Goblin Moon (40 page)

For Francis Skelbrooke, under the circumstances, the
mysteries of the Fabled East did not precisely beckon. Yet he felt
that he had more chance of escaping on land than he had at sea.
Indeed, he had already considered and discarded a dozen daring (and
highly improbable) plans—from stealing a lifeboat to holding a
pistol to the Captain’s head—and his invention was beginning to
flag. He could only hope that further possibilities would present
themselves as soon as he landed in Ynde.

Meanwhile, he was allowed to stroll the upper decks
almost every day. Only once did he catch a glimpse of the other two
prisoners, when, pale and wobbling with a combination of
sea-sickness and apprehension, the girls were escorted above the
hatches for a brief constitutional of their own. The older of the
two was tall and dark and fiercely protective of her younger
companion. With a pang, Skelbrooke was reminded of Sera Vorder. Not
for his own sake only was it necessary for him to escape.

Though not allowed to approach the girls, he
nevertheless gave them an encouraging smile. But as he was standing
chained to one of the masts at the time, was dirty, unkempt, and
unshaven—more nearly resembling a crewman under discipline than an
erstwhile rescuer of maidens—it was unlikely that the young women
derived any considerable reassurance.

He was now wearing both boots (though his foot still
pained him), which added to his sense of personal dignity, but the
Captain had denied him the use of’ a razor, apparently considering
him a possible suicide. Fortunately the physical effects of
withdrawal from the Sleep Dust were fading, and he was beginning to
recover his strength. But his nights were restless and plagued by
unreasoning panics and bad dreams, and the craving was still
strong—the more so because he had learned that the First Mate was
also addicted, and therefore must have a considerable cache hidden
somewhere on board.

Whether Mr. Kassien had appropriated the snuffbox in
which Skelbrooke formerly carried the Dust, his lordship had yet to
discover, but the First Mate did wear a heavy gold ring last seen
gracing the hand of “Captain Melville.” Troilus Diamond wore the
stiletto stickpin, as well as carrying the watch, and the talisman
pendulum was also missing. But Skelbrooke still had a number of
small useful items sewn into the lining of his coat, including a
vial of deadly poison. For this reason, Captain Diamond might just
as well have loaned him a razor: his lordship had planned a tidier
exit, should all else fail him.

They were off the coast of Mallahari, two days from
their destination, the slave markets of Ranpuhar, when one of the
lookouts up in the crow’s-nest called down that another vessel had
just been spotted and was rapidly approaching on the port side.
Skelbrooke and Kassien moved to the rail, along with some of the
others, to get a good look as the other ship hove into view.

She was a brigantine, flying the flag of Grall in the
Polar Isles. Her sails were patched and dark with much use, but she
appeared otherwise clean and well maintained. She was evidently a
trading ship: no guns or cannons could be seen, except for a pair
of demi-culverins on the forecastle, and the upper deck was loaded
with crates and bales. Still, Captain Diamond was wary, watching
her approach through a spyglass.

“What do you make of her?” he asked, handing the
glass over to Kassien.

The First Mate took the telescope and peered through
it. The figurehead of the approaching brigantine depicted a woman
of voluptuous proportions, scantily clad. Her face had been freshly
painted in garish colors. Mr. Kassien gave an exclamation of
dismay. “It’s
Busty Margaret,
sir, that
disappeared off the coast of Llyria two years ago. They’ve renamed
her the
Hag’s Belly!”

The Captain let out a hissing breath. “Corsairs! Get
the men ready for battle, Mr. Kassien, but see it’s done quiet and
orderly. Let them blasted pirates think we ain’t on to ’em. Two can
play at this game.”

From his place by the rail, Skelbrooke observed the
preparations of the crew. Muskets, blunderbusses, and pistols were
swiftly loaded and primed; barrels full of cutlasses, boarding
axes, and pistols hidden behind the port bulwarks, along with
pikes, cartridges, and loads of grapeshot. Crewmen unfastened the
tarpaulins over the swivel guns, but did not yet remove them. The
best marksmen were delegated to sling on muskets, bags of powder
and shot, and prepare to climb the rigging to the platforms on the
masts.

