The Buccaneer's Apprentice (10 page)

Nic’s mind was working a mile a minute. He had witnessed Comte Dumond ordering about the pirates who’d boarded the
Pride.
What Maxl said made sense, in a twisted sort of way. A crew acting on its own whims had its own, well, romantic independence. It was the type of thing that Signor Arturo had written plays about. A criminal-for-hire, though, was someone that no one respected. “And you didn’t want to be a thug.”

“I am not being a little thug!” Maxl sounded indignant at the idea. “There were handful on
Tears of Korfu
who are agreeing, but only I am brave enough to say no. When night is coming, I take boat and leave, come to island to decide what next. Who is knowing where I end? Not Maxl. Could be slave again. Could be stranded. Could be dead.” He shrugged. Enough of the boat was clear that the pirate could climb in. He sat down inside. “Better than being thug.”

Nic was fascinated. “So this
Tears of Korfu
, it was nearby?”

From his gunny sack, Maxl produced a handful of some kind of nuts. He hungrily feasted on them and said, through a mouthful, “There is a good chance it is still.”

“Why?”

“No captain.”

“No captain?” Nic repeated. “What does that mean, no captain?”

“When there is no captain, crew decide who new captain is being. Can take days. There is lots of pounding of chests, big talking.” Maxl sighed and let the last of the handful of nuts trickle from his hands into his mouth. “Fighting. Long. Puts me to sleep.”

The information interested Nic no small amount. Was it beyond sense to hope that aboard the
Tears of Korfu
there might be some trace of information of what happened to his master and the rest of the Arturos’ company? Perhaps he might find where they were taken, so that once they had returned to Cassaforte, he could notify the authorities. Perhaps even Signor Colombo, with all his connections, might be able to help trace and rescue them from slavery. If they were even still alive. The faint spark of hope made Nic almost giddy. “Why is there no captain?”

Maxl regarded him as if he were daft. “He is dead.”

“How do you know? You left the ship before they began …” Maxl was nodding with his head at Nic’s side, causing him to break off his sentence and look down. “What?” he asked. All he had in his hand was the sword. “The
shivarsta
?”

Maxl’s head nodded up and down, as if the answer were obvious. “You have the
shivarsta
. This is meaning one thing. You kill Xi. Xi was captain. If you was pirate, you would be captain now.”

“Oh.” Nic took a deep breath, and looked at the sword, then back at Maxl. For the first time, he actually noticed the vessel in which the man was sitting. It was scarcely longer than a grown man’s height. Though it had two planks set across its width to accommodate passengers, the fit for four people, he realized, would be cramped. “Maxl,” he said, trying to temper the disappointment he was suddenly feeling. “This isn’t a sailboat. It’s a rowboat.”

The man erupted into laughter. “Very funny! Of course is not sailboat.”

Any visions Nic had of speeding across the sea with the wind at his back vanished in the face of reality. “But we can’t get back to Cassaforte in a rowboat!”

In one fluid motion, Maxl leapt to his feet and planted his hands on his hips. A ferocious grin almost split his blue face in two. “No,” he agreed. “But in
Tears of Korfu
, we travel in style. Yes?”

Ingenue: My life is naught! Who is to save me
now from the clutches of this vile wrongdoer?
Knave (fastening her wrists): Shush. Your doom approaches.

Ingenue: Hist! Is that the tread of Hero on the stair?
No, it is not! I faint! I wither! I weep!

Knave: You know, if you spent a quarter of the
time struggling that you waste talking, my dear,
you might have saved yourself three times by now.

—From
The Glass Blower’s Other Daughter: A Perilous & Thrilling Tale of Hazard & Deceit,
penned by Armand Arturo

F
or many years after, a popular play graced the stages of Cassaforte. Entitled
The Buccaneer’s Apprentice, or, A Dread Tale of Adventure Upon the Bonnie Blue Seas
, it played to houses all around the Via Dioro. Acting companies fought for the rights to perform the piece. It was so popular that it could fill a house to capacity, and still have patrons paying for the privilege of watching from the aisles. The finest actors of a generation squabbled openly for the chance of playing any of the lead roles.

The most rapturous applause of all the drama’s scenes, however, was reserved for the opening of its second act. Backstage, two boys hidden at opposite ends of the stage would sit upon the floor with their feet firmly planted, pumping furiously at handles attached to machinery that would rotate broad, low flats painted in blues and greens, moving them from side to side and up and down so that they resembled sea waves. Two flat discs hanging from the battens, both painted with treated bone ash so that they seemed to glow in the dark, represented the moons. Onto this picturesque tableau would roll a set piece painted to resemble a rowboat. It would contain four players.

