The Pyrates

by George MacDonald Fraser

  “What makes you think my spider would go near you, you detestable excrescence?” lisped the other, pale eyes fiendishly a-glitter. “No … if you displease me, by letting our little charade go to your head – you lured them here, indeed! – I shall have you impaled on burning bamboo after all, and listen to you sizzling in your own fat.” He lowered his great bulk onto the throne, and the dreadful eyes rolled at the prisoners. Suddenly the deadly sibilant voice rose to a scream. “Why aren't they grovelling? I want to see them crawl!”

  Enchillada scrambled quaking to his feet. “On your knees, 'ereteec peegs!” he squealed. “Abase yourselves before 'Ees Excellencee Don Lardo Baluna del Lobby y Corridor, Viceroy of the Eendeez!” And Sheba and Bilbo were thrust prostrate before the throne.

  Well, here's a turn-up – and if it's a surprise to you, picture the astonishment of our principals, especially the disguised Meliflua peeping horror-struck from behind her pillar at the back. This nightmare creature was the real Viceroy, the man she was to marry? Her senses performed a terrified sidestroke. Why, this was a Grade A tarantula, and obviously barmy to boot – the fat little chamberlain, who'd been posing as Don Lardo, was almost attractive by comparison. A greasy, lustful little podge, admittedly, but sane at least, and she could always have shut her eyes and thought of Aragon … But this hideous fruitcake! Oh, parents dear, she moaned, how could you?

  Sheba, crouched at the tyrant's feet, was reaching the same conclusion. No melting sundae herself, she felt a nameless dread as the real Don Lardo's mad, evil eyes slithered over her; cruelties and vices undreamed of lurked in their empty depths, and she shuddered as he reached down a huge hairy hand to fondle her shoulder.

  “'Tis a most exquisite jungle bunny,” hissed the Viceroy. “No wonder you slobbered over her, Enchillada – but you shan't have her, oh no! I shall enjoy her exclusively – and afterwards have her racked to pieces. Unless,” he added with a hideous chuckle, “I decide to combine the two operations … what better accompaniment to love-making than her screams of agony and snapping bones?” He laughed crazily, and the courtiers squirmed uneasily and muttered that it was a great idea, and why hadn't they thought of it? The Viceroy's staring eyes raked them, and stopped suddenly at Captain Avery, who was still standing sword in hand where Bilbo had left him. “Who's he?” cried Don Lardo, glaring at Enchillada. “I don't know him! Is he another endemonised foreigner? Why isn't he grovelling, por Dios?”

  Now, you or I would have been frozen witless, but not our Ben. With courtly grace he sheathed his rapier, made a leg, shot his cuffs, composed his eyebrows with urbanity, and strode gracefully forward, tripping only slightly over the prostrate Bilbo. With a flourish he drew a document from his breast pocket.

  “Permit me, Excellency,” said he, and the fluency of his Spanish would have done credit to a coffee commercial. “I am Don Espresso Banana, commander of His Catholic Majesty's ship Santa Cascara, which lies presently beyond the roads. My credentials.”

  Cries of astonishment rose from the crowd as Enchillada, at a nod from Don Lardo, took the document and scanned it.

  “These are luncheon vouchers from the Escurial cafeteria,” he cried in bewilderment.

  “What?” bawled Don Lardo, goggling.

  Avery frowned in vexation. “My mistake,” he said, and pulled papers from another pocket. Enchillada took them.

  “Why, Excellencee!” he yipped. “'Eet's a fact! Thees ees eendeed Don Espresso, an' 'e breengs your Excellencee's nobble an' raveesheeng child-bride, Donna Meliflua, from Spain! But, señor”, he added, as the crowd gasped at this sensational news, “we deedn't expect you for weekses!”

  Avery made a gesture of elegant deprecation. “What would you? The lady was so eager that we sailed ahead of time”. He bowed tactfully to Don Lardo. “Who could blame her?”

  “But of course!” Don Lardo grinned wolfishly, shuddered with delight, and gave Enchillada a brutal belt over the ear. “Wasn't it obvious, animal? She couldn't wait, the avid little cupcake! They never can! Caramba, but I've got the message for the birds, me!” Sycophantic cries of agreement came from the courtiers, while the lackeys replaced Don Lardo's gnashers, which had fallen out again in his excitement. “But where is she, then, the fortunate chiquita?” he demanded eagerly, and Donna Meliflua gave a stifled moan of terror and shrank behind her pillar.

