Fortune's Whelp (Fortune's Whelp Series Book 1) Page 5

  “Much of the money in Ireland is stolen, sir.”

  “Indeed,” Edward replied, acknowledging the truth. “But I intend theft elsewhere, and at the risk of my own skin.”

  “Good to hear, sir, that there may be at least some honor in your future adventures of armed robbery. I myself am also on a mission of money, or at least property: to defend my dead husband’s Irish estate, now by law my son’s, but I its guardian until his majority. It’s a Catholic property, you see, one not yet confiscated by the papist-hating government, but in danger of becoming so.”

  “Yet Catholic properties are being restored,” Edward said, glancing at Mrs. Hardy’s waking son. Clearly he was accustomed to women in dishabille; he yawned, ignored the women, then laid his head back down and closed his eyes in protest at having been awakened.

  “Only some properties, sir. It’s a profitable game: the blackguard authorities make accusations of treason, confiscate Catholic properties, then Catholic owners pay black-rent to get their title back. As I said, a place for factors, lawyers, and thieves, not stout-hearted adventurers anymore. Even the Irish adventurers, the Tories I mean, have fled. But surely we have more pleasant things to talk about? For example, why has so handsome a man been so aloof—isn’t that how the sailors call it?—from your traveling companions?”

  Edward looked at her, tempted for a moment less by her sudden, not to mention obvious, flattery and sexuality than by an intriguing side of her character he had overlooked: she displayed a comfortable, familiar perception, the sort that comes from years of experience and makes personal intimacy almost immediate. Then he remembered the bell.

  “I’ll be dining with the captain shortly. Would you please join us?” he asked out of common courtesy as he finished securing the rolled up canvas cabin walls to hooks in the low beams above.

  “No, Captain,” she replied, “but I do thank you. It’s unfortunate that the sea kept of us from getting to know each other. Perhaps you will visit us in Ireland?” She noticed his hesitation, as if he were inventing an excuse. “I’m a much different woman ashore, sir.”

  Edward let gallantry take over. “Gladly I’ll visit, madam. But if you will excuse me, I must retire for a moment.” He bowed slightly again—an oddly dignified gesture, in spite of the fact that he was already bent half over—and shuffled toward his cabin but two feet away, bumping his head on a beam as he did.

  “Oh, Captain MacNaughton?”

  “Yes?” he replied as he turned to face her again.

  “I do have one favor to ask of you, ‘tis but a small one. Will you please fix the bell by the door, the one I ring when I need assistance? Or let me seek your assistance when I need it, if my maids won’t wake? Oh, come now, don’t blush again, I know you silenced the bell or bade the boy do it. I know men, Captain MacNaughton, and you may be as honest and honorable as they come, and I think you probably are, but you will have done it. I am not offended, for I am a demanding woman, after all.”

  She smiled, and he smiled in return, his sudden admiration outweighing his chagrin.

  “Gladly, madam. Which do you prefer: the bell, or me?”

  “Sir, I will leave that up to your discretion.”

  “I shall attend you, madam, when your servants are unable to.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Your servant, madam.”

  Anything to keep that damned bell quiet, and it’s only for another night at most, he muttered to himself, still amused by their sudden flirtation, as he climbed the ladder to the steerage above.

  And here he ran smack into the army ensign.

  The quieting seas had roused the young officer, as it had most passengers. A lubber at the best of times, the ensign lacked sea legs, both in the sense of being able to keep his food down as well as in the sense of being able to move easily aboard a vessel pitching, rolling, and yawing upon the sea. In other words, the collision knocked the ensign flat on his ass.

  “Ah, Ensign Ingoldsby! My rutting young friend! You must excuse my hurry,” Edward said pleasantly as he helped him to his feet, surprised not only that the young man was up and about, but also that the sea had not yet swept his feet from under him sooner, considering the amount of brandy on his breath. “And I see you’re headed in the wrong direction again. So much to know about a ship, after all. Fore and aft, aloft and below, windward and loo’ard, within board, without board, by the board, overboard. So many strange names for places and things, no wonder you’re so often lost, even on a such a small frigate as this. I think you and Mrs. Hardy agreed that you would not go below again, did you not? Come, we’ll go to the great cabin and eat a hearty meal, add some belly timber and wine to your brandy-pickled stomach, and you may puke it all up later. This might even save your life, for Mrs. Hardy is in a fierce mood this morning, what with having been up all night seasick, and her maids too,” he lied. “What say you, then, sir?”

