The Pyrates

by George MacDonald Fraser

  “Hey, Excellencee!” Enchillada, having conferred with the military commander, was reporting, all greasy excitement. “We heet pay-dirt, I theenk! Thee scouts say we are approacheeng the los' city of Cohaclgzln, faymoos for gold, bloodthirsty natives, an' reepulseev works of art! Also, thee dumb bums don't know about wheels, even! Eet's the only los' city aroun' heer, so you bet your sweet bippy some of thee pirate fugitives weel 'ave taken refuge, you know?”

  “Gold, you say?” lisped Don Lardo greedily. “Just what we need to finance my great crusade through the Indies! We shall fall upon it, put it to the sack, slaughter without ruth or pity – they make lousy slaves, anyway, and we haven't time to waste converting them to the True Faith!” His dentures wobbled alarmingly as he turned mad gleaming eyes on his lovely consort. “You hear, Meliflua angel, what hubby-wubby has in store for you? A whole savage civilisation to exterminate and cast down, not one stone left on another! Aren't you glad I persuaded you to come?”

  Meliflua fluttered limp eyelids and gestured weakly. Persuaded, yet! For days and nights she had been toted along on this nightmare journey, with servants, portable dressing-room and bath, and even her own private collapsible four-poster in tow; this leering monster had sworn he could not bear to be parted from her for an instant, and had gloated about the carnage he would wreak for her amusement. And she was to marry this sanguinary loony? Santa Maria!

  “Pliz, Don Lardo—” she began weakly.

  “Lardo honey!” hissed the Viceroy, snapping his black mamba like a whip. “You remember, sweet Meliflua?”

  “Ah, forgeev me!” faltered the bewildered hidalga. “Lardo honey, I mean. Thees Eendian town – couldn't we spare some of them, maybee? The leetle ones, an' the old pipple? Jus' for me – pliz?”

  “Spare them?” Don Lardo goggled horribly. “Aahh -you mean for torture and burning at auto-da-fé? Why, that's terrific, cara mia! Brilliant! She's brilliant, I say -isn't she brilliant, you bastards?” he roared, lashing with his snake at the headquarters officers, who obediently chorused, “She's terrific – just like you!”

  “Pass me a new snake, Enchillada,” purred the Viceroy. “This one's gone all squishy and doesn't crack any more … All right, scum, what are you waiting for? Attack! Kill! Burn! Throw discipline to the winds! They're ende-monised heathen! Loot their temples, plunder their cellars, desecrate their altars in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! We've got protection, I tell you – you'll all be absolved later, as soon as the accountants are through! On, in the King's name, for the glory of Spain!”

  So now were enthusiastic cries of “Viva el sack and pillage!” and “Caramba, I can't wait!”, and “Let's hear it for Lardo!” as the eager soldiery pressed through the jungle until in the baleful moonlight they beheld the ghostly outlines of step-pyramids and temples, and halted on the forest edge for a Pause for Suspense before the final assault. The soldiers bit their nails and the officers checked their watches, and a terrible silence fell on the scene – a silence that seemed to steal forward on the town like an ugly ghost, stifling even the light breaths of sleepers, muffling the heart-beats, the silence of approaching doom.

  Black Sheba felt it as she prowled the deserted alleys, and stopped, rapier in hand, the sweat icy on her perfect spine. In the bed-chamber of the Princess, Prtzltntln sensed it, and shivered uneasily as she laid syringe and Choc-a-Toke capsules on the bedside table of her drowsy mistress; it penetrated even to the room where Vanity waited anxiously, wondering (1) was Avery in deadly danger, (2) if not, was the Princess showing him how the feathers worked on her conga skirt? Blood, his rascally instincts suddenly alert, stopped his pacing to listen, and Solomon Shafto, huddled in his rags in a corner, dreaming of dripping, suddenly sat bolt upright and croaked: “Voodle-de-oy-doy! Ole Sol smells garlic, adrift on the night air, wi' a curse an' dang it! The Dons be come! The damned Dons, I tell 'ee! Take ter the hills!” To confirm his diagnosis came sudden uproar of gunfire and musketry as the Spaniards stormed into the town, their morphological oaths mingling with the cries of the inhabitants who woke to find themselves beset by the forces of civilisation.

  What followed was awful. The Spaniards rushed about shooting and slashing, breaking windows, turning on taps, blocking drains in wanton fashion, and shouting “Wakey-wakey, you wogs! Stand by your beds for slaughtering, it's sack-the-city time!” Sheba in her alley was suddenly confronted by a mob of pike-wielding infantry who recognised her instantly with cries of “'Tis the fugitive coon-lady! Seize her!” She turned at bay, and her bright steel sent two to their account ere the others bore her down, breathed all over her to the point of suffocation, and trussed her hand and foot before rampaging on to break more bottles, stove in the heads of casks, knock at doors and run away, and put the entire population to the sword.

