A Jester’s Fortune

depending on who'd put in for firewood and water last. And those grudging claims were forgotten by everyone involved once they'd sailed away.

For days, Jester and Pylades had sailed these waters, no matter the shoals, feeling their way with lead-line, preceded sometimes by a cutter or launch to probe the depths. They'd anchored near poor seaside villages or hardscrabble harbours, shamming the need for firewood and water, fresh lamb or goat, eggs and butter; and paying liberally in solid silver for their purchases, too. They'd taken Kolodzcy ashore to negotiate, where he'd dropped hints that they were British, at war with the French and any who'd aid them; that there were many ships passing by far out to sea, laden with treasure, and that even the mighty Royal Navy might need help in taking all of them. Powerful as they were, they had only two ships and could not catch every vessel they espied.

Now, here-at the low-lying northernmost tip of Mjlet-they came to anchor once more, near a settlement that couldn't quite aspire to be deemed a proper village at all. It looked to be a scattering of rude huts among rough clearings in the ever-present, brooding forest, clinging to the rocks above the muddy shoreline, where crude fishing boats rested half on the shore and half in the waters, bedraggled and abandoned.

There was no one to be seen, of course. Wherever they'd gone, the appearance of a real warship flying what was to these crude people a strange-alien-flag sent them tumbling inland, sure that they would be slaughtered. It would take hours, Lewrie thought wearily, to see even a few timorous watchers show their faces once curiosity, and the lack of activity on the part of the warships, got the better of them. He thought it much like what Captain Cook had experienced from the timid South Sea savages the first time he'd put Endeavour in some never-before-visited lagoon and given them a first sight of white men.

A quarter mile farther out, Pylades had already come to anchor in slightly deeper water.

Lewrie turned inboard as the heavy splash of Jesters best bower drew his attention. He looked aloft to see topmen taking in the last of the tops'ls and t'gallants, strung out like beads on a string along the footropes as they breasted over the yardarms to gather in canvas and gasket it. Blocks squealed as jibs and spanker deflated, rustled into untidy billows on the foredeck and the boom over his head above the quarterdeck. Men stood by under Cony's supervision, who'd soon be at the halliards and jears to lower the yards to resting positions. A party below the quarterdeck nettings, in the waist, even stood by with quarterdeck awnings. But not anti-boarding nets.

'Christ!' was his sour comment. Should they find a pack of pirates, a damn large one, who proved too greedy to listen and swarmed Jester like they had that merchantman off Bar, the last patrol, they'd be defenceless! The pirates would be up and over the rails before anyone aboard could say 'Knife!' And, he thought, casting another begrudging glance seaward to Pylades, there'd be little aid from that quarter, until it was too damn late!

'Anchored, sir,' Knolles reported. 'Sail taken in, gasketed and furled.'

'Very well, Mister Knolles.' Lewrie nodded. Then, 'Christ!' again. There was a boat coming from Pylades. And in the stern-sheets he could see Captain Rodgers, with that pestiferous Lieutnant Kolodzcy in all his overdone Austrian finery by his side!

'Ever and amen, sir,' Lieutenant Knolles softly sighed. 'Alert your steward, Aspinall, sir? To uncork a half dozen o' bubbly?'

'Best fetch his own, by God,' Lewrie spat. 'It's poor claret or nothin', his palate bedamned. I'm savin' it for a special time.'

'Such as, sir?' Knolles grinned.

'Bloody Epiphany, Mister Knolles. E-bloody-piphany.' Lewrie snickered, without much real mirth, though. 'Very well, then. Stand down the hands, and set the harbour and anchor watch. Lookouts aloft, though. And Sergeant Bootheby and his Marines to stand-to, uniforms and muskets in proper order. Stand easy… but stand-to.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

'Ach, ad lasd!' Kolodzcy exclaimed, perhaps almost two hours later, as the lookouts reported movement in the seemingly abandoned village. A few braver souls had drifted down from the forest to stand out in the open, at the back of the clearings, though well short of the huts or shore. Men first-and Lewrie could see, even from a cable's distance, how white-knuckled were their hands round their cudgels or farm implements. Next came children, whose curiosity was greater. At last came the women, clucking after the children, in concern for their safety, perhaps… to stand shaky-legged and marvel at this intriguing apparition tossed up from the sea.

