The King's Privateer Read online

  “What are they saying?” Alan asked, trying to shake the little baggage loose from her death-grip on his body and find his stockings.

  “Him pay muchee silla, muchee tael cash fo’ Yi,” Wei Yen translated. “Ollo woman Ma she say fo’n debbil go, him, no comee back. Is good!”

  Doors opened. Voices rumbled in Chinese, pidgin and French as Lewrie began to dress, much against his better judgement. Wei Yen was trying her damnedest to coax him back into bed with her. But he’d had his fun, expensive as it had been, even if it had been Twigg’s money. He had to be ready to shadow Choundas once he left the brothel.

  With his stockings and shoes on, his breeches pulled up and buckled, he heard footsteps coming his way. Ignoring the girl’s protestations, he stepped to the door and opened it just a crack, standing well back in the shadows so he could see what was happening.

  The shoes sounded different. Two pair, perhaps, of hardsoled European shoes with heavy heels. And the swishing sound of a pair of slippers.

  Alan saw the Chinese man, now dressed in an elegantly embroidered silk robe, with a round pillbox hat on his head adorned with one coral button on the top and a long peacock or pheasant feather. The man cut his eyes towards his companions.

  And there were Sicard and Choundas, shoulder to shoulder behind the Chinese man. Sicard paced on past, but Choundas slowed down to a crawl as he passed the crack in the door. And he grinned! A brief, sardonic, mocking grin, before resuming his pace and joining his companions!

  The cheeky bugger, Alan thought at first. His second thought was for a weapon. For that brief glance was as chilling as coming face to face with Old Scratch himself! There was no shame in the leering grin. No fear of discovery. Only scorn for whoever it was behind the door.

  I’ll wager he grinned ’cause he thinks there’s a poor whore in here he’s tortured before, Alan thought. Gloating at her. Or maybe he was daring whoever he took me for to come out and say or do something about it.

  Or, he realized with another chill of dread, that Chinee bugger saw enough of me and recognized me. Christ! “Sorry love, duty calls. Damme her eyes. This is for you,” he said, handing over two of Twigg’s golden guineas. “I go follow bad man. And when we catch him …”

  He made a scritch sound and the motion of cutting a throat.

  Alan trotted out of the door for the end of Old Clothes Street where it opened out onto the wider main road. He looked about for a sign of Twigg or Wythy, for Will Cony, but his was the only Occidental face present. And, as he emerged, the number of Chinese in the dark street melted away into the doorways and the darkness between the few oil lamps.

  He was almost out of the street when something made a quick swishing noise, and his skull exploded! There was a burst of light he could taste, something brassy-coppery, and then a pain that made him wish to scream like he never had before, except that it hurt so much to draw a deep breath that he couldn’t! Without knowing how he had done it, he was face-down in the dust of the street, eyes barely able to focus on a pair of bare and horny feet at the edge of his vision. They were coming towards him. A knee appeared, as if whoever it was was preparing to kneel.

  Without thinking, he lashed out with his left arm and leg, and the agony that doubled and redoubled in his head was so exquisite he found breath this time, gasping for air to let out a scream of pain as he swept whoever it was off his feet.

  The man went down, overturning some baskets, spilling garbage against the dingy walls. A stout stave clattered against the bricks. Howling with more pain, Alan clawed himself onto his assailant, but the man retrieved the stave and rolled over to strike him across the top of his shoulders. Alan yelled some more, though the blows didn’t hurt. Nothing could hurt as bad as his skull did in comparison!

  There seemed to be other cries now, stirred up by his howlings, and the drumming of feet heading toward the street opening. His foe shrugged Alan off and got to his feet to flee, but Alan got both hands around one ankle and held on for dear life, getting dragged through dirt and garbage for his pains. He could smell blood. He could smell mildew, his face pressed against the back of the assailant’s ankle: the salt and mildew moldy reek of a sailor’s clothing.

  The man stumbled to one knee, kicked backward to free himself as Lewrie tried to scale him, nails rasping on rough duck cloth as he got a couple of fingers in the man’s waistband from the rear. More blows from the stave, one on the skull again, this one bringing back the explosion of light once more.

  He couldn’t hold on, and dropped away. The next blow swished past his drooping pate to thock! on the wall with a horribly hard blow.

