Birds of Prey c-1 Read online

  As the colonel went down, the last resistance of the galleon's crew collapsed with him. They threw down their weapons, and those of the Lady Edwina's crew who had surrendered leapt to their feet, wounds and exhaustion forgotten. They snatched up the discarded weapons and turned them on the beaten Dutchmen, herding them forward, forcing them to squat in ranks with their hands clasped behind their heads, dishevelled and forlorn.

  Aboli seized Hal in a bear-hug. "When you and Sam Bowles set sail, I thought it was the last we would see of you," he panted.

  Sir Francis came striding towards his son, thrusting his way through the milling, cheering pack of his seamen. "You deserted your post at the masthead!" He scowled at Hal as he bound a strip of cloth around the nick in his upper arm and knotted it with his teeth.

  "Father," Hal stammered, "I thought, -" "And for once you thought wisely!" Sir Francis's dark expression cracked and his green eyes sparkled. "We'll make a warrior of you yet, if you remember to keep your point up on the riposte. This great cheese-head," he prodded the fallen colonel with his toe, "was about to skewer you, until Aboli tapped his noggin." Sir Francis slipped his sword back into its scabbard. "The ship is not yet secure. The lower decks and holds are crawling with them. We'll have to drive them out. Stay close to Aboli and me!" "Father, you're hurt, "Hal protested.

  "And perhaps I would have been more sorely wounded had you come back to us even a minute later than you did."

  "Let me see to your wound."

  "I know the tricks Aboli has taught you would you piss on your own father?" He laughed, and clapped Hal on the shoulder. "Perhaps I'll give you that pleasure a little later." He turned and bellowed across the deck, "Big Daniel, take your men below and winkle out those cheese-heads who are hiding there. Master John, put a guard on the cargo hatches. See to it there is no looting. Fair shares for all! Master Ned, take the helm and get this ship on the wind before she flogs her canvas to rags."

  Then he roared at the others, "I'm proud of you, you rascals! A good day's work. You'll each go home with fifty gold guineas in your pocket. But the Plymouth lassies will never love you as well I do!"

  They cheered him, hysterical with the release from desperate action and the fear of defeat and death.

  "Come on!" Sir Francis nodded to Aboli and started for the ladder that led down into the officers" and passengers" quarters in the stern.

  Hal followed at a run as they crossed the deck, and Aboli grunted over his shoulder, "Be on your mettle. There are those below who would be happy to stick a dirk between your ribs."

  Hal knew where his father was going, and what would be his first concern. He wanted the Dutch captain's charts, log and sailing directions. They were more valuable to him than all the fragrant spices and precious metals and bright jewels the galleon might be carrying. With those in his hands he would have the key to every Dutch harbour and fort in the Indies. He would read the sailing orders of the spice convoys and the manifest of their cargoes. To him they were worth ten thousand pounds in gold.

  Sir Francis stormed down the ladder and tried the first door at the bottom. It was locked from within. He stepped back and charged. At his flying kick, the door flew open and crashed back on its hinges.

  The galleon's captain was crouched over his desk, his cropped pate wig less and his clothing sweat-soaked. He looked up in dismay, blood dripping from a cut on his cheek onto his silken shirt, its wide fashionable sleeves slashed with green.

  At the sight of Sir Francis, he froze in the act of stuffing the ship's books into a weighted canvas bag, then snatched it up and rushed to the stern windows. The casements and glass had been shot away by the Lady Edwina's culver ins and they gaped open, the sea breaking and swirling under her counter. The Dutch captain lifted the bag to hurl it through the opening but Sir Francis seized his raised arm and flung him backwards onto his bunk. Aboli grabbed the bag, and Sir Francis made a courteous little bow. "You speak English?"he demanded.

  "No English," the captain snarled back, and Sir Francis changed smoothly into Dutch. As a Nautonnier Knight of the Order he spoke most of the languages of the great seafaring nations, French, Spanish andpo-rtuguese, as well as Dutch. "You are my prisoner, Mijnheer. What is your name?"

  Timberger, captain of the first class, in the service of the VOC. And you, Mijnheer, are a corsair," the captain retorted.

  "You are mistaken, sir! I sail under Letters of Marque from His Majesty King Charles the second. Your ship is now a prize of war."

  "You flew false colours," the Dutchman accused.

  Sir Francis smiled bleakly. "A legitimate ruse of war." He made a dismissive gesture and went on, "You are a brave man, Mijnheer, but the fight is over now. As soon as you give me your word, you will be treated as my honoured guest. The day your ransom is paid, you will go free."

  The captain wiped the blood and sweat from his face with his silken sleeve, and an expression of resignation dulled his features. He stood and handed his sword hilt first to Sir Francis.

  "You have my word. I will not attempt to escape."

  "Nor encourage your men to resistance?" Sir Francis prompted him.

  The captain nodded glumly. "I agree."

