The Buccaneer's Apprentice Page 12

  Nobody, Nic thought to himself, hoping the answer might somehow transmit to the man. Nobody but us pirates.

  Perhaps it worked, for after a moment they heard a chuckle, as if the patrol realized he’d become alarmed at nothing. He began whistling again, but only for a moment. What quickly followed was the sound of an impact, followed by grunting. Moments later, something dark and heavy fell from the deck into the water, resounding with a mighty splash as the body hit the sea sideways. Nic recoiled, not from the water splattering his face, or from knowing what had caused the sound, but from something unexpected striking his face. Instinctively his hands reached out, only to find themselves grasping some kind of hemp surface—a rope net stretching from the deck down to their boat. “Master Nic! Come!” he heard Maxl whisper. “Missy Colombo! Old man! Now is time!”

  Nic’s heart began to pound at a reinvigorated rate, once he had scaled up the net that left his hands scratched and punctured. Maxl had assisted him over the railing, and then turned to help Jacopo while Nic leaned over to pull up Darcy. “I’m fine,” she snarled, as she neared the summit. Nic noticed, however, that she clung to his forearm when he offered it, and grunted a brusque thank-you once she’d regained her feet on the deck. “What’s the status of the crew?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Three are in captain’s cabin.” Maxl’s arm was still damp, when he set it on Nic’s shoulder. “They are still waking. One is swimming with fishies. He a bad man. You are not wanting business with him. Others are below deck, but you wish I am locking hatch in case they are waking?”

  It took Nic a moment to realize that Maxl was addressing him. He was so used to having someone else give the orders that it seemed unnatural to be deferred to. “Oh,” he said, remembering he was supposed to be in charge. Enough light spilled from both the moons and the deckside porthole to the captain’s quarters that he could plainly see Darcy’s raised eyebrows. Gods, he must look like such a bumbling fool to her. “Yes. Locking the hatch, please. I mean, er, lock it.” Maxl leapt to follow the order.

  “And now?” Darcy asked.

  He didn’t know what he was doing. This plan, while all his, needed someone who was actually able to execute it. Nic wasn’t a pirate. He had none of the know-how. Even with Maxl’s coaching, he wasn’t going to be able to follow through. They were doomed. “I think it’s time we addressed those who are awake,” said Jacopo. One of his hands went to Nic’s damp shoulder. In a soft voice, he said to the boy, “You know, my friend, often in my line of work, the only thing necessary for me to do is let the nuncio’s robes of state do the talking. Dirty they might have been when you met me, but they were designed to impress.”

  “They were a costume,” Nic said, understanding. That had been the reason he’d wanted to board the Tears dressed as buccaneers, rather than in the rags they’d been sporting. “I know.”

  “Exactly.” Jacopo took the liberty of removing Nic’s tricorne, then fishing something from Nic’s shirt pocket. It was a small patch of fabric affixed to a dark ribbon pulled from one of Signora Arturo’s fine dresses. “I could remain silent and not have to say a word, and by the virtue of my robes alone, be called a philosopher, a wise man, a judge, or a saint.” His fingers trembled slightly as he laid the patch over Nic’s left eye, then pulled the ribbon around the back of his head. “And you, by virtue of a few leftover scraps and a little bit of inexpert basting …”

  Once Jacopo had tied the ribbon with a knot, Nic turned around to face him. He retrieved his tricorne—once Captain Delguardino’s, washed up with so much flotsam onto the shore—and put it on his head again. “I am a dread pirate, come to wreak vengeance.”

  “A dread pirate indeed.” Jacopo smiled. “As for the vengeance … well, try to leave a few of the crew alive. I think only Maxl has any idea of how to sail a ship, and he can’t do it all by himself.”

  This was it, then. Of all the trials Nic had faced in the last few days, in many ways this was the most frightening; it was a path he had chosen, rather than one he had been herded down. The balance of their combined futures lay on his shoulders, and it was all he could do to force himself to take a step forward. Then he saw Darcy, standing to the side, watching him. He half-expected a sneer from her, or some kind of sharp jibe. Instead, all she did was stare. Was she nervous, too? Perhaps on his account?

