“Do you want the particulars?” Skanes asked. “Or only the charges you should level?”
“Tell it as you will, captain,” Alexis said. “I’m listening.”
Skanes looked around to see if anyone else was near, but the naval officers were all in their own groups — mostly by nation, but with a few odd friendships visible between former enemies after their shared ordeal on Erzurum.
“I’ll start it as I found out, then,” Skanes said, “after you sailed off and left us.”
Alexis thought to argue that, to explain about the damage to Mongoose and not wanting to explain via signals the pirates could intercept and read, but stayed silent.
“Probably best,” Skanes said. “So many of those damnable gunboats about.” She drained half her glass and squared her shoulders.
“So,” she said, “I surrendered Hind to them. Arranged the crew. The pirates boarded and were quite rough — knocking us about and searching for hidden weapons, I suppose — then one who must have been a sort of leader found me. I did what I thought I should … told him who I was and that the Marchants would pay a reasonable ransom for the ship and crew. Didn’t mention he’d be marked by every Marchant ship from then on — probably wouldn’t do any good, him holed up on Erzurum as he was, but I thought to start with the promise of reward for my crew’s safety, and not the certain retribution.”
Skanes looked up at her, so Alexis nodded for her to continue.
“Next I knew, it had all changed. This fellow started bellowing for the others to leave off — stop the searching, stop the knocking about, all of it. Even recalled those searching the ship as though he had not a single care if there were some spacer holed up in a compartment with a pistol waiting to ambush the boarders.”
She looked back to her glass.
“They didn’t let us go, exactly, not that far, but they treated us quite well, thereafter. Put Hind in orbit and shipped us all down to the surface, then put us up in rooms in this town. It was all quite … unexpected.”
Alexis thought so as well. She’d expected Hind’s crew to be sold off as the pirates’ other captives were. Could the pirates have feared the retribution of the Marchant Company more than that of the combined Hanoverese, French Republic, and New London navies?
She supposed they might, given those navies’ reputation in the Barbary for doing next to nothing — and the next being on the far side of nothing, at that.
“It was bewildering,” Skanes said. “Especially as I learned the fate of other crews and those captured naval forces. We were treated well — fed and housed well — and other than keeping us away from any boats that landed, the pirates avoided us. It was quite as though they hadn’t the foggiest idea what to do with the lot of us. We weren’t entirely free, but we weren’t entirely prisoners, either — not guests and not captives. Then their leader, Ness, returned.”
Skanes took a deep breath.
“He had me brought to him aboard his ship, that big frigate he repaired for his pirating. The working one, there was another, little more than a hulk, in orbit. He bade me sit, had one of his crew — a dirty pirate with one eye and who hadn’t bathed since he’d come aboard, I think — served me wine as though I was just one captain visiting another and this filthy animal was a proper steward. Then he asked me and I knew — it all made sense.”
Skanes was silent for what seemed like a long time, but Alexis waited patiently.
“He asked me why I’d come here — and if I had some message that couldn’t go through normal channels.”
Skanes drained her glass.
“And then he said, ‘I’ve done everything the bloody Marchants have asked — if they want more it’ll cost them.’”
Forty-Seven
“She's pardoned all these pirates,
Save those bastards there who'll hang.
And bought with gold your freedom
From this misery and pain.”
“I worked it out,” Skanes said, filling her glass again. “Without telling him I didn’t know what the bloody hell he was talking about. I was afraid if he found out I didn’t know, then he might do something awful to me or what was left of my crew. So, I pieced together the gist of it from what he said and made him think some other things of me and Hind.”
Alexis merely listened. It seemed like Skanes had been waiting some time to tell this story to someone.
