I wasn’t bluffing about becoming a pirate, by the way. I had never really thought about becoming one prior to this, but it didn’t strike me as the most terrible profession imaginable, and I’d done plenty of things in my life that were worse than what I might find myself doing on a pirate ship. It was well within my skillset.
I didn’t end up becoming one, but I might have had things broken differently.
This was not the first time I’d been aboard a vessel taken by pirates, but the last time had been on a Greek ship in the Mediterranean, and the total number of pirates had been less than ten, none of which proved to be very good swimmers. This was a larger ship, with a lot more pirates. About half the crew I saw moved freely—there were many men chained to oars, which was the likely fate of most of the Spanish sailors—and the number of those free men approached thirty. It was unlikely I could out-fight every one of them. Maybe half that number, if I was very lucky.
I’m really not bragging. You have to understand that in order to have lived for as long as this without any special invincibility or anything—I can’t get sick, but that’s about all—I had to learn how to fight, and I had to be very good at it. Basically, in hand-to-hand combat or anything involving a blade I’m in pretty good shape.
I also had a pretty good blade. The sword I borrowed from Juan Pedro was the finest piece of steel I’d ever seen. He didn’t even understand how rare it was, and had never—so far as I knew—used it in actual combat. I wasn’t sure yet whether I’d brought the sword with me to buy my way onto the pirate crew or to fight my way through it. Possibly I was just looking for an excuse to hold it for a while before I died.
From the starboard side I was led—by what had to be the two largest men aboard— to a table on the foredeck, where the captain sat waiting for me.
“Please,” he said, in Spanish. “Have a seat, my learned friend. We speak your tongue now. None of these men know it.”
“I have many tongues,” I said, in Italian, as I sat. “But Spanish is fine.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “You are quite a mystery: a scholar who wishes to be a pirate. Do you know how to use that sword?”
“I do.”
“That’s good. When I fight you for it I want to feel as if I’ve earned the right to wield such a fine blade. How did you acquire it?”
“I told the fool on the other boat I had need of it, and he believed me. You’re Moroccan?”
“Yes. I am Yassine. You are Giovanni, I have heard them say. You are Italian? And yet claim to be an occasional Muslim. And fluent in many tongues. And by your claim, you are good with a sword. I admit you would be a fine asset to the pirate trade. It’s a shame, I really have no option but to kill you.”
“I agree, that is a great shame. Even if I tell you where there’s gold hidden aboard the other ship?”
“Even then, yes. We’ll take the ship, sail it to port, and tear it apart. We would take the men and the goods and just sink it but for the conspicuous riches nailed to the hull. We have little use for it otherwise.”
“You could resell it.”
“Would you buy a ship knowing it wasn’t fast enough to outrun the pirate selling it to you? No, sailors are too superstitious. The problem, Giovanni, is if I let you aboard as a fellow, there will be a mutiny, especially after the entire crew heard you ask. The only reason we’re speaking peacefully right now is to keep those Spaniards from developing a sense of purpose. So long as you live and they think you’re negotiating for them in good faith, they’ll stay their hand.”
“Then we seem to have an impasse.”
“Not really. I can kill everyone on your ship or you can contrive of a way to keep them alive for long enough to be subdued. You I will have to kill in either case, but I can give you a brave death for your troubles.”
“That’s very charitable.”
“I’m as reasonable as events allow.”
“If your only reason for speaking to me is to get me to help you take the Spanish peacefully, I’m afraid I have to disappoint you, Yassine.”
The two men who had escorted me were standing at a distance from the table. If I stood at that moment and drew Juan Pedro’s Damascus steel, the only person I would confront would be the captain, and my sense was this was intentional on his part, because he felt confident he could take me.
If we began to fight, however, I expected this would be a signal to the rest of the pirate crew that it was time to take the Spanish boat by force, and while this would leave me with fewer men to fight, it would complicate the entire affair significantly.
Basically, I didn’t see any way I was going to be surviving the next hour, not in the middle of the ocean. Anywhere else I could expect to fight my way to a hasty escape on foot, but I couldn’t swim to safety from where we were; it was too far.
“That’s a pity,” he said. “I had hoped you felt more charitable toward your crew.”
I stood, and put my hand on the hilt of the sword. “I’ve lived too long for charity.”
Yassine stood as well, and put a hand on the side of the table, the intent being to lift it aside so that we might have room to fight one another.
From my vantage I could see the Spanish ship, and I knew they could see me. As soon as I drew, they would do the same, and then it would be chaos.
Before any of that could happen, though, a sailor from the pirate’s mast gave a shout. It was either an incoherent cry, or it was in a language I’d never heard, the latter being extremely unlikely.
“What was that?” I asked.
Yassine squinted skyward. “What do you see?” he shouted.
The lookout made the same weird cry, and then pointed at the water.
“A whale?” I asked.
“I don’t know. He’s been addled by the sun for years. We put him up there to stay out of trouble.”
