“Come!” I said abruptly. “That one is finished. You can see it for yourself.
He’ll lead you to your death, or capture and a Spanish prison.”
“And where would you take us?”
“To rich prizes, and an even division all around with no giant share for the
master. And then I’ll go ashore in Virginia and the fluyt is yours.”
Oh, I had properly guessed my men! I was not speaking into the wind, for they
were men who appreciated courage and little else. They wanted profit, but it was
the game, too, and they had just seen their master put down in the mud by a man
a third smaller, and easily at that.
Some of whatever fear they had felt of him had gone with his fall. Now he fell
again, and had stumbled up again, whether from drink or the effects of my blow I
neither knew nor cared. He was hauling at his sword hilt.
To be a leader of pirates demanded not only courage but gall, the daring to
challenge anything, and these were the men for it.
“He will kill you,” one of them said. “He comes now.”
He was coming, with a naked blade, but I waited, barehanded, measuring his
movements. There was ugliness in him, and fury. He would be rash and overly
confident, because I stood with no weapon in my hand.
My father had little to leave me in goods of this world, but he had what he had
learned of men and weapons, of horses and women and ships and towns. He taught
me well, and I knew what I could do.
“He means to kill you,” Thorvald warned. “Do not mistake him. He will be quick.”
They drew a little aside, knowing this was between us, for this is the way of
men. One fights one’s battles alone, not asking mercy nor expecting help.
The giant lifted the point of his sword toward my belly, and he was steadier
than I had expected. My blows had jolted some of the drunkenness from him, but I
knew the memory of it was in his muscles yet.
His was a flat, single-edged blade, the cutting edge down. His grip would be
strong upon the sword, his concentration hard upon it. He was thinking now of
what he would do to me. He was already tasting his revenge for the blows I had
struck him.
Suddenly, he lunged. It was perfect—the move, the lunge. How many times had I
done this in practice?
With a quick slap of my palm I knocked the blade over, out of line with my body.
Then I took a quick step in with my left foot, my right leg hooked behind his,
and my right hand smashed up, the butt of my palm under his chin.
His head snapped back and my leg tripped him. He half-turned and fell again into
the mud, his grip loosening on the sword. As he hit the mud I kicked it from his
hand, then took it up. He lay staring … shocked … expecting death.
I broke the blade over my knee and threw the pieces to the earth.
“Come, Lila,” I said, “we will go to our ship.”
11
“You are a bold man,” Lila said. “I begin to see what she sees in you.”
The closer we came to the fluyt the better I liked her—a neat three-master with
nice lines. Yet when we went up the ladder to board, I was shocked.
Her decks were dirty and she looked unkempt and down-at-heel, certainly no
proper look for a trim Dutch vessel. Several hands were loitering about and one
man stood upon the quarter-deck staring down at me and at Lila.
“Who be you?” he demanded.
“Your new master,” I told him, mounting the ladder to stand facing him. “Your
former master and I had a bit of a difficulty, and those who were ashore decided
they’d prefer me as master.”
“They did, did they?” He scowled at me. “They said naught to me!”
I smiled at him. “There’s the ship’s boat alongside. Go ashore and talk to your
former master, if you like.”
“You’d like that. To have me go ashore and leave you to command!” He stared at
me from under bushy brows. ” ‘Tis an unlikely thing.”
He peered at me. “Who says you can handle a ship? Or a crew?”
“Ask them below there,” I said, gesturing. “Now go below and get yourself a
clean shirt, clean pantaloons and a trim for your beard after a shave. Don’t
appear on this quarter-deck without them.”
He started to argue, his eyes peering at me. “Go,” I repeated, “or you’ll find
yourself among the crew.”
“You’ll need a new sailing-master then,” he said, “unless you can lay a course
yourself, for there’s no other aboard can do it.”
“Show up here looking the way an officer on the poop deck should look, and
you’ll keep the job,” I said harshly. “Otherwise I’ll do it myself.”
“You can lay a course, can you?”
“Aye,” I said, “but I’ve no wish to displace you.”
Grumbling, he went down the ladder, and with Lila following I went into the
aftercabin.
Surprisingly, it was not so bad as I’d expected. But it was still not good
enough to suit Lila. “Go! Leave this to me! And the cooking, too! Just see
there’s enough aboard to do with!”
Out on deck again I turned the crew to, late as it was, and set them mopping
decks, coiling lines, and making things shipshape. There were enough good
Newfoundlanders aboard so that the job was not a great one, but it stirred them
about and let them know a new hand was at the wheel.
All the while I was thinking. I’d no wish to be a pirate, only to be ashore in
Raleigh’s land with Abigail, at the same time I’d grown up in an England of the
Armada, of Raleigh, Drake, Frobisher and Hawkins. Sea-fighting was in the
English blood, and the Spanish were sailing their great galleons up the coast
from the Antilles, loaded with gold, some of them.
With the crew at work I went to the aftercabin and spread out the charts on the
great table there. They were old, none so good as those aboard my own ship, yet
good enough, and I’d a memory for the charts I’d left behind. Yet I studied
them, supplying what else was needed from the memory of those other charts.
Westward and south, along the shores of the Gaspe then south past Nova Scotia
and down the coast, holding well out to sea.
I was still at the charts when an hour had passed and the sailing-master
returned. He’d done a good bit to himself, and looked fresh and clean … at
least, cleaner.
When he saw me studying the mouth of the great river of Canada, he shook his
head. “Do not think on it. A strange ship has newly come there, a ship with many
guns that flies no flag I’ve ever seen. He who commands is a pirate also, but
like none I have ever seen. He owns but one hand. Where another was there is now
a hook, sometimes a claw or talon. He is a young man, very strong, very quick,
and I believe he does not leave. An Indian told me he is building a great house,
a castle, perhaps, on a hill in the mountains.”
“We will avoid him then.” Looking at the men down on the deck, I noticed one, a
strongly made fellow with fine shoulders and a well-shaped head. “That one down
there. Who is he?”
“A Newfoundlander, and a good man, too. His name is Pike. Or so they call him.
He was a fisherman before he came with us, and a hunter of whales.”
“And your name?”
“Handsel. The first name is Peter, but I am called Hans or Hands … it does not
matter which.”
“You know this man Pike?”
He nodded. “He works well, and he fights well.” Then he added, “I think he is
the best seafaring man aboard. He knows the sea and he has a love for the ship.”
That night the food upon the table was food Lila had prepared, and it was good.
The men ate, and ate, and pushed back from the table with a sigh. Watching them,
I knew my struggle was over, for it is rare that sailors have such food and they
would not risk losing her, even if they wished to lose me.
After a few days, I mused, I would have no trouble. Whoever heard of a
revolution of fat men?
Long I studied the charts while the crew worked upon the deck, repairing lines
and sails and simply dressing her up for sea. As the beauty of the ship became
evident, their pride in her grew.
On the third day I was upon the deck and the man I had inquired about passed me.