Kydd (21 page)

Renzi drew a sharp breath. “You ignorant jackass. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Put a rein on your tongue before you say anything you might regret.”

“It speaks! The gran’ prince deigns to address th’ mobility.” Kydd made a bow, but staggered forward, colliding with Renzi. “Ge’ your hands off me, sir!” Kydd said, wrenching himself free. He took a swing at Renzi, clumsy and wild. Renzi easily ducked under it, but knew that if he left now all would be over for Kydd. Tempted, he drew back — but Kydd’s guileless face and dark features pricked him mercilessly. Stepping around him, Renzi seized his arms in a lock and frog-marched him toward the hatch.

“Ger’ away — wha’ you doing? Le’ me go, you —”

He threw Kydd down the ladder and resumed his hold when Kydd picked himself up at the bottom. It continued until they were in the orlop. Renzi dragged Kydd over to the gratings between the pump room and sail stowage, and flung him down. “There, you fool! You want to give your life to the bottle, do it in company.” He jerked up the grating to reveal, in the stinking blackness below, a huddled figure clutching a bot
tle. The face looked up anxiously, rheumy eyes and trembling grasp pitiful in its degradation. Renzi spoke scornfully. “Eakin, cooper’s mate. Why don’t you introduce yourself, Mr. Kydd? I’m sure you’ll find you have much in common!” He let Kydd drop to the deck and left.

“Don’t worry, mate, we squared it with Jack Weatherface. Good hand, is Tewsley.” Doud spoke softly, as to a child.

Kydd said nothing, holding his head and staring at his breakfast.

“Yeah — look, we understand, cuffin. He was our shipmate too.” Whaley reached over and squeezed his arm.

Kydd looked up wordlessly. His vague memories of the previous night were shot through with horror — waking from a drunken sleep to find the sickening Eakin pulling him down into the hold to evade the Master-at-Arms before clumsily going through his clothes for drink or valuables. He remembered also Renzi’s pitiless grip and implacable face, and the cold ferocity of his movements. Kydd shot a glance over at Renzi in his usual place opposite Claggett. Silent and guarded as ever, he gave no sign of recognition.

Why had he done it? What had made Renzi break with character so much as to involve himself in a shipmate’s fate?

Kydd needed answers — but not here.

At dinner, he watched Renzi quietly. No one knew, or particularly cared, where Renzi spent his time and, true to form, he slipped away afterward.

Kydd rose and followed. Renzi emerged onto the upper deck, then swung out to the fore shrouds and up to the foretop, where he disappeared from view.

He did not return. Kydd made his way up the ratlines to the foretop.

Renzi sat with his back to the after rail, a book balanced on his knee. Looking up as Kydd climbed into the top, he assumed an expression of cold distaste, but said nothing.

“I’m to thank you for y’r concern, sir,” Kydd began.

Still no words, just the repelling look.

“I was much affected. My friend . . .” Kydd tailed off.

It was hard. Renzi felt himself weakening.

“Why did you interfere?” said Kydd abruptly.

Renzi put down the book and sighed. It was no good, he just could
not bring himself to repel Kydd with his usual malignity. “Do I have to be in possession of a reason?” he asked.

“Your pardon, but you’ve never shown an interest in others before.”

“Perhaps I choose to in your case.”

“Why?”

Renzi looked out over the moving gray seas under the wan sunlight. How could he speak of the depth of feeling, the cold remorseless logic that had driven him to self-sentence himself — that same discipline of rationality that had kept him from following the others to self-destruction. It had its own imperatives. “Because you remind me of one who — I once met,” he said finally.

Kydd looked at him, unsure of how to respond.

“And because I have seen others go to hell the same way.”

“Then please don’t concern yourself. I don’t make a practice of it.”

“I’m gratified to hear it.” Renzi’s educated voice seemed out of keeping.

“Who
are
you?” Kydd asked boldly. “I mean, what are y’ doin’ on a man-o’-war?”

“That can be of no possible concern to you.”

“I see you do not care f’r conversation, sir. I will take my leave,” said Kydd, aware that, despite himself, when speaking to Renzi he was aping his manners.

“No — wait!” Renzi closed his book. “I spoke hastily perhaps. Please sit down.” It was rash, perhaps, but right now he felt a surging need for human interaction.