  Avery sighed. “Alas, excellency, she is a trifle fatigued from the voyage, and begs your indulgence that she remain aboard tonight. I was hasting to announce our arrival when I recognised this desperado,” he boldly indicated Bilbo, “and engaged him immediately, as duty demanded. Pray accept him,” he bowed over the prostrate buccaneer, “with my compliments.”

  By jove, he can think on his feet, can Avery. He had been ready, as we know, to deliver the reluctant Meliflua to her betrothed, but now that he's seen Don Lardo in close-up, he's realised that it just isn't on. This ghastly gargoyle, playing with his beastly tarantula and looking like Boris Karloff after an unsuccesful face-lift, simply won't do. A bounder without taste, and not the full hod of bricks, either; certainly not a fit mate for a sweet señorita, whatever Mummy and Daddy may think. No, Avery has decided that he'll have to find her again and get her out of this monster's clutches somehow, but for the moment he must stall for time and hope that his borrowed clothes and Castilian accent continue to pass muster – which they would have done, but for one thing. Bilbo, held face down before the Viceroy's throne, and keenly conscious of his position, was shot if he was going to let Avery get away with this. He writhed in his captors' grip, and prepared to bawl denunciation.

  “Od's blood!” he shouted. “Thou King's pimp, d'ye think we'll go down the drain without taking you with us? I'll learn you to cross swords wi' me and make personal remarks about my wig! Shalt share our fate! Hear me, Dagoes! This Don Espresso is—”

  “Mum, Bilbo!” cried Sheba. “Shut your scuttle!” And as much from amaze as in obedience to the Brotherhood code, Bilbo cheesed it, while Don Lardo went ape.

  “They're talking!” he frothed, clenching his enormous fists and rolling his goosegog eyes in frenzy. “They're not grovelling in abject silence! It's unbelievable! Why doesn't someone tear out their tongues, or sew up their lips with red-hot needles, or tell them to shut up? I can't stand it! Take them hence! Chain them in dungeon dank and deep! Notify the Inquisition! Take their names, ranks, and numbers!” He flung his enormous scarlet body about on his throne, ghastly features suffused, dabbing at his emerging dentures wi' flimsy kerchief (a sure sign this, in any seventeeth-century villain, of approaching apoplexy), and at Enchillada's urgent chivvying the two pirates were dragged hastily out, Black Sheba darting Avery a smouldering glance in which entreaty, warning, concern, passion, perplexity, and come-hither were admirably blended. The gross Don Lardo, who had squashed his spider in his rage, was fanned into tranquillity by his attendants, who replaced his teeth and gave him a new black widow, which he yo-yoed breathlessly.

  “God, I knew it was going to be one of those days!” he hissed breathlessly. “Where was I?” His pale, empty eyes blinked redly at Avery. “Ah, yes … Don Espresso. So my little bride wishes to rest – no doubt she is apprehensive about meeting my own standard of perfection.” He leered horribly, beckoning Avery with a finger like a hairy cucumber. “Tell me, as hombre to hombre, is she as worthy of my bed as her portrait promises?”

  Dashed bad form, as well as being one of those tricky have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife questions, thought Avery. He answered guardedly, lest he provoke this nutcase to frenzy, whether of jealousy or enthusiasm. “'Tis not for me to say, gracious excellency,” quo' he smoothly. “Yet did I remark rather the lady's beauty of character and perfection of nature, her delicacy and taste—”

  “You mean she enjoyed the floggings and keelhaulings on your voyage?” cried Don Lardo, his ghastly map alight with hellish animation. “Oh, goody! A consort after my own heart!” He yo-yoed the black widow up and down, licking his dreadful lips. “I think,” he lis
ped, “that I shall give her an auto-da-fé as a wedding present. Ah, the crisp fragrance of relapsos burning at the stake – she will adore it! I can't wait to meet her!”

  Little Enchillada, nodding greasily at his master's elbow, murmured: “Then you won't be needing that chocolate cookie Sheba, weel you, Excellencee? Don' worry, I'll arrange to have her disposed of—”

  “One more peep out of you,” lisped Don Lardo icily, “and it'll be burning bamboo time, remember? Which reminds me, in the morning I shall preside at the interrogation of the rogue Bilbo – he shall tell me where lies his ship, and any other snippets of information about his pirate brethren that we can wring from him. Thereafter, what's left of him can be turned over to the Inquisition. The black tomato,” he went on with a mad cackle, “shall afford me amorous sport before she goes the same way. Then a quick shave and shampoo, and I'll be all set to receive Donna Meliflua when you, Don Espresso -” his mad pale eyes glinted in Avery's direction – “bring her ashore tomorrow night. Until then, you remain here as my guest – see to it, Enchillada, and the rest of you: On with the dance!”

