Pirate King: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

Then the rhythm broke off. Pessoa said something in a more normal voice – rather, in the voice he had used the other evening when he wore the monocle, not the deferential intonations of Fernando Pessoa, translator. He seemed to be asking a question, because La Rocha’s squeak answered, then Samuel contributed something. It went on that way for a few minutes, before Pessoa cleared his throat, paused for a swallow from his glass, and set to again.

I peeled my cheek off the grubby stone and sat upright, thinking, Good heavens, they’re holding a piratical poetry reading!

This literary salon continued for another quarter hour before Pessoa came to what was clearly, even through a closed door, some kind of conclusion. The other two men did not applaud, but they did make encouraging noises. I placed my eye back to the slit, thinking that they would pour the poet a drink and talk it over, but instead all three of them stood. I positioned my hands for instant flight in the event they decided to use the back entrance, but they did not – and to my surprise, it was not Pessoa who left, but the other two.

Instead, Pessoa made a circuit of the chairs, stood before the fire for a minute – I could only see to his bagged knees, but I pictured him rolling a cigarette. Then a spent match sailed into the coals, and Pessoa returned to his chair, and his pages.

Only this time, he read his words in English.

It was – inevitably – a poem about piracy, beginning with hard, romantic, masculine images of a man’s life at sea:

To the sea!

Salt with windblown foam

My taste for great voyages!

Thrash with whipping water the flesh of my adventure,

Douse with the cold depths the bones of my existence,

But then the harshness slipped sideways, into imagery even a pirate might have found unnerving:

Make shrouds out of my veins!

Hawsers out of my muscles!

Flay my skin and nail it to the keels!

Was this what he’d been reading to La Rocha and his friend? It was hard to picture those two men receiving these images with such calm attentiveness. No, I decided: The poet must have read them a less inflammatory portion, and set these verses free into the room only after they had left.

It went on in this vein for some time, the poet asking that his eyes be torn out, bones smashed, blood spilt. I listened in fascination as the pale, thin landsman dreamed into existence a tropical sun that made his taut veins seethe, Patagonian winds that tattooed his imagination. There was a bizarre fascination in overhearing the man’s inner vision, of himself and his people; my cheek went numb against the frigid stone as his maritime ode unfolded. His voice became increasingly caught up in the recitation, gaining in fervency at the erotically charged violence, the fire and the blood, until from deep within booms the savage and insatiable Song of the Great Pirate, sending a chill down the spine of his men:

Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

The abrupt shift from bloody rapine into children’s adventure story startled a noise out of me, and I slapped a hand over my mouth. The dramatic recitation cut sharply off. I staggered upright and forced my stiff limbs to shamble down the tunnelled lane, clearing the corner only an instant before the bolt rattled and the door spilt light down the stones.

I was waiting at the front of the tavern when he left a short time later, and followed him long enough to confirm that it was the flamboyant, monocled Alvaro de Campos striding along the deserted streets, not meek, bespectacled Pessoa. I trailed behind him long enough to decide that he was headed to his home, on the city’s other set of hills, and then I turned off towards the hotel, and dinner.

I will admit, my dreams that night were a touch … confused.

CHAPTER TWENTY

SCENE: A ruined chapel by moonlight.

THEN CAME MONDAY morning, and everything changed.

The cast – most of it – was at breakfast when Fflytte swept in, dressed in the most remarkable suit I’d yet seen, a canary yellow twill with a bright orange cravat spotted with green fleurs-de-lis. He stood in the doorway and clapped his hands to gain our attention, gaining that of all the civilians and waiters as well.

“Good morning, everyone!” He paused, as if expecting a classroom of dutiful replies. Hale loomed behind him in the doorway, looking as if he had not slept well. He might have simply remained where he was, but behind him came Will Currie, who shouldered the yellow twill aside and gestured to a waiter carrying a jug of coffee. Hale took advantage of the opening, as did a couple whose departure had been blocked by the director. Fflytte disregarded them all.

“Fresh day, fresh week, fresh ideas!” he boomed. “Now, as some of you may have heard, I found a ship yesterday that’s going to transform what we do with this picture. It will take a bit of attention to get it in condition for the cameras, so, rather than delay the rest of the production while we’re doing that, I’m going to divide us up. Now, we’ve done this before,” he cajoled, although I had heard no protests, “and we’re all professionals here. Well, most of us. And the newcomers to the trade are fast learners. Here’s what we’ll do. Team One is composed of me and Mr La Rocha: He and I will get the ship ready to film.” And to limp into the harbour and back without going down, I added by way of silent prayer. “The second team, with Mr Hale, will rehearse the pirates and their fight scenes with the constables. Mr Hale will be in charge of that, assisted by Mr La Rocha’s, er … well, we know him in the part of Samuel. And our translator, Mr Pessoa, will remain with them.” I drew a relieved breath: I could not let the man who’d composed what I overheard the previous evening remain near young girls, but I was not looking forward to telling Hale why. “Team Three will be the girls, with Mr Currie and Miss Russell. Oh, and you, Daniel. Girls, I’m sending you on a little working holiday just near the coast, to film the scenes where Frederic first sees Mabel. I’m told it’s a lovely place, we’ve made arrangements for you to spend the night, the charabanc will be here in an hour. And-”

Whatever he’d planned on saying next was drowned in a gale of shrieks and exclamations, as a score of females threw down their table napkins and stormed for the door. Amused – he’d done it deliberately, I could tell – Fflytte stood aside to let them race past, then turned to the depleted audience, consisting of the crew, Daniel Marks, and the police constables. Harold Scott – our Major-General – was not there. One rarely saw him before noon.

“Maude,” Fflytte said to the woman in charge of make-up, “you’ll go with the girls, of course. And, Miss Russell? Will’s assistant, Artie, is a touch, er, under the weather. You don’t mind helping Will with the equipment, do you?”

I looked at Will, who was grimly stirring sugar into his coffee. He’d known about the plan beforehand – going by his lack of bounce, he’d spent a large part of the night protesting. “Happy to,” I replied.

Then Fflytte turned to the woman in charge of costuming. “Sally, you’ll stay with me and Mr La Rocha. He tells me there’s going to be a lot of repairs needed to the sails, and-”

“No!” she and I objected, at the same instant. She didn’t wait for me to cede the floor. “I’ll not ruin my hands on canvas.”

“You’ve sewn canvas before.”

“Yes, when you needed a shroud for a burial at sea,” she retorted. “But there’s a world of difference between wrapping a mannequin and producing an acre of canvas sail.”

“Oh, hardly an acre,” Fflytte cajoled.