  “Twice, sir,” said the ensign as he shrugged off Edward’s helping hand and drew himself wobbly to his full height, “you have insulted me on this voyage! First you would not let me at the whores, then you would not move out of my way! Nay, thrice! Thrice, you have insulted me, for I can count and this makes three! This shall not stand! And now you have laid a hand on me! I shall fetch my sword and you will walk with me!”

  Edward grinned in spite of himself. “You do know that we’re still at sea? Come, Ensign Ingoldsby, you may trust me when I say that men do not fight duels above or below deck. There simply isn’t room for them. Besides, you can barely stand anywhere, whether or not you intend anything to stand, as you said. Come, there’s hot food waiting, and Kinsale and Charles Fort in the offing. Be a good lad, not a fool, and rethink your quarrel with me when you’re sober.”

  But the officer did not move, and by not doing so blocked Edward’s way to the great cabin. His look grew distant, and for a moment Edward thought the officer might pass out.

  “Woman varium et mutabile.”

  “I’m acquainted with the phrase,” Edward replied, amused by the turn the officer was taking. “I am in fact a university bachelor.”

  “Indeed?” replied the Ensign, half in sarcasm, half in honest surprise. “It means women are fickle and changeable.” He spat the adjectives.

  “Actually, it means a woman is a fickle and changeable thing—the adjectives, sir, are in the neuter gender, implying objects—and here I don’t agree with Virgil at all. Well, at least not of women as things. How much Latin have you had, my young Aeneas?”

  “Two thousand pound, you Scotch bastard! Two thousand pound!”

  Edward grinned. At least the officer had forgotten about seeking satisfaction.

  “Well-portioned she was,” Ingoldsby continued, his voice alternating between slurred words and emphatic exaggeration, “a stocking merchant’s daughter in London. Her father had bought himself a knighthood. By God, what Irish estate I could have had with her money! She wrote letters to me! And when I came to London… to London, sir, the greatest capital in the world… we delivered him, the papist spy-priest, caught him in Kinsale we did, they’ll hang him for treason you know, I kicked the Catholic traitor’s teeth in when we captured him… and when we arrived in London, I would have made her my wife… But she had chosen a lawyer! A fucking lawyer!

  “I have no hope, you see, you Scotch bastard, no fortune. And she would not marry me, nor would her father make her! I would have spitted that law bastard on my sword, but Lieutenant Fielding, he who travels with me, prevented me. ‘They’ll hang you if you kill him,’ he said, ‘the lawyer’s crony bastards at the Inns of Court will see you hanged.’ The whims of Fortune, sir, the whims of Fortune. Varium et mutabile. Have you any Latin?”

  Edward almost felt sympathetic. “Come, Ensign Ingoldsby, if you won’t eat, then drink: wine makes women and the sea easier to forget.”

  But the ensign still refused to move and, like many angry drunks, took a darker turn.

  “Ah, I understand now,” the ensign said. “It’s
the beldam below, you’re fucking her, and her maids too? Aye, she’d have given her maids to me if only I would take her first. But her flesh… too ripe, you understand? Or is it the stink and darkness down there that you like, it reminds you of home, you Scotch Highland bastard? I’ve not forgotten your insults, sir! But what is to be expected from a man who grew up with dirty floors and food, with dirty people half-dressed in their plaids, their women bare-footed, their lairds and chiefs herding cattle like peasant drovers, can’t even make a chimney in your wretched hovels to let out the smoke—”

  Edward frowned and struggled to control his rising temper. He had neither time nor tolerance nor even an inclination for foolish quarrels with drunks, and wondered if the officer were so intoxicated that he had no idea what he was saying, or if he were only half-drunk and his condition had simply loosened his tongue.

  “Mr. Ingoldsby,” Edward said slowly and coldly, “you’re still drunk, or reasonably so, so once more I’ll forget what you’re saying if you return to your cabin. It’s but a few feet away. I’ll even walk with you there.”

