In Search of Spice (6 page)

“Pat, isn’t it? How well do you swim?” she asked.

“Well enough for a plainsman, I guess,” he replied with care, becoming even more concerned about her. “I’ve swum across the Granthel in the mid plains. It’s wide there.”

“Good,” she said. “Let’s get some exercise and work up an appetite for breakfast. Swimming is the best, exercises everything. Come on, we can swim out to that island near the harbour mouth and back.” And she was off.

Pat was a little startled, he had not thought of swimming as exercise, but he had never had to think of anything as exercise. Life was a constant exercise. However, he was willing and started after her, thinking as he did so he might need the exercise on the ship; there had not been much heavy work yet.

He was barely three quarters of the way back when he saw her standing on the raft, shaking her hair dry. As he climbed out, he heard one of the men say to her, “Breakfast will be in about ten minutes. You’re well out of the fo’c’sle, Bos’n will tip the other newbies out of their hammocks. Get to the galley with your plate and mug early. Last ones will do the washing.”

“Err, what’s the galley?” asked Pat, staring at the sailor. “And the fo ca sel?” The sailor grinned amiably. He was of medium height, stocky and packed with muscle, with long dark hair tied into a pigtail with a bit of string, and big gold hoops in his ears.

“Galley is where the cook gets the food ready. Up forward where the wind blows the smoke away. Fo’c’sle is where you sleep. Really, it’s the forecastle, ‘cos the ship has a castle at each end, kind of, and the front one is called the fore.”

“Why do you call them castles?” asked Sara.

“When pirates have a go at us, you’ll see. Cap’n”s had a lot of experience, and the high part of the ship gives you a big hand when they try to get aboard. This is the only place they can get on, and they have to climb up again. We can fill them with arrows from up there, and chop down at them with axes and cutlasses. You’ll see some chests at each end, they’re full of arrows.”

“Doubt they’ll fit my bow,” said Pat.

“Ah, you’re the longbowman?” said the man, looking at him with interest. “I’m Jem, glad to have you aboard. You’ll be useful, for sure. Have a word with the mate, show him some of your arrows and he’ll get some in before we sail. Anyway, I’m off to get some grub.”

Sara and Pat followed him up the ladder, retrieved their clothes and shrugged them on, following him towards the galley. Breakfast was fresh bread with cheese, the bread still steaming. They took it outside and sat on the rail to eat. Pat wolfed his food greedily, savouring the nutty taste of the bread, a very welcome change from the food on the trail. Sara looked unhappy at her plate and ate slowly.

“Want help to finish it?” Pat asked, looking at the half-eaten bread and not noticing her grimace of distaste.

“Go for it,” she said, passing it over.

“I love the nuttiness and the chewy bits where the flour wasn’t finely ground,” he said as he chewed with enthusiasm, missing the look Sara gave him, but her reply was lost as screams came from the fo’c’sle, to the amusement of the sailors eating. A gaggle of the new hands came rushing out followed by a thickset, brawny woman with massive, tattooed forearms. She was red in the face and shouting after them.

“What sort of useless twats have I been landed with this time? Lavata love me, what have I done to offend you?” She cast her eye to the heavens and made a flowing gesture with her right hand. “Its way past dawn and you lot think you can lie about wanking in your hammocks! Get a bloody move on, you’ll miss out on breakfast if you hurry it. Ten minutes and I want you lot ready on deck for training.”

One of the new crew was foolish enough to stop and ask a question.

“Wash? Wash! You want to know where to wash? In the bloody sea, you dolt!” She got even redder, grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and threw him over the side. Pat noticed this was right by the washing platform. He leaned over to Sara and whispered, “Who or what is Lavata?”

“God of the sea. Not heard of him?”

“Err, no. Didn’t know there was a god of the sea, thought there was just one god.”

The Bos’n kept harrying the new recruits, until she bellowed, “I’m two short. Where are the bilge rats hiding?”

“Sir!” answered Sara smartly. “We’ve washed and eaten and waiting for orders, sir.”

