The King

out of eighteen Lanun Rover praos sunk, taken or burned, sir, and over twelve hundred cut-throats dead or made prisoner. Why, these Mindanao pirates haven't suffered such a bloody check in a hundred years! Wiped from the face of God's blue seas. As you demanded back at Bencoolen, sir.'

'One might also mention the harbor properly surveyed for the first time in living memory, and the island's exact location corrected, sir,' Sir Hugo prompted. 'The late Captain Cook could have done no less in these waters, I shouldn't doubt.'

'And that American whaler freed, too,' Ayscough concluded.

'Yes, that American whaler,' Twigg drawled. 'Now off in Manila, shouting to high heaven. Letting the world in on our little secret! Did it not occur to you, Mister Lewrie, that our mission out here is secret?'

Twigg got to his feet to pace his anger off.

'It cannot be known publicly by any other power that England had disguised warships in these waters, or the recent treaty is violated, and we might face another disastrous war with France. Or any other nation that might decide to side with them. Those Yankees saw a battalion of East India Company troops, and a vessel flying Royal Navy colors, do battle with the French, sir! Now how secret do you believe our mission is any longer? You should have kept them here, found any excuse to delay their departure, until I could arrive so no one could learn of this, but no! You…'

'Oh, bloody Hell!' Sir Hugo snapped, slamming boots on the deck. 'Did it never occur to you, Mister Twigg, that there may have been a tad too much bloody worry about secrecy?'

'I beg your pardon, Sir Hugo?' Twigg snarled back.

'Two years ago, when our first ships started going missing, it would have made eminent sense to raise the hue and cry with every seafaring nation out here and make a concerted campaign to defend trade. Not just our trade, but everyone's. Let the world know there's need to chastise every bloody pirate in the Far East,' Sir Hugo went on. 'But that may have been too much good sense for our masters back in London. Seems to me, sir, this exposure at last, with our American cousins shouting the loudest, is just the thing for us. In a year, the world'll know it was this Choundas, and the Frogs, backing these pirates. Now, our work's four-fifths done, and public pressure, and an end to all this bloody sneaking and hiding, will do the rest for us, without getting any more good men killed. I say, it's time the wraps came off this bloody business. And as for freeing those Yankees, refitting their ship and all, well, that'll stand us in good credit with those new United States. And should another war break out, we'll need all the good credit we can stand, else they'd side with their former allies.'

'I would not normally expect,' Twigg said after a long sigh, 'such perspicacity in a military man, Sir Hugo. And in private, I might be able to agree with you. But the Crown decided otherwise. And it's not simply about piracy, you see. It's not even about this fellow Choundas, when you get right down to it, sir. It's about laying combinations out here for the next war.'

'Oh, bugger,' Sir Hugo growled.

'You consider another war with France inevitable, Sir Hugo, as much as I. At this very instant, there may be three dozen schemes in play such as ours, and even I have no knowledge of them, and shouldn 't unless one of the others impinges upon mine. All to see that future foes have no strength or credit here in the Far East, nor any allies or secret bases that could threaten England. To put too much light on ours, sir, to expose any of them, would be to expose all of them, eventually. The best mushrooms, I am told, are grown in the dark.'

'The best roses need the most cow-shit, too,' Ayscough huffed.

'Nevertheless, sir,' Sir Hugo smiled, a disarming, lazy smile that Lewrie knew of old was one of eminent menace, 'I do trust that when you come to write of this campaign, you shall sound at least the slightest bit grateful for what we've done for you so far. And commending.'

'Of course I shall, Sir Hugo,' Twigg relented, obviously seeing the threat that lay behind that smile, and being enough of a political animal, with the ability to read others so he could best use them for his own purposes, or the Crown's, to know he could carp no longer.

'So,' Captain Ayscough grunted. 'How best to conclude this'un? Now we've hamstrung this Choundas bugger so thoroughly.'

'Have we, sir?' Twigg scowled. 'And for how long?'

