A Jester’s Fortune

whistles of the crowd. Standing on the husband's pinioned shoulders, he raised his axe, teased the crowd with a practice swing or two-he knew what played well with this audience-and hacked the heavy axe-head into the crack of the man's buttocks, splitting him open as high as his waist. They pegged him down after that- so he could bleed, and scream… and beg for death as a mercy.

But there would be no mercy. They let him lie, finding it very funny, and moved on to other amusements. There were shouts from the discontented, so Mlavic called an order, and more women were dragged into the fire circle. Two of them in the front were flung to the dirt, their dresses thrown up, and assaulted right off, so the men in line didn't have so long to wait on the gibbering-mad Albanian woman.

'Dhey choose,' Kolodzcy whispered from the side of his mouth, just loud enough to hear. 'Cull de old, ugly… for murder. Odders, Mlavic says to auction off, vatch-against-vatch, gunners, sail-tenders… mates. Or indiwiduals, heff dhey enough plunder. Dhose vill liff a few hours more.'

'I'll kill the sonofabitch!' Lewrie grated, though his vow came out more a strangled sob. 'If it's the last thing I do, swear t'God I will. Never seen such a… never dreamed people could…'

'Ve match high cards, sir,' Kolozcy muttered, his cheeks aflame in a face gone a pasty, deathly white. 'Vinner hess pleasure.'

'Do we get near cards again…' Lewrie whispered bleakly. By this point, he doubted Mlavic wished a single living witness. Was he saving them for last? Could he be that stupid, to think that sometime before midnight Knolles wouldn't send a boat ashore to find out what was keeping them? Was Mlavic hoping for that, so he'd have even more hostages to bargain his way out with? Andrews, Midshipman Hyde, eight or nine hands off the cutter, too? Knolles might waver, once. But if Mlavic threatened to keep his prisoners even longer, sail away, still holding them… didn't he know that Knolles would inform Charlton, and the squadron would hunt them down and destroy them? Or was he capable of thinking that far ahead; thinking at all? 'Drink, Captain!' Mlavic hooted. 'Be too pale! Brandy bring colour to cheeks, ahahah. Drink… Dragan order! Good show? Like my games? You live, you tell world Serbs fight holy fight. Drink. Or Mirko cut you… a little,' he wheedled, looking back at a guard.

One of the silver chalices was shoved into his nerveless hand, some brandy sloshed into it, over it, onto his breeches. He gagged as he looked into it, feeling the keen razors-edge of a knife beside his throat; seeing his wavering reflection so filled with fear; seeing for the first time how craven and helpless he looked, no matter his fight to mask it.

And, admitting to himself for the first time that he was about to completely unman himself, should they turn their attentions to him; sure he'd scream, grovel, plead, curse God then beseech Him. Offer up wife, children, good friends, anybody but himself for a minute more… 'Drink, Captain. Is good for you.' Mlavic snickered. 'To your death, Mlavic,' he said, though turning to bestow on that hulking hirsute brute a glare that could have slain all by itself. 'To your long, slow, agonising death… soon,' he hissed; then drank.

God! he prayed. Don't hear much from me, do Ya? Just help me kill him, let me stick a knife in the bastard and know I've sent him t'Hell, that's all I ask. Ev'ry last mother-son of 'em! That's holy, ain't it? He means t'kill me first, though… can Ya help me go like a gentleman? Spit in their faces? Not shit my breeches?

He took another sip. It seemed to calm his shudders. He took a third, then a deep, quaking breath; found the wherewithal not to cry out or flinch when Mlavic clapped a huge paw on his shoulder, laughing at him and thinking him thoroughly cowed.

'Good, good!' Mlavic cruelly teased. 'Make new man. We sell women now. You want buy woman, ahaha? We sell you. But cost much guineas!'

'Fuck you,' Lewrie said with a snarl, through a taut, deadly grin. 'Go fuck yourself… with bloody bells on!'

