'Two of 'em… Chalky and Toulon,' Lewrie said. 'Grand company for sailors, cats. For a captain.'
'A lonely think,' Eudoxia agreed, stepping back at last. 'I am seeink Kapitan Veed liffing alone in… great- cabins, da} Weed, I am to say, not Veed. New to the Engliski, but learnink quickly, do you think, Kapitan Lewrie?'
'Doin' main-well, Mistress Eudoxia… extremely well,' Lewrie amended, since 'main-well' was an idiom she hadn't yet met, it seemed. 'Mister Wigmore says you came from beyond the Hellespont? Turkish, or Greek, or…?'
Her face hardened of an instant, her almond-shaped, almost Oriental eyes slitted in fury, and her nostrils flared; Eudoxia all but stamped a foot! 'Turkman, nyet! Greek, nyet!' she fumed. 'Ve beink Ukraine people… Cossack, not Mongol, not Tartar! What fool Wigmore know, hah. Not Muslim, but Russian Orthodox, yob tvoyemat!* (*'Fuck your mother.') Come from Volga! East of Volga!'
'The, ah… river, aye,' Lewrie said, shrivelling up and shying from her sudden fury.
'Mans who say Cossack be bastard Tartars or Turkman is damn lie they tell!' Eudoxia snapped; this time she did stamp her foot, dainty though it was. 'We Christian, see?' She opened the throat of her robe to display a silver cross with an odd diagonal extra bar, showing him the proud top-swell of her breasts, an expanse of flawless skin, and a promising depth of cleavage, too… though Lewrie didn't think that was her intent at the moment.
Why, I'll wager she's that yummy, right down to her toes! Lewrie told himself; Creamy… damn' creamy!
'I apologise for any misunderstanding, Mistress Eudoxia. Maybe I did not hear him right, and I was not aware of your… heritage,' he said, red-faced. 'Forgive my ignorance of your part of the world, but I've never been near the Volga, in the Black Sea.'
'Um, I beink sorry, too, Kapitan Lewrie,' Eudoxia meekly replied, looking down and all but biting her lower lip for a moment. 'For saying the bad think.. .yob tvoyemat. Pajalsta… please, forgive? It mean to… do something bad vit' your own mother.' She half-whispered that, blushing and lowering her gaze again, though finding it a tad funny.
'Would that be with, or without, bells on?' Lewrie asked with a grin. 'An English expression, to… go do something to yourself, ye see… with bells on? Of course, you're forgiven, and thankee for a new phrase to add to my vocabulary. Should I ever sail to the Russias… d'ye think I might find it useful?'
'Get you killed,' Eudoxia all but giggled, looking up at him, directly, and with all her impishness back. 'Is very bad. My poppa hear me say, he beat me.'
'Then don't tell him you did,' Lewrie leaned closer to suggest, snickering and laying a finger alongside his nose for a sage tap. His experience with foreigners was fairly broad, though he could not claim a working knowledge of any tongue but his own, and he was thankful that flirting with the girl wouldn't require a hired interpreter or a glossary of useful phrases. Her accent, thick as it was, was nowhere near as incomprehensible as that Hungarian officer in the Austrian Navy, Lt. Kolodzcy, he'd been saddled with in the Adriatic back in '96, sailing along 'the Balgan goast' in search of 'Zerbian pirades,' and, 'bud ov gourse, ve must fint our-selfs some wirgins'! All delivered with his double heel-click of precise punctilio!
'So… are all Cossacks from the Volga as skilled in archery as you, Mistress Eudoxia?' Lewrie enquired. 'I came to congratulate you on your skill, and accuracy. I've heard that Cossacks are superb horsemen, o' course, but my word, I must say that you are possessed of a fine seat, as well.'
They hit another language snag, for Eudoxia furrowed her brows at that compliment, and all but groped her slim bottom, peeking over her shoulder to survey her arse.
'On your horse!' Lewrie chuckled in explanation before she took off on another angry outburst. 'Excellent riders in England are said to have a 'fine seat'… in the saddle, or, in your case, bareback. How did you learn all that?'