The starboard side of the pirate ship was lashed to the port side of the Spanish vessel, and most of the crew of both boats had amassed on those sides, so it was a moment or two before anyone on the pirate ship bothered to look into the water on the pirates’ port side.
“Captain!” the man shouted. He tried to explain what was out there but he had no word for what he had seen. “Come quickly!”
The captain joined his crewman at the port rail, and I joined them. This seemed like a good time to start fighting pirates, but I was a little curious what was going on in the water myself.
“Allah be praised, what is that?” Yassine asked.
What we saw was only a tail snaking past us in the water, but it was a huge tail.
Then I heard the sound.
“I have encountered this thing before,” I said. “Listen.”
A steady low thumping could be heard from the water, as it had been so many years before on the Mediterranean.
“What am I hearing?” Yassine asked.
“The heartbeat of the ocean.”
“Poetry doesn’t help explain what it is.”
“The word for the beast is tanakh in Hebrew. You have maybe heard it as tiamat, or rehab. Or leviathan.”
“You have seen a thing such as this before? Or do you speak now as from books?”
“I’ve seen one such beast before, yes. We are in grave danger.”
“Your danger has been nothing but grave for most of the day. You will forgive me if I take this as exaggeration.”
“You can take it however you like. We can drown together after that sea demon tears apart the ship, and in the next world you can tell me I was right. Or you can listen to me now and skip the drowning part.”
He shook his head. “I’ve seen many a great beast in these waters. I learned long ago not to fear the whale for its size, as it doesn’t care for us. You’ve chosen the wrong man to frighten with your stories.”
“All right. But the whale doesn’t circle back for a second look.”
The tanakh was doing exactly that, which was not lost on Yassine. It was also not lost on the other pirates, some of whom had
begun praying to Allah.
“Fine. Tell me what we should expect from the heartbeat of the ocean?”
I didn’t actually have a solid answer for this. The last time I was aboard a ship near one of these the only solution was to be as quiet as possible. I had since devoted years to learning more and had come up empty, and those years of study had partly been specifically for this moment.
“We will need to be silent,” I suggested. “And we should untether the Spanish ship.”
Yassine laughed. It was a loud, roar-at-the-sky laugh that was so exaggerated all the seamen around us felt compelled to laugh along with him, despite having no idea why.
“Oh, you are a shrewd man, Giovanni. If I didn’t know better I’d accuse you of conjuring that water snake for your benefit.”
“Listen and think, captain. You can catch the Spanish ship again at any time, but right now with the two hulls lashed together neither can move and both present a much larger target.”
“Target? To an indifferent sea creature?”
“This beast destroys navies, captain. I swear to Allah and on the steel of this fine blade that I am giving you the best advice I know. Untie the ships, and if we survive the afternoon you can recapture them as easily as a hawk to a sparrow.”
Swearing to Allah after admitting I’m only a Muslim when it’s convenient wasn’t going to get me far, but swearing on the blade had an impact. It was a very good blade.
“Come then,” he said, after studying me for a little longer than was comfortable. “We’ll untie your ship. But you will stay here. I believe you pose a greater danger on their ship than by my side.”
Together we joined the men on the starboard side of the pirate ship, where I ordered the Spanish sailors to untie their boat while Yassine ordered his men to let them.
“Are we freed?” Captain Grillo asked me from across the narrow distance.
“No,” I said. “There’s a thing you must do. We’re going to drift, and you are going to need to be as quiet as possible until I signal otherwise. There’s something in the water.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Giovanni!” Juan Pedro shouted. “Come, leap across! We will catch you and make our escape!”
“For God’s sake, don’t shout!” I said, unfortunately shouting as I did so. “Listen, both of you: check the depths, a creature is encircling us.”
“We have seen no such creature,” Grillo said.
“Look harder. I’ve seen it twice. You can hear it as well if you are careful and run still. Keep quiet, and keep your men quiet, and when the thing has passed we can continue with this negotiation.”
“Be wary of what’s beneath the surface, Giovanni, yes I understand!” Juan Pedro said. Then he winked at me and ran to help the crew untie the ropes.
It wasn’t until after we’d drifted apart that I realized my patron had managed to apply my philosophy lesson incorrectly, and at exactly the wrong place and time.
“Very well,” Yassine said, as we stared at the Spanish vessel being carried slowly away from us. “We are untied. What shall we do next? Set fire to our boat?”
A low thrumming traveled through the deck of the ship, the bass note of the tanakh. We looked down and saw it passing beneath us. I checked the other ship, only a boat-length away, and saw Grillo’s face as he realized there was indeed a great beast swimming around.
“Now we stay as still as possible. Tell everyone to stay where they are, try not to speak, and wait for it to go away. And we can hope that the people over there do the exact same thing.”
“Did you tell them to?”
“I did. But Juan Pedro de Hoyos heeds only his own counsel sometimes. Tell me, how are the winds?”
The pirate captain looked up at the flag atop the main mast. “They have improved, but not significantly.”