  Amidst the furore only the cacique Brasso kept his head. As soon as he saw that all was lost, he summoned a hasty meeting of community leaders in the temple, announced that the situation was in hand and that the Sun God's intervention on Cohaclgzln's behalf could be expected any minute, urged stout resistance, and promised that the Princess would issue an official statement shortly. Reassured, the citizens waited obediently to be massacred (which they were), while Brasso scooted to the royal apartments, where a distinctly woozy Princess was being tended by panic-stricken hand-maidens. Brasso informed them that they must convey their mistress to the secret VIP fall-out shelter beneath the great altar without delay.

  “But, Keeper of the High Mysteries,” faltered Prtzltntln, “her highness is stoned to hellangone and cannot loco-mote!”

  “Just because she ain't fitted with handles don't mean she can't be carried!” snarled Brasso. “Up, up, an' away, girls!”

  “But she will wish to share the fate of her people!”

  “Twelve will get you seven she don't. Look, don't give me no grief, Beulah,” warned Brasso. “She owes it to her people to survive, right? Man, who else is gonna be the repository of their culture an' traditions an' stuff? Who else is gonna carry on the dynasty?”

  “What dynasty?” asked Prtzltntln, as the comatose Princess was borne hastily to the high altar.

  “The dynasty she an' me is gonna found,” chuckled Brasso wickedly. “Listen, don't knock this invasion -that ruckus out there is the priestly hierarchy getting theirs, along with most of the population. So they get thinned, so what? People, they're everywhere. But we survive, and when we come out, baby, we're gonna start this civilisation all over again, with Brasso top of the power vacuum, okay? Hurry along, ladies – and another thing, you can forget all this Sun God crap. That's out – it's King Brasso and the Sun Princess, in that order—”

  It may have been a Spanish cannon-shot, or just wear and tear, but at that instant the gigantic statue of the Sun God toppled from its plinth and squashed Brasso flatter than a fluke. The hand-maidens screamed and swooned, but Prtzltntln rallied them, and they got the Princess below stairs and closed the hatch. (So it was that they alone survived the carnage, and no doubt emerged eventually safe and sound, for rumours still persist in the jungles of the Main of a lost all-female civilisation given to rhumbas and worshipping drinking-chocolate. But whether the legend be true no one knows, for Cohaclgzln's temples and pyramids vanished long ago 'neath the engulfing tropic forest, and no explorers have found it to this day, or pondered the mystery of the rejected wheel-prototypes which litter its silent courts and weed-choked plazas.)

  Meanwhile, in the chamber where she and her companions were confined, Vanity was a prey to mounting consternation as the sounds of massacre and pillage drew nearer.

  “Look, is my hair an awful mess?” she cried to Blood. “And this dress is a positive fright! Ah, what will our Spanish rescuers think to see a lady of quality thus reduced—”

  “I can guess!” snapped Blood. “Ye're mighty confident they'll rescue us. From what I know of 'em they're a pack of Papist rapists, and no way tender o' heretics, ladies or not. Listen, acushla, I can pass meself off as a left-foo
ter, so I can, and if I give 'em a touch o' the pax vobiscums, and we pretend to be man and wife,” he added with a meaning smirk, “then haply I may be able to preserve thy sweet person from ill-usage.”

  “Faugh! A distasteful subterfuge, and who needs it?” cried haughty Vanity. “Dagoes are remarkably civilised. Why, we had their ambassador's daughter in the Upper Fifth – Onions, we called her, a stuck-up minx with spots who sneaked about our vodka at the dorm feast, but that's not the point. Their officers will be caballeros who will show all courtesy to a lady of my station.” She looked Blood up and down. “It'll be more convincing if I say you're my groom … Right, leave the talking to me.”

  And as the door crashed open to admit a pack of blood-drunk Spaniards brandishing reeking swords, the Admiral's daughter rapped sharply on a convenient table. “Pay attention! I am Lady Vanity Rooke, an English noblewoman held captive by these beastly savages. Where is your officer?”

  A swarthy lout in a morion stopped brandishing to scratch his stubbled chin and scowl at her. “Eengleesh?” he demanded truculently. “You gotta passa-port?”

  “Do I look as though I've got a passport?” retorted Vanity.