  "I will need your cabin, Mijnheer, but I will find you comfortable quarters elsewhere." Sir Francis turned his attention eagerly to the canvas bag and dumped its contents on the desk.

  Hal knew that, from now on, his father would be absorbed in his reading, and he glanced at Aboli on guard in the doorway. The Negro nodded permission at him, and Hal slipped out of the cabin. His father did not see him go.

  Cutlass in hand, he moved cautiously down the narrow corridor. He could hear the shouts and clatter from the other decks as the crew of the Lady Edwina cleared out the defeated Dutch seamen and herded them up onto the open deck. Down here it was quiet and deserted. The first door he tried was locked. He hesitated then followed his father's earlier example. The door resisted his first onslaught, but he backed off and charged again. This time it burst open and he went flying through into the cabin beyond, off balance and skidding on the magnificent Oriental rugs that covered the deck. He sprawled on the huge bed that seemed to fill half the cabin.

  As he sat up and gazed at the splendour that surrounded him, he was aware of an aroma more heady than any spice he had ever smelt. The boudoir odour of a pampered woman, not merely the precious oils of flowers, procured by the perfumer's art, but blended with these the more subtle scents of skin and hair and a healthy young female body. It was so exquisite, so moving that when he stood his legs felt strangely weak under him, and he snuffed it up rapturously. It was the most delicious smell that had ever set his nostrils a-quiver.

  Sword in hand he gazed around the cabin, only vaguely aware of the rich tapestries and silver vessels filled with sweetmeats, dried fruits and potpourri. The dressing table against the port bulkhead was covered with an array of cut glass cosmetic and perfume bottles with stoppers of chased silver. He moved across to it. Laid out beside the bottles was a set of silver-backed brushes and a tortoiseshell comb. Trapped between the teeth of the comb was a single strand of hair, long as his arm, fine as a silk thread.

  Hal lifted the comb to his face as though it were a holy relic. There was that entrancing odour again, that giddy woman's smell. He wound the hair about his finger and freed it from the teeth of the comb, then reverently tucked it into the pocket of his stained and sweat-stinking shirt.

  At that moment there came a soft but heartbreaking sob from behind the gaudy Chinese screen across one end of the cabin.

  "Who's there?" Hal challenged, cutlass poised. "Come out or I'll thrust home."

  There was another sob, more poignant than the last. "By all the saints, I mean it!" Hal stalked towards the screen.

  He slashed at the screen, slicing through one of the painted panels. At the force of the blow it toppled and crashed to the deck. There was a terrified shriek, and Hal stood gaping at the wondrous creature who knelt, cowering, in the corner of the cabin.

/>   Her face was buried in her hands, but the mass of shining hair that tumbled to the deck glowed like freshly minted gold escudos, and the skirts spread around were the blue of a swallow's wings.

  "Please, madam!" Hal whispered. "I mean you no ill. Please do not cry." His words had no effect. Clearly they were not understood and, inspired by the moment, Hal switched into Latin. "You need not fear- You are safe. I will not harm you.

  The shining head lifted. She had understood. He looked into her face, and it was as though he had received a charge of grape shot in the centre of his chest. The pain was so intense that he gasped aloud.

  He had never dreamed that such beauty could exist.

  "Mercy!" she whispered pitifully in Latin. "Please do not harm me." Her eyes were liquid and brimming, but her tears served only to enhance their magnitude and intensify their iridescent violet. Her cheeks were blanched to the translucent lustre of alabaster, and the tears upon them gleamed like tiny seed pearls.

  "You are beautiful," Hal said, still in Latin. His voice sounded like that of a victim on the rack, breathless and agonized. He was tortured by emotions that he had never dreamed existed. He wanted to protect and cherish this woman, to keep her for ever for himself, to love and worship her. All the words of chivalry, which, until he looked upon her, he had read and mouthed but never truly understood, rushed to his tongue demanding utterance, but he could only stand and stare.

  Then he was distracted by another soft sound from behind him. He spun round, cutlass at the ready. From under the satin sheets that trailed over the edge of the huge bed crawled a porcine figure. The back and belly were so well larded as to wobble with every movement the man made. Rolls of fat swaddled the back of his neck and hung down his pendulous jowls. "Yield yourself!" Hal bellowed, and prodded him with the point of the blade. The Governor screamed shrilly and collapsed on the deck. He wriggled like a puppy.

  "Please do not kill me. I am a rich man," he sobbed, also in Latin. "I will pay any ransom."

  "Get up!" Hal prodded him again, but Petrus van de Velde had only enough strength and courage to reach his knees. He knelt there, blubbering.

  "Who are you?"

  "I am the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, and this lady is my wife."

  These were the most terrible words Hal had ever heard spoken. He stared at the man aghast. The wondrous lady he already loved with his very life was married and to this grotesque burlesque of a man who knelt before him.

  "My father-in-law is a director of the Company, one of the richest and most powerful merchants in Amsterdam. He will pay he will pay anything. Please do not kill us."