The Bos’n started over towards them. “A bloody soldier. Fat lot of good you’re going to be on a ship. I AM NOT A SIR!!!! The Cap’n is Sir. The officers are Sir. You call me Bos’n, understand?”

“Yes Bos’n.” Sara answered, poker faced and staring to the front, almost standing to attention.

She glared at Sara for a moment, and went off to collar a bedraggled recruit coming up the rope ladder.

Sara smiled at Pat and said, “She’s only pretending, and she’s not very good at it. An army bully sergeant would have her for breakfast. She’s just trying to get the new lads into sailors as fast as possible. Easier when they’re scared of you.”

“How come you know so much?” Pat stared at her. He was not used to somebody the same age, let alone a girl, know as much if not more than he did.

“Oh, I’ve been around. Done some soldiering - interesting she picked it up straight away. Bet she was in the army once. Come on, let’s get over to that net. I reckon we’ll be climbing that this morning.”

Pat looked over, and saw what he had taken for rigging was, in fact, a net leading from the side of the ship up to the first spar.

“Hmmm.” he tested some of the rope. “Looks a bit ratty, though. Older than the rest of the rigging. Some of those strands won’t bear anyone’s weight.”

“Umph. Take care, Pat. Likely a trick here.”

There was no time for anything else. The Bos’n was harrying everyone over and standing them under the net.

“Right, lads. You want to be sailors, so first thing we need to do is get you up in the rigging. There it is, behind you, get up that rigging quick smart. Climb you wharf rat!” this last screamed at a man who seemed to be about to ask a question.

As one, the recruits turned and started scrambling up the net. Sara raised an eyebrow at Pat, and moved off to the side of the net, grabbing the support rope and used that to go up. Pat ran to the far side, noticing the rope frayed in places throughout the net. As a good cowboy, he knew good rope, and thought Sara had done the right thing so he grabbed the far support rope, which looked sound. He had barely gone two yards up when there was a scream and a crash, and two bodies were lying on the deck grasping bits of rope in their hands. He did not look down, concentrating on finding sound rope and moved up as fast as possible. More cries, as he reached the spar a resounding crash and he looked down as he pulled himself onto the spar and grabbed the next set of rigging.

The entire net had broken in the middle, leaving the supporting ropes and all the recruits were in a mess on the deck except for him and Sara who was grinning at him from the far side of the spar. The Bos’n was screaming at the recruits with a big smile on her face. Pat saw the rigging was now sound rope and a ladder going up to a platform where the next spar joined the mast. He was there in moments, before Sara, who said, “Well done.”

The next ladder going up was in reach, so he reached for it and headed up, with Sara behind.

A female sailor went up to the Bos’n, indicated the two at the top, and said, “Me and Nils will take those two now, Bos’n. Natural topsailsmen, they are, we’ll have them ready by tomorrow.”

The Bos’n looked up at them. “Fine. Make sure they don’t try a quick way down till you are sure of them. Don’t want them falling from up there. No tricks in front of them, right?”

“Sure boss.” She turned to go.

“And don’t forget rowing training. They are not excused that.”

The woman and another young man swarmed up the ropes and joined Sara and Pat in the crow”s nest, standing on the ropes rather than on the platform.

“Hi guys, I’m Else, this is Nils,” said the woman. “We’re topsailsmen, and you’ve just joined us.”

“Good show,” said Nils, “but now we need to make sure you don’t get too confident and do anything stupid. What are your names?”

“I’m Sara, this is Pat. How can you stand on the rope like that? It hurts.”

Else laughed. “Your feet will toughen up in no time. I’m glad you two were smart enough to recognise good rope from bad. You know rope?”

“Not really,” said Sara, “but I was expecting a trick.”

“Uh, I do,” said Pat. “I worked on the range with cattle, used a rope a lot. Made my own too.”

