Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett
Later, struggling with tangled hair and soaked skirts in her cabin, Philippa spoke of that tour, and Marthe listened, impeccable as always, her bright hair tucked inside a close cap and her quilted skirts still without blemish. The long mouth tilted a little, as Philippa finished. ‘It is a sobering thing, one’s first close view of a galley. Were you impressed by the vogue avants du banc des espalles?’
‘Where they used to have Turks?’
‘Where for two years they had M. Francis Crawford,’ said Marthe. ‘Did you not know?’
‘He knew I didn’t,’ said Philippa.
‘But he could be sure that, sooner or later, someone would tell you. He has to perfection, M. le Comte, the art of living his private life with as much public attention as possible. You don’t agree?’ She was smiling. She had an enchanting smile.
‘I really don’t know him well enough,’ said Philippa, ‘to pass an opinion.’
It was the last time she was able to walk about the ship. After Formentera, the southerly wind freshened, and the silver whistle shrilled in their ears through the uproar of the seas and the creak and whine of the manœuvring galley as the sheets were pulled in and released on each tack. The brown backs of slaves and seamen glistened with light rain under a chalky grey sky, and spray fell rattling on the gangways as the hoarse voice of the Master shouted to helmsman and comite: ‘Notre homme, avertissez qu’on va mettre à la trinque … Forte! Forte!…’
The striped sails bucked and flapped and swelled again as the galley’s beak swung round, and Philippa thought, clinging to the prow rail with Jerott balancing beside her, ‘Tonight we shall be in Algiers, and perhaps we’ll wish ourselves back, and in a worse storm than this.’
Then Lymond, arriving noiselessly from the direction of the helm, touched her arm. ‘Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter. Otherwise meaning, the girl with the well-mannered stomach gets the most fun at sea. Would you mind, my formidable Philippa, if I asked you to retire to the captain’s cabin for a spell, along with Marthe and the melancholy Fogge? There is a galley advancing towards us in a profoundly single-minded way. You know what to do?’
Philippa smiled back, her hands cold. What to do when attacked at sea, lessons one to ten. They had spent their first morning at sea being trained, remorselessly, by Francis Crawford for this precise event. ‘I know what to do,’ said Philippa. ‘Offer them the raspberry wine and keep them talking till Mother comes in.’
‘They’re not allowed raspberry wine,’ said Lymond. ‘But you’ll think of an alternative, I’m sure.’ He hesitated.
‘You told me so,’ supplied Philippa.
‘I told you so, quite mistakenly. You are a perfect asset to any ship. This is only a precaution: I shouldn’t worry yet,’ said Lymond cheerfully. ‘He’s probably only coming to ask for a try of the spinet.’
He wasn’t coming to ask for a try of the spinet. Sitting on the Master’s well-worn mattress between Marthe, calmly expectant, and a whimpering Fogge, Philippa knew by the sudden hail of commands, the thud of bare feet on deck and the abrupt veer of the boat that the menace was real. What was she, the oncoming galley? A robber, manned by murdering renegades; a fighting ship of the Spanish Mediterranean fleet, hoping to capture or sink the lilies of France; an Algerine corsair, hating French and Spaniards alike, and bent on money and slaves?
The swinging lamp gleamed on the swords lying beside them; on the bare racks where the officers’ arms had been stored; on the ladder leading up from this one tiny room to the hatchway above. They were here, the three women, because the captain’s gavon lay under the poop, where stoving-in was unlikely, and because they had there an escape route on deck, but no door to the rest of the hold. Whatever the outcome, at least they were free of chance injury. And if pure robbery were the motive, the ship might be boarded and ransacked without their being discovered. There was enough in the chests in the main hold to satisfy most passing raiders. And the clock-spinet, of course.
Marthe said, ‘Listen.’ It was a low, rumbling thud, rolling the length of the deck above them. ‘They’re lifting the footrests to row à toucher le banc. He’s going to try and outsail them.’
Philippa had seen them row like that, leaving harbour, chained feet on the pédagues, arms and bodies leaning towards the loom of the oars. She remembered the oars entering the water, fifty-two blades as one; the surge as the slaves, second foot thrusting the bench, crashed back on their seats, arms outstretched, red-capped heads turned to the prow while the loom performed its semi-circle, touching the bench in front as it passed. It was the magnificent ceremonial stroke, too hard and fast to keep up for long; the tout avant measure of war. They felt the pull of it now, as the ship shuddered and drove through the water; the hesitation as Lymond’s voice suddenly spoke, followed by the Master’s. The beat changed. They felt the walnut walls of the little cabin press against them and tilt; a sudden outbreak of running in bare and shod feet, and a new, low-pitched rumble which seemed to come from the bows.
‘They’ve run out the cannon,’ said Marthe. ‘He is turning to fight.’
Then, above the shouting on deck, they heard Lymond’s voice take over.
The commands were in the peculiar Levantine French used in the Mediterranean fleet. Philippa could make nothing of them, but Marthe, listening, said in the same cool, academic voice she had used all along, ‘Are you interested in technique? This is a classic defence being carried out, with one or two variations. If we lift the hatch-cover a little, I shall show you.’