  He didn’t have a chance to ask. Maxl returned from battening down the hatch. “We are going now,” he said, striding forward and pulling Nic behind him. “Is better we surprise them, than other way around.”

  “All right,” said Nic, before he could think. “Wait. My name. I don’t have a name.”

  “Why, you are being Master Nic!”

  “No, my pirate name.” He hadn’t thought far enough ahead. He didn’t have a character. At the moment he was just Niccolo Dattore, playing dress-up, like Darcy had said. He hadn’t transformed himself into anyone else.

  Worse, it might be too late. They were standing outside the captain’s quarters, and Maxl had his hand on the latch that would open the door. There was a sense of urgency in his voice as the former pirate urged, “Are you ready?”

  “He’s ready,” said Jacopo.

  Nic wanted to disagree. Whatever Jacopo said, a flowing shirt, a tricorne, and a patch over one eye did not a pirate king make. In fact, he couldn’t cope with the patch at all. Hastily he grabbed it and stuffed it into his pocket, just as Maxl flung back the door.

  They all were nearly overcome by the scents of pipe tobacco and the smoke from burning coals, and the dark, sweet aroma of rum. The men within were crowded around a table covered with coins and cards. At first they didn’t turn or even notice that strangers and not comrades had entered their space. With startled shouts, though, they suddenly dropped their cards and leapt to their feet. Nic’s hand instinctively reached for his shivarsta. It sliced through the air as he pulled it from his belt. To his side, Maxl sported a dagger, and Darcy a stage sword that looked impressive enough, though it would retract into its hilt with the slightest pressure upon its tip.

  The largest of the three pirates began to curse in a foreign tongue. “Maxl!” he cried, and then followed it up with a few choice swear words. As he withdrew, hands raised, Nic caught sight of himself and his friends in a looking-glass that hung over the tiny grate opposite the door. Perhaps they were more fearsome than he imagined. Maxl was a sight as he leered through his blued face and gestured with his dagger for the pirates to keep away. The Colombos, likewise, looked suitably sinister in their costumes—especially Darcy, who scowled convincingly as her eyes darted around the tiny cabin.

  And as for Nic … well, he scarcely recognized himself. The last few days had completely transformed him. His black crop was wilder and fuller as it spilled from beneath Captain Delguardino’s tricorne. His thick eyebrows seemed determined. A few days in the sun had rendered him less pale and sheltered. He’d left Massina a boy, and now in his costume looked every inch a man. “Macaque,” Maxl was saying to the large man who seemed to be leading the trio. His face was ruddy and full, and his eyes seemed sunk deep into his skull, as if he peered out at the world from a distance. “Is nice to see you again.”

  “You’re back, are you?” The man known as Macaque spoke in Cassafortean, following Maxl’s lead. It was obviously not his first language, but his words carried only the slightest of accents. “Thinking you can best me?” For someone seeming confident, his looks at Nic and the Colombos were nervous enough.

  “Would not be difficult,” said Maxl, sniffing.

  “Well, you’re too late. We’re setting sail in the morning—with me as captain. Isn’t that right, boys?” The other two pirates nodded with less enthusiasm, though they made sure to stand well behind Macaque.

  “We are setting the sail in the morning, yes,” Maxl said agreeably enough. “But with new new captain.”

  “You?” Macaque spat on the floo
r of his cabin. “A scrawny skeleton? Not bloody likely.” Maxl shook his head. For answer, he merely bent at the waist, inclining toward Nic.

  Nic hesitated as all attention turned in his direction. “This boy?” asked Macaque. He laughed, and dropped his hands. “That’s a good one, Maxl. I’d soon as put a kerchief on a sheep and let it take the wheel as pay attention to any boy like that.”

  Before anyone knew what was happening, Darcy strode forward. “Mind your manners, signor!” She planted her feet in front of Macaque, then hauled off and slapped his face, hard as she could.

  The round-faced man recoiled in shock. His mouth dropped, and then his hand rubbed his jaw. “Bloody hell! I’ll have your skin for that, you little bitch.”

  “Lay one hand on her and you’ll pay for it.” Nic was surprised at the voice that came slithering from his lips. It was quiet, yet firm. Its syllables were almost sinister in their intent. He’d heard that voice before, from someone else. Darcy, too, seemed surprised. She resumed her place beside him.