  “So! An eelleegal eemigrant!” sneered the Spaniard. “Camarados, wee gotta buncha wetbacks heer! No passa-ports, huh? Hokay – you gotta any aneemal foodstuffs, uncook-ed meats, groweeng plants, raw vegetables—”

  “Ar, plants, is it?” cried Solomon Shafto, hobbling forward, his knuckle to his brow. “Ole Sol's yer man, señor! Beddin'-out an' dung-spreadin' a speciality, wi' a ding-dang-diddle, but like wise herbaceous borders an' landscapin' o' cabbages, look'ee—”

  “Hold your tongue, hobbledehoy!” grated Vanity, and to the Spaniard: “I demand to be taken to your commander at once …”

  “… please,” added Blood ingratiatingly, and the Spaniard scowled thunderously.

  “‘Pliz’, you say? You tryeeng to soft-soap Corporal Gomez, greengo peeg? Ha, I know-a yoor sort! You Eengleesh, you try-a to sneak-a into our country, try to take-a jobs from honest Spaneesh workeeng-pipple – like-a he wan's to be a cabbage-lan'scaper, the old-a bum, an' thee dame wan's to be a topless waitress, mebbe, an' you, wit' your clarkie moustache an' your ‘Pliz’, you want-a to set up as a peemp, I bet! You theenk,” he roared indignantly, “we don't got cabbage-lan'scapers an' topless waitresses an' peemps of our own, who need-a the work, huh?” His followers growled menacingly. “You gotta nerve, greengo! No passa-ports, huh? Hokay—”

  Vanity stamped with vexation, Blood protested, and Solomon grovelled, all at once, but Corporal Gomez silenced them with an angry gesture. “Yoo ask-a for eet, wetbacks! Hokay, I was joost a-goeeng to molesta thee dame an' then sleet all-a yoor throats – but now I feex you good! Yoo go beefore Don Lardo heemself, an' see how you like eet! Away wit' them, bravos!”

  The hapless trio were hustled rudely out, into the smoking ruin to which the raiders had reduced Cohaclgzln. There were corpses everywhere, and Don Lardo had spent an enjoyable dawn reviewing the slaughter, and had returned with blood all over his boots to take part in a Te Deum and breakfast, and gloat over the huge pile of ornaments, jewellery, and native works of art before his pavilion. Cackling with glee, he had bounced up and down on the Princess's magnificent litter in full armour, a sight which had quite put Donna Meliflua off her toast and cereal and sent her shuddering to the refuge of her own pavilion.

  But now a nasty shock awaited the Viceroy. It transpired that to their inability to design wheels the unfortunate Cohaclgzlns had added a total ignorance of precious metals, for the vast heap of treasure glowing dully in the morning sun proved, on closer examination, to be not gold, but brass. Even the litter was made in Taiwan.

  The Viceroy's rage was awesome. “They've cheated me, these aboriginal swine!” He shook steel fists to heaven and stamped his black mamba underfoot. “It passes belief! Honest conquistadores go to vast outlay and inconvenience to bring enlightenment to these vermin, expecting only a modest return to defray expenses, and what do we get? Junk!” He wheeled frothing on Enchillada. “I'll make them pay, por Dios! They'll feel my vengeance! Kill them! Massacre them all, the heathen reptiles—”

  “But, boss, we jus' did,” faltered the chamberlain.

  “Are you trying to make trouble again?” blared Don Lardo. “Scour the woods! Look under beds! Discover trembling survivors – fool, whoever heard of a massacre where some old crone or village idiot didn't get overlooked? Find them! I want to see them slaughtered while I have my boiled eggs! And then I'll have her -” he pointed a passionate finger at Sheba, who stood smouldering defiantly between her guards “ – crucified with the toast and marmalade. And a double orange juice and black coffee, damn you – but ha! Who are these?”

  For Corporal Gomez and his three prisoners had hove in sight, and the Viceroy's gooseberry eyes widened alarmingly when he learned that they were English captives of the Indians, one of whom claimed to be the daughter of an English milord admiral, no less. Enchillada looked to see these heretics disposed of in swift and novel fashion, but to his amazement Don Lardo, after chewing his steel gauntlets in brief thought, suddenly contorted his features into a ghastly smile, and addressed Vanity in his most ingratiatory hiss.

  “But how distressing! An English lady of quality, in the hands of these infidels! Dear madonna,” he bowed his enormous armoured bulk, “I can only rejoice that Providence has made me the instrument of your deliverance. Pray be seated, and refresh yourself while you tell us what terrible misfortune led to your captivity.”

