A Jester’s Fortune

Mlavic put his fists on his hips, glared at the ground between them and made idle scuffing motions with his brand-spanking-new boots for a moment or two.

'Da. Kill French,' he confessed. 'Be too much trouble, watch… feed. Die quick, and feed to sharks,' he admitted, waving a hand out toward the west and the open sea. 'See Dragan take Venetian ship, speak new prisoner… news is getting out, da? I keep ship. I keep all cargo.'

'Then if you'll bring the prisoners down, I'll send to my ship for boats, and…' Lewrie nodded in agreement, feeling a sudden rush of almost blissful relief. He could hear Howse and Kolodzcy sighing.

'No,' Mlavic said, almost pouting. 'Keep prisoner, too. Not all Venetian. In ship are Muslims, go Ragusa, Cattaro, Durazzo. In ship are Montenegran, Albanian… Bosnian!' he spat, as if being a Slavic coastal Muslim were the ultimate scum, as bad as Hindoo 'untouchables.' He glared at Lewrie, a gay smile beginning to lift his mouth, a crafty crinkle round his beady, close-set pig-eyes. 'Enemies. Have still to play… games.' Dragan Mlavic tittered.

'Sir, I must protest!' Lewrie barked. 'How could innocent women and children be your enemies? How dare you insinuate you'd-'

'Child grow up… kill and torture Serbs. Woman have enemy child, grow up… murder Serbs. Enemy men have murder Serbs. Serbs see father, mother… whole family, torture and kill. Make good Serb Orthodox, Catholic… Muslim! Then kill. In ship are Macedonian, in ship are Greeks! Same as Turk, same as Byzantium who let Turk armies in Serbia. No… I keep. We play games.'

'Jesus bloody Christ.. .' Lewrie gasped, his mouth agape, never so appalled, so laid ail-aback, his entire life! His innards and his spine went icy as he realised that Mlavic meant to torture, rape, then slay his prisoners. Even icier, he felt-nigh to shivering in fear-as he realised that Mlavie had murdered the French prisoners so they'd not be able to pass the word that he'd taken a Venetian ship; nor tell one word about the massacre he'd planned, soon as he'd captured her!

And he, Mr. Howse, and Leutnant Kolodzcy were now witnesses, too!

He plan t'murder us, too? Alan reeled, searching for a way out. Those prisoners ain't no friends o' mine, so would he let us go, 'fore his goddamn games begin? No, damme, I can't just…!

'Captain Mlavic…' Lewrie said, firm as he could, after thinking quickly, gazing into those agate-hard eyes, that upper-handed leer. 'Again I protest! No civilised man would do such a thing, even dream of doing such a thing. Give me the women and children, at least. You cant hurt women and children, man… it just ain't done! Let me have them, and we'll go. Then you can hold whatever sort o' bloody games you wish. And be damned to you, you ugly, black-hearted bastard!'

'You stay,' Mlavic pronounced, beginning to beam quite gladly.

'Be damned if I will, sir!'

'You stay,' Mlavic insisted. 'You watch. I say you stay… I say you go. Dragan Mlavic captain here. I say you stay, now.'

'Going to make us, are you? With a sloop o' war not one cable off the beach?' Lewrie sneered. 'Eat shit, an' die!'

Mlavic did the very worst thing then-he began to chuckle, then to laugh out loud, chilling them all to their bones. He put two fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. Instantly there were six of his pirates on them, coming from round the rear of the hut, to pinion their arms, strip them of swords and pat them down for knives or pocket-pistols.

'You damn fool!' Lewrie raged, thrashing against the grasp of two strong men. 'Lay hands on a British officer, sir? Don't you know my First Lieutenant will get to wond'rin' what's keeping me? Hears or sees what you're doing… why, he'll blow your filthy arse to Hell!'

Mlavic laughed out loud again, then gave a second whistle.