“Could we make decent speed to the coast?”
“Check for yourself, scholar. Tell me what the winds say.”
I looked at the flag, and the sails, and back at Yassine. “My direct experience with sailing doesn’t include an extensive understanding of stem-to-stern rigging. I know square rigs, and I understand rowing. That these ships can travel by sail in a direction that is not the exact same direction as the wind is still a matter of witchcraft to me.”
He squinted at me, wondering if I was joking. “How old do you think you are, Giovanni?”
“Older than I look. What is your answer?”
“We would make better speed with the oars than with sail under these conditions, regardless of our destination. But now I’d like to know if I have placed my trust in a madman.”
I ignored the question. “Moments ago I told you to hold everyone still and quiet, but if the Spaniards try and run, you need to be ready.”
“To chase them down?”
“No, no. To get as far away from them as quickly as we can.”
He shook his head. “You are mad.”
The Spanish ship had drifted far enough from us for Juan Pedro to decide it was time to act, and all of a sudden their deck was a flurry of activity. And someone was banging that drum.
Yassine looked at me. “Why does he—?”
“He thinks it makes the ship go faster. They have no oars.”
I’d mostly been ignoring the pirates that were frankly surrounding me for much of my time on the deck. I’d worried about convincing Yassine, in Spanish, not to act rashly. It was only after Juan Pedro and his golden boat started to race away from us that I really felt the presence of the others. Watching treasure sail away was not exactly in their nature.
“Why do we not follow?” the first mate asked the captain, in Arabic. There was a rumble of agreement from all around us.
“Don’t worry,” Yassine answered, looking at me rather than his first. “We will follow soon. The scholar believes in vengeful sea demons, and he has bet me his life.”
This caused some loud discontent that might have escalated to my being tossed overboard, but then came a loud… hoot.
Hearing it now I’d probably mistake it for a foghorn, but back then I didn’t know what I was hearing or what to compare it to. It didn’t sound like any kind of animal noise I’d heard before outside of maybe a whale song.
All the pirates looked at each other, then at their captain, then at me, but nobody knew exactly what to do about the strange sound so we all just stood there and checked the water.
“There,” one of the men declared, pointing to a spot in the otherwise calm waters between the vessels. It was the spine of the beast, breaking the surface.
It was heading straight for the other boat.
“Now would be the time to turn about, captain,” I said.
“Why? It isn’t interested in us. If, as you say, the key is to remain still, then why don’t we continue to remain still?”
“And if, being made aware of one boat, the creature decides to look for a second one, you will have lost the only opportunity you had to put some distance between us.”
The tanakh disappeared again beneath the surface. It was difficult to tell if it had driven deeper underwater or we’d simply lost sight of it because of the angle. The water still seemed to carry the slow beat of the creature, but with Juan Pedro pounding on the drum it was hard to tell the difference.
And then… nothing happened.
“I wonder if you have us concerned over no particular thing, scholar,” Yassine said. He turned to the first mate, and said, “Ready the sail. We can be on them again before nightfall.”
The pirates swung into action… for about three seconds. Then those of us who hadn’t taken our eyes off the other boat yet saw something we’ll take to our graves. The creature had swum under the Spaniards in order to surface vertically, nose-first, into the bottom of the ship. The impact raised them fully out of the water and several feet into the air before the serpent twitched and let them drop.
Ships full of men and supplies aren’t supposed to be dropped into water from a great height. It
can happen in a heavy storm if the waves are unpleasant enough, and generally speaking most ships are built to withstand that kind of impact. But in a storm the men are generally better prepared for unexpected gravitational shifts. Sails aren’t up, hatches are battened down, sailors are lashed to the deck or below deck if there is one. Simply picking up a boat and dropping it made for a lot of broken sailors is what I’m saying. That, and a lot of broken pieces of ship.
We didn’t hear Juan Pedro banging his drum any more after that. Just a lot of Spanish curses and general cries of pain.
Yassine no longer had any questions about the appropriate course of action.
“Quickly, you dogs! Set the sails, open the locks, we make for the coast!”
The pirate sailors were an orchestra of efficiency, as the oarsmen chained to the deck were prepped to row and men climbed the rigging to unfurl the sails, so as to use the wind to bring the ship around. Generally speaking using both oars and sails at the same time was only occasionally effective. If the sails were up when there was no real wind they might deter any forward progress made by rowing, so a coordinated effort between wind and man-power was usually needed. A good crew—and this was clearly a good crew—would find the right balance.
I had no particular function, so I maneuvered my way around the busy pirates until I reached the ship’s open wheelhouse, where the captain stood.
“My first mate now believes the gilded ship was a trap all along and you are a wizard,” Yassine said as he held the wheel.
“I would like to be a wizard,” I admitted. “But if I could conjure a beast like that I like to think I would figure out a way to do it without endangering what I’m standing on.”
Immortal At Sea (The Immortal Chronicles Book 1) Page 3