All this time, the brigantine had continued to
approach and was now within hailing distance. Captain Diamond,
maintaining the pretense that no alarm had been given, picked up a
speaking trumpet and demanded that she identify herself and her
business.

The captain of the
Hag
claimed to be carrying a cargo of oranges, but the wind did not
carry the smell of fruit. Then suddenly the decks of the brigantine
began to seethe with activity, as armed men swarmed up from below,
and tarpaulins and empty crates were whisked aside to reveal a
battery of large guns. The flag of Grall came down, and the pirates
ran up another in its place: a bleeding heart on a white field,
pierced by a cutlass.

The Captain of the
Hag
took
up his trumpet again, demanding that the
Bear
surrender.

“Not bloody likely!” Captain Diamond muttered.

“It would appear,” said his lordship, “that he has
you out-gunned and outmanned.”

“We’ll go down fighting . . . I ain’t heading for no
slave market, that’s certain,” said the Captain.

“Then allow me to fight at your side,” said
Skelbrooke. “Instruct Mr. Kassien to unlock my manacles and—“

Captain Diamond gave a snort of derision. “Fight for
me, would you? And why would you want to be doing that for?”

“In return for your promise to set me free on shore
afterwards, if we both survive this engagement. Why should you
not?” asked Skelbrooke. “You’ve already been paid to take me out of
Marstadtt. And I may prove to be valuable in the coming engagement,
more valuable than you know.”

Captain Diamond snorted again. “As like to strike a
bargain with them pirates, I fancy.”

“Not at all,” said Skelbrooke. “I’m in no position to
do so—for what could I possibly offer them?
Their
captain has no shortage of men.”

The Captain turned his back. “Take this young fool
down below,” he instructed one of the sailors. “We don’t want him
underfoot.

The sailor did as he was instructed, taking
Skelbrooke roughly by the shoulder and steering him toward the
hatch.

From his below-decks vantage point, Skelbrooke saw
little of the battle. He could, however,
hear
a great deal: the deep roar of cannons and
bombards, the sharper explosions of the smaller culverins and
swivel guns, a rending and creaking of timbers as the grappling
hooks caught and slowly pulled the two vessels together.

The truth was, his fate would be much the same
whoever won this engagement—supposing that he did not catch a stray
cannon ball in the meantime, or fall victim to an overzealous
boarder who failed to take notice of his chains and manacles.
Therefore, he had no stake in the outcome.

All that remained to him, when a handful of boarders
brought the battle below decks and the crew fought desperately to
repel them, was to sort through his somewhat bewildering array of
personalities, and select and assume the one least likely to be
affected by the carnage. Fortunately or unfortunately, that
particular Francis Skelbrooke was decidedly unstable, the man who
was wont to bury explosive charges in the earth and let the bodies
fall where they may. He sat on the bunk in the Captain’s cabin with
his knees drawn up and his chin resting on his folded hands,
whistling a tune under his breath, and watched unmoved as a pirate
with a pike skewered the cabin boy like a rat at the end of a
hobsticker, and the unfortunate youth thrashed and shrieked for
almost a minute before expiring. By that time, the pikeman had been
virtually decapitated by one of the crewmen and lay in a pool of
blood at the end of the bunk.

Yet he felt some slight flicker of interest a short
while later, when two seamen came in, carrying the bleeding and
barely conscious Mr. Kassien. His lordship rose from the bunk and
pushed the dead pirate out of the way, making room for the sailors
to deposit the First Mate.

“Heard you was some sort of a chirurgeon,” one of the
seamen shouted over all the noise.

Skelbrooke rapidly assumed the role that was needed.
“A physician, but I can stop the bleeding.” And suiting his actions
to his words, he snatched up a cloth off the Captain’s table.

Kassien revived while Skelbrooke was knotting the
tourniquet. “The Captain’s dead on the forecastle . . . picked off
by a sniper on the mainmast.”

As he had not yet heard anything spectacular in the
way of an explosion, Skelbrooke concluded that the dying Captain
Diamond had slid to the deck, rather than toppled. “You are in
command, then.”

Mr. Kassien nodded. “Aye, and may remain so. There
have been few boarders and we’ve killed them all. Looks like the
battle may yet go our way.” He reached into a pocket and drew out a
key. “In the meantime, we have need of your services, ‘Doctor’
Skelbrooke.”