  “Hold on there, ye bastard!” Alan heard a voice say, and then there was a flash of light that winked as Alan tried to look up, one small glimmer of flickering oil lamps on metal. Knife!

  Ignoring his skull for his life, he scuttled back against the wall, turning over more tall wicker baskets as he tried to rise and crab his way up the rough bricks. A shadow bulked from the street entrance.

  “He’s got a knife, Mister Wythy, look out!” Alan screamed.

  Two bodies swayed against each other. Two quick blows. Two more winks of steel, and then the foe was gone, running east down Thirteen Factory Street for the creek and the plank bridge. There was a hue and cry, the babble of Chinese voices.

  “My God,” Wythy sighed as he stumbled to the wall to lean on it, sinking to his knees. “My God!”

  Alan lurched away from the wall to sink to his own knees by the older man as Wythy pressed both hands over his abdomen. “That bloody bastard!” He grimaced, his expression turning to a cock-eyed grin of sarcastic surprise. “Think the bastard’s killed me!”

  “Hoy!” Alan called, his head splitting with every breath. “Hoy the watch! A man’s been stabbed here! Somebody help us!”

  “Oh my God,” Wythy whispered as his blood flowed like a spilled bottle of claret and steamed in the cool night air.

  Alan staggered to the street entrance. Yes, sailors from a dozen nations were coming on the run. He could see Twigg and Percival, with Cony bringing up the rear.

  “That way! A sailor with a knife! Somebody stop the bastard!” Alan yelled, and then his own vision began to turn into a dim tunnel, pinpointing Twigg’s ugly phyz. He sank to his knees again. “Oh, will no one catch the murdering shit?” he moaned.

  “Oh … my … God,” Wythy wept in reply.

  Chapter 7

  The Consoo House was crowded with traders, ship’s captains and Europeans for the execution. The eight members of the Co Hong sat to one side, trade taking a poor second place to justice in this instance. The Chinese mandarin Viceroy for Canton sat on his inlaid throne on a pile of silk pillows, with his Banner Men soldiers behind him, and his linguist at his feet.

  Lewrie had missed the trial, laid up with a concussion, but he had been toid it was a brief affair. The Chinese officials had been highly upset that one of their strictures had been violated. There had been more than a strong rumor that all foreign-devil ships would be ordered out of Chinese waters if more of these fights between the French and English occurred.

  “Fight, Hell!” Alan had protested, but Twigg had told him to stay silent. There was too much pressure from the East India Company to let it go for what it appeared to be: a bungled attempt at robbery by a drink-addled French sailor on an English trader. Trade was too good this season. The pickings coming down from the hinterland were the best anyone had ever seen, and the prices were for once reasonable.

  So Twigg had to sit silent and let his friend and partner pass over as a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, who had died trying to aid an English shipmate. It had taken Wythy a couple of days to die, from the suppuration of two deep belly wounds that were untreatable and a death sentence. Lockjaw had been added to the insufferable agonies of his last night on earth.

  The surgeon had shaved Alan’s head, staunched the bleeding and sewn up the pressure cut. For the moment he was forced to wear a wig until his hair grew back out.
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  “M’seurs,” someone said in a soft voice from behind them. Alan turned awkwardly. It still hurt to turn his head, so he pivoted on one heel.

  “Guillaume Choundas, capitaine, La Poisson D’Or. A votre service,” he said. “I am mos’ sorry for your loss. Zat it was a French sailor who did this … words cannot express my sorry.”

  Twigg laid a hand on Lewrie’s arm before he exploded.

  Choundas was turned out in his Sunday Divisions best, a dark blue master’s coat trimmed in white lace and silver buttons, short white tie-wig over his dull ginger hair, silk shirt and neck-cloth, dark red waist-coat and black breeches and stockings. On his left sleeve, he wore a wide black riband, tied in a bow. In mourning for the French sailor.

  Choundas turned up the corners of his mouth in a sad smile. He had droop-cornered eyes, orbs of a pale, washed-out blue that were as icy as Greenland bergs, though, belying his evident sorrow.

  “Zis pauvre homme, messieurs,” Choundas went on. “Zis poor lad. what ’e did was …” A Gallic shrug. “But ’e was in drink, n’est-ce pas? A good matelot. One of mine, as you know. ’E is tres … so very young, messieurs. Surely, Brittanique gentilhommes such as you may find ze Christianité …”

  “Not my decision, sir,” Twigg said, glaring. “He killed one of mine!”

