A Jester’s Fortune

money at sea, all that could be found was a single stray golden guinea.

'Ah!' Mlavic exclaimed as it appeared. 'I owe you two shilling. Good luck, gold guinea.'

His hand was out again, and Lewrie was forced to plop the coin on Mlavic's callused paw.

'Ahem, well,' Lewrie said, flummoxed. 'Mister Spendlove? We're off. Hands down and into the boat.'

'Now, sir? But…' The lad frowned.

'Now, Mister Spendlove,' Lewrie smouldered. 'Very well, sir. Cox'n? Mr. Giles?'

'Scuse me, Captain, but I thought we'd be taking more supplies aboard,' Mr. Giles intruded, joggling his square-lensed spectacles in dismay. 'There's the salt-meats, the flour and dried fruits for-' 'Now, Mister Giles, dammit!' Lewrie rasped. 'Aye aye, sir.' Giles wilted. 'This tobacco, though…?' 'Fetch along what you can carry, sir. But stir yerself.'

As the gig stroked back to Jester, breasting and swooping with a sickening motion over the tumultuous sea, the brig's yards were already being braced about, and the dhow was slow-ghosting into motion, falling off to the West on larboard tack, both beginning to gather way.

Lewrie turned to watch them go, wishing them bad cess; the worst old Irish cess a body ever met. Storms, lashings of gales, whirlpools and maelstroms, sea- monsters with teeth the size of carriage-guns, with mouths as big as an admiral's barge! Eat the bastard, somebody!

His gig held a few quickly gathered items, mostly half-filled sea-bags or small chests. In the beginning, the cutter had crossed over to augment the boarding-party, too, and he knew that Mr. Giles had already gotten a fair portion of 'goodies' transferred before Mlavic had caught up with them. He had the prize's documents rolled up in a thick round bundle in one coat pocket. He drew them out and looked over the manifest once more, mourning the loss of those brandies, those pipes and kegs of wine. If they didn't put in at Corfu or Trieste after Rodgers and Kolodzcy had drunk him dry, he'd be reduced to the crew's rum-and-water!

'Begging your pardon, sir, but… why'd we depart so quickly?' Midshipman Spendlove asked in a soft voice. And Lewrie imagined that he could hear Andrews his coxswain, six oarsmen and the bow-hook man all grunt a muffled 'Arrhh?' a moment after.

'In the spirit of mutual cooperation with our new… allies,' Lewrie muttered. 'We promised to obtain European ships with artillery, and so we did, Mister Spendlove. There was no safe harbour where we'd be able to break out or shift cargo-without revealing our arrangement with the Serbian pirates, mind-so it was best that we let this Mlavic person have her and sail her back to the isles of Palagruza. Far from sight of prying eyes, d'ye see.'

'Seems a pity, sir.' Spendlove shrugged, seeming to buy Lewrie s glib explanation at face value. 'Not like giving up an outward-bounder, full of compass-timber and such. Just our bad luck, I s'pose, to fetch an inward-bound vessel. Rich as they've been laden…'

Christ! Lewrie quailed, stiffening bolt-upright and sucking in some air involuntarily, no matter how rigid he should have held himself before his crew. French gold, from their government for purchasing naval stores! Her captain's personal pelf! Her working capital, to pay her many needs, to victual her or make the odd repairs on the round voyage!

He idly (as idly as his murderously angry fingers would allow!) took a squint through the various documents he held. He'd sent Spendlove and Andrews below to her master's great-cabins straightaway, to delve about and turn up these lists, her log and such, but he hadn't time to scan them thoroughly before his confrontation with Dragan Mlavic.

He suddenly felt very ill. And snookered. And stupid, into the bargain, when he read that the Ministry of Marine had consigned twelve thousand livres in gold to be used for the purchase of seasoned Adriatic oak for naval construction. One locked and wax-sealed reinforced chest, to be safeguarded at all peril, signed over to a capitaine …!