“Have you — are they after you?” Kydd said, looking at him directly.

Renzi toyed with the nice philosophical distinction between legal criminality and moral, but decided to answer in the negative.

“Then . . .”

“I was not pressed, if that is your impression.”

Kydd eased his position. “So I must find that you are runnin’ — hidin’ — and from what, I do not know. Am I right?”

Renzi could not avoid Kydd’s forthright gaze. “Yes, you are right,” he admitted. How much could he speak of his situation and hope to be understood? Kydd was strong-minded — he had to be to endure — but he had no acquaintance with Descartes or Leibniz and their cold logic, no appre
ciation of the higher moral forces that might motivate a man of the Enlightenment.

Kydd smiled thinly. “You do not look a one who’d be craven.”

Renzi half smiled and looked away. The months of self-imposed isolation, the deliberate lack of human contact, had been hard, but he had borne this as part of the punishment. But what if this could rightly be construed as
ultra poenas dare
— beyond the penalty given? The condition of exile might be sustained, yet he would have the precious mercy of human company.

He looked directly at Kydd, considering, and found himself deciding: if he was going to confide in anyone it would be Kydd. “You wish an explanation.”

“If it does not pain you.”

“No, the pain is past.” He glanced at Kydd, feeling drawn to the intensity in the strong, open face.

“However, be so good as to bear with me for a space . . .” He paused for a long moment, then continued, “For philosophical reasons, which appear sufficiently cogent to me, I am denied the felicity of the company of my peers. This is not the result of a criminal act, I hasten to assure you.”

Kydd could see that Renzi was having difficulty speaking of his burden and wondered if it had anything to do with his peculiar beliefs. “Then, sir, I will not speak of it again.”

Renzi said nothing but Kydd saw the pain in his eyes. The deeply lined face spoke of complexities of experience at which he could only guess.

A silence fell between them. Sounds from the watch on deck faintly carried up to their eyrie.

“I beg you will tell me more of this philosophy, er, Mr. Renzi,” Kydd said.

“Upon a more suitable occasion, perhaps, Mr. Kydd.”

“Tom.”

“Nicholas.”

The cutter went about around their stern and came smartly up into the wind bare yards away, the brailed-up mainsail flogging violently. A heav
ing line shot up and was seized; canvas-covered despatches followed quickly. Mission performed, sail was shaken out again and the despatch cutter bore away.

“
All the haaands
! Hands lay aft!” The pipe came within the hour — it did not need much imagination to guess that something was afoot.

Salter was quite sure. “The Frogs have signed a peace, and we’re on our way home.”

“Nah — pocky knaves like that, they want ter bring us down first. It’ll be the rest o’ the Fleet comin’ to help.”

Stirk was more skeptical, but ready to listen. “Let the dog see the rabbit, Doggo,” he said, elbowing him to one side.

The Captain stepped forward to the poop rail. “We have been entrusted with a mission.” He paused, looking around him, delicately touching his mouth with a fine handkerchief before replacing it in the sleeve of his heavy gold-laced coat. “A mission that could see the beginning of the end for that vile gang of regicides.”

There was quiet. A mission did not sound like something that could end the war — that would take a great battle involving the rest of the Fleet — but anything that offered a break from the monotony of sailing up and down on blockade duty would be welcome.

“We, together with
Royal Albion
and
Tiberius,
have won the opportunity to dart a lance into the very belly of the enemy. We are going to join with true Frenchmen who will rejoice to see their nation restored to its former glory — and make our landing together on the shores of France.

“You will all have heard how the wretches murdered their officers and govern their affairs by citizens’ council. The rabble will retire in confusion under our disciplined advance. We will thrust deep into the heart of France, sweeping all before us, and bring to an end this squalid regime.”

A restless muttering rippled through the men crowded on deck and in the lower rigging. An armed descent on the mainland of Europe?

“Mr. Tyrell leads our contribution, which will be two hundred men. He will be assisted by Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Garrett. They will be protected by the marines, for we shall be landing four guns, complete with equipment. As I speak, a strong force of Royalists is marching from across the Cherbourg peninsula to join with us. Our objective will be to free the great old town of Rennes and, having established our position there, we will be reinforced for the big advance to Paris — and victory!
But by then we will long be returned on board. You need have no fear that you will be turned into redcoats.

