The King

'What?'

'Don't end up like me, will you, lad?'

'I don't know; I have a fair start on it.' Alan grimaced and found himself amused in spite of himself.

'You take after me when it comes to the ladies, hey?' Sir Hugo teased.

'In frequency, perhaps. Not… well, I haven't cheated anyone. Not yet, anyway,' Alan allowed.

'That Captain Bevan dropped me a line now and then about you. I know about the ladies in Jamaica,' Sir Hugo chuckled.

'That's not the half of it.'

'1 thought I'd offer you a treat,' Sir Hugo said, getting to his feet rather awkwardly. Part age and stiffness, Alan thought, and part being half-seas-over with drink. Sir Hugo clapped his hands and the narrow door in the purdah screen opened. Three girls entered the room, one dressed in a translucent saree, the other two in the bright gauzy skirts and tight satin jackets that left so little to the imagination, like the nautch-giils he'd seen in the bazaar earlier.

'My word!' he breathed. They were unutterably lovely, every one of 'em! Kohl outlined eyes, shy smiles and bright teeth, complexions clear and smooth, and as brown as pecan shells or as golden as wheat.

'This is Padmini,' Sir Hugo said, indicating the one in the saree, who stood no higher than Alan's chin.

'Namaste, sahib,' the girl whispered, though grinning with an impish expression.

'A Bengali, she is, Alan. Once you've had a Bengali woman, you're spoiled for anything else.' Sir Hugo chuckled. 'Draupadi. She's Rajput. And Apsara. Aptly named, too, for the playthings of Hindoo gods. Though I doubt she's Hindoo. From up north in the Oudh, I think. Maybe from the foothills. A little tigress. All can do a dance that'll set your blood to boiling. Like to see?'

'I don't know…' Alan sighed, feeling anything but lusty for once. All passion had been shouted or cried out of him. 'Maybe some other time, sir.'

Good Christ, is it me saying that?

'Too late to be wandering the streets, even in the English cantonments, Alan. If nothing else, accept my offer of bed and breakfast.'

Draupadi was stirring slowly to the beat of the madals from the courtyard, smiling with heavy-lidded eyes full of promise, her extremely long, straight dark hair swishing maddeningly as far down as her fingertips, and Alan watched it sway. He transferred his gaze to Apsara, she of the dark, frizzy-curly hair and the golden wheat skin, who gazed at him with such a welcoming, open-mouthed smile.

'Er… hmmm,' he pondered.

'Come, Alan,' Sir Hugo demanded. 'I know you of old, my dear son. What's worse, you know me. I'd never cut my nose off to spite my face. Nor would I turn down such exquisite quim just because I bore a grudge against my host. And I doubt if you would, either.'

'Ah…' Alan tried to reply.

'I have a lot to make up to you for, Alan,' his father said, coming close to his side to speak privately. 'Maybe I never can, like you suspect. I'd buy you that bloody trap and pony, if I thought you still wanted it. But right now, this is the best I have to offer. And it may be your last chance before you sail off out of my life again. Safer than some bazaari-randi* too, and won't cost you tuppence.'

*market-whores

'Hmmm,' Alan speculated at last, 'don't suppose your band knows 'When First I Gazed in Chloe's Eyes,' would they?'

'Hardly!' Sir Hugo barked out a short laugh.

'Ah, well,' Alan finally allowed, sinking back to the carpet and reclining against one of those impossibly thick and round barrel-shaped pillows.

With a crook of his finger, Sir Hugo summoned Padmini to join him. Alan crooked his own finger at Apsara, who beamed even wider, and seemed to slink to his side with the lithe grace of a panther, her patchouli and sandalwood scent enveloping him like her gauze chudder as she drew the headcloth about their faces to share a brief nuzzle before pouring him another full bumper of wine.

'Apsara?' he said. 'Alan.'

'Ahk-lahn,' she breathed, taking a sip of his wine.

'My God in Heaven.' He laughed with an anticipatory shudder of raw lust. 'Mind you, Father,' he said over Apsara's smooth young shoulder, 'you have one bloody Hell of a lot to make up for, y'know.'

'The evening's young,' Sir Hugo replied softly. 'My son.' And Draupadi began her dance, her ankle bangles jangling.

III

'Divitis Indiae usque ad ultimum sinum.'

'To the farthest gulf of the rich East.'

– TOWN MOTTO OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS

Chapter 1

Another watch with Percival, the second officer, Alan sighed as he mopped his brow. Another broiling forenoon on a deck holystoned to pristine whiteness that reflected back the heat of the sun, wondering if Percival ever felt the heat, ever grew faint and weak. Plenty of people drop dead of apoplexy back home, Alan thought; why not this bluff ginger bastard?

Bad as their relationship had been compared to the easy acceptance he'd gained with the others in the wardroom, it had gotten a lot worse after the durbar at Sir Hugo's house, to which even Choate the first officer had not been invited, and Alan had. Lewrie suspected Percival despised him in the beginning for rising so quickly in the Navy, and now most heartily despised him for being in the know, for being privy to secrets. For seeming so well-connected with the people who matter, here in the Far East, and back home with the Admiralty.

Yesterday's noon sights placed them exactly on the Equator, almost even with the Johore Straits, the normal passage, and by this noon, they would have made fifty leagues to the north farther on, even with fitful winds staggered almost to nothing by the heat at the Equator.

With such a late start from Calcutta, they'd be lucky to make Canton or Macao by the start of the trading season. If they arrived too late, there might not be a member of the Co Hong who would agree to be their compradore in their legal trading. Mr. Wythy had worried there would be so many other ships anchored off Whampoa full of cotton and spices that the value of their goods, arriving so late, would not fetch a price good enough to defray expenses.

All of which made Lewrie wonder once more if this whole thing hadn't been dreamed up, this tale of piracy, to bilk the Foreign Office and the Admiralty out of a free ship and cheap goods to make Twigg and Wythy rich. If they cut up a pirate fleet or two in the process, it would make a grand report back home, but who couldn 't find some pirates to bash out here, he wondered? It's not as if one had to go looking for them very hard. The whole ocean teemed with them like lice in a rented bed back home. Mr. Brainard the sailing master was an old China hand, along with Twigg and Wythy, in the 'country trade' for years. Even Captain Ayscough had sailed