  “Says who?” asked Macaque, his face reddening with anger.

  Nic took a step forward and thrust his fist in the man’s face—not to strike him, but to bring the hilt of his short sword within Macaque’s vision. He saw all three pirates noticing, for the first time, the carved bone and the tuft of human hair hanging from the end. At that moment, he knew he had their attention. The slightest of smiles spread across his lips. He remembered where he’d heard the voice that had come from his lips once before.

  Recalling Signor Arturo’s advice, he stood tall. He drew a deep breath. And he became the person he wanted them to believe. “My name is not important,” he reassured them with oily smoothness. “You may address me as the Drake … or Captain, if you prefer.”

  Speak the words given to you by the playwright, and those words only. Do not improvise. Do not interpret. Do not allow stage business to interfere with the text. Stand erect and declaim them loudly, suffering not that any of the words the playwright has taken so much toil to produce be lost upon the audience.

  —Advice to the Actors,

  by the forgotten playwright Carmina Spaldi

  During his inglorious reign as Western Cassaforte’s most prolific trafficker of stolen goods, the Drake had cultivated a number of mannerisms that told the world at large that he was not to be trifled with. Though he was not of the Seven or even the Thirty, the Drake had adopted their posture—shoulders back, head high, right leg extended slightly forward as if perpetually posing for a Buonochio portrait. Though he had not been born into riches, he knew the secret language of the wealthy, and knew how to shine among those who prized gold and possessions above all else. It was amazing how readily Nic recalled those idiosyncrasies for himself, as he stretched and adopted the postures and traits of the cruelest of his former masters. Without fear of being attacked, he strode around the cabin and inspected its meager charms, regarding it as though he might a rival’s pigsty. “Disgusting,” he pronounced at last. “But it will do, for my purposes.”

  “For your purposes, eh?” Macaque’s sneering tone, Nic noticed, was not as confident as before. He’d been taken down a peg or two.

  “Indeed.” Nic tilted his nose and stared at the man, then used the tip of his shivarsta on the substantial seat of Macaque’s pants, turning him around as if inspecting the cut of the man.

  “And what purposes might those be?” asked Macaque.

  He was obviously resentful of being handled like cattle, and knowing it amused Nic. Had the Drake felt so smug and glad of it when he treated those around him like dirt? “My purposes?” Nic spun Macaque back around, and began pacing across the room once more, this time to take in Macaque’s companions. One of them was a dark-skinned man with fine features, probably hailing from the Distant East. The other, though no longer young, stood a full head above anyone else in the room. His mass and muscles made him seem almost sculpted from clay and brought to life solely for destruction, like a golem from a child’s story. “Glory,” he said, not bothering to raise his voice. Let the pirates strain to hear him. “Riches. Infamy.” The dark-skinned man licked his lips, and almost seemed to nod. “The same things as you.”

  Maxl had been quiet for several moments, seeming as stunned as anybody at Nic’s transformation into a creature he’d never before seen. Now he found his voice. “Listen to this man, this Grake,” he agreed. “You are fools if you not.”

  “Drake,” Darcy corrected through clenched teeth.

  “That is what I am saying,” Maxl assured everyone. “Drake.”

  “Drake as in mallard?” Macaque was not the sort of man who took humiliation lightly, Nic could tell. “A duck? Quack, quack?”

  With a graceful move, Nic let his shivarsta slice through the air in an arc, and then slipped it through the notch in his belt. “Drake as in dragon,” he explained, again softly, this time circling Macaque with the slow pace of a panther. “A fire-breathing … deadly … ravenous creature that few have actually seen, but which all fear.” He saw Jacopo raise his eyebrows and blink. Even Darcy, though she was keeping a stern look upon her face, seemed startled at the transformation.

  The only important reactions, though, were from Macaque and his men. Macaque had almost audibly gulped during Nic’s speech. Now he seemed fixated on the short sword hanging at his side. “You and your men. You killed Captain Xi?”