It was against orders, but it was better than staying in gloom and ignorance below. Leaving Fogge sitting with her eyes shut on the mattress, Marthe climbed the ladder and in a moment had the cover expertly open no more than six inches, for Philippa to see. There was a moment’s silence. Then over her shoulder, she heard the other girl laugh, under her breath. ‘Now indeed, now indeed we shall see,’ said Marthe. ‘Whether our friend shines velut inter Stellas luna minores, or not.’
‘You don’t like him,’ said Philippa. It was a crazy conversation. The sky was dark orange to begin with: how could it be, in the middle of the day? Between the two masts hung the sun, like a strange, pale blue sequin: the sails were down, and the odd light ran like amber over jacks of mail and shields and vizorless helms, over wrought cannon and ranked arquebuses on their crutches; on pikes and swords and halberds, and sank dying into the wadded textures of piled fenders and cables and heaped mattresses and awnings which had been structured with lashed oars and canvas into protection for the oarsmen and entrenchments within the galley itself.
On the long passages, in the prow and the poop, and in front of her, by the sloop and the iron-bound box of the ovens, the ship’s seamen and officers and her own company were spaced: the Master, in a well-greased jack of mail, was standing just in front of her, Jerott beside him, watching the bos’n amidships, the silver pipe round his neck, accepting and transmitting a series of orders from Lymond, unseen on the tabernacle. As the mosaic above her shifted and changed and changed swiftly again, Philippa saw Onophrion, vast in a leather jack, standing in the fougon, a two-handed sword reversed in his fists, and Gaultier, a borrowed helmet framing his narrow, seamed face, kneeling beside another of the six hatches. The slave gang, no longer rowing à outrance, but holding the Dauphiné steadily, head into the wind, were unarmed. But each oarsman, Philippa observed, quite outside the usual custom, had been released from his fetters.
She saw all that, and then the deck above her cleared momentarily of men and she was able at last to catch a glimpse of the sea. Under the queer lurid sky, the water moved, heaving unbroken in a dark and metal-bloomed blue. And shearing through it towards them, sails full, oars flashing, were two attackers, not one: on the port side, a galley like their own, but with twice their cannon and three times their number of armed seamen. And from the starboard side a capital ship, Spanish-built, and armed on all sides with what looked like its full complement of four hundred soldiers. Watching them streaking towards her
‘… No,’ said Marthe, in her ear, startlingly continuing a forgotten conversation. ‘I have no great love for him. It is a consolation. Think, if he were able to deliver us from this engagement, how very trying that unassailable self-esteem would become.’
Philippa gripped the ladder, hard, with her shaky hands. ‘I think I could struggle along with it,’ she said. ‘Are they Spanish, or corsairs? I want to be able to say “no” in the right language.’ Rowing against the freakish, southerly wind, the galley was almost stationary, rising and falling on the greasy dark swell, while from ahead, on either side, the two attacking ships streamed converging towards them. The big capital ship, black-painted, flew no national flag.
Marthe was listening. ‘That’s the challenge,’ she said. ‘In French; but then they could see we are a French ship. I can’t tell who they are.’ A line of thought showed, fleetingly, between the fair brows: otherwise she looked quite undisturbed. Philippa, envying either her acting or her stolidity, asked what they had said.
‘The usual. Heave to, or we’ll ram you to the bottom,’ said Marthe. ‘A matter of form, if you like. We’re hove to already.’
It seemed to Philippa that one might as well die naïve as die ignorant, so she kept on inquiring. ‘Why? Why did we turn round to face them, and stop? And what’s wrong with the sky?’
‘We turned round because we can’t outrun them, and all our cannon is at and around the bows: look at it. And we’re waiting because the bombardiers won’t have time to load twice before the ships close; so we hold fire till well within range. When you see the volume of smoke from the first shot, you’ll realize anyway that there are no second chances. It may not come to that, of course. He may parley, or offer them some of our cargo, for instance. It depends what they want.’
‘And the sky?’
‘Oh, that’s our other stroke of bad luck,’ said Marthe. ‘It’s just a sandstorm over North Africa, but the sirocco’s blowing it over our way. Turks and Moors, of course, know it’s a sandstorm. French convicts are much more liable to think the Wrath of God is upon them, however M. Crawford may explain briskly otherwise. A change of wind would be nice.’
‘But you don’t expect one?’
‘I never expect anything,’ said Marthe. ‘It provides a level, low-pitched existence with no disappointments.’
‘I’m all for a level, low-pitched existence,’ said Philippa. ‘And when you see your way back to one, for heaven’s sake don’t forget to tell me.’ At which Marthe, surprisingly, laughed aloud.
Then, suddenly, they saw the faces at the bows turn, bluish-pale in the orange-brown dusk, and Lymond’s voice, secure and carrying, began to initiate the first stages of action. For a long moment, Marthe watched, then she laid a hand on Philippa’s arm. ‘They’re pirate ships, demanding complete surrender of cargo and crew. He’s going to fight,’ she said. ‘Come down. We must close the hatch now.’ And in silence, Philippa followed her into the dark of the cabin.