'Zey heff to, you zee, ja!' Kolpdzcy crowed. 'Goat musd milk. Brot musd be baken, for supper. Dere hearthfires heff gone oud, unt id grows late. Curiozidy? Nein. Necessidy.'

'Deck, there!' A foremast lookout cried, shading his eyes and pointing down the eastern shore. 'Boat! Three point orf th' starb'd bows! Comin' inta harbour… headed 'is way!'

'Aloft, there!' Lewrie shouted back, cupping his hands instead of taking the time to seize a speaking-trumpet. 'Small boat?' 'Small two-master!' Was the equivocal answering hail. 'Doesn't know we're here, perhaps,' Rodgers fretted. 'Might go about, once she sees us. Damme, another bloody day wasted.'

'Probably seen us already, sir,' Lewrie countered, filled with hope that they'd resolve their quest, one way or another, this morning, loath as he was about the entire business. 'Low as this coast is hereabouts, they've probably seen our top-masts the last hour. And there is Pylades, anchored out in plain sight, too, sir.'

'Ja, herr Kapitan Rodgers,' Leutnant Kolodzcy concurred. 'Comes nod de zimple fishink boat, I am thinkink. Comes nod de fearful willager to his anchorage. Dhere hess been time for frightened willagers to go find help, alert zomeone. I am thinkink only a brave man, one vit more guriosity dhan fear, comes. De seeraiiber, berhaps? De pirades?'

'Or a damned fool,' Rodgers sighed, half to himself as he paced off his concerns, and his impatience.

Half an hour more, and the fishing boat was close enough to eye with their telescopes, though she seemed intent on passing by, sailing due North, slowly… a wary mile and a half off, out of gun-range from shore and the warships. She mounted two short masts and wore two fore-and-aft lateen sails-a typical Eastern Mediterranen, Ottoman craft, low to the water with scant freeboard, built with a high-pinked stern and long, tapering, squarish bow, like an ancient Egyptian dhow. Lewrie didn't think her much over fifty feet long. Would she be built in Arabee fashion? he speculated as he watched her. Planked together with pegs and rope, and fragile as a porcelain teacup to gunfire? Or, this close to Venice and Europe, would she be more clinker-built, over ribs and beams, and more solid? Local construction… stolen…?

And, most important, was she armed?

His telescope revealed perhaps no more than eight or nine hands aboard her, and he thought that too large a number for a simple fisherman returning to his village and fearful of entering. Most fishine boats they'd seen got by on two or three, at best. And, this dhowlike boat was a touch too large, compared to the majority of the netters they had come across. Much larger, of a certainty, than the poor gaggle of old single-masted boats that lay on the local shore, and too heavy to haul up in that fashion at night, too. As for artillery, there was none to be seen, yet swivels or 2-pounder boat-guns could be hidden…

'Haulin' 'er wind, sir,' Buchanon grunted.

Abeam of Jester, the dhowlike boat fell off the light Easterly breeze and began to stand in towards them, though still warily angled, as if to pass between Jester and Pylades, her lateens now winged out.

'Fair turn o' speed, e'en off th' wind, you'll note, Cap'um.'

'Aye, Mister Buchanon,' Lewrie agreed.

Onward, she stood, halving the distance rapidly, coming within gun-range, until she was perhaps five hundred yards off Jester's larboard stern before putting her helm over. Her crew sprang to the masts, to swing the lateen yards end-for-end to gybe her to the opposing tack, in the blink of an eye.

'Oh, smartly done, I say!' Knolles allowed.

'Show-off,' Lewrie muttered.

Now the dhow angled in towards Jester on larboard tack, closing the distance until she was no more than two hundred yards off, aimed for a collision with Jesters bows if she held her course.