The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
“Not all of us,” I pipe up.
The boatswain growls at me like a feral dog, then points to Percy. “Take him with you,” he says to the pirate captain. “He’s your breed of African filth.”
“He’s not African,” I call, my French slipping into English as my temper rises. I’m not sure how we are in the middle of a pirate siege and I’m arguing with this bigot about Percy’s nationality. “He’s English.”
The boatswain laughs. “I believe that like I believe you’re an earl’s son.”
“I am an earl’s son!”
Scipio pivots in my direction, his hand slipping off his pistol, and I realize suddenly what a grievous error I’ve made. Blame it upon the lack of sleep or the lack of food or simply the deliriousness brought on by pirate-induced panic.
“You’re an earl’s son?” he asks.
I swallow. “No. Yes.”
He stares at me for a moment, then says to the boatswain, “We’ll take them.”
“Well done, Monty,” Felicity says under her breath.
I’ve hardly time to get a hold on what’s happening before the big man shoves me forward, down the rope ladder they’ve strung up along the side of the ship and into a longboat waiting in the choppy water below. Percy and Felicity are shoved after me.
And so it is that we come to be hostages to pirates.
23
In the longboats, we three are bound at the wrists, which is a new experience for me. I’ve never been tied up before—neckwear to a headboard hardly counts. The pirates wedge us on the floor, between oars and the plunder, our stiff knees folded under our chins and hands curled like claws before us to keep the ropes from digging in. The yawning stretch of sea between the xebec and the pirates’ schooner is rough and gray, and more than once, as we’re rowed forward, I’m certain we’re going to be pitched from the longboat into the unforgiving waves. Which might be a fate preferable to whatever waits for us on the other side.
The longboats are hauled up onto the deck of the ship, where I’m expecting to find a whole mess of corsairs waiting, but there’s only two men and a greenhorn, all wide-eyed when they see us curled between the feet of their crewmen. They’re a sundry bunch, all—dark skinned and dressed in the rough ticking favored by tars. They’re also a far smaller and skinnier number than I expected from the size of the schooner. There’s only three and ten of them in total. I’m not certain how they crew it—the tall ships I’ve seen back in England are manned by legions of sharp-dressed navy men. No wonder the pirates disabled the xebec instead of taking it—they’ve hardly crew for a single vessel, let alone a fleet.
We’re left to stand on the deck, barefoot and bound and guarded by one of the corsairs, while the longboats make the journey back and forth between the two ships, dragging over more loot. There’s a frantic energy to the crew, like lions after the kill, bounding and preening and obnoxiously proud of themselves. They almost seem surprised by how well the seizure went.
At last, the captain climbs aboard and calls for all-hands, and I watch our chance of reaching Venice shrink into the horizon, growing smaller and smaller until it’s out of sight entirely. My heart sinks.
The man guarding us calls to his captain in English, which is an astonishing language to hear after so many weeks in foreign lands, “Who are these?” He tips his head in our direction.
“Hostages,” Scipio replies.
“We agreed we wouldn’t take hostages,” the man says. I realize suddenly that a few of the others have abandoned their work as well and are standing in defiance against their captain. It seems we might be witness to some sort of mutiny.
“We won’t deal with the slavers,” another man calls, his arms folded. “Cargo only. That was the agreement.”
Scipio, to his credit, looks unmoved. “You think I’d put us in that business?”
“When we first mustered, we agreed—”
“We’ll take the goods to Iantos in Santorini,” Scipio interrupts. “The trunks can be sold on the island.”
“And what about them?” One of the men jerks his head at us, but Scipio snaps at him.
“Shut your mouth and do as you’re told. Get the plunder below,” he instructs, which seems a rather generous word for what they took—a smattering of passenger trunks and a few crates of Dutch linen are hardly the spoils of a successful pirate raid. The men consider him for a moment, then begin to shuffle off, murmuring to each other and eyeing us sideways as though we are to blame for our current situation as hostages.
The greenhorn bobs at the captain’s elbow, his eyes wide as shillings. “No slavers, Scip,” he whimpers.
As Scipio looks down at him, the ruthless pirate captain seems to vanish, just for a moment, like he was a put-on act. He gives the greenhorn an affectionate scruff on the head. “Trust me, Georgie-boy.”
While it’s good news we’re not to be enslaved, I’m not keen on what the ulterior motives behind our kidnapping might be. Fates worse than slavery begin to dance before my eyes.
As the men begin to haul the stolen goods into a cabin beneath the quarterdeck, Scipio calls to the big man, “What have you?” The man holds up Percy’s fiddle case. A wash of relief goes through me that he brought it—I had lost track of it in our transport, but thank God we are still on the same ship as our Lazarus Key.