  “I alone killed Xi. We fought man to man, and I bested him,” said Nic. He let his fingers play over the shivarsta’s bone handle. “My crew and I—” He nodded at Darcy, to let her know he acknowledged her gender. “My crew and I have come to claim our due.”

  Macaque spread his lips into something that resembled a smile, though it was not in the least friendly. “Have you, now? And what’s to say my other men aren’t without, ready to slit your lily-white throats?”

  “What’s to say we haven’t already taken care of these other men?” Nic asked, maintaining the Drake’s maddening calm. “The handful you have left, that is. My understanding, Signor Macaque, is that you’re at least five men down. Is that even enough to run such a concern?”

  Macaque’s flinty eyes darted in Maxl’s direction. “Traitor,” he growled. “You’ve told them all you know, haven’t you?”

  When Maxl shrugged, Nic cocked his head. “Don’t blame the man for knowing on which side his bread is buttered,” he assured the pirate leader. “He’s only acting in his own best interests. As should you.”

  The tension in the room was palpable. Maxl was still crouched and ready to spring if necessary, as were both of Macaque’s flunkies. The Colombos both had their stage weapons drawn and at the ready. Only Macaque and Nic stood in any posture that resembled relaxation, and Macaque seemed decidedly ill at ease. Smoothly as the Drake’s personality came oozing out of him, Nic wouldn’t have been at all surprised had Macaque suddenly ordered his men to attack. After a long pause, however, he crossed his arms. “What are you proposing? Because if you think …”

  As had the Drake so many times before, Nic raised a hand to silence the man. “I am proposing that, for the sake of your life and the lives of your crew, you accept me as your captain.” Macaque’s lips pursed at that demand, as if he tasted sour lemon. “I also propose that we rendezvous with the rest of my fleet. Once united, you will see what true piracy is—and true riches.”

  “And where is this fleet?”

  “Docked at Cassaforte,” Nic replied smoothly. He only had to carry the charade that far. If Macaque were to find no pirate fleet once they were all safely home … well, the city guards could take over the problem at that point.

  “Cassafort City, eh?” Macaque raised his eyebrows. “We’d have to pick up provisions in Gallina to make it that far.”

  “Well then. What say you?” There was a tense moment as all three of the pirates looked over the impostors. Macaque took in the fashions that Nic and the ot
hers had created using the Arturos’ costume chest. His eyes lingered over the clean whites of the men’s shirts, the carved jet black and newly replaced feather of Nic’s tricorne, and the rich red of Darcy’s blouse. He seemed to compare Jacopo’s and Darcy’s shiny, elaborate blades with his own battered sword, and to study the costume jewelry they sported on their fingers and necks. “I ask you this, Macaque,” said Nic in the Drake’s sinuous tones. “Which is better? To be the captain of a rag-tag ship so poor that it has to accept bits and bobs of work from Pays d’Azur, or to serve under another and know riches enough to buy a lifetime of pleasure?”

  Nic suspected he’d had Macaque the moment the man had asked his proposition. When the man licked his lips at the mention of riches, he knew it for certain. “If you are as powerful as you claim, then you know there are customs,” he at last said, after clearing his throat.

  “Nothing worthwhile is ever gained without struggle,” Nic replied with a smile.

  “You’re old enough to know that, then. How shall we do it? By the blade?” Macaque’s voice grew louder and more intimidating.

  Nic suspected the fool was trying to work up the courage to fight, face-to-face, with the youth who had somehow bested his captain. Only Nic knew that it had been a combination of sheer luck and opportunity working in his favor. “No.”

  Macaque cracked his beefy hands together. His knuckles cracked like kernels of corn over a hot fire. “Bare hands? Revolvers? How would you like to meet your maker, boy?”

  Nic’s eyes flickered in Darcy’s direction, meeting her glance. She shook her head with so slight a motion that even anyone studying her closely might have missed it. Was she warning him? Or did she not want him to take the risk? Nic couldn’t help but wonder. His voice was barely a murmur as he wandered over to the table where the coins and cards still lay, abandoned mid-game. “Signor Macaque. Your sloop is already many hands down. Surely we both realize that your loss would be much grieved?” With a smile, Nic added before the man could protest, “What I had in mind would result in a casualty less. How good a player of taroccho are you, sir?”