Her hands flew to her mouth for a second as she saw the comedy in misunderstanding his idiom. As her hands came down, she didn't just giggle girlishly, she laughed right out loud. 'Oh, that seat! Da, all Cossack learn ridin from babies. Poppa is tea chink me from a little girl. Have brother, but he go serve vit' Czar in cavalry. We beink circus people all my life, I only child left, so he teach me like he teach brother. Poppa do act vit' bow, do shootin vit' guns, too, but act vit' gun is… ex-pen-sive ponyemayu? Unnerstand? Powder, shot,… and, be uhm… need rifle guns…' She frowned, searching for a word, and looking to him to supply it, right-fetchingly coquettish.
'To be accurate, aye,' Lewrie supplied.
'Da, the ac-cer-rut,' Eudoxia smilingly agreed, waving him to a pair of rickety cane chairs so they could sit facing each other, with a respectable yard between them. 'Gun act, be very slow. To re- load? Or must have many rifle guns, cost too much, make not so much money.'
'So, you can shoot as keen with a gun as with your bow?'
'Oh, da' Eudoxia exclaimed, feckless, not boasting, but merely stating a manifest fact of life. She gloomed up, though, mercurially quickly, and laid her hands on her knees. 'Poppa, one night… pan or flint go 'piff!' by his good eye. Cannot do no shootink act, anymore. I beink twelve, I think, when it happen?'
'And you had to take over, to earn the family income,' Lewrie surmised, feeling genuine concern, though he did trowel it on thicker, for her benefit. 'How terrible for you, Mistress Eudoxia.'
'Nyet, not take over, I too little,' she corrected him. 'Work dog and monkey act, ride bareback horse. Poppa is tendink horses and beasts, but is very little we make, for long time. And, Momma…'
Eudoxia squirmed fretfully on her chair, dropping her gaze, and looking both pensive and a tad angry, too. 'She very good singer, and actress, but must help Poppa, too? He lose place, act is over, so… I am fourteen, she run away vit' damned French clown! Is also singer, actor, oh, opera grand, he thinkink! Very handsome, da, think circus and clownink is too low. Boast he be bolshoi opera czar in Vienna or Paris,' she sneered, 'and Momma run 'way to be opera czarina, too!'
'Damn the French!' Lewrie commented with long-accustomed heat. 'Never can trust a one of 'em, I say. The arrogant bastards.'
Clowns! he derided to himself; French clowns, worst of all!
'Finally join Wigmore show in Lisbon,' Eudoxia related, heaving a heavy sigh. 'Begin bow and horse act when I am beink sixteen, after Poppa teach me all he know. Old lion tamer sick and old, Poppa is good vit' beasts, so he learn new act, but very hard on him. Poppa is proud. But…' she said with a fresh smile and hopeful expression, 'now we makink the good money, ev'rything is karasho! Engliski, 'bloody fine'!'
'Good for you!' Lewrie said, patting the back of her hand that rested atop her nearest knee. 'So, you've been doing your act how many years, now? No wonder that you're so skilled, having honed your craft, your… art, so long.
'Art? Pooh!' Eudoxia spat, figuratively and literally, with a brief scowl. 'Is reason Momma run 'way. In letter she leave us, she say must follow her destiny, her art, hah! As for my act, I doink it six years, now. Now, twenty- two.'
'You seem to have coped rather well, for all your heartbreaks, mistress,' Lewrie responded, 'and I'm sorry if my mention of 'art' is a reminder of past sorrows, but…'
'Hurt no more, Kapitan Lewrie,' she assured him, smiling back, and twining lean, strong fingers in his, with her impishness returning. 'So, you are kapitan of bolshoi… big Engliski frigate, an Engliski gentleman. Must sail the whole world over, so many new places, like we do in circus. Is excitink? Meet many excitink new peoples…?'
'Sometimes it seems just like a circus,' Lewrie laughed. 'But, let's speak of you, instead. I heard you'd done an entire year along the American coast. How did you like that, wild Indians and
