A Jester’s Fortune

work with him, dammit. Surely he knows better. He has to work with me! Does he think Captain Charlton will protect him? Greedy pig or no, he's competent. Runs a taut, trig ship. Patronage only goes so far; it can't make a complete fool of a commander, or a captain. Damme, his First Officer, Stroud, was so protective of him. Those Marines of his thought it was funny, but they seemed worried about him, too. Only been in charge of Myrmidon a dog-watch and has that sort of loyalty already, so…

'Less he's too idle, let's 'em get away with murder, that's why they cosset him. A stern captain'd ruin their lives! No…

'A sip o' somethin', sir?' Aspinall intruded on his thoughts from the doorway of his pantry across from the dining-coach.

'What?' Lewrie snapped irritably.

'Afore yer dinner, sir.' Aspinall cringed. 'Would ya wish a glass o' somethin' wet, 'fore yer dinner, sir?'

'Uhm, no.' Lewrie sighed, sure that spirits-before the sun was well below the main-course yardarm-and his foul mood, would be a bad combination. 'Don't think so, Aspinall. But thankee.' Alan softened.

'Aye, sir,' Aspinall replied, ducking back into his pantry.

Toulon padded to the desk after a good yawn and stretch, and a thorough tongue-wash on his favourite sofa cushion, to starboard. A prefacing Grr-murr! of effort to announce his arrival, and he was up on the desktop, to sniff at the quill pen and bat at it hopefully. Lewrie smiled for the first time that morning and teased him with it, holding it over his head. Toulon half reared on his hind legs to bat at it, turned excited pirouettes as Lewrie circled the quill, slashing with both paws at his 'birdie.'

'Deck, there!' came a faint, thin cry from high aloft. 'Deck, there! Sign'l fum Myrmidon!'

Toulon caught his 'birdie,' crumpling the spine of the quill in his paws, and bore it to his mouth as Lewrie cocked his head to hear.

'Two…'strange… sail!' The lookout slowly read off the distant bunting. And Lewrie was out of his chair, shrugging into his coat and hat, halfway to the after ladder to the quarterdeck, before the man finished shrilling '… up… t'windward!' Toulon remained on the top of the desk, flopping onto his side to gnaw and claw his prey with his back feet, oblivious.

'Masthead!' Knolles was bellowing aloft through a brass deck-officer's trumpet. 'Anything in sight?'

'Nossir!' the lookout bawled back, after a long moment to scan the weather horizon with his hands shading his eyes like a dray-horse's blinders. 'Nothin' in sight!'

'Up to windward of Myrmidon,' Lewrie grunted, joining Knolles by the wheel drum. 'Due East, or up to her Nor'east, perhaps?'

'Aye, sir, I should think so.' Knolles grinned, removing his cocked hat to run his fingers through his blond hair; a sign of joy or agitation, Lewrie had learned by then.

'Mister Spendlove?' Lewrie called over his shoulder. 'Aye, sir?'

'Bend on 'Acknowledge' to Myrmidon, then repeat the hoist for Lionheart, astern,' Lewrie instructed. 'Aye aye, sir.' 'Mister Spendlove?' 'Aye, sir?' The lad checked in mid-turn.

'Make sure you preface the hoist to the squadron commander with 'From Myrmidon,' so he doesn't think the two strange sail lie windward in sight oius, sir.'

'Aye aye, sir!' Spendlove heartily agreed. It wouldn't be the first time that signals had been misread or missent between ships since he'd come aboard Jester.

'Two ships or more, sir!' Knolles enthused, almost clapping his hands together as he swung his arms at the prospect of action or easy prize-money. 'Fine weather for a pair of ships to come running off-wind through the Straits of Otranto. French, perhaps, sir?'

'For Taranto or Calabria, if they're inshore of Myrmidon; for Malta, too, perhaps,' Lewrie speculated. 'Neapolitans, Maltese or God knows what, so far. Come on, Fillebrowne. Tell us a bit more!'

'Lionheart acknowledges our hoist, sir,' Spendlove told him a moment later. 'Nothing more, sir.'