  “Ah, mais ouis, mais ouis, m’seur Tweeg,” Choundas sighed like a disappointed suitor. “Ze Chinetoque courts, zo, zey do take … uhmm … like ze Gauls ancien … what your Saxon ancestors called ‘were-gild,’ messieurs.”

  “Blood-money?” Lewrie gasped.

  Amusement danced in those pale eyes as Choundas turned his slack-jawed gaze to him. “Ze lad by zis courts could be freed to return to ’is aged parents, ’is young wife and child, m’seur Looray. And you still live. ’E did not mean to ’arm anyone. ’E was drunk, in need of money. ’E did not mean to kill, ’e ’as sworn to me!”

  Choundas put his hands together as if at prayer and his face became even more droopy-eyed, like a dog whose master has just yelled at him. “Your m’seur Weethy frighten ’im. ’E only wan’ to flee. Please, m’seur, I beg you, as ’is capitaine, as a Christian gentilhomme. As a fellow Brittanique who share l’ancestrie with all ze sires of notre race … Celts, Gauls, hien? Spare ’im! Mon Dieu, in the name of God, spare ’im! Tell ze court you take ze … blood money, if you will name it zo. Whatever sum you wish, messieurs! Name ze price and I swear to pay it!”

  Lewrie was shaken by Choundas’ demeanor. He certainly seemed sincere. But then, so did Sir Hugo, when he desired something. A fine pair they’d make, he thought sourly: both of them consummate actors. And frauds! And damme, if he ain’t laughing at us, even now, I swear. Standing there, judging his performance. Like I do, I have to admit, now and again. But, bedamned to the bugger!

  Twigg took his arm and gave his elbow a squeeze.

  “I could be prepared to spare the young fellow, if he was only confused and drunk, Captain Choundas,” Twigg replied slowly, weighing every word. “As you say, we are of one race, sprung from the selfsame root-stock that flourished in Gaul and Brittania before the time of the Caesars … before the German barbarians came … the Romans.”

  “Ah, mais ouis, mais ouis!” Choundas nodded, his eyes glinting with unexpected triumph. The pious expression he wore flickered to a revealing brief smile, a smile tainted with just the faintest bit of a leer at Twigg’s stupidity.

  “He is awfully young, is he not, sir,” Twigg sighed, and his stern visage creased into a grin. “God, I pity the poor …”

  Surely not! Alan thought.

  “But, the courts have given their decision. Death by strangulation. To put a curb on this unfortunate animosity between English and French in their port. The assault on one of my ship’s officers, and, no matter the reasons, the death of my most trusted and beloved longtime partner, Tom Wythy, with a forbidden weapon, well …”

  “Ah, but m’seur Tweeg …” Choundas floundered a bit.

  “And the poor lad, when one gets right to the meat of it, is a lice-ridden, scurrilous Frog, ain’t he now, Captain Choundas? A murdering cut-throat son of a Frog bitch, ditch-dropped by a Frog whore!” Twigg went on, those lips pursing, temples pounding, but a beatific grin creasing his lower face. “A brisket-beating superstitious slave to Rome, and, like all French of my acquaintance, born under a threepenny, ha’penny planet, never to be worth a groat!”

  Choundas recoiled as if slapped, dropping his pious pose and slitting his eyes.

  “If this court don’t scrag him, I’ll volunteer to twist the cords myself, sir!” Twigg rasped.

  “You play with me, m’seur, you make ze sport … !”

  “Far as I know, you play with yourself, you sans coulotte peasant,” Twigg barked. “Why don’t you go back to eatin’ snails and catchin’ an honest fishmonger’s farts?”

  “You insult me beyond all honneur, m’seur, I demand …”

  “Try it and see whose ship gets booted out of this port, sir. Try it and see who ends up in a Chinee grave!” Twigg hissed. “Who knows, from what Mister Lewrie tells me, your demise might make a few poor whores happier’n pigs in shit! Takes more’n that pitiful excuse for a beard to make a man a real man, right, Mister Lewrie?”

  “To quote the Bard, sir, ‘Who is he who is blessed with one appearing hair.’ Or something like that,” Lewrie fumbled out.

  “Only French have l’honneur! You English have none!”