Skelbrooke accepted the key and unlocked his irons.
“I may be of greater service as a gunner, supposing I can reach Mr.
Diamond’s body in time,” he said. And pausing only long enough to
snatch up a cutlass and a pistol from the fallen pirate, he raced
above.

He was climbing the narrow stairs when the
Hag
discharged a three-gun salvo which punched
through the gun deck. The blast knocked him off of the stairs. He
lay stunned for several moments, before recovering and rising
painfully to his feet. He scrambled up the stairs again.

It appeared that the tide of battle had turned since
Mr. Kassien made his optimistic assessment. The pirates were
beginning to swarm on board. A gigantic corsair wearing a red scarf
around his head bore down on Skelbrooke, waving a pistol and a long
knife. His lordship swung his cutlass, slashing the fellow across
the belly, effectively gutting him. The pirate screamed, discharged
his pistol, and fell back. The ball whistled past Skelbrooke’s
head, leaving a powder burn on the side of his face.

All around him, men fought with pikes and boarding
axes; the air was full of smoke, reeking of gunpowder; the deck ran
with blood. As Skelbrooke made his way to the forecastle, he was
engaged by a beefy pirate who aimed a wild overhand cut at his
head. Moving to block, he slipped in a puddle of blood and fell to
his knees. The pirate raised his blade again—Then staggered back
and fell down dead as an axe flew though the air and clove through
his skull.

Skelbrooke found Troilus Diamond lying atop a heap of
bodies, piled up out of the way of the action. He knelt down and
searched through the Captain’s pockets. Finding the watch, he
pulled the timepiece out by its heavy gold chain.

There were two keys on that chain: one to wind the
watch, the other to arm it. He unscrewed the ring that fastened the
chain to the timepiece and inserted the appropriate key in the hole
thus revealed. He turned the key three times, then made his way to
one of the swivel guns, where he enlisted the aid of the
gunner.

The gun had a relatively narrow bore and was designed
to shoot stones and odd bits of iron shrapnel when the grapeshot
ran out. They primed the gun and loaded it, inserting the watch
along with a handful of rocks. Skelbrooke took a slow-burning match
from the gunner, trained the gun at the mainmast of the pirate
ship, and touched the match to the vent.

There was a loud explosion and the base of the mast
vanished in a burst of flame and smoke. Many of the pirates were
hurled to the deck by the force of the blast, others were pierced
by flying splinters. The mast crashed down, crushing a dozen or
more beneath it, and causing the brigantine to heel strongly to
port. Meanwhile, several fires simultaneously broke out on
deck.

Lord Skelbrooke viewed the destruction with
characteristic detachment. “If I am needed again, you may find me
down below, tending to the wounded.” Then, straightening the
kerchief he wore in place of a neckcloth, he sauntered toward the
hatch.

Chapter
34

Wherein Sera receives Information and Knows not how
to Take it.

Sera was climbing the stairs to her bedchamber on the
third floor, after an afternoon spent sipping tea and sherry with
the old Duke, when she met Hermes Budge descending the staircase
with uncharacteristic haste.

“Miss Vorder, I have been looking for you everywhere.
Can you spare me a moment of your time? Would you be so obliging as
to join me in the library?”

Though Sera had been heading upstairs to dress for
supper, intending to change the gown of black bombazine for the
more appropriate wine-colored watered silk, more than an hour
remained before the meal would be served. She turned around and
followed the tutor down the stairs and into the library.

Mr. Budge closed the door behind him and silently
motioned her to a window seat in the wall opposite. This was so
mysteriously unlike the sober and sensible Budge that Sera was
intrigued.

“I received a letter this afternoon from my friend
Mr. Gumley. You will recall that he spent some years in
Katrinsberg?” said the tutor, lowering his voice. “He knows nothing
of any man going by the name of Skogsrå, but—and this is really
most intriguing—he does mention a man exactly answering the Jarl’s
description: a Colonel Jolerei as he was called, who lived for some
time in Katrinsberg, where he acquired a reputation for—well, I
will pass over the details—they are hardly proper for you to hear.
Let me just say that he was not the sort of man that it would be
seemly for you or your cousin to know.”