  He waved a huge scarlet arm, and as he was borne out on his throne, yo-yoing his spider and laughing crazily, the band struck up “Viva España,” the courtiers abandoned themselves again to the heady Latin measure, or crowded round the buffets for a quick blast (Don Lardo's appearances invariably sent the alcohol consumption rocketing), Enchillada handed back the luncheon vouchers which Avery had presented by mistake, our hero nonchalantly retrieved Black Bilbo's fallen rapier from the guards (that's two bits of the Madagascar crown he's got now), Donna Meliflua continued to hide behind her pillar, Sheba and Bilbo were chained up by their brutal jailers in the loathsome gloom o' dungeons far beneath the palace, and in the wine-cellar Goliath the dwarf gave up his attempts at artificial respiration on the sozzled Firebeard, and feeling like a drink himself, mooched among the casks of Amontillado and Fiesta Burgundy in the hope of finding a bottle of Bass. There wasn't any. “Guzzling Dago gits,” observed Goliath moodily, and with a sigh, got stuck into the yellow Chartreuse.

  Just another typical night at the Viceregal palace, Cartagena, and it isn't over yet. Avery's got problems. Will his disguise be pierced? Can he rescue Donna Meliflua before tomorrow night? Will his guest room be away from traffic noise and the laundry chute? Why doesn't the loony monster Don Lardo consult a decent dentist? It's all very distracting, and liable to play havoc with the schedule of our hero's campaign against the Brotherhood; at this rate it'll be weeks before he gets back to Vanity who, he fondly supposes, has been picked up from Aves by Vladimir Mackintosh-Groonbaum. We know better – or do we? Where is Vanity by this time, for it's thirty-nine long sea-pages since we last saw her helpless in the grasp of the love-sick Happy Dan Pew. Whither has he borne her, and what's the score, and how is Blood doing, an' that, wi' a curse, eh? Just a minute while we scour the oceans for a sight o' that vessel of ill-omen, the Frantic Frog …

  CHAPTER

  THE ELEVENTH

  ne of the great things about pirate ships in the good old days was that they were purpose-built – not for cargoes of crude oil or containers or package tourists, but for knavery and conspiracy and swashbuckling and, in a word, Romance. There had to be a stateroom spacious enough for the likes of Tyrone and George Sanders to fight their climactic duel (well, try and stage that sort of barney in some four-by-two cabin on G Deck with twin bunks and a corner washbasin and see how far you get). And there had to be smaller cabins with stout oaken doors and heavy brass locks, for kidnapped heiresses and hapless señoritas to cower behind, while drunken Dons or people like Firebeard smashed the panels in. There had to be doorways high enough for stalwart heroes to stride through masterfully without catching their heads a shattering crash just as they were about to say: “So, proud Isabella, we meet again,” or “Ha-ha, Gomez, our reckoning is due!” as the case might be. Then there had to be foetid compartments deep i' the bowels o' the vessel for plotting bloody mutiny, d'ye see, secret nooks for hiding treasure-maps or jewels o' price, rat-filled orlops for confining prisoners, pitch-black holds for knife-fights with gigantic Negroes, and a great network of secret passages for stowaways, assistant heroes, and various eccentrics to lurk in, and for dreadful nameless Things to pop out during the middle watch and knife the man at the wheel.

  Without these basic amenities a pirate ship simply was not complete, for it was an unwritten law of the period that no one, especially the captain, should be aware exactly who was on board, or where, or why, at any given time. Consequently, when Colonel Blood scrambled unseen aboard the Frantic Frog off Aves, he had no difficulty in lying low; in fact, he had a hell of a job avoiding the other stowaways who were hiding out beneath its decks and behind its bulkheads – a couple of wandering madmen with white beards and ragged trousers who whimpered round the focsle heads at night, a rather vague scholar surrounded by pet mice and the works of Proust in a forward lazarette, two Huguenot refugees under the floor in the crow's-nest, an absconding Italian contessa shacked up with her stable-boy in the cable tier, and three large families of Pakistanis en route for Bradford.

