Peril on the Sea (7 page)

Sherwin stammered his thanks. He added, “I don't know the art of using such weapons.”

There was a twinkle in Highbridge's eye, and it was not the first time that Sherwin believed that his initial, severe impression of this man had been entirely wrong.

“Bartholomew,” said Highbridge, “will show you how the weapon works.”

“I will be most grateful.”

“And you will,” continued Highbridge, “in exchange for the use of this weapon, encourage the captain to allow you to use it against the Spanish.”

This assertion was a surprise, and helped to explain the officer's generosity. He was seeking an ally.

“Sir,” said Sherwin, “I shall do my best.”

“Good man,” said Highbridge with a smile.

 

LATER, as Sherwin started along the path leading up the face of the cliff, he fully appreciated the trust Highbridge had shown in him.

An insistent, quiet inner voice was urging him toward freedom.

As he set eyes on the fine expanse of land from the top of the cliff, Sherwin was teased by the realization that he could run off across the fields of this farmland and never return. No admiralty court would punish Sherwin for escaping after his signature had been entered into a contract with a pirate. Such coerced agreements were common—merchant captains had signed away their ships, under threat, only to recant once they reached a safe harbor.

But Highbridge sought an alliance with Sherwin in persuading the captain to take part in the impending warfare.

That should prove easy enough, thought Sherwin, a spring in his step.

After all, what would the looming conflict be, if not a grand adventure?

F
ROM THE CLIFFTOP the
Vixen
looked not helpless so much as lost to the effects of a night's carousing.

Her rigging sagged drunkenly, and the sailors settled, warming their hands around a fire or spreading their clothing and other belongings out on the sand to be dried by the waxing sunlight. They looked like stumpy-legged harvesters, foreshortened by the altitude from which he viewed them, and it seemed pure folly to Sherwin that these men would trust their lives to that cracked walnut of a vessel, being slowly left behind by the ebbing tide.

The mantled young woman was nowhere to be seen, but what was entirely visible was a green field and a road rutted by cart wheels, with oaks and a blue sky breaking through the clouds. The wind was turning serene, and Sherwin felt again the joy of arrival in a magnificent location.

The hedges were in full flower, or just past, with briar berries already formed, green and covert among the bristly leaves. Bees fumbled and found blossoms, and a wagtail
perched at the edge of a puddle and gave a toss of its tail feathers like a finger beckoning, urging Sherwin forward.

Sherwin was happy and excited. He felt his future flower with exceptional opportunities. Furthermore, if he encountered the young woman, and if she saw fit to exchange pleasantries, Sherwin believed that his appearance would not displease. While soldiers and gentlemen wore nothing like a uniform garment, Sherwin was dressed much like the sergeant, who was a far from shabby figure.

Sherwin wore tall boots that folded down below the knee, and a dark blue doublet, with a cup-hilted rapier swinging at his side. Bartholomew had used a solution of vinegar and brine to further diminish the stains of blood on the mantle. Most pleasing of all was the leather-and-felt hat, which sported the feather of a cock pheasant. The late Robin Fosque had taken heed of his appearance, and Sherwin was in his debt.

As yet Sherwin had seen no humans other than his companions, although a large white horse looked up from a patch of harebells and gave his head a toss—curious, Sherwin had to believe, as to why the visitors did not stop to climb over the stile and come toward him with gifts of hay or apples.

Now that he was no longer on the ship, Sherwin could smell himself and his shipmates, a strong odor of tar and sweat, sharpened by salt water, rising from the fabric of his garments.

“Will you show me how to load the pistol with a bullet?” asked Sherwin.

Bartholomew's undertakings, as an attendant to a gentleman, included carrying the powder holder, a large ox horn that was embellished with brass fittings, an iron nozzle, and a stout leather strap. He accepted the weapon itself from Sherwin's hands, and as they walked he used the ramrod to probe the barrel.

Then he sat beside the road and took no small amount of time loading the firearm.

At last he stood again. “She holds a charge ready,” he announced, and handed the weapon back to his master. He explained the firing of the weapon, and added, “Let us hope, sir, your life never depends on this.”

