie hoped Mlavic might turn his head for a squint, but it wasn’t to be.

  A thin cry to his left, which Lewrie also ignored, but there was Spendlove in the corner of his eye, in full whirl, having downed one for himself. His ear caught a cessation of tinkering to his right as a heavy body thudded to the ground without a cry.

  “Vier!” Kolodzcy hooted in triumph, even as he engaged another.

  Almost decent odds now, Alan thought, beating out a boxdefence by rote, jabbing with his straighter Gill’s for an inner-arm cut or a thigh-cut, an eye-jab, which made Mlavic retreat steadily, now wheezing with anger and effort as his slashes and clumsy lunges were made nought. Lewrie made his face a feral grin, to discomfit him.

  But then Mlavic leaped backwards, spry for such a heavy man—to draw that wicked black-iron butcher-knife from its sheath, and come back to the attack with a blade in each hand, slashing or stabbing like a two-headed monster! Lewrie had to give ground, grunting hoarse as he fought to meet both. And it was Mlavic’s turn to gloat!

  Now, where’s help when I need it? Alan groaned. Marines, sailors, a knife . . . bloody table-fork, anything! He searched for a stick, some discarded weapon, a blazing brand from one of the fires . . . !

  “Funf!” Kolodzcy shouted; another of his foe-men down. Then a grunt from the left as a pirate staggered away, clutching at a torn sword-arm where Spendlove had laid him open. Yards away, though; he’d been lured out towards the centre of the camp. A fainthearted Serb went haring by, dashing for the far shore, all the fight scared out of him.

  Mlavic’s scimitar was coming, this time not in a slash, but with a straight-armed lunge, wrist inverted and cutting-edge up! Lewrie swept to parry off low and left, flail it over high and right, slide down and slash at his arm with the edge to slow him down—quick, for his knife from the right! . . . He met the knife’s blade, parried that wide and away . . . sword! Down and slashing with his tip, he nicked the pirate on the chin, through that tangled mat of beard, felt his hanger clang as he continued down and to his left onto the scimitar, but . . .

  He was off balance, wrong-footed, counter-lunging to fend that bastard back for some stumbling room. A feint from the knife, though, and he was ducking to his left, and Mlavic stepped bac
k, and Alan felt a searing pain on his left outside calf, a drawing stroke!

  “Buggered!” he gibbered.

  He retreated on his right leg, a three-foot leap, but as soon as his weight came down on his left leg, he was sprawling on his back, as it folded on him like a shoddy stool. And Mlavic was on him before he could blink! Lewrie feebly put his hanger up to ward him off.

  Clang! though.

  Suddenly there was a sword above him, horizontal, whirling silvery in parry, jabbing and darting as Leutnant Kolodzcy stepped over him and forced Mlavic away! Dancing sidewise in little, fitful hops and jumps almost too swift to be followed, to circle large round the hunkering, wary bear-shuffle of a stunned Mlavic, drawing him off toward the fire in the middle of the camp.

  By God, that hurt! Lewrie felt like screaming. His calf was ablaze with pain, and blood gushed freely, making him wonder how near to bleeding to death he was, how close to losing his lower leg, even did he get the bleeding stopped! “Ah, Christ!” he yelped, going light-headed, faint, feeling that weak swoon that always seized him after a fight. And hearing an immense waterfall-ringing in his ears.

  Then hands were on his body, lifting him by his shoulders, and someone large and hulking was kneeling near his left leg. There came a painful bout of rasping as something rough went taut below his knee that squeezed and squeezed.

  “Be fine, sir, be fine, swear it,” he heard from his left, and there was Spendlove, disheveled, nicked and bleeding, perspiring like a Canton coolie, but whole. A scent in his nostrils, like a spiced tea . . . rosemary and thyme, attar of some flowers, too? No, soap, rosemary and thyme, clean hair.

  Couldn’t be Spendlove, he thought weakly.

  He lolled his head right, to try and focus on Mrs. Connor, who sat by his right shoulder, supporting him, felt a cool, soft hand on his brow, stroking so gently . . .

  The hulking form was back, pawing him and prodding vigourously. There came the thud of a wooden box, the tinkle of gleaming, silvery things. More fire in his calf as something wet and stinging was laved over it, and he caught the sweet-and-sulfur tang of West Indies rum on the air. Then came a single blazing-red star from somewhere not that far away, wavering and sputtering, nearing . . .