  Edward received nothing in return for his offer but a stuporous stare. The officer would not budge. Quite possibly he was so insensible that he could not, but no matter. Edward’s temper turned cold and his tongue regained the Scots of his youth. He grabbed the young officer by the throat, shoved him backward through the steerage, past the startled parson, and slammed the young officer against the door of the great cabin.

  “Listen, you drunken cock-laird, my forbearance is usually served to a man but once, and I have now served you so thrice. I swear to you, I’ll let my sword drink your blood if you’re fool enough to press me again, drunk or sober.”

  “Take... your... hand... ” sputtered the ensign.

  “Easy laddie, easy,” Edward said as he pressed the web of his hand deeper into the young officer’s throat, cutting off voice and breath. “You’ll make no more threats if I keep the wind from your lungs. Perhaps you need more rest—”

  “A sail! A sail!”

  The unusual urgency in the words from aloft drew Edward’s attention. He let the ensign fall, leaving him to lie vomiting in his drunken, seasick, half-consciousness.

  “Fortune spares you today, lad.”

  Quickly Edward MacNaughton strode to the main deck, ignoring Captain Cronow and Lieutenant Fielding, who burst forth behind him from the great cabin.

  Southwest in the offing, breaking through the mist of low clouds and light rain, her hull showing now and again above the swells, was a full-rigged ship sailing under reefed main and fore courses. She was a swift, dark ship, just as he had dreamed.

  Chapter 5

  But for all his cheat we knew what he was,

  and were in all kind ready to give him welcome.

  —Capt. Tho. Phillips, Journal, November 1693

  From the dankness below, the sailors of the larboard watch came topside to stare at the approaching ship through the shroud of rain. She was to windward, her course nor’east by north with the wind on her larboard quarter, and she appeared to be flying Dutch colors. A few fisher boats were also visible in the distance, but the small merchant-galley Edward had sighted earlier was nowhere to be seen.

  As Edward stepped onto the quarterdeck he called to the ship’s boy. “Jack, fetch my spying-glass, the large one; it’s in my sea chest. Here’s the key.”

  Soon Edward was squinting through his old, battered spyglass, three feet long at full draw, confirming her Dutch colors. Edward picked out black wales and upper works, and stern carvings painted to simulate gilding, as well as a number of men engaged in the business of sailing. Her compliment was as large as that of an East Indiaman—or a privateer.

  Behind Edward, Lieutenant Fielding, by the Captain’s invitation, climbed to the quarterdeck with a lubber’s lack of balance. Sobriety, courage, and a finally-quiet stomach were evident in his firm expression.

  “Is she English?” the army officer asked.

  “Not likely. She flies the Dutch ancient and is Dutch-built,” Edward responded distractedly. “Frankly, it’s a bit curious that she’s flying colors at all, unless she hoisted them recently, perhaps to identify herself to a cruiser, or even to us. But colors don’t mean much these days. Your opinion, Captain Cronow?”

  “A damned brandy barrel, a butter box, a Hogen Mogen. I fought in the Dutch wars; I can spot ‘em leagues farther in the offing than this. If we still had wars with the Dutch, I’d swear she was a Holland caper. Times change; now we’ve a Dutch king of England.” Cronow shook his head, then snorted deeply. “But no matter what the eyes see, gentlemen, my nose smells a foul-bottomed cruising French whore in Dutch skirts.”

  “She’s as big as a large fourth rate; forty, fifty or more great guns, although it’s hard to tell at this angle,” Edward commented. “Maybe six hundred tons. The French would call her a frigate of the first order. She’s as powerful as a cruiser gets; let’s hope she’s not one.”

  He surveyed her through the glass in detail, from sprit to rudder, from truck to waterline.

  Cronow’s right, his instincts told him, she’s a Dutch prize made into a French cruiser.

  “Could the French use a Dutch ship?” asked Lieutenant Fielding.

  “Easily,” Edward replied. “A ship’s origin means as little as her colors. This one I think is a privateer, though, not a ship of the French navy; not that there’s not much difference. King Louis is lately in the habit of lending men-of-war to investors—armateurs, the French call them—as privateers.”

  “The merchant captains who anchor in Kinsale complain of them often.”

  “And rightly so,” Edward replied, “they’re bold bastards. It doesn’t matter that we’ve trapped the bulk of the French navy in its harbors; French privateers still slip out and wreak havoc, all for purpose of riches under the guise of patriotism. And then you have the Jacobite cruisers, too: Irish, Scots, and English who sail for Prince James.”