'Come wrong time, British,' he said with a sneer, putting his face within inches of Lewrie's as he was wrestled to his knees before Mlavic. Have go safe, but you come camp, ask too much question You go sate? Die, tonight? Dragan Mlavic say, hah! You stay, watch games Ratko plan holy thing, now I do holy thing… get men hot to war on enemy. What your ship do, I hold you, doctor, girlie-man, long as want? Him, too.'

Three sailors came lumbering into the firelight, dragging their burden, which kicked, yelped and twisted- Midshipman Spendlove!

'Sorry, sir… barely got into the water 'fore…!'

Oh shit, we're in the quag now! Alan shuddered, feeling those few bites of food or sips of wine, turn to scalding acid, threatening to come up and sear his throat. He really means Ј'scrag us!

CHAPTER 4

The first victim was bound to a log. A burning log.

He was an older man, blond-haired and blond-bearded, a Slav who cried out and protested as he was forced to eat pork, stripped so he could be smeared on his face and chest-then chained atop a log as long as he was, that had been rolled away from a cook-fire. What agony he suffered they could barely hear above the jeers and taunts of Mlavic s pirates. He was a Muslim Slav, though, one who'd surely killed Serbs when young and fit, so… he had to die, slowly.

His wife was in her middle years, too, a properly plump matron with a round face and a pale complexion, with fair, greying hair under her Turk-style head covering. She was forced to watch her husband burn, before they made him watch her suffer. They stripped her, found her too round and withered to rape in a chorus of catcalls and boos, so she was slit open, belly and womb, and filled with searing-hot hearthstones.

The youngest son, who'd traveled with them to safe Venetian Spalato, on a safe Venetian ship, was about twelve. The pirates sliced his genitals off, then took him by wrists and ankles and heave-hoed him in the air- once, twice and thrice-and caught him on the points of a dozen swords.

Lewrie was forced to watch, seated like visiting royalty on one of the logs near the central fire-with Dragan Mlavic his regal host to his right-defenceless and closely watched by two Serbs at his back.

Mister Howse was already on his knees, spewing and weeping, but straddled by an angel-faced teenage pirate who kept pulling his head up so he must watch their entertainment through raging, howling tears.

Leutnant Kolodzcy sat erect, his nostrils pinched and his eyes slit, but giving no sign that this spectacle affected him. Spendlove was to his left, clutching his stomach, a hand to his mouth, his every breath a rasping sob. 'Albanians,' Kolodzcy whispered as the next victims were led in, knowing them by their desperate pleas.

Husband and wife, both young this time… a dark-haired son in his sixth or seventh year, a nursing infant in the woman's arms. Not for long, though. Pleads and prayers turned to shrieks as they tore the babe away, dashed its brains out on a rock, eviscerated it and discarded it in the leaping flames of the main fire, raising a great howl of victory… of revenge, which drowned its mother's disbelieving wail. She was worth raping, so they took her, a half dozen of them, in front of husband and surviving son. 'Have Serb baby now, da?' Mlavic chortled, nudging Lewrie once more like a racetrack tout. 'Keep to see… take baby, raise a Serb. Alive that long, then…' He shrugged. 'Boy baby. Greet him… 'Hail, little avenger of Kossovo,' ahaha! Grow up, be Serb warrior.'

'You're a dead man, Mlavic,' Lewrie hissed, turning his head to glare at his merry host. 'Swear t'Christ, you're a dead man!' He would have said more, but a guard behind him laid hold of his head to turn it back to the 'games.' 'All our ships will hunt you down…'

The young Albanian lad leaped on the first Serb to rise from his rape, as he was retying his trousers. A full dozen infuriated pirates sprang up to rescue their comrade-and beat or slice the boy to bloody offal, while the brutal rape went on and on, another dozen queuing up for their turn on her.

The father-howling and out of his mind with grief-was stripped of his trousers, shoved facedown and spread- eagled. A man with a wood-chopping axe stepped forward, prancing round his victim to the catcalls and approving