  Indeed, it took Blood several days' burrowing and stumbling around in the dark before he found an untenanted priest's hole near the rudder; once he'd heaved out a couple of skeletons and discovered the secret passage to the galley store-room where victuals could be stolen night and morning (except Sundays, early closing), he was beginning to get the hang of things, and by peering through spy-holes, listening at scuttles, and prowling warily, he soon learned something of what was afoot in the regular, above-decks part of the ship, where the pirates were.

  It wasn't reassuring: the Frantic Frog appeared to be sailing full speed towards Cartagena on the Main, there to rendezvous in secret with Bilbo and Black Sheba who, Blood gathered, were contemplating some frightful devilry to do with the Spanish Viceroy and his bride-to-be; Rackham was assembling other buccaneer vessels at Tortuga, and they were going to devastate Latin America, by the sound of it. Not that Blood gave two hoots about that; his one concern was how he was going to slide out to safety, preferably in territory not infested either by pirates or Spaniards. (Difficult, on the Main in those days.) Anyway, since they seemed to be entirely surrounded by Atlantic at the moment, there was nothing for our Tom to do but keep his head down and enjoy the bilge-water which sloshed around in his hiding-place.

  But being Blood, of course, he couldn't keep still. He prowled around the secret places of the Frantic Frog, from one peep-hole to another, getting occasional glimpses of focsle laundry, Frenchmen's knees, the backs of furniture, and some quite interesting bits of plank. But nothing of great moment until one day, snooping in a hitherto-unexplored passage towards the stern, he found two spy-holes close together high in the bulkhead, guessed that they were the cut-out eyes of some portrait hanging in a cabin, and clambered up on a rickety packing-case for a dekko. Sure enough, he was looking into a richly-furnished cabin with ormolu-encrusted chairs, buhl tables, tasselled curtains, Impressionist doilies, fin-de-siecle dart-boards, a beribboned guitar with the sheet music of “L'amour est bleu,” and all the fixings one would expect in a French marine stateroom of the period, including … the Colonel gave a startled gasp as into his view came a trim foot and ankle, a well-turned calf, and finally a smooth white thigh whose owner was adjusting a suspender on the top of an elaborately-clocked stocking. Almost dislocating his neck in an effort to squint, wicked Tom lost his precarious foothold, and with a despairing cry went head-first through the painting and crashed full-length on the cabin floor in a cloud of dust and lumps of canvas, to the accompaniment of feminine squeaks.

  “As I suspected, there's death-watch beetle all through the panelling, and it'll cost a mint to put right,” he was improvising hastily, and then—

  “You!” cried Vanity, shrinking back, all corset and fripperies. “Why, thou arrant peeper and transom-lurker! Wouldst spy on my deshabille, wastrel? Out, I say, thou rakehelly—”

&nb
sp; “Keep your voice down!” hissed Blood, “I'm a stowaway!” And having assured himself that they were alone, he quickly brought her up to date, while Vanity got behind the couch, eyeing him mistrustfully.

  “So ye see, we're after bein' companions in distress,” he concluded with his manliest smile, which sent Vanity skipping back even farther. “But what o' the mad Frog Pew? Last I saw he was ravin' about you bein' the light o' his life, on account o' your turnin' brunette. Has he … ah …” he coughed delicately, eyeing her peekaboo undress, “… that is … have you an' he … ye know …?”

  “Certainly not!” snapped Vanity indignantly. “Know that he hath used me wi' all respect – nay, it ran close on reverence, the which,” she admitted, frowning, “I am at a loss to understand, for while I know well that I have the message for the chaps, yet are they wont to get physical rather than spiritual, and Captain Pew's passion has thus far been that of a worshipper towards a deity – mind you, it takes all sorts; there was a gardener at our school who used to steal my gymshoes—”

  “Ye mean he hasn't touched you?” Blood was incredulous. “But look at the way you're dressed—”

  “Stop looking!” cried Vanity. “Thou muckrake! These are but the garments he provided for me, before he had his nervous breakdown – it's true, I tell you,” she added, moving a chair between them. “The day after we sailed from Aves, he vowed undying devotion at my feet, calling me little apple and little pear, and swearing to wed me as soon as he had mastered the irregular verbs at the end of Book Two—”

  “Thou kidd'st! Is he clean cocoa, then?”

  “You better believe it, for of a sudden he clutched his brow, pale-faced, and staggered, crying: ‘Croire! Joindre! Offrir! Pouvoir!’ and fell down in a fit. His crew put him to bed, where he lies and babbles o' the imperfect indicative of ‘connaître’ and crying sore for his Beauteous Beloved wi' the Big Mouth, whatever that may mean …”