A Jester’s Fortune

mists.

'Company coming,' Lewrie intuited. The year before, just one of the many odd, fey occurrences in this commission, Toulon had sensed the smuggler's tartane they'd been chasing along the Genoese Riviera, on a cool and windless dawn such as this one. Eerie, inexplicable-unless a body actually believed Mr. Buchanon's ancient blather, o' course!-but he had sniffed her out long before they'd spotted her.

'Oh… pshaw!' Rodgers groaned.

Too hungover t'say much else, Lewrie thought, grinning. After he saw them off, they'd surely had a brace more bottles of champagne in Pylades before retiring.

'Smell something, puss?' Lewrie asked. Toulon lifted his head to sample the air. Of course, he lowered his head to sniff hammocks, too. There could be a seaman going to sleep tonight in a blotch of ram-cat pee, Alan thought sourly, if this turns out to be a dead-bust!

'Murtff!' Toulon said, though, tail now thrashing vigourously, his forepaws clawing on the hammock canvas. He didn't sound anything near to happy. The cat let out a low, menacing trill, a 'Wwhuurr!' of warning, and began to hunker down and bottle up.

'Company, sir,' Lewrie reiterated, completely sure of his facts this time. He shared a wary glance with Knolles and Buchanon, who were more familiar with the eerie by then. It would be impossible to explain it all to Rodgers, anyway. It just was, no matter how improbable.

'Mister Knolles, pipe the starboard watch on deck. My respects to Mr. Crewe, and he is to reman the guns to larboard. Marines to get up and turn-to, double-quick,' Lewrie intoned.

Toulon was peering outboard most intently by then, turning about to present himself sideways, as if to loom larger to a so far undiscovered challenger.

Then, from out of those mists where Toulon was staring…

'Boat!' Lewrie cried, the same time as the larboard bow lookout.

Ghostly, a dull grey phantasm that suddenly stood out stark upon that pearlescent fog… suddenly, there was a boat. A small, dhow like two-master. And, most ominously, a hint of others astern of her!

'Mmmuurrr!' Toulon moaned, rather murderous, capping it off with a vicious hiss-and finally, a spit.

'Sir!' Buchanon whispered from his left, pointing down over the larboard side, yet off to the larboard beam. 'Lookit!'

Lewrie tore his gaze from the dhow, perhaps the very same one that had come near enough to 'smoak' them the previous afternoon. He saw nothing.

'Lookit, sir!' Buchanon said with a shuddery hitch to his voice. 'Closer aboard, Cap'um.'

Wull, stop me! Alan frowned as he spotted something.

The sea was grey-dark, oil-slicked with dawnlight, and still so millpond-smooth and flat, with barely a wind- fleck, hardly a hint of a roller to disturb its faint glittering… yet disturbed by a tiny vee of a wake which spread back from the head of a seal. He saw the short be-whiskered muzzle, the sleek brown pate, a limpid eye… fleeing.

And far off, on the rocks unseen off the starboard bows, south of the village, there came faint splashing sounds, a fog-muffled dog-pack of frantic cacophany.

The bark of seals!

'Thought it a fair omen, havin' seals here, sir, after so many months,' Mister Buchanon uneasily muttered. 'Now, though… way 'ey're actin', Cap'um Lewrie…'

Andrews was on the quarterdeck, Cony by the larboard gangway bulwarks along with many of the crew, those from the West Country who had always believed, those newlies who'd seen and heard strange things and come to believe; especially after their ship's first eerie, eldritch encounter in the Bay of Biscay as she'd begun this commission, with the unspoken messages which came from the seals.

'Don't start, Mister Buchanon, 'tis tense enough already,' Alan said, feeling a shiver go up his spine, yet trying to maintain outward calm for his superstitious hands, who were turning to stare at their 'lucky' captain.

The seals came to him, to Jester. Lir s Children. Cursed or blessed they were, the Selkies of the ancient pagan myths, and harbingers of that forgotten god of the sea, Lir, who seemed to hold the ship, crew and captain in the cusp of his hand, his favourites of fortune… or his unwitting weapons. Lir's Children, the seals. And they were fleeing, splashing into the sea for safety, though greater, toothier terrors awaited them there, who made meals of them; all their playful curiosity abandoned in the face of perhaps an even greater danger.

'Oh, 'tis a bad sign, sir,' Buchanon all but whimpered; him, a man grown to the fullness of his strength and courage. 'A bad cess.'

'A bad business for certain, Mister Buchanon,' Lewrie agreed, clenching his jaws stonily expressionless. 'No matter it is our commanding captains wish. Cess, though? Don't think so. Hope not.'

' 'Ere's no good goin'ta come from 'is, Cap'um.'

'Perhaps not, sir,' Lewrie allowed, with a tilt of his head to one side. He reached down to stroke his cat down the back, trying to gentle and cosset him, but Toulon was having none of it, came within a hair of lashing out blind with one claw-sprung paw as he gave out one more heartfelt, menacing growl. Yet, instead of springing down to take himself below to the safety of the orlop, as he did during gun-drill or battle, he stayed-hunkered up and sheltering against Lewrie s cloak, and licking his chops in fear, but he stayed.

'If God is just, sir,' Lewrie sighed, 'and Lir means to watch over us, too, o' course… I think he's warnin' us. Not dooming, hmm?'

'Watch our backs, do we deal with 'ese… wotchyacallems…'

'Serbs, Mister Buchanon.' Lewrie nodded. 'Aye, we're warned.'

There were five boats, Lewrie could take note by then. Small, mostly, no more than thirty-five to forty feet overall, the bulk of them. All rigged with two masts in Eastern, lateen, fashion. Following last of all, a three-masted spectre slowly emerged from the fog. She was long, lean and low, a galliot or xebec-a war galley-of about seventy-five to eighty-five feet in length. The sun had at last arisen, lancing over the Balkan mountaintops from the east, setting light to the mists so that half the dawn's horizon was set afire with a most foreboding crimson and saffron umbra that backlit the galliot and made her stand out starkly black, every bit of rigging, every sail, every peering crewman cut from black paper and plastered to the sunrise… a silhouetted apparition.

Their pirates, it seemed, had at last arrived-pirates they'd been sent to seek, to discover and enlist. But, Lewrie felt deeply in the pit of his stomach, pirates their seeming patron Lir wished to have no truck with.

Red sky at morning, sailor take warning-

And the frightened seals.

Warned, aye, Lewrie thought grimly; aye, and thankee.

Now that their quest was ended, and their dealings with these strange creatures was about to begin… they'd been damned well warned.

CHAPTER 4

'Like treadin' water 'mongst a pack o' sharks,' Will Cony said, scowling hellish-black as the rakish craft approached within hailing distance, dividing and passing down the larboard side, between the village and Jester's starboard side, or astern to flaunt their courage, almost under Pylades' guns, and within 'close pistol shot.'

'Like the Lanun Rovers at Spratly Island,' Lewrie whispered,

'Well, sir… least there's only th' six. An' not thirty of 'em, this time,' Cony replied with a mirthless snicker. 'Manageable.'

'Odd, how things turn out,' Captain Rodgers commented, flexing his fingers on the hilt of his small-sword. 'Coincidence, hey? Think back. I could swear this is the same lot you drove off from that