Gloriana

gifts-”

“Valuables may be salvaged later, sir, but not lives,” said Quire chidingly.

“These valuables are of great importance. Help His-this gentleman-to the shore. I’ll fetch the treasure.” He spoke to the King in Polish. The King smiled, vaguely.

Quire appeared to debate with himself. Then he nodded. “Very well, if you think that’s for the best. My lieutenant here will go with you.” He offered his gloved hand to the King, who looked at it without understanding at first, then accepted it. “Up you get, your worship.”

The King climbed unsteadily to his feet and Quire supported him, helping him to the companionway and down it. “Carefully, now, sir.”

“I am much obliged to you, sir,” said Poland in the High Speech used for diplomacy throughout the globe, but Quire had to pretend hearty ignorance.

“Sorry, sir, but I don’t know a word of whatever it is you talk.”

They got to the deck and began to move back towards the point where Quire and Tinkler had boarded. The ship shuddered again, quite dramatically, and Quire was flung hard against the rail. The wind’s note changed, became shrill. The moon vanished. Water dashed itself aimlessly around the ruined ship. Quire staggered back, still half-carrying Poland, who murmured with hazy cordiality, permitting himself to be guided to the leaning steps and down them, while Tinkler cried “Here!” from behind and waved a bundle, the old nobleman at his rear calling out to the crew to follow, which was what Quire had feared would happen. “Easy, sir. Easy, sir.” He helped an irresolute Poland into the shallow water. “This way.” He took Poland’s arm and tugged. Tinkler was next, but the old man remained on the steps, still calling back for his men.

Quire and his charge left the water and began to trudge up the beach as O’Bryan and the others came in sight. “Off we go, O’Bryan!” he called. “Hold them, Tink, and we’ll meet you at the mill.”

O’Bryan put out a hand to take the King’s, leading him to their spare horse. “Up you go, my lord.”

The King chuckled and shook his head. O’Bryan said something in Polish and the King laughed again, readily straddling the sorrel. Quire found his black and was up, too, taking the sorrel’s bridle while O’Bryan mounted. He heard Tinkler yell an order as sailors began to wade ashore, seeking their liege, and musket and pistol fire roared in the hands of the half-score knaves Tinkler commanded, cutting down the first rank of sailors.

The King shouted a question to O’Bryan, who replied again, as he and Quire had arranged, that there were brigands along this coast who always came out in the hope of attacking a wreck but that their coast guards were holding the villains off.

They were galloping rapidly through the shallows separating the island from the mainland before Poland cried out and tried to draw rein.

“What’s he want, O’Bryan?” shouted Quire above the wind.

“Says he’s concerned for his people, that he should stay.”

“Very worthy. Tell him the tide’s due in and all must get to high ground, that our men are looking after the rest.”

O’Bryan spoke slowly in Polish. The King replied, still reluctant.

“What’s up now, O’Bryan?”

“He says the tide appears to be going out.”

“So it does!” Quire grinned. If the tide were not retreating, they would not have been able to cross this wide strip of sand at all. “He’s observant in some ways, eh? Tell him it’s deceptive. Put a bit of urgency in your tone, O’Bryan!”

The bitter wind grabbed at them, struck them with such force that the horses staggered. “Ride, by Mithras!” yelled Quire.

More gunfire sounded from behind. The King tried to turn the sorrel. “Oh, sweet Ariadne!” Quire rode in close, removed the King’s cap, drew a pistol from the holster on his saddle even as Poland began to crane to see what happened, and struck him hard at the base of his unkempt skull, grasping him before he fell too far, leaning him across the pommel, wrapping reins to hold him in position, taking the bridle and leading the sorrel on. O’Bryan fired off one of his pistols, apparently for the fun of it, and waved the other. They were almost at the grassy dunes where glinting snow displayed the evidence that they left the tidal flats behind and would soon be on true land.

They rode at a gallop, inland and eastwards, away from the harbour city of Rye, for Quire had determined that they should put at least fifty miles between them and the wreck if they were not to be accidentally detected.

Quire looked back and saw a few flashes, heard a few shots and yells. If he guessed right, Tinkler and the men had had less trouble than any of them had anticipated and were even now horsed, leaving the Mikolaj Kopernik and her crew to fare as best they could until news reached Rye and help was sent. By then it would be morning and the rufflers well on the way to London, while Tinkler joined him at the spot they had agreed, bringing with him, by happy chance, the King of Poland’s treasure.

As they galloped, Quire began to utter a series of sharp, barking notes, between the sound of a wolf and a raven, which made O’Bryan somewhat nervous even after it had dawned on him that Quire was laughing.

Some hours later a bedraggled, shivering Tinkler, his snag fang dancing in unison with his other, less visible teeth, a bundle clutched between legs and saddle-horn, his face blue and his eyes glazed, as if ice covered them, sighted the windmill where they had agreed to meet. It stood out as a black silhouette against the early light, its old sails squeaking as they tried to turn in the wind. The horse splashed through the shallow water of the fen; its hooves broke thin ice with every step; the frozen grass cracked as it bent. There was scarcely any colour to the scene and it seemed to Tinkler that everything which was not white was black. Even Quire’s hunched form, sitting outside the mill beside a small fire, was completely black to Tinkler’s eye. He called out and then became nervous as his voice bawled with startling loudness from his lips and sent some white geese flapping into the pale sky. “Quire!”

Quire looked up and waved cheerfully. There was a dead, plucked fowl on his knee.

Tinkler walked the horse over the small, decaying bridge crossing the clogged stream. “Where’s our charge?”

“Inside, tied and sleeping.”

“O’Bryan?”

Quire gestured with the knife he had been using to gut the goose. The mound on which he sat stirred and groaned. Tormented, blood-shot eyes peered from out of bear fur. “He’s served his first purpose, to communicate to our charge. Now he’s serving a second. One he suggested himself. He’s kept me pleasantly warm for the last two hours, while the fire drew.”

O’Bryan’s mouth opened and groaned again. Blood ran from between his clenched teeth and over his lips. Thoughtfully, Quire took some of the goose’s feathers and stuffed them tight against the teeth, so that the blood would not run onto the bearskin coat and spoil it. O’Bryan whimpered, imploring Tinkler for help, but Tinkler glanced away and entered the mill, noticing, as he did so, the three carefully placed daggers which stuck from O’Bryan’s twitching back.

“What’s next?” he called, looking down at the King of Poland, who snored on ancient straw. He seated himself on part of a broken millstone and began to unwrap the bundle.

“Montfallcon will pretend to send out men. Hogge will take the ransom note to one of the Polish merchants in London-making it clear that we have no idea whom we have captured-and eventually, after much fuss, our victim will be found, none the worse for wear-and with only a few of his valuables gone.” Quire spoke over his shoulder at Tinkler, who was holding up a golden figurine to the shaft of light which fell through the gap in the mill’s roof. “Just a few, Tink. If we were caught with too much, we’d hang this time, for certain, even though it entailed a change in the Law. Montfallcon couldn’t afford to save us. Poland would demand our lives. The treasure-or most of it-will be rescued with its owner.”

Tinkler put the things back. He picked up the bundle and placed it casually in a corner. “And when will that be, Captain?” He scratched, characteristically, at his exposed tooth.

“Shortly before Twelfth Night, Tink. In time for the Court Masque, when so many dignitaries and sovereigns shall be present that our poor King will be lost amongst them and his gestures, speeches, protestations-all will fall flat. He’ll be able to blame himself-as well as brigands-for his failure-but he’ll not blame Albion or Gloriana. And