A King`s Trade

to 'front his deserter. Rodney had turned grey-skinned with shock to see Lewrie, and shrank back as if the cat-o'- nine-tails was already cutting the air as Lewrie got to his feet before him.

'Damn your eyes, Rodney! You deserted!' Lewrie accused. 'You'll come with me, lad!'

'S… sorry, suh!' Rodney cringed. 'Ah know ah done bad, suh, runnin' off, but please God, suh, don' whip me! I paid for it, surely t'God I did! Oh, Law, but ah done paid!'

'Where's Groome?' Lewrie snapped, grabbing hold of the waggon's hoops to stay upright.

'He daid, suh!' Rodney stammered, tears running from his eyes. 'Dot damnfool Dutch feller git 'im kilt, got a whole bunch o' fellers kilt, an' dey woz gon' leave me art there t'die, too, I didn' git on mah feets, aftah de lion maul me. Groome, he daid, suh, ain' lyin' 'bout dot. Damnfool Dutch feller say we take some o' dem buffaloes wif de big horns, an' dey kill 'im. Chase 'im up a tree, but it warn't tall 'nough, dey butt it down an' tromple Groome to a puddin'. Nuttin' we could do 'bout it, neither, Cap'm suh.'

'Cape buffalo?' Lewrie asked, gawping at the very idea. He had been warned by his guide, duToit, that they were probably the most dangerous beasts in the wilds, and almost impossible to shoot and kill if one hit the boss of their

massive horns.

'Lick de skin raght orf 'is feets, 'fo' dey knock de tree down, suh, 'coz Groome couldn' shin up no higher,' Rodney told him in misery. 'God A'mighty, but ya shoulda heard 'is screams, when…' Rodney could not go on, but broke down into blubbing, wiping fresh tears with the back of his hand. 'Stop this waggon!' Lewrie shouted to the ox-tenders. 'Now!' They turned their heads to look at him, but could only shrug in confusion, for they knew no English, only their tribal tongues, or the pidgin of local Dutchmen. 'Can somebody tell these bastards to stop this damned waggon?' Lewrie cried to the onlookers.

It was a lounging Piet duToit who sprang off a hitching rail to the street and waved a hand at the drovers, grunting out commands that thankfully brought the ox team to a plodding halt.

'A problem, Kaptein Lewrie?' the young man asked, looking up at him with his hands on his hips, and a smile on his face. 'What I tell you about Jan van der Merwe? A fool,y'a! You wish help down?'

'Down, aye. I've a hurt man in this waggon,' Lewrie told him. 'A kaffir}' duToit scoffed, espying Rodney and his bandages. 'One of my sailors,' Lewrie answered. 'Got mauled by a lion, he says. Van der Merwe's fault, I'd imagine.'

'Hah,' was duToit's dismissive sneer; what care he for a Sambo. 'A deserter from my ship,' Lewrie added, thinking that would be more to the Boer's liking. It was, for duToit came round to the tail-board and actually laid hands on Rodney to help Lewrie lower him to the dusty street. Burgess Chiswick was there, too, of a sudden, offering to assist the hobbling and wincing sailor to the sidewalk in front of the inn, into a bit of shade, for once Rodney was on his own feet, the young Dutch hunting guide lost all interest in him, loath to touch him any more than he had to. Surreptitiously, duToit wiped his hands along the sides of his canvas trousers. A shadow loomed over them. 'Is hurt, him?'

Lewrie looked up and almost gasped to see Eudoxia astride of her white gelding, her face a mixture of disdain for Lewrie but, beneath that stillness, a concern for Rodney's injuries. There was a sadness in the cast of her large, hazel eyes, too, Lewrie thought.

'Lion mauled him,' Lewrie answered her. 'You know that tavern by the piers… the one with the red shutters?'

'Da, knowink,' a very subdued Eudoxia replied.

'Ride there for me, if you please,' Lewrie bade her. 'Ask for Coxswain Andrews. That's where my boat crew was eating, waiting for me to go back to the ship. Tell Andrews to come quick. Rodney here needs to see our Surgeon.'