The first, usually a junior of the company, would typically be sporting a scarf tied around his head. From beneath would protrude dark hair the color of Nic’s, though much longer and fashionably twisted into beribboned plaits hanging halfway down his back. “Ar!” he would cry in a thrilling baritone, as he pointed to the horizon. “Thar be the scurvy ship.”

“Indeed it be,” would say the handsomest of the foursome. He was always played by the troupe’s Hero. Even the famed Donatello Raello, born into one of the houses of the Thirty before rising to fame as the leader of his own company in the Via Dioro’s jewel of theaters, played the role to great acclaim. At the advanced age of forty-five, however, most of his critics had to admit that he had far too much girth to pass as a seventeen-year-old servant boy. “And a wicked vengeance shall we rain down upon them all. By the very grace of Lena, I swear it!”

“And I,” would say the troupe’s Ingenue, who though typically attired in a boy’s shirt, breeches, and boots, as well as a piratical cap perched at an angle atop her blond curls, would display enough of her womanly curves so that there was no confusion in the audience as to her true gender. “I shall taste blood for breakfast!”

“Vengeance shall be ours!” would intone the oldest of the foursome, usually a gray-haired member of the troupe who specialized in aged character roles like Philosopher or Vecchio. Despite his years, he would also be clad in the clothing of a pirate.

“No,” would say Hero, lowering his spyglass. “Vengeance will be
mine
. Row on!” he would command the long-haired pirate. From a pocket he would produce a rounded triangle of cloth affixed with a narrow ribbon. Once slipped over his head, it would be revealed as an eyepatch, making him even more fearsome to behold. “Row on, and let us feast like starving men upon their misery!”

At this juncture in the production, two more boys would man the counterweighted ropes in the wings. Hand over hand they would pull as fast as they could. The battens would rise, taking with them the painted clouds that covered the backdrop. The audience, hitherto quiet and attentive, would gasp, because looming over more layers of the bobbing waves, surrounded by thousands of points of phosphorized light representing the stars, would loom the giant hulk of a pirate ship. More shadow than reality, its silhouette would seem an almost-impossible construct of ropes and riggings, of vast, complicated sails and black, inscrutable flags flying from masts that extended into the flies. More often than not, the first sight of that vast pirate ship, produced by the illusions of stagecraft, would send audiences into an impromptu flurry of applause.

Even Nic, who watched the show’s very first production from the upper balcony of The Beryl, standing at the back, a cap pulled low over his eyes, was impressed by the sight of that ink-black ship blotting out the stars of the heaven as it seemed to bob upon the waters. Like the rest of the audience, he applauded with enthusiasm.

But it was nothing like the present reality—though the costumes were similar. It was true that Maxl sported a kerchief tied around his head to keep his long hair from blowing into his face, and that he had changed his grime-ground tatters for a billowing white shirt and tight black breeches. Jacopo was outfitted similarly. Hunched over on the rowboat bench, he seemed both chilly and more than a little bit embarrassed to be out of his formal robes of state.

Both moons were high in the sky and waxing to fullness. Bathed in their twin glow, Darcy’s expression was not difficult to read. In fact, Nic had been avoiding it since they had eased away from shore. “I am quite capable of rowing, you know,” she asserted, not for the first time.

“Maxl and I are fine,” Nic assured her, trying to sound as if he meant it. They had been rowing since dusk, and had left behind their own camp long ago. It had taken almost an hour to reach the next islet in the chain, which had been smaller than their own and seemingly just as deserted (or as Nic hoped, much more so than his island had turned out to be). He was, in fact, knackered. His shoulders felt as if they were on fire. His forearms had progressed from hurt to numb to heavy, and now felt as if made from stone. He paused in his exertions to wipe his brow before the perspiration could run into his eyes. “Thank you.”

Darcy had taken for herself a man’s red shirt, leather breeches, and a pair of leather boots too big for her feet. Any womanly curves she might have possessed were fairly well disguised beneath the oversized garments. “A cold sweat is a certain sign of imminent exhaustion,” she commented, her arms crossed. “Excessive panting, paleness, and a short temper follow, topped off by nausea.” She cocked her head in challenge. “Soon you’ll be tasting your breakfast.”

“Darcy.” Jacopo’s voice carried reproof. “The boy is helping us.”

“Yes, of course he is. Therefore he’s beyond reproach. How unseemly of me.”

Nic ignored the brush-off, and hoped that it arose simply from an illusion Darcy hoped to preserve for Maxl of contention between them. He was feeling a little sick to his stomach, but not all of it was from the rowing. Knowing the challenge that lay ahead was enough. “I’m fine,” he replied, trying not to seem snappish.