“There’s some deal — has been for years, maybe decades — between this band of pirates and Marchant Company. The pirates leave our ships alone and the Marchants pay them a small sum, as well as other tasks. There have been Marchant ships that stopped here, I’m told, and carried goods on to Hso-hsi. Even our routes, which went through some bits of space with high pirate activity, though they cut our transport time, were arranged with this Ness fellow. Many of our captains thought it was because our ships were better armed and could handle the pirates — maybe even deal them a blow or scare them off.” Skanes laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “Help the other merchants, you see? Ha! It was all because there were already agreements no Marchant ship would be attacked.” She drank again. “Then there’s me, the Hind, and what I must apologize to you for.”
Skanes took a deep breath.
“It always bothered me, deeply, that you and the other private ships didn’t report more often, didn’t stay in your proper areas of operation, started working together. That was part of the payoff, you see, though I never knew it. That was part of the deal, you see? ‘There are too many privateers,’ he tells the Marchants, and, ‘Don’t worry,’ they say, ‘we’ll take care of it.’”
Skanes hung her head and Alexis thought her red-rimmed eyes had grown wetter before she scrubbed at them angrily.
“Send a stores ship and gather reports — my ship. All those reports of yours and the other captains? Sent by courier to the Company?” She waved a hand. “Dropped off straight to the pirates on some Barbary world. The forces spread out with assigned hunting grounds so as to cover more space? Only a further guarantee that there’d be no privateer force with enough strength anywhere to take on Ness’ frigate alone, much less with his other ships. A prize here and there? A merchantman carrying pirated goods? Not too great a loss — but nothing that could possibly hinder his main efforts. You know the way the private ship captains think — profit and ease, neither of which comes from a real fight. And any ships taken? A pittance in prize money paid, the hulls, cargoes, and crews delivered up the line and just like the courier’s reports — turned loose and back to their business again. I suppose there’d be some Company report that the ships would be sold and the pirates hung, but those are just words.” She stared into her cup. “Only words and numbers in someone’s report. Once a thing’s all words and numbers, does the reality ever matter?”
Alexis finally broke her silence. “And they had Wheeley, on Enclave, to take possession of those prizes and pirates we didn’t bring to you.”
“You know about him?”
Alexis nodded, fingering her ear. “I knew he had dealings of some kind — and know more now. The slaves he keeps there to work his casino.”
“Cheaper than the local labor and afraid to do a thing with explosives in their necks. I realized that, as well, seeing some of the slaves the pirates keep here. Kept, I suppose, with all this going on.” She looked around the pub. “Your work?”
Alexis nodded. “With a great deal of help.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be one to help you,” Skanes said.
“But the Marchants? Really? You’re certain?”
Alexis had had dealings with the Marchant Company before and found their captains, Skanes included, to be a haughty, arrogant sort. But she’d never have thought they’d have dealings with pirates — especially not to the degree Skanes was describing.
“No doubt. That pirate, Ness, didn’t know what to make of me. He’s waiting word back from the Company on what to do with me and my crew.” Skanes looked close to tears. “I gave my life to the Company, t
hinking they were —” She broke off and scrubbed at her face again.
Forty-Eight
“Annalise has sent me here for you,
And from here you'll be taken.
No crime or purse of coin is worth
A single subject left forsaken.”
The Barbary Combined Fleet, Alexis thought, must be the oddest ever put together.
The senior captains of those held on Erzurum had been oddly cooperative with Alexis and each other; and not at all in opposition, though she wondered still what fate awaited her with Admiralty on their return to New London space.
She was still in command of Mongoose, the largest, best-armed, and fastest of their ships, making her, to a certain extent, the flagship for Mattingly, who was acting as ostensible commodore of their ragtag band.
“Well, Carew,” he’d said with a smile when the other captains agreed to it, “as senior in-system it only falls to you to confirm me.” He laughed. “Never thought I’d receive my first flag from a lieutenant, though, to tell the truth.”
Mattingly might think it funny, but she could tell the other captains did not, to a large extent, share his amusement.