'Well, he's lost this island base of his,' Ayscough rambled. 'Lost La Malouine, lost Stella Mans, and his secret's soon to be out, thanks to those Yankee Doodle whalermen. Now he may have other cartel ships out here to serve him, but for now he's on his own.'

'He still has the Lanun Rovers, sir,' Twigg pointed out, with some glee. 'And he has his freedom to rebuild a semblance of his web, like some noisome spider.'

'Without the silver and opium we captured here, without all the arms he would have given the pirates, or the trade goods, I doubt he still has the Lanun Rovers,' Captain Ayscough replied. 'They lost too many of their brethren here for Choundas to hold their allegiance. Oh, he saved some few of 'em by showing up when he did, but he failed to rescue the rest. Even with that big, fine ship of his, he didn't sail up and fight us. He may have 'em in name only, but not firmly in his grasp any longer. And for the moment, he's vulnerable.'

'If that's so bloody obvious, then why isn't he running home right now, cutting his losses?' Sir Hugo speculated, sitting back down and refilling his glass. 'He must know this is his last raiding summer, and it's riskier now more'n ever.'

'Because he is who he is, Sir Hugo,' Twigg said with a knowing leer. 'I've had a chance to interrogate the surviving Frogs from this Stella Marts. Amazing what a man will confess when threatened with a noose for piracy. The second mate told me that most of the officers thought Choundas a rather odd sort. Odder than most. Not merely in his sexual predific-tions, but in his mind, sirs. Lieutenant Lewrie, do you recall that nonsense he spouted the day of the execution, what he had to say about the ancient Gauls and Celts being related?'

'Aye, sir, I do,' Lewrie agreed, tensing for another lesson in just how simply clever Twigg thought himself to be. 'He said that the Britons, the Gauls and the Celts were one race, sir. Damned fool.'

'Us, kin of Frogs?' Sir Hugo spluttered. 'I mean, the Normans aside, what a lot of… you will pardon the play on words, but, what gall!'

'Choundas was born in low circumstances, yes,' Twigg related with relish, 'though not fishmonger poor. His father owned several boats, and hoped for better things for his son.

Education, and hopes he'd enter the priesthood. Don't have to be a nobleman to do well in France if you wear the cassock. But the boy, besides being a superb sailor, developed a bent for scholarship in history, and in Latin, of course. Why he named Stella Marts by a Latin name, and not Etoile de la Mer, I s'pose.'

'Does this have any bearing on anything?' Ayscough groaned.

'What's the thing all Latin students read, sir? Caesar's Gallic Wars. Naturally, as a Breton, Choundas would sympathise with the ancient Gauls under Vercingetorix and such. But most specifically, he imagined himself, and his line, to be kin with the Veneti. When oared galleys daren't go five miles offshore, these Veneti in their oak ships with leather sails would roam the entire known world, much as we do today. Their strength was in their Navy. Even the Vikings of latter days didn't dare as much as they did.'

'I think,' Lewrie summarized for them, unable to pass up the sterling opportunity to shine, or to spill the air from Twigg's sails, 'that what Mister Twigg means is that if he thinks he's the last of this noble seafaring line of Veneti, and goes on about it so much he bores his compatriots to tears with it, we may assume the silly arse will tweak our noses and raid our ships this season, sirs.'

'Then why didn't you merely say so, Mister Twigg?' Captain Ayscough asked, with all innocence in his expression. 'Right, then!'

Ayscough trotted out his chart of the South China Seas and laid it on the table, anchoring the corners with bottles and glasses so the wind wouldn't scud it off somewhere to leeward.

'If he thinks he's that bloody good, he can't have sailed too far to the east'rd.' Ayscough chuckled. 'West is out, 'cause he'd have to beat so far to windward against the prevailing sou'easterlies this time of year to get to his cruising grounds. Choate is scouting the Borneo coast now, and we may have good news from him soon. Down there is to windward, where I'd wish to base myself, were I this 'last of a noble seafaring line.' But there's a