A King's Trade

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Then don’t tell him you did,” Lewrie leaned closer to suggest, snickering and laying a finger alongside his nose for a sage tap. His experience with foreigners was fairly broad, though he could not claim a working knowledge of any tongue but his own, and he was thankful that flirting with the girl wouldn’t require a hired interpreter or a glossary of useful phrases. Her accent, thick as it was, was nowhere near as incomprehensible as that Hungarian officer in the Austrian Navy, Lt. Kolodzcy, he’d been saddled with in the Adriatic back in ‘96, sailing along “the Bal-gan goast” in search of “Zerbian pirades,” and, “bud ov gourse, ve must fint our-selfs some wirgins”! All delivered with his double heel-click of precise punctilio!

  “So… are all Cossacks from the Volga as skilled in archery as you, Mistress Eudoxia?” Lewrie enquired. “I came to congratulate you on your skill, and accuracy. I’ve heard that Cossacks are superb horsemen, o’ course, but my word, I must say that you are possessed of a fine seat, as well.”

  They hit another language snag, for Eudoxia furrowed her brows at that compliment, and all but groped her slim bottom, peeking over her shoulder to survey her arse.

  “On your horse!” Lewrie chuckled in explanation before she took off on another angry outburst. “Excellent riders in England are said to have a ‘fine seat’…in the saddle, or, in your case, bareback. How did you learn all that?”

  Her hands flew to her mouth for a second as she saw the comedy in misunderstanding his idiom. As her hands came down, she didn’t just giggle girlishly, she laughed right out loud. “Oh, that seat! Da, all Cossack learn ridink from babies. Poppa is teachink me from a little girl. Have brother, but he go serve vit’ Czar in cavalry. We beink circus people all my life, I only child left, so he teach me like he teach brother. Poppa do act vit’ bow, do shootink vit’ guns, too, but act vit’ gun is… ex-pen-sive, ponyemayu? Unnerstand? Powder, shot,…and, be uhm… need rifle guns …” She frowned, searching for a word, and looking to him to supply it, right-fetchingly coquettish.

  “To be accurate, aye,” Lewrie supplied.

  ” Da, the ac-cer-rut,” Eudoxia smilingly agreed, waving him to a pair of rickety cane chairs so they could sit facing each other, with a respectable yard between them. “Gun act, be very slow. To re-load? Or must have many rifle guns, cost too much, make not so much money.”

  “So, you can shoot as keen with a gun as with your bow?”

  “Oh, da!” Eudoxia exclaimed, feckless, not boasting, but merely stating a manifest fact of life. She gloomed up, though, mercurially quickly, and laid her hands on her knees. “Poppa, one night…pan or flint go ‘piff!’ by his good eye. Cannot do no shootink act, anymore. I beink twelve, I think, when it happen?”

  “And you had to take over, to earn the family income,” Lewrie surmised, feeling genuine concern, though he did trowel it on thicker, for her benefit. “How terrible for you, Mistress Eudoxia.”

  “Nyet, not take over, I too little,” she corrected him. “Work dog and monkey act, ride bareback horse. Poppa is tendink horses and beasts, but is very little we make, for long time. And, Momma…”

  Eudoxia squirmed fretfully on her chair, dropping her gaze, and looking both pensive and a tad angry, too. “She very good singer, and actress, but must help Poppa, too? He lose place, act is over, so… I am fourteen, she run away vit’ damned French clown! Is also singer, actor, oh, opera grand, he thinkink! Very handsome, da, think circus and clownink is too low. Boast he be bolshoi opera czar in Vienna or Paris,” she sneered, “and Momma run ‘way to be opera czarina, too!”

  “Damn the French!” Lewrie commented with long-accustomed heat. “Never can trust a one of ‘em, I say. The arrogant bastards.”

  Clowns! he derided to himself; French clowns, worst of all!

  “Finally join Wigmore show in Lisbon,” Eudoxia related, heaving a heavy sigh. “Begin bow and horse act when I am beink sixteen, after Poppa teach me all he know. Old lion tamer sick and old, Poppa is good vit’ beasts, so he learn new act, but very hard on him. Poppa is proud. But…” she said with a fresh smile and hopeful expression, “now we makink the good money, ev’rything is karasho! Engliski, ‘bloody fine’!”

  “Good for you!” Lewrie said, patting the back of her hand that rested atop her nearest knee. “So, you’ve been doing your act how many years, now? No wonder that you’re so skilled, having honed your craft, your… art, so long.”