Some scowled at her whenever she passed, clearly thinking she’d taken too much on herself, while others, and perhaps worse, shook their heads with expressions of pity, clearly thinking of what would likely happen to her when Admiralty learned the full extent of what she’d done here.
At last count, it was seven-hundred forty-eight pardoned pirates, a number that astounded her still, and bounties to be paid on some eight-hundred ninety-nine who’d not accepted the pardon — and not been captured by Alexis and Kannstadt in taking the initial ships — in the bewildering sum of seventeen thousand nine-hundred eighty pounds. At least all those had been on the surface and not aboard ships, thus Isom had valued them at only the base twenty pounds per head. Or head, hand, and eye in some cases, but she’d not quibble over it.
And all that before the bounties paid on rescued spacers who were still being brought in to Erzurum’s port town, despite there being nearly thirty thousand there already.
Never mind the notes in hand to Erzurum’s farmers for those, which Kannstadt’s agreed Hanover will see to collecting for them.
She did wish Isom had not looked it up to confirm that, for the few days pending her return to Erzurum’s surface and officially “freeing” the captured spacers, Alexis, and through her, Queen Annalise of New London, now held the dubious distinction of personally owning the most slaves of anyone in recent history, if only for the time it took to get them off Erzurum.
“Not to worry, Carew,” Mattingly said with a grin as the last of Alexis’ gear came out of her cabin on Mongoose, that space now being Mattingly’s for the time being and Alexis moving to the first officer’s compartment. “It’s not the worst thing Admiralty’s forgiven a captain on foreign station for doing — assuming they see your recall by Ellender as valid, of course.”
“Of course, sir.” Alexis paused, then took the moment to ask something she’d been avoiding. “Will you, ah, be confirming my actions, sir? Now that you’re free and senior in-system yourself?”
Mattingly’s smile fell.
“Oh, look,” he said, “there’s the last of it.” Without another look at Alexis, he strode into Mongoose’s master’s cabin where his gear, acquired on Erzurum after his release, was being stowed. “I’ll see you on the quarterdeck once I’ve had a proper shower and a bit of a rest, Carew — ages since I’ve been near either, don’t you know. Your man will see to what can be done about a proper uniform for me, yes?”
Alexis sighed and kicked Isom in the ankle as he muttered, barely under his breath, something which sounded suspiciously like, “Overbearing, arrogant, bastard.”
“Of course, sir, yes,” she said loudly over Isom. “It might be rough but we’ll do our best.”
Mattingly nodded, still not looking at her, and slid the hatch to her … his cabin shut.
“Not another word on it,” she said to Isom.
Her clerk snorted and went off, muttering something about sewing.
Alexis took herself to her new cabin. Most of her things, what remained after the pirates were done with them, at least, were struck down into the hold, there being so little space in the ship’s officers’ cabins.
If it wouldn’t scandalize the crew and certainly put her in deeper trouble with Admiralty — as though that might be possible — she’d have the bulkhead between first and second officers’ cabins removed and share the thing with her new first officer, who’d been displaced before he’d even moved into his cabin by Mattingly’s taking hers.
Yet another oddity of this Barbary Combined Fleet — a rather ostentatious name for these few ships, she thought — being that Alexis was now likely the only lieutenant in Royal Navy history to both command a commodore’s flagship and have a full captain as her first officer.
For she’d insisted on bringing Delaine aboard and he’d been elevated to captain during his time with Chipley’s fleet.
Since he was aboard anyway and there being no one amongst the other officers she knew and trusted — and in the interest of the “combined” part of the Barbary Combined Fleet, she threw in for hope it might make a bit of sense — it only made sense for him to act as her first officer.
It was a transparent ploy, of course, and anyone who’d seen or heard of her display on first finding Delaine in the Randy Whistler — that being, she assumed, every officer and spacer, pirate or fleet, in the whole of Erzurum, tales being what they were for spacers — could see right through it.
