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

assemble a translation.

“We wish to leave,” I replied in his tongue.

He started to answer, realised what I had said, started again, paused a second time, and then looked past me and saw the others. Including Annie, who had climbed on a greengrocer’s display to see what the problem was. Adam’s words died away as he and Annie regarded each other above the crowd. They were both unaware of the growing turmoil, the shouts of the donkey’s owner, the cries of other would-be pedestrians in three directions.

The owner of the slippers swam upstream towards his four-legged lorry, bawling a constant stream of “Balek! Balek!” (“Give way!”), although the additional pressure only forced the creature backwards, onto me and the pirates. In a minute, the beast would start to kick. Adam shouted. The man shouted back, until he came to a clear place and caught sight of his foe. His mouth went wide, then snapped shut. Without a glance at his lost wares, he grabbed the creature’s halter and hauled furiously away. A receding wave of cries, protests, and curses traced his retreat; the sardine-tin sensation grew less marked.

Adam turned at last to look at me. “You speak Arabic.”

“I do. The others do not. You must let us go. This will bring war onto your city.”

His dark eyes did not react, although a slight tilt of the head made me aware of the men at his back. A dozen or more large, armed, ferocious-looking men, hungry for a fight.

“We will return to the house,” he said.

“No!” I looked at his younger brother, Jack, and thought of those shiny boots sticking in such awful absurdity from under the piano. No child should live with that image in his memory. “Your father is dead there.”

Reaction rippled back into the men, with a burst of cross-talk. Adam seemed oblivious, but Jack took a step closer to him.

“You lie,” the younger boy declared.

“I do not. It was an accident,” I said – which, granted, was not exactly true, but … “He lies in the courtyard.” Then I added in English, “Your brother does not need to see it.”

Adam’s black eyes studied me for the longest time. With the donkey gone, Holmes and the others had come together, and I could feel him, three feet from me, ready to pull his revolver from its inner pocket and go down shooting.

“Dead.”

“I am sorry for you.” I had no idea what he was thinking, how he was going to react.

“And my uncle?”

“As far as I know, he’s still under arrest. The French-”

“The guards?”

I switched back to Arabic. “Your men are tied. Two are injured badly, the others merely bound.”

“And my father is dead.”

For God’s sake, was he about to gut me? Hug me? Turn his head to the wall and weep? “He was a brave man,” I ventured.

“He was a-” I was not familiar with the word, but his inflection made me suspect it was not a term of endearment.

He took a tremulous breath, then seemed to grow two inches taller and ten years older. For the first time, I saw a resemblance to Samuel. He looked towards the back of the crowd – towards Annie – and then whirled about to face his compatriots.

“You heard this foreigner!” he shouted at them. I thrust my hands into the galabiyya to grab my knife in one hand and the revolver in the other. Holmes pushed forward, and a sudden caterpillar of motion from the rear suggested that Annie and Bert had done the same. “My father is dead. My uncle is in the hands of the French. Who will deny that I step into my father’s boots? Any?”

The lad’s fury brought the others up short, stopped me in my place, made Holmes raise one hand to keep those at his back from shoving into an uncertain but clearly perilous situation. The pirates looked at one another. Jack wormed his way around to take up a position at his brother’s side. Benjamin stared, first at them, then at Mr Grohe, and finally craned to look into the foreign faces, but Celeste was not to be seen. He shifted, looking as if he were about to move away – when a scream rent the air.

Everyone ducked. A gun went off, although the shutter it destroyed was a good ten feet from the bright visitor that swooped through this urban canyon, beating its wings to perch upon a frayed clothes-line strung between buildings. “She is MINE!” the bird screeched.

The street blinked, and began to breathe again. Benjamin lowered his eyes to the two brothers and, as if Rosie’s words had been meant for him alone, stepped forward to side with Adam. The remaining members of the crew exchanged another round of speechless consultation; their weapons stayed up, but their shoulders lost a degree of belligerence.

Adam kept his chin raised, as haughty as if the question of succession had never been in doubt. “You take me as leader?” he demanded. “You agree that I am my father, in your eyes?”

No one openly denied it; in fact, a general shrug of acceptance ran through them as if to say, Well, why not?

I shot Holmes a glance, warning him, and then Annie at the back – because, in truth, whether it be Samuel or his son giving the orders, our position had changed little. We had to fight here, or risk abduction into the distant inland, never to return.

Should I attack first, before Adam could give the order? The confusion that followed would free the others for a panicked flight-some of them might find their way to safety. I eyed the young man’s back, tightening my fingers on the knife in my sleeve. If I go in under his ribs with a sharp push to the right, my knife will clear as he falls into Benjamin and that big fellow, after which-

“Then I say, we let them go!”

– my right hand is clear to shoot the Swedish accountant and … Wait. What?

The pirate crew were looking every bit as puzzled as I.

“No!” one of them finally said, although the word grew elongated and ended in a distinct question mark.

“Yes!” Adam shouted. “You said you would follow me. And I will lead you, and I will provide for you and for your families. This I vow. But I will not have you living off the takings of a wicked act. I will not feed my men off the suffering of women.”

Good God: The subversive sentiments of W. S. Gilbert had converted this hereditary Moroccan cut-throat into a Frederic of morality. I had never before thought of the Savoy operas as a tool of Anarchic philosophy.

“Noble lad!” Holmes murmured.

But the pirates were not convinced. Indeed, judging by the spreading grumble of dissatisfaction, if something was not done quickly, this would be the briefest reign in Sale’s history.

I raised my voice. “I know you men were looking forward to your share of the ransom monies, but there remains much money to be had, and without the disruption of British cannonballs or the inconvenience of French gaol.”

That caught their attention.

“The small man, in our company – Randolph Fflytte? He is a man who lives for the privilege of giving money to others. He points his camera, and it makes a man wealthy. And he may be small in stature, but in my country, he is huge in authority. If he says ‘Come,’ many will follow – all of whom will have busy cameras and equally large purses, and an equal desire to share their wealth. Think for yourselves, O men of Sale: A single payment”-(What the hell was the Arabic for ransom?)-“now, followed by years of grief with your families huddling in the far mountains? Or a moment of generosity that opens the doors to long years of gentle thievery? The choice is yours.”

The men knew all about Fflytte; even those who had not received his money personally had heard that he