  The words made little sense to Hal. His heart was breaking. Within moments he had gone from wild elation to the depths of the human spirit, from soaring love to plunging despair.

  But the Governor's words meant more to Sir Francis Courtney, who stood now in the entrance to the cabin with Aboli at his back.

  "Please calm yourself, Governor. You and your wife are in safe hands. I will make the arrangements for your ransom with all despatch." He swept off his plumed cavalier Hat, and bent his knee towards Katinka. Even he was not entirely proof against her beauty. "May I introduce myself, madam? Captain Francis Courtney, at your command. Please take a while to compose yourself. At four bells that is in an hour's time I would be obliged if you would join me on the quarterdeck. I intend to hold a muster of the ship's company." the ships were under sail, the little caravel under studding-sails and top sails only, the great galleon with her mainsail set. They sailed in close company on a north-easterly heading, away from the Cape and on a closing course with the eastern reaches of the African mainland. Sir Francis looked down paternally upon his crew in the galleon's waist.

  "I promised you fifty guineas the man as your prize," he said, and they cheered him wildly. Some were stiff and crippled with their wounds. Five were laid on pallets against the rail, too weak from loss of blood to stand but determined not to miss a word of this ceremony. The dead were already stitched in their canvas shrouds, each with a Dutch cannonball at his feet, and laid out in the bows. Sixteen Englishmen and forty-two Dutch, comrades in the truce of death. None of the living now gave them a thought.

  Sir Francis held up one hand. They fell silent and crowded forward so as not to miss his next words.

  "I lied to you," he told them. There was a moment of stunned disbelief and then they groaned and muttered darkly. "There is not a man among you..." he paused for effect "... but is the richer by two hundred pounds for this day's work!"

  The silence persisted as they stared incredulously at him, and then they went mad with joy. They capered and howled, and whirled each other around in a delirious jig. Even the wounded sat up and crowed.

  Sir Francis smiled down on them benignly for a while as he let them give vent to their joy. Then he waved a sheaf of manuscript pages over his head and they fell silent again. "This is the extract I have made of the ship's manifest!" "Read it!" they pleaded.

  The recital went on for almost half an hour, for they cheered each item of the bill of lading that he translated from the Dutch as he read aloud. Cochineal and pepper, vanilla and saffron, cloves and cardamom with a total weight of forty-two tons. The crew knew that, weight for weight and pound for pound, those spices were as precious as bars of silver. They were hoarse with shouting, and Sir Francis held up his hand again. "Do I weary you with this endless list? Have you had enough?"

  "No!" they roared. "Read on!"

  "Well, then, there are a few sticks of timber in her holds.

  Balu and teak and other strange wood that has never been seen north of the equator. Over three hundred tons." They feasted on his words with shining eyes. "There is still more, but I see that I weary you. You want no more?"

  "Read it to us!" they pleaded.

  "Finest Chinese blue and white ceramic ware, and silk in bolts. That will please the ladies!" They bellowed like a herd of bull elephants in musth at the mention of women. When they reached the next port, with two hundred pounds in each purse, they could have as many women, of whatever quality and comeliness their fancies ordered.

  "There is also gold and silver, but that is boarded over in sealed steel chests in the bottom of the main hold, with three hundred tons of timber on top of it. We will not get our hands on it until we reach port and unload the main cargo."

  "How much gold?" they pleaded. "Tell us how much silver."

  "Silver in coin to the value of fifty thousand guilders. That's over ten thousand good English pounds. Three hundred ingots of gold from the mines of Kollur on the Krishna river in Kandy, and the Good Lord alone knows what those will bring in when we sell them in London."

  Hal hung in the mainmast shrouds, a vantage point from which he could look down on his father on the quarterdeck. Hardly a word of what he was saying made sense to Hal, but he realized dimly that this must be one of the greatest prizes ever taken by English sailors during the course of this war with the Dutch. He felt dazed and lightheaded, unable to concentrate on anything but the greater treasure he had captured with his own sword, and which now sat demurely behind his father, attended by her maid. Chivalrously Sir Francis had placed one of the carved, cushioned chairs from the captain's cabin on the quarterdeck for the Dutch governor's wife. Now Petrus van de Velde stood behind her, splendidly dressed, wearing high rhine graves of soft Spanish leather that reached to his thighs, bewigged and beribboned, his corpulence covered with the medallions and silken sashes of his office.

  To his surprise Hal found that he hated the man bitterly, and lamented that he had not skewered him as he crawled from under the bed, and so made the angel who was his wife into a tragic widow.

  He imagined devoting his life to playing Lancelot to her Guinevere. He saw himself humble and submissive to her every whim but inspired to deeds of outstanding valour by his pure love for her. At her behest, he might even undertake a knightly errand to search for the Holy Grail and place the sacred relic in her beautiful white hands. He shudder
ed with pleasure at the thought, and stared down longingly at her.