Oh, who gives a good goddamn to whom! he fumed, looking up and out toward Jester, thankful that his gig was now stroking into her lee, where the wave-motion wasn't so boisterous, for he surely felt the need to spew, by then… to 'cast his accounts to Neptune'! He eyed the boat and found no locked and wax-sealed bound chest. Mlavic had it, damn his eyes! Damn his scurvy, poxy bloodl

Manfully fighting the almost irresistible urge to moan, curse or scream aloud, he looked down at the bundle he held once more. There was a small sheaf of notes in a spidery hand, a daily accounting list in the rough, to be transferred to a proper account book later. A ledger that was most-like still aboard the brig, or in her Purser's or First Mate's tender care. Another bloody 3,247 or so livres of working capital, less I what they'd paid some Marseilles chandlers, less a pilot's fees…!

And what's so bloody wrong with tears, I ask you! Lewrie thought, I stone-bleak at what he'd lost; by God, I've been robbed! Diddled! That's why Mlavic wished to have her, to winkle us off so quick! He suspected I… and got me so 'rowed' I'd not think to…!

'Not a total loss, sir,' Spendlove told him as the bow-man took a first stab at the starboard main-chains with his boat-hook. His heel thumped on a bag that lay under his thwart. The bag rustled nicely… could he also conjure a faint chinking sound, a muted metal jingling?

'Aye, sah, foun' ya some cawfee beans, nigh on fo' poun',' his coxswain assured him between orders to the crew to toss their oars and such. 'Frenchies allus have de bes' when it come t'cawfee.'

'Ah. Coffee. I see,' Lewrie replied, summoning up some gratitude; or something that sounded approximate. 'Well, thankee, Andrews. Mister Spendlove. Thankee right kindly.'

'Some odds and ends, too, sir,' Spendlove preened, proud of his scrounging abilities. 'Goose quills, right-hand bent. Fresh ink, and some fine vellum paper…'

'Thoughtful of you both,' Lewrie expounded as he stood to make his way to the gunn'l for a well-timed leap to the damp, weed-green and slick bottom steps of the boarding battens. 'I'm grateful for your concern.'

The bag did hold coffee beans, and odds and ends; sadly, it held no coins. Lewrie set the ink-bottle and new quills on his desktop, put fifty-odd sheets of vellum in a drawer.

'Do you stow these away in the pantry, Aspinall,' he directed.

'Aye, sir. Oh, toppin', sir! Fresh beans. Like a cup, sir? I could have some ground an' brewed in ten minute.'

'Not at the moment, Aspinall, thankee,' Lewrie sighed. 'Perhaps later. No relish for it now.'

'Right, then, sir,' the lad chirped, going forrud and humming to himself in right good cheer, Toulon prancing tail-high with him.

Goddammit! Lewrie cringed to see anyone happy about anything at that instant! He spread the various documents across the desk and picked through them slowly, catching only a faint impression of import here and there, for his mind was awhirl with other things. Revenge, to be factual! '

Fool me once, shame on you, he glowered; right then, you fooled me, Mlavic. Not the half-wit you look, are you? Fool me twice, well, I doubt it. Make the bugger pay, I will! Wipe that crafty peasant sneer off his brutish phyz… swear t'God I will, 'fore we're done!

Something at last leapt out at him, in his distracted state. A fine sheet of vellum in its own right, folded over into an envelope and still sticky with broken wax seals, which clung to the rest.

There was the crash of a musket-butt without the gun-deck doors, the sound of idle boots being stamped together. 'First off cer, SAH!' his Marine sentry bellowed.

'Enter.'

'Excuse me, sir, but… on which course should I get the ship under way?' Lieutenant Knolles enquired, looking a touch anxious.

'Ah,' Lewrie said, feeling a new flush of anger at himself then. 'Sorry, Mister Knolles, for being remiss. I was too rapt in these documents we took from the prize. Looking for an answer to that very question. Our pirates? Where away?'

'Worn off the wind, sir, and steering Nor'east,' Knolles said.

'And we're fetched to on larboard tack, hmm… get steerageway to the Sou'west, then return to our original course, Sou'east or so, on starboard tack. Close-hauled, as before.'

'Aye aye, sir,' Knolles replied chearly, before turning to go.

Damme, another happy sod! Lewrie groaned, sitting down. Well, ain't ignorance just