Kolodzcy coached from the far side, actually blushing! 'Ah, aye… the Serb way, thankee,' Lewrie jeered, turning to Mlavic once more. 'Fuck your mother. Or did the monkeys wear her out?'

'Brandy good for you, have much courage,' Mlavic cooed, not the slightest bit insulted. 'You may die well! 'Blood-ey bells on,' hah. I like!' So did Mirko and the other guards, once he'd passed it on.

'Doing it again, sir. Rowing people, when you shouldn't. Like that time on the beach at Toulon?' Spendlove warned.

'Can't help it, Mister Spendlove,' Alan confessed. 'When it's all I have left, I like insulting people.'

Mlavic got to his feet and paced before the clutch of terrified women, ogling them. He snatched out a wee young lass, all black hair and wide eyes, not over fifteen, dragging her by the wrist back to the logs and pawing her. The pirates cheered his choice, and then a mate began to work the crowd, encouraging them to bid on the first girl to be hauled out, stripped down to her chemise and pinioned to display her charms. Most of the prisoners were poor coastal folk, attired in local garb like Turks, or in something similar to what the girls at Corfu had worn. The old, the ill-favoured and the unpleasing the pirates just booed down and murdered, their throats cut, and left to bleed to death, expiring with blood-sobs and gurgling screams as they sank to the earth.

'Savink de European ladies for lasd,' Kolodzcy spat, turning his head to see Mlavic peeling the peasant blouse off his choice, putting a rough hand under her skirts. She sat numb, too scared to wail, on Mlavic's lap, tears coursing down her cheeks, hiccoughing in fear. 'For de richer mates vit bigger share in prize.'

Lewrie looked at the poor girl, who was pleading with her eyes as Mlavic brusquely toyed with her small breasts, forcing her to take a deep draught of brandy, then wrenching her lips to his. Lewrie could do nothing to aid her, not with a knife at his back.

He turned to look at the other prisoners instead. One was waving? One hand cautiously waving, all but snapping her fingers to get their attention? And surreptitiously rising a-tip-toe, looking desperate.

She wore all black as if in mourning, a plain, unadorned gown of conservative style, not too flounced out bell- shaped by underskirting. She'd worn a Venetian bauto, but had lowered it to her shoulders so it draped long and low. To hide…! Lewrie gasped.

Pressed into her skirts and half smothered, almost fully draped by the bauto, was a child, a boy who couldn't be more than four or five, Alan guessed. A boy breeched, stockinged and shod like his own sons!

She waved once more, then cupped her hand as if to draw him to her, fanning at herself insistently, daring to work from the rear of the huddling, wailing pack of women to the left-front, where she'd be in greater danger of being chosen for auction next. Her brown eyes flared open in misery, in pleading, almost looking like she curtsied for a moment before rising, a silent leaping plea for aid.

Lewrie mimed the guards at his back, lifting his hands in helplessness. Frustrated, she dared shout something at him, in a language he didn't understand, before the guard nearest to her shoved her back in line.

'What'd she say, Kolodzcy?' he demanded, never taking his eyes off her. Now the guard and the bidding pirates noticed her, her long, fine chestnut-roan hair and almond-shaped eyes…!

'Demotic Greek… island accent,' Kolodzcy remarked, infuriatingly calmly. 'She ist from Zante, in die Ionians, dherefore Venetian. She begs for help. Poor lady.' He sighed, stone-faced.

'Goddammit!' Lewrie groaned, slamming a fist onto his knee to vent his powerlessness. 'You leave that'un alone, ya bastard!' Alan shouted at the guard, who was just about to fondle her, draw back that bauto to see her figure… and expose her child! He got to his feet; tried to, before Mirko laid a hand on his shoulder to drag him back.

'English, my God!' the woman cried, her mouth agape in shock. 'Royal Navy? My husband was English… Bristol! I am Theoni Kavaras Connor. Royal Navy… for God's sake-help me!'

CHAPTER 5