  “Perhaps, but we do have bloody marvelous artillery,” Twigg. simpered. “Do but give us the opportunity to prove it to you.”

  Choundas spun on his heel and stalked noisily away to join the rest of the French traders and ship-captains, heels ringing on marble.

  “Good on you, sir,” Alan said firmly. “That was bloody well said! Told that perverted monster off good and proper.”

  “Do but dwell upon this, Mister Lewrie,” Twigg whispered, turning back to the court as the accused was led in. “We might have just struck flint to tinder, created a blaze hot enough to goad him into something rash. Like following us once we leave Canton, ’stead of us having to track him. The gloves are off now, ours and his. For old Tom Wythy’s sake, I’ll have that bastard’s heart’s blood. You watch your back from now on, ’cause it’s war to the knife!”

  The Viceroy began to speak, sing-songing formal phrases which his linguist translated bit by bit for the foreigners. “By the will of our Emperor, Son of Heaven, Complete Abundance, Solitary Prince, Celestial Emperor, Lord of the Middle Kingdom and swayer of the wide world … my master, Viceroy for the prefecture … in the City of Rams, Yu Quang Shen Wang speaks. Hear his words, make kow tow and obey, tremblingly!”

  The eight members of the Co Hong and their creatures, and every Chinese went flat on the floor, while the Europeans performed elaborate bows, doffing hats and making legs. The British barely inclined their bare heads.

  “Psst,” Lewrie said, nudging Twigg when the linguist began again. “Third from the right, sir. Do you mark him?” he whispered from the corner of his mouth and cut his eyes to Twigg, who swiveled to glare at a minor mandarin in a sumptuously thick and rich embroidered silk robe and pillbox cap with coral button and feather. Twigg nodded and turned back to face the Viceroy on his throne.

  “ … and disturb the heavenly harmony of our Celestial Kingdom! We tolerate the rude behavior … of foreign-devil barbarians who know no better … the export of our valuable goods … in exchange for what worthless items they bring to the City of Rams … until such time as they displease us beyond measure. You are quarrelsome slaves whose crude barbarian chieftains cannot control … your rustic kings have sent ambassadors to pledge fealty to our Celestial Emperor … made their kow tow to recognize the superiority of the Son of Heaven … made themselves subjects to the one who sways the wide world … the foreign-devil Louis of France … the foreign-devil George of England … so that the Solitary Prince might stay his hand and not conquer them.”

  “Like to see the buggers try!” Le
wrie muttered.

  “Hush!” Twigg warned with a hiss.

  “We order that there be no more fighting!” the linguist shouted. “No more murderings! Or the Lord of the Middle Kingdom shall withdraw his chop for you to be here! See the punishment! Witness tremblingly, and obey!”

  “Damme!” Lewrie was forced to say as he recognized the prisoner. It was Choundas’ cox’n, the one in the sampan with him the morning they’d first seen him.

  The executioner came forward with a silk rope while two Banner Men soldiers held the sailor by each arm and led him into the center of the gathering and made him kneel down. For a man about to be garroted, the seaman seemed unusually calm, gazing about disoriented but obeying the soldiers without struggle. His eyes seemed glazed and his mouth hung open slackly, with a bit of drool at one corner.

  “They’ve drugged him,” Twigg whispered. “Lots of opium. I doubt he even knows what’s about to occur.”

  They strangled him, taking their time about it, too, applying one turn of the silk rope at a time, then waiting to see the results. The executioner looked gleeful as he readjusted his grip before taking another twist or two, which had all the Europeans muttering and shuffling, some coughing.

  They continued to strangle him slowly, until the man’s tongue stood out, and his face went blue. His head was so suffused with blood, his eyes almost popped, and trickles of blood ran like sparse tears until he went totally limp and ceased breathing.

  Lewrie found it as satisfying as any hanging he’d ever seen at Tyburn, though the poor wretch hadn’t had his wits about him enough to go game, with a final japery or two, and a crowd of fellow bucks cheering him on, the doxies throwing flowers and kisses to a brave rogue. He turned his head to look at the French, Choundas particularly. Surprisingly, for one so affected by the sad fate of one of his own crew, Choundas was remarkably blase about it, standing slack and bored with his weight on one leg. He looked more like a man waiting for his coach to be brought round, ready to drag out a pocket watch and wonder what was keeping his ostler. Choundas looked around and shot a glare at them.