A King`s Commander

south. Hands aloft, take in sail. First reefs in the main course, mizzen and maintop'sls. I don't wish to shoot past her in the dark. Nor be blown too far loo'rd of the coast by sunrise… by this nor'east wind.'

Should there be a wind shift, which usually happened along such a coast, should it moderate or clock northerly, he'd be headed, robbed of power when he needed it most, and badly placed for pursuit.

Assumin' there's somethin' t'see at dawn, he sighed, frustrated. Jester had logged a steady eight knots since espying their Chase around Voltri. Three hours later, and they were almost level with Vado Bay, at that speed. And still had no further sighting of that spectral tartane. He had to admit that Buchanon was right to be cautious. Rocks aplenty inshore, the sea not so boisterous they'd be warned of risk by white foam breaking on them, the moonlight too weak to give them first sight to steer clear. Stout as the wind had blown, he'd expected some rain with it, such a pall of storm cloud overhead that what poor view the lookouts had would be blotted out entirely; but that hadn't come. The solid black of the shore could still be guessed at, if one didn't peer too long or hard at it; whitecaps could be espied all about, by the faint moon. But no sign of that damned tartane!

Jester slowed as her sail was reduced, even with the wind fine on her starboard quarter. Purring now, as three bells chimed, solidly surefooted and ploughing. But to where?

CHAPTER 7

'Sir?' Knolles prompted, a little closer to Lewrie's ear, and giving him a 'gentlemanly' nudge. 'Sir?'

'I'm awake, sir,' Lewrie grumbled, rising from a treacly sleep from his wood-and-canvas deck chair. He fought the constricting folds of his boat cloak, sensing immediately that the weather had changed.

'Wind's died out, sir,' Knolles reported, fighting a yawn himself. 'The last five minutes, it went scant, then… nothing.'

Jester was rocking and heaving, her timbers and yards groaning in protest, and her sails slatting like flapping laundry amidst all the squeaking of parrel blocks and pulleys. Lewrie marveled that he could have slept so soundly through all that. 'What's the time?' he asked.

'Two bells of the morning just went, sir,' Knolles informed him. 'I make it about a quarter-hour to false dawn, sir. Sorry, sir, but as we kept both watches on deck all night, I held off on pumping and swabbing, and let the hands caulk for a bit. Do you wish me to…'

'No, no, you did quite right, Mister Knolles.' Lewrie shivered, wrapping himself in the boat cloak again. 'Galley fires going? Soup's the thing. Soup and gruel. Cold… but clear.'

'Remarkably clear, sir.' Knolles grinned. Or fought a yawn, it was hard to tell. 'The sea's moderating, too.'

'Just what I feared.' Lewrie groaned. 'Good as stranded, much too far to seaward. Northerly, or a Levanter easterly to come, after sunrise proper. Beat for hours to get back inshore, against the land breeze. I s'pose there's no sign of our Chase?'

'Uhm… not yet, sir,' Knolles had to admit. 'But we can see a bit better now.'

The moon had set, but their world was a nebulous charcoal gray, disturbed only by an occasional whitecap. The coast was definable… just barely. About ten miles off, that solid blackness? he thought. Off which a morning's land breeze would flow, dammit to hell. Maybe a nor'wester, to begin with, before the ocean heated and countered, from whatever capricious direction the Ligurian Sea had in mind today?

'If the galley fires are going, I'd admire some coffee,' Lewrie said. 'And an idea how far west we were blown during the night.'

'I'll send a messenger down to roust your steward, sir,' Lieutenant Knolles offered. But Aspinall clomped up the larboard ladder from the gun deck, having already made a trip to the galley. For a warm-up, if nothing else, Lewrie thought, uncharitable that early in the morning. He cradled a battered old lidded pot, and bore some tin mugs on a string.

'Coffee, sir? Coffee, Mister Knolles, sir?' He beamed. 'Got enough fer all, sir. Thought th' gennlemen'd relish a spot o' hot.'

Toulon had gone with him on his errand, for a bite of something from the cooks, who ever would spoil him. Now he came prancing up the ladders to the quarterdeck, tail stiffly erect and 'maiwee ?'-ing for a good-morning rub. He leaped atop the hammock nettings to greet Lewrie with loud demands for attention. After a warming sip or two, Alan went to him to give at least a one-handed tussling and stroking.

He stiffened suddenly, stopped his frantic purring, and turned to look to the north. His ears laid back, his back hairs and tail got bottled up, and he craned his neck, whiskers well forward.

A faint whicker of wind came from there, the worst direction of all, to Lewrie's lights, just as Knolles extracted his pocket watch to state that it was now time for false dawn.

'Sail Ho!' a forecastle lookout yelped. 'Four points off th' star-b'd bows!'

'Due north?' Lewrie gulped. 'Due north of us?' He looked at the cat, wondering whether he'd sensed the wind's arrival, or caught a scent of that ship… Toulon was now busy washing himself, intent on a paw, and the side of his face that Lewrie had tussled.

'What sort o' sail?' Knolles bellowed back.

'Tartane, sir!' came the quick reply. 'Close-hauled t'th' nor-east! 'Tis her, d'ye hear, there!'

'Get us underway on starboard tack, Mister Knolles. Sheet home and brace in. Full-and-by to weather,' Lewrie demanded. Coffee mug in one hand, telescope slung open in the other, and laid on the mizzen shrouds to starboard, he espied her. Aye, a two-masted tartane, about three miles off, showing them her stern as she ghosted against a faint land breeze, pointing higher than Jester ever could but riding so slow her decks were level, even with her bows as close to the wind's eye as she could lie, with her lateen yards braced in almost fore-and-aft.

Slowly, just as painfully slowly as the tartane crawled, Jester began to gather headway, to pinch up point at a time to the wind, her bows at last aimed west- nor'west, as close as she could lie. Two knots were reported, then three, when the log was cast astern.

'Good mornin', sir,' Buchanon reported to the quarterdeck.

'I'm happy someone can find something good about it,' Alan said as he finished his coffee. 'Do you give me a rough idea of position, I would be much obliged, Mister Buchanon.'

'Aye, sir,' Buchanon replied, crisply cheerful as Aspinall gave him a mug as well. 'But I make 'at cape off th' larb'd bows t'be th' one guardin' Finale. 'At isle t'th' north'rd, 'at'd be sou'-sou'west o' Vado Bay, sir. 'Bout ten mile offshore, we are. Didn't get blown half so far'z I'd thought, Cap'um. 'At our Chase, at last? Th' poor bugger's on th' wrong tack, don't ya think, sir?'

'She's three miles ahead, sir, that's what I think,' Lewrie shot back. 'Up to windward, safe as houses.'

On a hugely diverging course, too. The tartane was beating to the nor'east, but had bags of room in which to tack, safely two miles out of gun range. She could turn nor'west for the coast between the island and the western headland, and there were inlets aplenty for a beaching, in shallow water where Jester could never dare go.

'Four knots! Four knots t'this log!'

The best Lewrie could hope was to stay on this starboard tack, gain speed as the wind rose, as it seemed to be wanting to, to deny her a shot at tacking further west. It wasn't over yet… there might come a patrol from Vado Bay. But so far, though, they had the morning sea to themselves.

'Five knots, sir!' Spendlove shouted.

'We'll tack, sir?' Knolles asked. 'There's wind enough.'

'No, not yet, sir,' Lewrie decided, feeling an urge to chew on a thumbnail. 'We'd lose ground on her, she'd tack once we were on a new course, and force us to do it all over again. We'd fall even more behind. Hands aloft, and