“Good,” said Else. “One of the main things we do is check all the rope every day - and if you don’t know rope it’s all our lives that are at risk. Rope wears away, just from the wind. We are always replacing it, and greasing it where it rubs. You will see in some places, like there, see, we have wooden beads around the rope to help stop it wearing. We replace the beads too and they usually need lots of grease. Come, we’ll do a check now and at the same time we will show you how to walk in the rigging. Sara, you come with me, Pat with Nils.”

Captain Larroche stood on the poop deck, the highest deck on the ship. It was at the stern, with only the officers cabins behind it and featured the steering wheel and a view over the entire operating deck of the ship. Sourly, he watched the Bosun hazing the new recruits.

“It’s not enough, Brian, but I want to sail on the morning tide.”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” replied the first mate. “It’s been hard. None of the experienced fishermen or coastal sailors will come near us. They don’t trust our sailing master, him being foreign. Not that any of them know how to sail a ship like this. Sailors don’t like being out of sight of land even less. We are left with the raw recruits. I have been looking for people with balance, woodsmen, country people and the like.”

“How are they shaping?”

“Well enough. One pretty boy, sort of, but he’s a tough bastard too. Reckons he’s the best archer I’ve ever seen, and says it matter of fact, not boastful at all. Asked him to put an arrow in a barrel for me, and he laughed, said it was too close. Pulled out the biggest damn longbow I have ever seen, marched off a good extra hundred paces and smacked it right in the middle. Another archer, a girl, says she’s a mercenary, but too young. High born, I think, running from a forced marriage. A bunch of toughs from the streets of Praesidium. Mixed lot, but we do need the strength. Some farm boys and for some reason half a dozen tavern girls. They’re shaping up and will do a job. Fourth Mate will cause trouble and he is poor at his job.”

“I know what you think of the Fourth Mate, but he bought a lot of shares. The archers, are they good enough for our pirate plan?”

“Yup. The boy for sure and there is something very tough about the girl. That’s them both, up with the topsailsmen.”

“Good attitude. What about the toughs?”

“We might have trouble. Mixed bag of pimps, thieves and enforcers. Let’s see how your speech goes down. Bosun’s got her eye on them. My biggest worry is that fourth mate.”

“Bit of a playboy, no harm in that I suppose. Swears he’s a sailor, and he has an idea of navigation but his rutter is damn nigh empty. He bought a big share in the trip, though. You worried he will bother the female crew?”

“The way he talks? Too right. I told him if he bothered the girls I would put him in with the Bosun for the night.”

The Captain laughed. “Has he seen her yet?”

“Yup. He laughed till I introduced them. She’d been listening and played along well, pinched his arse and promised to carry him off. Frightened the life out of him. But he did say that although he did like the ladies, he had a foolproof plan to make sure he didn’t upset any of the crew.”

“Did he say what it was?”

“No, just smiled.”

“Hmmph. Please God he doesn’t fancy the animals. I’d beach him, but we haven’t enough investors. Bit short on trade goods despite the crown’s backing.”

“You always say that sir. It will be enough - where we are going they will fill the ship, and we’ll have more than enough for the second trip. If we can find our way back.”

“Oh, we will - this priest knows his stuff. Just hope there is still a crown when we get back, not sure that they are aware of the unrest being stirred up by this new parliament.”

“No business of ours. We’ll still trade, no matter who runs the country.”

“Taxes will go up whoever wins.” The Captain ended gloomily. “There’s the priest arriving now, with his assistant. Get him settled and let’s have a look at his charts. Ask the sailing master to attend us as well. Just the soldiers we are waiting for now. They were supposed to be here yesterday, present from the Crown to save us from pirates.”

There was a knock on the cabin door and Brian put his head round it. “Crew assembled and ready for you Captain.”

“Excellent Brian. I will be right there.”

Captain Larroche picked up his hat and walked to the door, placing it on his head as he strode out, automatically ducking under the lintel. He strode to the railing overlooking the main deck where the entire crew assembled, not in any particular order; they were not a military organisation.

He stood for a moment and cast his eye over them. They looked good, he noted, keen and anticipating his words, no signs of unease or fear. His topsailsmen were in the rigging he noted, just the two new recruits with the old hands. He winced. They would need more.