  “Art? Pooh!” Eudoxia spat, figuratively and literally, with a brief scowl. “Is reason Momma run ‘way. In letter she leave us, she say must follow her destiny, her art, hah! As for my act, I doink it six years, now. Now, twenty-two.”

  “You seem to have coped rather well, for all your heartbreaks, mistress,” Lewrie responded, “and I’m sorry if my mention of ‘art’ is a reminder of past sorrows, but…”

  “Hurt no more, Kapitan Lewrie,” she assured him, smiling back, and twining lean, strong fingers in his, with her impishness returning. “So, you are kapitan of bolshoi… big Engliski frigate, an Engliski gentleman. Must sail the whole world over, so many new places, like we do in circus. Is excitink? Meet many excitink new peoples…?”

  “Sometimes it seems just like a circus,” Lewrie laughed. “But, let’s speak of you, instead. I heard you’d done an entire year along the American coast. How did you like that, wild Indians and such?”

  “Oh, is grand, America!” Eudoxia enthused. “Big as all Russia, vit’ peoples so rich and clean, not serfs. Not like Russia! Where I get my boots, wild Indian…moccasins, at Savannah…!”

  “Ahem!” came a voice near Lewrie’s left ear, making him freeze in dread; would he have to pet another new (mostly harmless) creature?

  “Here is Poppa!” Eudoxia exclaimed, leaping to her feet, letting go of Lewrie’s hand. “Is our lion tamer!”

  “Errp!” Lewrie gawped as he shot to his own feet.

  The man with the eye patch stood near them, one hand on a dagger in his waist sash, the right holding his whip, uncoiled to the ground. The look on his harsh face could curdle sperm, piss, or strong brandy!

  “B’lieve we were introduced a few minutes ago, sir, but I didn’t exactly catch your name?” Lewrie smoothly offered, sticking out a hand in hopes the fellow would take it, thus partially disarming him.

  “Kapitan Lewrie, of the Engliski Royal Navy, here is my poppa, Arslan Artimovich Durschenko,” Eudoxia contributed with all the guilelessness of the righteously innocent, going all giddy-giggly. “Poppa, Kapitan…?”

  “Alan.”

  “Kapitan Alan Lewrie, spasiba… thank you, I meanink to say,” Eudoxia repeated, all but bouncing on her (chaste) toes. “Is proper manners to say Christian name and patronymic, Kapitan, to speak to my poppa.”

  “Mister Arslan…Artimovich, yer servant, sir,” Lewrie said.

  “Ummm,” Durschenko responded, not even looking down at Lewrie’s offered hand, and making that “ummm” rise from deep in his chest, like a bear awakened, grumpy and deadly, from his winter nap. The fellow’s jaws flexed and worked from side to side as he ground his teeth, very much, Lewrie thought, like a slavering mastiff eager for his dinner.

  “You must be very proud of your daughter, sir,” Lewrie quickly extemporised, striving for another of his “shit-eatin’ grins” and his nigh-perfected smarm. “In her skill, her poise, and talent, that is. I came to offer my congratulations to her, and ev’ryone else, d’ye see, for a most enjoyable show, which I hope my sailors will be able to see, once we reach Saint Helena…ah ha.”

  This ain’t workin’, Lewrie nervously considered.

  “Hah!” Durschenko Senior barked, not buying that for a minute. His live eye glared bullets, but he did shift his whip to his other hand, and un-handed that dagger!, to at last take Lewrie’s hand as if all was forgiven. Giving it a viselike squeeze, so hard that Lewrie felt his eyes were almost ready to water.

  “Heh heh heh,” Durschenko muttered with a feral, toothy grin.

  Lewrie gave back as good as he got, though, clam
ping down with all the strength he had. Never try that on with a sailor, Arse-lick Artimovich, he thought; nor a swordsman, either, ye old fart!

  They stood there, arms beginning to quiver, fingers going numb and white, shuffling closer to each other like two wrestlers looking for an opening to a sudden throw.

  “Oh, stoy!” Eudoxia snapped in exasperation, at last, seizing them by the wrists to pull them apart. “Stop that, both of you! The Kapitan is nice man! He mean no harm!”

  Don’t lay wagers on it! Lewrie thought, wishing he could shake feeling back into his hand without anyone seeing him do it.

  “Low bastard… fine gentleman, no difference,” Eudoxia cried, “no matters. I never meetink nobody that Poppa do not… oh, tell me what is word?” she flustered, looking to him for aid.

  Murder? Lewrie wryly supposed. “Distrust?” he said, instead.