Sherwin thrust the pistol through his belt as they continued to make their way, considerably in the rear of the sergeant and Tryce.

“What keeps the lead shot and the gunpowder from drooling out the end of the barrel?” asked Sherwin.

“Gun wadding,” said Bartholomew. “And fortune.”

“How long have you sailed on the
Vixen
?” asked Sherwin.

“Not four months,” said Bartholomew. “I joined her in Calais. Sir, my master was imprisoned.” He pronounced the town's name
Cal-ass
.

“What sort of duties did you perform for your master?”

“Sir, I was a toad-eater.”

“A toady?” asked Sherwin in surprise.

“My master was the mountebank John Pourbonne. He was renowned for his sleight-of-hand marvels, and among these, sir, he had the power to make creatures vanish.”

The toad, more than other amphibians, was considered to be poisonous. A toad-eater's job was to hide the noxious creature while the magician showed that nowhere—not up this sleeve or even under this cap—was the vanished toad. “Madam, could it be the toad is here?” the magician would say, tickling a buxom goodwife under her ribs to a chorus of giggles.

“My master and I,” continued Bartholomew, “earned pennies by the bushel in Dover and Portsmouth, but he wanted a brighter future. He took a French name, and we thrived for a time.”

Sherwin had seen mountebanks on market day throughout his childhood. He liked them, but would not trust one. He suspected they were quick-handed thieves at heart, and they sold elixirs that were thought to inspire love, conquer age, and cure poor vision.

“Do they piss?” Sherwin could not help but asking. “The toads, while in your mouth?”

“Our toad was educated,” said Bartholomew.

Sherwin walked for a while, considering.

“How,” he asked at last, “do you educate a toad?”

“Dry him out,” said Bartholomew.

“Do you prefer Captain Fletcher,” asked Sherwin, “to your imprisoned master John Pourbonne?”

“John once made me hide a scorpion, sir,” said Bartholomew,
“under my tongue. Captain Fletcher has made no such command.”

 

SHERWIN AND BARTHOLOMEW had hurried up by then to reach the sergeant and Tryce, and as they passed a puddle Sherwin took a moment to examine his reflection.

“As worthy as a magpie,” snorted Tryce, noticing Sherwin's momentary indulgence in vanity, “like most gentlefolk.”

“Ah, Tryce,” chided the sergeant. “By my faith, you've all manners of mange.”

The four of them approached a cottage not far from the sea cliff, a whitewashed dwelling with a broad door, heavily shuttered windows, and a thatched roof. Judging by the sharp smell in the air, there were pigs nearby.

“I don't know anything about swine,” said Tryce. “I imagine you stick a pig with a blade and it dies like any animal.”

“We aren't going to steal livestock,” said Sherwin.

“I doubt we are not,” said Tryce with an enigmatic smile.

Tryce was the sort of man Sherwin had seen rolling casks into the wine warehouses along the London docks, and lounging outside Southside alehouses, scarred and suntanned, with an air of dangerous good nature. Sherwin relished the chance to know one of these men better.

The four of them paused beside a head-high wall of whitewashed stone, surmounted by jagged flint rocks, a sharp margin along the tip of the barrier to discourage men like Tryce. Dogs not far away began to bark, the
knowledgeable, communicative baying of animals fit for duty. A goose joined in, from somewhere unseen, a loud, brazen noise.

“I'll pay for the pig myself when we find one,” said Sherwin.

“With what?” asked Tryce.

Sherwin realized that, when it came to ready money, he had neither gold nor silver, all of his possessions having gone down with the
Patience
.

“I'll reimburse you any debt,” said Sherwin, “when I am able to draw on my late father's accounts in London. Or when I have been paid my share of the captain's prizes.”

“I don't owe money,” said Tryce, “and I don't credit any debts, either.”

The lack of courteous, softening interjections was pronounced in Tryce's manner of speaking, no
By my guess
and certainly no attempt to call Sherwin
sir
, as would have been proper.

“I'm not going to meander the countryside,” said Sherwin, “taking advantage of innocent farmers.”

“That's what you're doing, though,” answered Tryce, “isn't it?”