'Mister Knolles, I'd admire you eased us a point free.' Alan frowned, fighting the urge to chew on a thumbnail. 'That will let us sidle more northerly, towards Myrmidon. Within sight of whoever or whatever these strange sail are.'

'Aye, sir. Quartermaster, ease your helm a'weather, a point free, no more,' Knolles told the helmsman. He opened his mouth to call down to Bosun Cony in the waist, to alert the watch for a sail trim, but thought better of it, for the moment.

'Aye aye, sir!' Mr. Spenser parroted. 'Helm a'weather, one point. Her head's now Nor'east by North, half East!'

'Deck, there!' the mainmast lookout shrilled. 'Sign'l fum! Myrmidon! Three strange sail, t'th' East'rd!'

'Repeat again, Mister Spendlove.' Lewrie fretted, pacing the deck plankings, head down and scuffing his shoes on the pounded oakum between the joins. 'Aloft, there! Where, away… Lionheart?' 'Lar'b'd quarter, sir! Crackin' on royals!'

'Sail ho!' the foremast lookout added. 'Three sail, d'ye hear, there! One point off t'larboard bows!'

The day wasn't too hazy, Lewrie noted, laying hands on the top of the windward bulwark and gazing down at the creaming quarter-wave of Jesters wake; a lookout can see twelve, thirteen miles. Wind's just strong enough to tempt a body sailin' large, or broad-reachin', to hoist t'gallants, at the very least. Maybe royals, too. Put 'em hull-down… maybe another six miles off, he calculated deliberately. Seven miles, should we be seein' royals only? Twenty miles, say, up to windward of us and Myrmidon?

'Three strange sail, d'ye hear, there!' the foremast lookout added. 'Turnin'l Hard'nin' up t'weather! T'gallants an' tops'ls!'

Lewrie smiled to himself, leaning back, gripping the cap-rail, and peering up to the Nor'east, where he imagined Myrmidon might be, though he couldn't see her from the deck. Three sail, who had just espied a strange ship-Myrmidon, thrashing full-and-by to windward, almost dead on their bows-and swinging further out to sea, turning more Sutherly, to give her a wide berth. Or to avoid being spotted? That didn't sound much like innocent merchantmen out on their 'lawful occasions.' There wasn't any fighting in the Ionian Sea, not yet. Why would three ships be sailing together, unless for mutual aid and defence? And bearing up to the wind, to slip round the seaward flank of a single strange sail?

'Mister Knolles?' Lewrie called, turning to face his second-in-command.

'Aye, sir.'

'Pipe 'All Hands,' sir. 'Stations for Stays,' 'Lewrie ordered. 'Do they try to reach south on us, we might be able to cut them off. Put the ship about, on the larboard tack.'

'Aye aye, sir! Mister Cony? Pipe 'All Hands on Deck'!'

As the bosuns' calls, the 'Spithead Nightingales,' sang their urgent song, Lewrie turned to gaze out to sea a little more Easterly of Jesters thrashing bows, riding spring-kneed to her motion, feeling the power in her, the thrum and dance of her-vibrant, alive and onrushing. And closing the distance with each loping, hobbyhorsing bound over the brine.

'Hungry 'is mornin', she is, sir,' Mr. Buchanon said from his side, a little inboard in deference to a captain's sole right to the windward side of the quarterdeck. 'He be, too, sir. Yer permission, sir?' At Lewrie's nod, Buchanon stepped up to the bulwarks, put his own hands on the cap-rail, and stared down into the rushing, creaming wake close-aboard-a wake that was already becoming a sibilant, impatient hissing roar, tumbling in snowfall whiteness. His lips moved, and he smiled.

Lewrie cocked a wary eye at Buchanon; the Sailing Master was becoming even more superstitious lately. He put it down to Jester being ordered into an alien sea, one Buchanon had never sailed, never studied.

Surgeon Mr. Howse, saturnine and laconic as ever, came on deck by the larboard ladder from the waist, his terrierlike Surgeon's Assistant, Mr. LeGoff, in tow, again as ever.

'Some bustle this morning, sir?' Howse enquired gloomily, as if fearing a justification for his presence aboard.