  “She's gotta no passa-port,” announced Corporal Gomez, “an' the other two bums are a peemp an' a cabbage-lan'scaper—”

  Don Lardo fractured his skull with a light backhand flick of his steel gauntlet and simpered ghoulishly at Vanity. “Forgive my peasant soldiery,” he lisped. “Enchillada, wine for the lady – and have the corporal swept up. And now, madonna, we are all ears …”

  (What's this? Don Lardo being nice? Ah, but you see, paranoid nut though he was, he still knew a heroine when he saw one, and the aristocratic breeding of this sculpted blonde in the velvet rags stuck out like a cauliflower ear. And what should a Spanish villain do with a heroine but lull her with honeyed words? It was part of their training, practically.)

  As for Vanity, she had been through a lot lately, and to be kindly entreated, even by something that looked like King Kong with a stomach upset, had a disarming effect on her. Bewildered, she sipped the wine they gave her, and then briefly sketched the essentials of her adventures – how she had fallen into the hands of pirates, and then of Indians who would have sacrificed her but for the timely intervention of her fiancé, one Captain Avery, about whom she now expressed a touching anxiety.

  “Avery? Avery?” murmured subtle Don Lardo. “Do I remember the name, Enchillada? No matter … since he is in the vicinity, our search parties will surely find him.” He leered and poured more wine, and despite his Latin courtesy Vanity could not repress uneasy goose-pimples. Gosh, what a clock, she thought, but at least he's civil.

  “Your father, the Admiral Lord Rooke,” continued the Viceroy, “no doubt commands a fleet of ships … is he, ah, in Caribbean waters at the moment?”

  “Alack, poor Daddy!” cried Vanity. “I last saw him in a rowing boat in the Indian Ocean, and know not where-soe'er he may be!”

  “We must pray for his safety,” crooned Don Lardo, with his most charming smile, which would have curdled petrol. “And the pirates bore you from the Indian Ocean to New Spain – what an ordeal, for one so young and fair!”

  “Oh, well, it was just a bit hairy now and then,” admitted Vanity modestly. “Actually, Captain Pew was quite cute, in a Froggy sort of way – it was when he came ashore to bury his treasure that the Indians got hold of me—”

  “Treasure?” Don Lardo's raised eyebrows crackled like kindling and his dentures rattled with animation. “Oh, he had a booty?”

  “You can double that in spades!” said Vanity, and Blood, who had been listenin
g uneasily, felt a wild foreboding. “Why, they must have robbed a bank! I mean, they had absolute scads of the stuff – gold, I warrant me, in vast shining heaps!”

  “Which they buried? Why, its true owners will rejoice to have it restored, and be truly grateful to you, madonna … who knows where it is to be found.”

  “Who, me?” Vanity was round-eyed. “Gosh, I've no idea, I'm afraid – somewhere on a beach, not far from here, but I'm hopeless at geography! My man, Blood -” she indicated the Colonel who was mentally having pups, “ – could probably find the spot… couldn't you, Blood?”

  The Colonel's marrow froze as the gargoyle face of the Viceroy was turned in his direction. All this courtly Spanish grace hadn't fooled our Tom for a minute, and he was both apprehensive and sick as mud at Vanity's mention of the Happy Dan treasure, of whose location he had a very fair idea. Indeed, he had been dreaming of the day when (assuming he ever got out of this ghastly succession of crises) he might dig it up personally. That hope died before Don Lardo's frightful regard, but Blood did his desperate best to play dumb – and Irish dumb, at that.

  “Phwat's dat, y'r leddyship? Treasure, is ut? Sure, an' how would Oi be knowin', dat can't tell latitude from t'other t'ing? Faith an' begob—”

  “Blood, eh?” The Viceroy's voice was silky smooth. “An appropriate name, I think. Enchillada, would you be so good as to send for four horses, and attach them, with stout cords, to this tall rascal's several limbs? Perhaps we can stimulate his memory – or madonna's.” And with a sudden dreadful baying laugh Don Lardo thrust his face towards Vanity, who paled in panic. “No! No!” she fluttered. “What? Eh? Oh, golly -”

  “Ha ha!” bawled the Viceroy in triumph, and springing to his feet he drummed his gauntlets on his breastplate. “I've done it again! Caramba, what genius! See, Enchillada, what good manners and Castilian subtlety can achieve! Instinct told me that if I wooed this peroxided heretic slut with fair words, she would spill something good! And what do I learn? Not only that her fool of a father is half a world away – which means one less enemy fleet to worry about – but that a vast treasure is available to finance my great crusade!” He strode up and down, clanging exultantly, his dentures flying out to be crushed 'neath his armoured feet. “You lot would have ravished her and butchered her buddies according to the book, wouldn't you? But not Lardo – I've got it here!” And he clashed his steel forefinger against his helmet. “That's why I'm a Viceroy and you're not! Now all we have to do is tear this lout apart between galloping horses and he'll sing like a bird! Sant Iago! I'll have four boiled eggs on the strength of this! Bring on the ponies!”