Tryce had adopted a tone of challenge, and Sherwin acknowledged to himself that his new companion would make a tough opponent. He was a big man, as sailors go, with broad shoulders and the rolling gait of a man used to the deck shifting under his stride. He had a broad-bladed sword in a worn scabbard, and a salt-stained, bruise-blue knit cap on his head, the end dangling over his ear.

“Best we leave the actual thievery to Tryce, sir,” advised Sergeant Evenage. “He's a rough-cut sort, as you can see, and he can't easily tell right from not-right-at-all, if you catch my meaning.”

Bartholomew put his hand on Sherwin's arm and gave a nod of agreement.

“But what difference does it make,” protested Sherwin, “if we end up dining on a sow that Tryce has stuck with a knife?”

“I am a soldier, sir,” said Evenage, “and not altogether accustomed to some of the ways of Captain Fletcher's men myself.”

“But you profit from their plunder, I can easily imagine,” said Sherwin.

He turned to advise Tryce to stay where he was.

But it was too late.

 

TRYCE HAD LEAPED over the white wall, and judging by the sounds of sloppy footsteps, he was making his way through a sty.

The musical, shrill gutturals of piglets greeted his entrance among them, and Tryce could be heard more than once calling “Hoi, you,” as—judging by the sounds—he groped and stumbled into puddles.

“Sir,” cried Bartholomew, “take care.”

Sherwin climbed to the top of the wall, and overlooked a catastrophe.

T
RYCE WAS RUNNING fast, back toward Sherwin, pursued by a very large white-and-brown pig.

Tryce stumbled and the sow was upon him.

Sherwin leaped from his uncomfortable perch on the wall and was thankful for his tall boots, which allowed him to wade with a certain dignity and alacrity through the muck.

The sow had torn a long slash into Tryce's breeches and drawn blood as Sherwin hurried to help his companion. Breed sows, although not tusked or muscled as heavily as boars, were equipped to defend their young. As Tryce bawled for the help of Heaven, this huge, heavy creature was on him, trying to roll the trespasser onto his back where she could rip him open.

Sherwin had enjoyed a variety of acquaintances along the river Thames in Chiswick. Reed-gatherers and plowmen, swineherds and squires took the time to wish each other good day. Sherwin had passed a piggery nearly every
summer afternoon on his way to fish for smelt in the river-island shallows, and he had enough knowledge of swine temperament to realize what danger Tryce was in, and to know exactly what had to be done.

He drew his rapier.

 

ASIDE FROM DRAWING the sword briefly on board the ship, Sherwin had never put this blade to even experimental use before now. This was not a city dweller's slender length of steel but a thicker, shorter, more deadly-looking weapon, made for use on a warship.

He knew, however, that stabbing the attacking sow with this still-unfamiliar sword could well prove fatal to the pig, but would do little to save Tryce before she succumbed.

Using the hilt of his sword, Sherwin struck the sow on the flat of her nose. He struck her very hard, and on the third clout the sow redirected the gaze from her small, dark eyes right at Sherwin.

“Fly, Tryce, fly,” came the sergeant's urging from the top of the wall, and Tryce lost no time in plucking himself out of the muck, where a Tryce-shaped declivity remained, filling slowly with groundwater. He bounded, stride by stride, and threw himself over the wall.

Several more strong blows against the wet snout of the sow were necessary to allow Sherwin space to back slowly, eyes on his adversary. The sow struck and retreated, backing off and surging forward, using her bulk and momentum
as a battering ram against Sherwin's boots, and nearly succeeding in knocking him down. As absurd as his situation was, and as worthy as it might be to provide amusement over beer for years to come, Sherwin was fully aware that the pig could take his life.

He continued to keep his sword in hand and to back up with slow, steady steps until he reached the wall, where Sergeant Evenage gave him a hand up, over the jagged flint, and out into the peaceful security of the road.

“Did you kill her?” was Tryce's first question.

“Tryce, I spared the pig's life,” said Sherwin.

“I am unseamed, nearly, by a piggery bitch,” retorted Tryce, “and you grant her mercy!”

“What our friend is trying to offer, sir,” said the sergeant with an approving smile toward Sherwin, “is his thanks for your efforts.”

“I'll thank him no thanks,” spat Tryce.