A King's Commander by Dewey Lambdin Page B

too, sir? Oh, he’s a right bastard, sometimes. Jealous an’ vengeful. Hard-hearted sort. A blood-drinker, some say. Nacky’un, too, Cap’um . . . smart’z paint. Th’ sort who’ll bide his time, ’til a body’d gone an’ forgot what he done ’gainst ’im. But, he always takes his pound o’ flesh, in th’ end. He always gets his due, when ya least expect, an’ hurts most.”
    And a hellish gobble more’n a pound of flesh, he took, Lewrie thought, trying to stifle an involuntary shiver of awe, himself, as he recalled the sight of that pitiful remaining husk. He turned his attention to his ship, away from this spectral higgledy-piggledy that Buchanon spoke of, this ancient superstitious folderol that he sounded as if he really believed! Buchanon, a man who’d dragged himself out of the fisheries, gone to sea in the fleet, come up on science, for God’s sake! Astronomy, mathematics, the art of navigation, study of weather, charts . . . the sailing of a ship, which was man’s greatest, most complex engine!
    â€œNow mains’l haul!” Knolles was crying, as Jester finished most of her tack passing the eye of the wind, as braces dragged the sails aloft to the starboard side where they began to fill and draw.
    â€œUm, this Lir . . .” Lewrie asked of Buchanon in a conspiratorial voice, eerily fascinated in spite of himself. “Sea god of the British Isles, in other words.”
    â€œMaybe all of ’em have ’eir own domain, Cap’um,” Buchanon said softly. “Poseidon around th’ Greek Isles an’ Aegean . . . ol’ Neptune, he has th’ rest o’ th’ Mediterranean. Wherever Roman  sailors went, sir? Lir, now . . . I’d expect he’s got th’ Channel, North Sea, all ’round th’ British Isles, an’ far down inta Biscay. Celts were ’ere, too, long ago. Down south o’ Cape Finisterre we’ll leave him, Cap’um. Now he has his revenge.”
    Lewrie shivered for real, in spite of his best intentions, as a cool zephyr of clearer air not shot to stillness crossed the deck. Almost an icy-cool zephyr, that raised his hackles and his nape-hairs as it passed. The sort of eldritch feeling Caroline sometimes called “having a rabbit run ’cross your grave,” that unbidden spook-terror of the unknown, that harbinger of dire tidings.
    â€œThat far,” Lewrie said, after clearing his throat.
    â€œWe should be fine, though, sir. His price’z paid, now. Lir’s took th’ mocker. Long’z ’ere isn’t another, we can go in peace.”
    â€œAhum,” Lewrie commented, sealing his lips in a thin and wary line. “Ahum.”

C H A P T E R 6
    T oss yah oars,” Andrews ordered as his captain’s gaily painted gig came alongside Queen Charlotte, a venerable old three-decker; and the flagship of Admiral Earl Howe, better known as “Black Dick.”
    â€œHook onta th’ chains . . . boat yah oars!” Andrews snapped.
    It was a hellish-long climb, up past an ornate lower gun-deck entry port as solid as an Inigo Jones house-front, to an upper gun-deck entry port, thence to the uppermost, on the gangways. Larboard side, though, Lewrie griped to himself; not the side of honor where subordinate commanders were usually received. Jester’ s position up to windward saw to that. And the proper side was probably shot half through, after a full morning of battle, he decided.
    â€œWelcome aboard, sir,” a lieutenant greeted him, with a minimum of fuss. “And you are, sir . . . ?”
    â€œAlan Lewrie, of the Jester sloop,” he replied. Short as the time had been between attaining safety behind that wooden wall of warships, and receiving a flag hoist for “Captain Repair on Board,” with his number, he’d had a quick shave, and thrown on his dress coat and hat. Admiral Howe was a stickler for