“This is what I am not understanding.” Beneath his new finery, Maxl was little more than the sparest of muscle stretched over a narrow framework of bones, Nic knew. It was difficult to understand how the man could keep rowing without seeming to tire. “The women of the two sex, she is handed everything. The man gives her the clothes, the flowers, the books, the jewelry. He opens the doors for her. When they walk down the street, he is on the outside so the pig dung is not tossed on her skirts so much.”

“Longdoun sounds like a charming city,” murmured Jacopo.

Maxl’s teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “Yes! Thank you!” He continued with his thought. “The women of the two sex only have to smell nice, look nice. Yet you carry the wood. You fight like man. You want rowing. Why do extra, yes?” He swatted Nic, who nodded. “See? Master Nic, he is agreeing.”

“He
is
?” asked Darcy, her tone dangerous.

“Yes. I mean, no.” Nic was confused. On a certain level he knew that Maxl was speaking nonsense. At the same time, though, Nic had been forced to carry out the most menial of tasks every day, all his life. If he were given the option to sit back and watch, and not have to act upon a dictate, wouldn’t he take it? Wouldn’t anyone? “I’m not agreeing all the way.”

“You are not satisfied with being girl?”

Darcy’s voice remained a growl. “No, I am not satisfied. The ladies of Charlemance may cultivate a life convincing others that they are debilitated simpletons, but the women of Pays d’Azur and of Cassaforte, I assure you, are no mere lapdogs.”

Something about the way Darcy spoke caused Nic great confusion. While he couldn’t help but admire her sentiments, he was a little frightened of the way she pounded out her words, like a workman driving home nails. Ever since the day she had kissed his cheeks, he’d hoped to maintain a good standing in Darcy’s eyes. Yet he felt embarrassed to admit how much her esteem meant to him. He cleared his throat and tried to side with her argument. “In Cassaforte, women hold as many positions of power as men,” he explained to Maxl. “We have women nuncias and artisans, female guards …”

“Truly Cassafort City is a city of savages,” clucked Maxl. “When the men are so weak they make their women to fight. It is from having enchantments no other country has, yes? Everyone lazy from not working. Poof! Magic is doing it all.”

“Enchantments aren’t like that. Craftsman enchantments on an object only enhance its primary purpose. Like the Arturos’ trunk. It’s enchanted, but it simply holds more than it seems it ought. Furthermore, we don’t
make
our women do anything,” Nic argued.

“Why? You are not know how?” asked Maxl.

“Shall I tell you what I know?” asked Darcy, her irritation flaring once more. “I know that if I pushed a certain blue-faced savage out into the middle of the ocean, none of us would give two lundri were he to drown there.”

“You are pulling the bluff,” Maxl retorted.

“Am I? Test me, buffoon.”

“You are mean girl, very tough yes, but you need me.”

“Perhaps we do need you.” Darcy’s voice cut through the night like a blade through a crisp apple. “Yet I’m willing to test the theory and cut you loose.”

“Daughter.” Jacopo reached out and settled his hands on Darcy’s back, as if sensing she might spring at Maxl and carry out her threat.

“You need to stop,” Nic told Maxl, thoroughly annoyed with him.

“Niccolo.” Jacopo used the same tone. “Our friend is merely trying to arouse your ire.” When Maxl began snickering to himself, Nic knew the old man had hit the nail on the head. “It would behoove us all to keep our tempers even during this stressful venture, if we are to succeed. Including you, sir,” he added to Maxl.

“Hush,” said Maxl, holding out a hand.

“I will not be silenced on this matter. The coup of a ship by a mere four people, three of whom have no experience with piracy whatsoever, is a matter of utmost gravity, and it falls upon us …”

“No, hush,” said Niccolo. In the distance, two golden lights burned on the horizon, larger than any of the stars in the heavens. The waters reflected their wavering glow. “Row on,” he whispered at last, signaling for Maxl to draw them closer.

The moment, as it appeared on the stage much later, resembled what Nic remembered of that night, but only in its superficials. The moons did make the waters of the Azure Sea shine like a mirror as their small boat cut through it on its journey to the slumbering ship. The clouds did part. Most importantly, the silhouette of the
Tears of Korfu
did loom against the night sky, blocking out the stars behind it. But its black form was not as large nor as impressive as it grew upon the stage; it did not have as many sails or as much rigging, nor did it have a single flag flying from its one mast. In fact, the
Tears of Korfu
was a mere sloop, the tiniest of boats that could carry a crew. The two lights that Nic and Maxl had spied from afar turned out, at a closer distance, to come from portholes set into the ship’s aft, likely marking the captain’s quarters. No shadows moved within.