On deck, nothing moved but for the idling oars, rowing by thirds to keep the boat still. Timbers creaked. The sea slapped and hissed up and down the low freeboard, and on deck sprays of fire bloomed from gunplace to gunplace, sizzling in the burnt-orange haze. The sun had gone, and although it was afternoon still, falling chiffons of light brown and russet concealed the light from the sky and enclosed the three ships and the glittering, indigo water in a strange saffron dusk. Within it, the shining wood of the masts, the white sails of the enemy, the blanched ranks of slaves and fighting men gleamed not ruddy but a cold aquamarine; a ghostly blue-white that peopled the three ships, as they converged silently, faster, with a crew of dead men. A growling: a low-throated mutter of fear started and could be heard, travelling from bench to bench. Jerott looked round, sharply, at the tabernacle where Lymond stood; and Lymond, at the same moment, gave the word of command.
They were just within range. Under other circumstances, Jerott guessed, Lymond would have delayed a few seconds longer. But the chiourme needed action. The whistle shrilled, loud and clear, and was repeated twice along the slim ship. Then, instantly, the living pieces shattered and jumped; the ranks of scarlet flame jerked forward as one; the teams for each machine and each gun flashed in their drill like warp and weft of some pattern of steel. There was, simultaneously, the multiple crash of the cannon, and the coughing rattle of arquebus fire. Lead balls, bullets, stones and blasts of cutting projectiles streamed over the water from the Dauphiné and exploded into the ships approaching her flanks. Philippa, had she still been watching from her raised hatch-lid, would have seen something else. Hurtling through the air towards the smaller enemy galley was a strange missile: a pair of flying black balls, joined by a looping streamer of chain.
It was this that Jerott watched, and the Master, and Lymond, he knew, from his higher viewpoint behind. The captain of the red galley saw it too, but could do nothing about it. With a whine the projectile arrived, bursting through the taut folds of the sail, and with a triple crack like a whip embraced the sixty-foot mainmast, snapped it, and plunging down with mast, sail and yardarm to the deck brought the mizzenmast crashing down likewise.
Through the choking grey smoke which enveloped him, Jerott saw chaos break out on the red galley. The guns, primed to fire, remained silent; the oars driving her on to ram the Dauphiné’s side remained stuck like toothpicks, askew from her flanks as the slaves struggled beneath the weight of fallen canvas and timber. Jerott looked quickly to starboard.
Nothing that their guns had been able to do had checked the capital galley. With her sides bruised and her bulwarks here and there splintered she came on instead twice as fast, the bos’n’s pipe shrilling, and the shouting of enraged men came from her decks. They looked into the black throats of her cannon and saw the luminous blue of her sails tower against the dark tawny sky, and Lymond, his voice cutting through the uproar of men and ships and the compressed and walloping seas, called, ‘La scie!’
Jerott saw the beak of the capital galley, rushing towards them, suddenly hesitate; saw the bombardiers pause, their orders unfinished, the touch-flame unused in their hands. Flattening back under a stutter of arquebus fire, he took time at last to look to port.
The dismasted galley, out of hand, was driving unchecked towards them, pushed by the wind and the running speed she already had gained. Not only was she directly in her own capitane’s line of fire, but in a moment she would collide at full tilt with the Daupine’s port flank, while the capital galley performed a more orthodox ramming attack on the right. By the attack on the right, the Dauphiné would be held for grappling and boarding. But the beak coming at them from the left, Jerott knew, would stave them right through.
If Lymond had not already given that order. The words ‘La scie!’ and the bos’n’s pipe rang through the galley. There was a jolt which nearly flung Jerott, prepared and braced as he was, off his feet; and then the Dauphiné began, in great leaping thrusts, to drive by the poop, backwards. Trained to a hairsbreadth, the three master slaves on every bench changed hands and feet, and faces turned to prow, sent the solid fifty-foot oars pitching reversed through the water; and their wake hissed unreeling before them.
In vain, the seamen in the black galley fled to the sheets. In vain the slaves, obeying the whistle, stopped rowing and began to backwater. The corsair capital galley, proceeding briskly against the flank of the Dauphiné, faced the red corsair galley, proceeding unmanned on the identical, opposite course, and as the Dauphiné absented herself swiftly backwards, collided the one with the other with a satisfying and ungodly bang.
‘Jesu!’ said Marthe, who five minutes previously, uncontrollably, had again lifted the hatch. O
Half an hour later, sand had begun to fall on the ship and visibility dropped to a mile. Half an hour after that, it was perfectly dark and a thick and ochreous mud, borne on a light, tepid rain, fell on crew and galley alike. Reversing her stroke and her benches and travelling on compass bearings and in life-preserving discomfort, the Dauphiné turned and made her way, direct under oars, to the North African port of Algiers.
At supper-time Marthe and Philippa were allowed to emerge, picking their way over a mysterious silt, to come and dine with the captain. Lymond, arriving undisturbed from a talk with Onophrion, was sociable in a perfunctory way. ‘How was it below? Rather tedious, I’m afraid.’
‘Not at all,’ said Philippa. ‘We were laying wagers over whether we’d rather be raped, or resigned to a smug little victory.’