Mattingly had simply pursed his lips for a moment, then shrugged. “It’s not the worst thing Admiralty’s seen, I’m sure,” he’d said.
Captain, ostensible Commodore, Mattingly, Alexis found, was not the sort to say the most comforting things, and tended to overuse a phrase.
She left her quarters and made her way to the quarterdeck, feeling restless and ill at-ease. Delaine was there, having the watch, and she had to resist the urge to grab him up in her arms again, or at least to poke him to ensure he was real and not some phantom of her imagination. She settled for standing too close to him at the navigation plot, using the crowded conditions of the quarterdeck as her excuse.
All stations were manned for the first time since the ship had flashed past Erzurum in their attack as a private ship and they had been forced to abandon her. More than manned, for they had a full complement aboard and more. Each station was double-manned, as those familiar with Mongoose’s systems passed on their knowledge to the new men, or, where she’d not had a man with her in the boat, two or three of the newcomers familiarized themselves with what of Mongoose’s quirks they could find.
“An’ here,” Creasy was saying, “the port relay — you’ll find you might wish to have those on the hull repeat a thing back to you. There’s a kink in the fiber that ain’t never been right.”
The man beside him, Alexis didn’t have his name yet, as so very many had crowded aboard Mongoose and the other ships that she’d not had time to see them all, much less put names to faces. Mongoose, and all the ships they held in their little fleet, were over-manned by double or treble, and still they’d not taken a quarter of the captured spacers up from Erzurum’s surface, with still more being lifted in from farms and villages every day.
The dream of lifting all and sundry and sailing off was simply impossible. Would still have been even if they’d had Ellender’s Claw still here, but the sheer number of men did give them another option.
“An’ what’s that?” the new spacer with Creasy asked.
“Oh, that’s Boots,” Creasy said.
Alexis glanced over, but saw no sign of the Creature. She’d ordered Isom to keep the thing crated and in her cabin, there being so many new hands aboard and so much work being done to put the ship to rights.
Creasy picked something up off his console and held it out to the new man, while Alexis tried to see what in the Dark he might
be talking about without seeming to watch.
“Started carvin’ that in the swamps, when Boots saved the captain from one o’ them giant snakes,” Creasy said, and Alexis caught a glimpse of a piece of wood, perhaps five centimeters tall, with tiny legs and a bushy tail opposite a pointed snout. “Sort of a … representationing sort of thing, as he can’t be everywhere at once, you see? He’ll watch over me now, same as he does the captain, sure.”
Alexis sighed, wondering at how events could be so distorted. She’d shot the bloody snakipede right through the eye — a fine shot, if she did say so herself — and likely saved the maddening Creature from its own impetuousness in attacking a thing it couldn’t even fully get its bloody jaws around.
“Watches over?” the new spacer asked.
“Oh, aye,” Creasy said. “Boots is like a …”
The signalsman shot a glance her way and Alexis made a show of studying the navigation plot, so as not to have been caught listening. She did wonder, though, if she oughtn’t to contact Admiralty when they returned to New London space and see if they might have one of those psychologists they’d been so keen to have her talk to see about Creasy. The man was —
“I’ll explain later,” Creasy said in a lower tone. “There’s a group of us what meet to —”
“Transition!” Tite announced from the tactical console. “Transition L1!”
Alexis turned her full attention back to the tactical console, the images were in at the same time as the transition alert, along with the newcomer’s automatic transmission of her identity — one of the surviving gunboats, repaired enough to still make her way in the Dark and set to keeping watch with a crew of released Hanoverese spacers instead of pirates.
They had the pirates’ codebooks and recognition signals, decrypted thanks to Blackbourne and the other pardoned pirates, who wanted nothing more than for Alexis to make good on her promise to get them away from Erzurum with their pardons, purses, and persons intact — something they’d accepted wouldn’t happen if Ness returned and triumphed over their little fleet.
The Queen's Pardon (Alexis Carew Book 6) Page 31