  ” Da, distrust, spasiba, Kapitan Lewrie,” Eudoxia hotly agreed, her eyes glinting as cold as the snowy steppes that had birthed her. She turned to face her father and launched into a rapid, gutturally-garbling bit of foreign “argey-bargey.” Durschenko Senior glowered, scowled, gawped, and stamped a booted foot, by turns, leaning back and almost tittering at one point during her harsh tirade, growling and barking like the aforesaid mastiff in the same lingo whenever he could get a word in, which wasn’t often.

  Other circus people, including those smarmy clowns and mimes, were drawn to their little domestic “tiff,” and Lewrie wondered if he could crawl away, unnoticed, for every now and then, Arslan Artimovich would snap his head about to glower and snarl at Lewrie, and everyone in Wigmore’s Travelling Extravanganza surely had seen him and Eudoxia “at loggerheads” before. Perhaps, Lewrie dourly fantasised, they had also seen Durschenko lash an interloper away from his precious girl, and were waiting with rising expectations of a good show, perhaps even laying wagers on the outcome?

  Their business, now, not mine, Lewrie told himself, giving up all hopes of sporting with the girl, no matter how entrancing. I had a good, hot, freshwater bathe, a fine meal, and the circus was nice, really. Just toddle off? Stand here and look foolish?

  For a second, Lewrie wished he had thought to fetch his penny-whistle ashore with him…or knew how to juggle.

  The best he could do was manage a semi-dignified departure, if that, he sadly supposed. There was no point in risking being fed to Durschenko’s lions at the worst, or being whipped bloody, at the best. Flirtatious and coquettish as Eudoxia was, as welcoming of his attenions, there didn’t seem to be a rosy future in it.

  Their palaver ended, finally, with a sideways cutting gesture on her father’s part, which got his hand off the dagger and a “nyet!”

  “Well, I’ll take my leave …” Lewrie said, doffing his hat.

  “Eudoxia…goot girl, ponyemayu?” Durschenko rumbled deep in his chest. “Keep goot, me. Dosvidanya, bolshoi Kapitan. Goot bye!”

  “Understand completely, sir,” Lewrie replied, sketching a bow to him. “Ev’nin’, Arslan Artimovich. Good ev’nin’, Mistress Eudoxia. Hellish-good show,” he added, making a finer “leg” to her.

  “We see you again at Saint Helena, Kapitan Alan Lewrie,” she responded in kind, making a more graceful curtsy than he had suspected she knew how to perform. Dressing robes weren’t made for such, though.

  “Nyet,” from her father.

  “Da!” she hotly retorted.

  Time t’scamper, Lewrie thought, feeling the need to employ his hat for a fan, at the charms that curtsy had briefly revealed.

  He left them, still yammering away at each other, slinking red-faced and feeling like the veriest perfect fool, as he threaded his way through the circus folk.

  He could not help looking back, though, when he attained the draperies, to see the father leading Eudoxia away by her elbow, and she turned her head to watch him leave…for one last sight of him? She gave Lewrie a large-ish shrug as if to say, “Well, what can we do?” yet…a second later, began to grin, her mercurial, minx-like impishness returning. She pursed her lips for a distant kiss!

  Well, Lewrie thought, lustily stunned past dread; or close to it, anyway; Well well, well well, hmmm!

  *“Fuck your mother.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  To where might they run, Sir Tobias?” Capt. Graves of Horatius asked with a weary note to his gravelly voice after listening to Capt. Treghues expound on why he had decided not to allow shore liberty for their hands, now that they were snugly anchored in James’s Valley harbour, at the East India company entrepôt of St. Helena.

  “Why, aboard an East Indiaman for the better pay, sir,” Treghues rejoined in his best “tutor’s” voice, as if speaking to a student with all the tired patience required to get through a dull scholar’s skull. “Most especially, aboard a home-bound Indiaman, so they may jump ship in England, and desert their bounden duty to the Navy!”

  “All of which, sir, anchor here in James’s Valley harbour, for the very good reason that the only other possible anchorage where any ship of worth or deep draught may come-to is Rupert’s Valley, which is totally uninhabited…for the very good reason that there is not a drop of fresh water to be had, there, sir,” Capt. Graves belaboured. “In this anchorage, Sir Tobias, any seaman who takes ‘leg bail’ could easily be restored to duty by the very simple task of enquiring of, and going aboard to search, any Indiaman before it sails.”