“Now I am asking for volunteers — and might I add that they will certainly share in whatever spoils of war Providence brings.”

Significant looks were exchanged. This was far more to the point than grand strategy.

“Volunteers may approach the First Lieutenant after dinner. God save the King!”

“Damn right I’m going. Not set foot ashore in eight months.” Whaley’s eyes gleamed.

“Want to clap eyes on them French women — wouldn’t repel boarders should a saucy piece lay alongside!” declared Doud, his lewd gestures leaving no doubt as to his meaning.

Claggett did not join in. “Might be things are different to what you thinks,” he said.

Howell sniffed. “What d’ye mean?”

Claggett leaned over. “I went in with the boats at Los Cayos and we suffered somethin’ cruel. Moskeeters, stinkin’ heat, an’ never a morsel o’ meat one day’s end to the next. Cruel, I tells yer — you’ll see.”

Howell sneered. “Anyways, no chance o’ that where youse are going! Just goin’ to get yerselves separated from yer head by this here gillo-tin!”

“What about you, Tom?” Whaley said, tapping a piece of hard tack.

“Could do with a stretch o’ the legs,” Kydd said casually.

“Ye’re all bloody mad,” said Howell. “Mantrap and Shaney Jack both — it’ll be seven bells of hell for all hands wi’ them two. I’m stayin’ aboard, where they won’t be at.”

At supper, Kydd eased into place opposite Renzi. “We join up with the Fleet in the morning, I’ve heard,” Kydd said to him.

Renzi responded slowly, “Yes, I believe we shall.”

“You volunteered.” Kydd had been just as surprised as the others.

“As did you.”

Renzi looked away, then back. “In the dog-watch it is my pleasure to take a pipe of tobacco on the fo’c’sle, should the weather prove tolerable.”

Kydd’s father smoked a long churchwarden pipe, but he had never
taken up the habit. “I don’t take tobacco m’self, but were you to need company . . .”

“Then I should be honored.”

The fo’c’sle deck in the dog-watches was a place of sanctuary for the seamen. Out of sight of the quarterdeck, sailors chatted in ones or twos, spinning yarns and making merry. Some sat on the deck reading or sewing. Right at the forward end of the squared-off deck, before the massive carved work of the beakhead dropped away below, was a splendid place to be. On either side the busy wash of the bow-wave spread as the great bluff bow shouldered the waves arrogantly aside. Sliding aft, it rejoined the other side past the ornate stern to disappear into the distance in a ruler-straight line over the gray Atlantic. The jibboom thrust out ahead, the headsails soaring up to the tops and beyond, taut and eager. They dipped and rose with great dignity, it seemed to Kydd.

The vista seemed to please Renzi too. “There is a certain harmony in some works of man which I cannot but find sublime,” he said, as they stood together above the beakhead. From inside his jacket he found his clay pipe, which he filled from an oilskin pouch.

Kydd waited until Renzi had his pipe drawing well, using the flame of a lanthorn swinging in the shrouds. He settled on the deck next to him.

“Have you thought, dear fellow, that tomorrow we could well be fighting for our lives?”

Renzi spoke so quietly that Kydd thought at first he was talking to himself. “Er, not really, no. But I’m sure that His Majesty will triumph over his enemies,” Kydd added stiffly.

“Of course. Have you ever seen a battle?” The pipe was giving Renzi much satisfaction — he held it delicately by the stem near the bowl, luxuriating in the acrid fragrance.

“Not as one might say a battle,” Kydd answered. The excitement of the militia being turned out to quell an apprentices’ riot would probably not count.

Renzi inspected his pipe. “Then pray do not wish it — a battle. It must be the most odious and disagreeable occupation of man known.” He caught something of Kydd’s suspicions, for he hastened to add, “Yet some must be accounted inevitable — desirable, even.”

“Does this mean that you — do not —”

“It does not. I will not seek glory in battle, but the rational course for personal survival is not to be found in turning one’s back. You will not find me shy, I think.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean —”

“We are to haul guns, I find. There will be precious little chance for laurels in that.” He looked sideways at Kydd, with an amused expression.

“You wished to confide some matter t’ me,” Kydd said abruptly.

Renzi’s face set. “Perhaps,” he said.

Kydd waited.