  Cronow, intently watching the approaching ship through his own spyglass, cleared his throat and spoke slowly. “Captain MacNaughton, you’re an old friend and the only man I would trust to advise me in chase or fight. What do you make of this ship standing toward us?”

  Edward did not reply immediately. Instead, he squinted again through his spyglass, then brought it down, rubbed his eyes, and took two deep, slow breaths. The motion of the Peregrinator, combined with the magnified view of the pitching and rolling ship in the distance, was starting to wear his sea legs down. He let his breath out slowly. Something about the dark ship disturbed him. She looked familiar, but he was certain he did not recognize her. There was an eerie directness about the ship, as if she felt she could sail with impunity anywhere she chose. A figment of last night’s dreams, he thought, still drifting in my head.

  “To be safe,” he replied finally, “we’ve no choice but to run for Kinsale. Now.”

  “Aye, agreed, God be damned,” Cronow said with sharp resignation. “We’ve plenty of sea room, but she’s close by and has the weather of us, plus we’re leaky and a bit foul. She’ll just overhaul us if we show our heels to sea, and I won’t risk my ship on the slim hope of disappearing into the weather again. Aye, we’ll shape our course direct for Kinsale and hope Fortune favors us one more time.”

  “Before I left Kinsale for London, the Corporation had petitioned for a forty-gun guard ship to cruise between here and Saltash to keep privateers at bay,” Lieutenant Fielding remarked hopefully.

  Cronow spat. “The Corporation wants a guard ship but won’t pay for one, so don’t hold your breath, Lieutenant.” He turned to Edward and cocked his head at the dark ship. “And if you commanded this stuck-up concubine who pretends to ignore us, Captain MacNaughton, what would you?”

  Edward reflected for a moment. “If I were in her captain’s place, I’d keep my course and do nothing suspicious. I might even make a signal for you to lie by and hail as if I needed help, a pilot for example, hoping the ruse would take. In any case, I�
��d wait until you made your next tack. That way I could close as much distance as possible. Then, when you’re on the larboard tack, I’d suddenly stand to your forefoot with the wind off my beam and all the sail I could safely bear, and take you just before you reach Kinsale.”

  “We can’t fight her,” Cronow grumbled.

  “Not in the conventional way,” Edward replied, “but she can’t open her lower lee ports in this sea, and they’re the ones we really need to worry about. And she can’t board us; the sea runs too high. On the other hand, she probably won’t need to fire any of her guns. She can simply overhaul us, show us her upper teeth, and send a boat to board us.”

  “And blast us to hell with her upper battery and muskets if we don’t strike,” Cronow stated matter-of-factly. “Damnation, even her quarterdeck guns are a match for our broadside. Closed quarters will do no good; we’re not stout enough to withstand her guns.”

  Edward lowered his spyglass. Cronow was silent as he looked back and forth from the dark ship to the harbor entrance to the lee shores and the islets off Oysterhaven nearby. He stared at the sky, then turned to his mate, raised his eyebrows, and rubbed his beard.

  “Goddammit,” he muttered with venom, then barked, “Mr. Foxcraft, let’s find out what she is. Call the hands and standby to wear ship!”

  “All hands on deck! Up every man! Smartly now!” the mate bellowed.

  Within seconds the crew was mustered, the mate’s years of practice with a rattan cane having raised many a welt on laggard shoulders.

  “Standby to wear ship!” Foxcraft bellowed.

  Lieutenant Fielding turned to Edward, not wishing to disturb the ship’s captain. “Can you explain what we’re doing, sir?”

  “We’re changing course,” Edward said, as he passed his spyglass to the officer. “To ‘wear ship’ means we’re making a long turn away from the wind to put the ship onto the larboard tack. This has advantages in our circumstances, but they’re dangerous advantages. With this leaky ship and these seas, it’s safer than tacking through the wind, which is the short and usually best way. And by changing course now we can head toward the harbor mouth and discover the unknown ship’s intentions. But there’s the danger that our leeway might put us on the Bulman rocks. Still, I think the advantages outweigh the dangers: if this ship means to take us, she’ll have to change course when we do. We’re forcing her hand.”