  Capt. Graves (no kin to the influential Royal Navy Graveses) exhibited reasonably great patience, himself, and, for a tarry-handed and direct sort of old salt phrased his rebuttal slowly, borrowing a formal choice of words usually alien to his nature, Lewrie was pretty sure…but a volcanic simmering was just below the surface.

  “Then we could flog them blind, as an example to the others,” Capt. Philpott of HMS Stag added, almost tongue-in-cheek.

  “The island is thinly settled, Captain Graves,” Treghues said, with a thin-lipped aspersion. “All they’d have to do is scamper into the hills, live off the land for a few weeks to wait us out, then come down and sign aboard an Indiaman.”

  “The island’s thinly settled, sir,” Capt. Graves quickly said, “for another very good reason. Compared to Saint Helena, the Scottish Highlands are as lush as Tahiti! Can’t farm hills this steep, except for this valley, so there’s nought to steal and eat. Every resident of this bleak rock’s a member of the militia, and bored to tears, most-like. Raise the hue and cry, and they’d run ‘em down in a Dog Watch! And enjoy the adventure, to boot, sir!”

  “Then ‘John Company,’ or the garrison of the forts, gives them their floggings, and holds them in gaol ‘til the next warship arrives, sir,” Capt. Philpott stuck in, again. “Pity.”

  Treghues snapped his head about to glare his displeasure at such a waggish comment, but found Philpott’s phyz composed in a wide-eyed, benign expression which expression made Lewrie hide a grin with his fist to his mouth, and stifle a snort of amusement. Treghues swivelled about to bestow upon him an even sterner glare.

  “You said something cogent, Captain Lewrie?” Treghues snapped. “Is there a notion you wished to contribute, sir?”

  “Erm… only that I am quite in agreement with Captain Graves, and Captain Philpott, Sir Tobias,” Lewrie declared. “Though I’ve not called here before, it seems evident that there’s nothing upon which a deserter might victual, outside this little one-street village, and no place where any such might even find shelter. No trees to cut down to make a crude lean-to, to get out of the incessant winds. There are no beaches from which to fish. With only four hundred or so soldiers in the garrison, not over a thousand residents all-told, unemployed tars would stick out like sore thumbs, and be taken up right-promptly.”

  “A sailor intent to run would take any risk, Captain Lewrie,” Treghues countered with an impatient wave of his hand. “The fools.”

  “Though, may I point out, Sir Tobias,” Capt. Philpott eagerly added to Lewrie’s remarks, finding a willing ally, “that sailors who were not allowed ashore in England
before our departure, kept aboard at Recife, kept aboard here at Saint Helena, possibly denied liberty ashore at Cape Town, too, might be more eager to desert than sailors given a slight bit of free time, of leisure ashore…of trust, sir.”

  “Oh, rot, sir!” Treghues sneered, all but rolling his eyes in scorn. “Your average English tar is a drunken, ignorant, and irksome lout who’d sink into sloth, crime, and alcoholic stupors given the opportunity, Captain Philpott. Without continual watchfulness, without unending discipline to rein in their baser desires, they’d run riot in a twinkling! Oh, I’ll grant you, there are some honest volunteers who look to improve themselves, some men pressed under dubious legalities who come aboard imbued with sobriety and industriousness as a result of their former civilian employments, but…” Treghues waved away as if the situation was hopeless, and would always be so.

  HMS Grafton, so they had all learned on their long voyage, was a “taut” ship. Lewrie didn’t remember Treghues being quite so strict during the American Revolution, perhaps because old HMS Desperate had been a much smaller ship, with a smaller, more familiar crew. He had always stated that “a taut ship was a happy ship,” though how Capt. Treghues translated that to his present crew was reputed to be harsher. Then again, Treghues had been younger and full of promise, and hadn’t spent so many years idling ashore on half-pay, either. Nor had he wed such a dour termagant of such a bleakly forbidding nature.

  “But two whole days ‘Out of Discipline’ since departing England, Sir Tobias,” Capt. Graves cautiously pressed. “‘Gainst currents, and winds to here as long a voyage as it took to fetch Recife, with perhaps better than a month more ‘til we break passage at Cape Town, assuming we even do…liberty here at Saint Helena is the least we may do for them. Do they face the prospect of an unbroken voyage all the way to Bombay, to Canton in China, well…compared to those ports, liberty granted here is safest of all, sir!”

  That’s why there were two ships of the line in the escort; once past Cape Town and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, some of their trade would head for Bombay, some would bend their course for the Strait of Malacca, and China, with a two-decker 74 for escort. Treghues would choose which duty HMS Horatius might perform, which half he’d escort onwards in Grafton.