'Is many needink surgeon,' Eudoxia said, her face working into a grimace. 'Is some circus men dead, Papa tell me. Antonio, best clown and mime, who tended camels and donkeys…'

Oh, Lewrie thought sarcastically and impatiently; hellish loss, a mime!

'Will you?' Lewrie pressed. 'Please, Eudoxia?'

'Da, I go,' she promised, already sawing at her reins. 'I ask for C… Coxs… sailor Andrews.' And she did, putting her gelding into a lope for the harbour.

'Fetch me some water, will you, Burgess?' Lewrie asked, kneeling at Rodney's side. 'Better yet, a watered brandy.'

'Right-ho,' Burgess agreed, springing back over the rail of the veranda and calling for their waiter.

'You're a God-damned fool, Rodney,' Lewrie sternly told him.

'Amen t'dot, suh,' Rodney said with a grimace of pain.

Within minutes, Andrews and the gig's crew were back in a sweaty trot. Burgess had organised the gathering of long poles and canvas off the stalled waggon with which to fashion a stretcher, with the help of some lingering Boers who had stayed to gawk over the drama, once the comedy and the circus parade was done.

'Back to the ship and Mister Hodson with him, Andrews,' Lewrie ordered. 'I'll be along later, soon as I'm able, in a hired boat. No need t'make a long row for me.'

'Aye, sah,' Andrews replied as the boat crew picked up the ends of the poles, with Rodney stretched out atop the canvas.

'Be easy with him, deserter or no,' Lewrie told him. 'He's one hellacious tale t'tell, I'd expect. We lost Groome… out yonder.'

'See 'im safe aboard, sah,' Cox'n Andrews vowed. 'Heave 'im up, an' haul away, lads. Easy, now…'

'Well,' Chiswick said as the sailors and their burden began to head down the street to the piers. 'Don't we have a lobster course to come… before all the excitement, happened, that is?'

'Aye, we did,' Lewrie brightened, though still plagued by what in the Hell he would do with Rodney. 'Let's finish our dinner. Since you're payin' so generously for it, as I remember?'

Using the steps this time, they went through the inn, then out onto the veranda to their table the usual way. Under the big, square covered outdoor veranda though, there was another intrusion, Daniel Wigmore, to the life, still swabbing sweat and trail muck from his brow with a handkerchief. Two empty steins sat before him, soon to be joined by a third, the way he was chugging his fresh one down.

'Cap'm Lewrie, 'ow do,' Wigmore said with a shame-faced grin.

'We need t'talk, Mister Wigmore,' Lewrie sternly replied, ' 'bout you luring two of my sailors to desert, maiming one, and killing the other,' he said, turning a chair back-side-round to sit down at Daniel Wigmore's table, lean close over the chair back, and glower at him.

'Ah, them laddies woz mad fer joinin' me circus, Cap'm Lewrie!' Wigmore blustered, eyes widened and his smile broader. 'Nivver knew a thing h'about h'it 'til we woz 'ours down th' trail, and I couldn't've turned 'em back t'town, 'thout a gun or 'orse, wif night comin' on, an' all sortsa beasts lookin' fer supper? Cruel, that'da been, sir! Cruel! An' 'oo's this fine gennelman wif ye, Cap'm Lewrie?'

'My brother-in-law, Major Burgess Chiswick, of the Nineteenth Native Infantry, in India… Mister Daniel Wigmore, owner of Wigmore's Travelling Extravaganza,' Lewrie sarcastically did the honours, 'one of England's notable liars and 'sharps.' Admit it… you really tempted something horrid, promised 'em the Moon if they'd make your shows more exotic. Told Groome he could play Othello in your dramas, hey?'

'Well, I mighta mentioned a minor turn on stage, but…' 'Hah!' Lewrie scoffed.

Burgess quietly came back to the circus owner's table with the rest of their burgundy left on theirs, pouring them both a goodly measure. Lewrie took the offered glass and sipped slowly, his eyes boring into Wigmore, who was now squirming in anxiety that Lewrie, or the Indian Army Major, had the authority to bring him up on charges… or could find someone who could, right quick. Dan Wigmore uncomfortably noted that Lewrie's eyes, usually a merry blue when at the circus, sniffing round Eudoxia, had gone a chilly Arctic grey, and most vulture-like, making him wilt