“It’s his.” He nods toward Percy, who is frozen at my side with his bound hands clasped before him like the cathedral likeness of a saint.
“Please, it’s only a fiddle,” he says.
“I have no doubt,” Scipio replies, then peers at Percy like he hadn’t seen him before. “You really are English?”
“Yes.”
“But not the earl’s son. That would be . . . you.” Scipio swivels his attention my direction. He has a strange way about him that keeps tricking me into believing he’s not going to slit our throats, but then his eyes will flash in a distinctly nefarious way and I am reminded both of the pistol at his hip and his post as pirate captain. I take a step backward and smash into the big man, scraping my heel on the rough leather of his boot. He collars me, like he’s afraid I was about to dive over the side for freedom. Scipio folds his arms, surveying me. “You are very far from home, sirrah.”
I don’t know what to say in return and haven’t a notion what pitch my voice will be if I do speak, so I settle for defiant silence. Or rather, silence that I hope comes off as defiant.
Felicity takes a different approach—defiant speech. “I don’t believe you’re pirates,” she says. She is standing ahead of Percy and me and in a stance considerably bolder than ours. She’s got her chin stuck out, her dark hair whipping around her face like she’s floating underwater. Even with her hands bound and that bloody bandage upon her arm, she looks nearly as threatening as some of the men.
Scipio runs a hand over his beard as he surveys her. He seems to be already regretting taking such petulant prisoners. “And what makes you believe we aren’t pirates?”
“A pirate ship survives by outrunning and outgunning its enemies and victims alike,” Felicity says. “This doesn’t appear to be an overly fast ship, nor one in possession of enough guns for speed to not be a concern. You’ve hardly more weaponry than the merchant vessel we were on. And all pirates from the Barbary Coast deal with the slavers, especially if there’s so little taken, and you have walked away with hardly any get, for you haven’t crew to manage it, and you would have taken no hostages if Monty had kept his mouth shut. If you truly are pirates, you’re very bad at it.”
One of the men whistles. Scipio stares at her for a moment, then calls to the man behind me, “Bring the English lord to my cabin to select which of his limbs we’ll be cutting off to send to his father in demand for ransom payment. Let’s see if that makes us piratical enough for milady.”
The big man hooks his arm around my neck and drags me forward before I’ve got a chance to do anything more than shoot Felicity a look that is mostly panic. Behind us, I hear her shout, “Wait, stop
Scipio crosses behind a battered desk, pushes a set of charts and a sextant out of the way, then reaches into his boot and withdraws a bloody great knife with a serrated edge. “Now,” he says to me, “which of your fingers do you think your father will best recognize if we send it along with a letter demanding payment for your safe return?”
“So we’re to be ransomed, is that it?” I’m not keen on being hostage to pirates in any capacity, but ransom is by far the most savory of our distinctly unsavory possible fates.
“Would you like to protest that?”
“No,” I reply. “But I think Felicity’s right.”
Scipio looks up. “Excuse me?”
I swallow hard. I’ve little ammunition against him, but I’ll use it until I’m dry. “You’re rotten pirates.”
“Does that matter? We needn’t be the best raiders in the Mediterranean to be worth fearing.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Then put your hand on the table and tell me which finger is your least favorite.”
He reaches for me and I pull back, smacking hard into the big man still planted like an oak behind me. It’s akin to running into a wall.
“I thought you weren’t afraid of me,” Scipio says.
I’m breathing properly hard now, and that not afraid bit was definitely a lie. I’m afeard down to my bones. Out on the deck, I can hear Percy still hollering after me.
I put my bound hands on the table, fingers spread like I am brave enough to let him choose, though if he truly comes at me with that knife, I intend to make certain he also walks out of this cabin with at least one finger less.
Scipio makes a study of my hands that’s so deliberate it feels put-on. His whole pirate persona feels strangely like an act, that of a man who chooses to be threatening simply to avoid others’ threatening him. “Why not chop off my head?” I ask. “He’ll recognize that even better.”
To my surprise, he laughs. “What’s your name?”
“Lord Henry Montague, Viscount of Disley.”
“So very grand. How old are you?”
“Eight and ten years.”
“Tell me, Lord Henry Montague, Viscount of Disley, if you truly are an earl’s son, why were you stowed away upon a merchant ship and why do you look as though you’ve been several days without the sort of luxuries usually afforded to a viscount? If you’re honest about who you are, you might save your finger yet.”
“I’m not lying. We’re touring, from England, but we’ve lost our company.”
“Well then, let Ebrahim tourniquet your arm so you don’t bleed out on my desk.” Scipio jams the knife into the table. I flinch more than I wish I had. “How much do you think your father would pay for the return of you, your lady, and your man?”
“My sister,” I say, tripping over the words in my haste to get that clarifying point out. “And my friend.”
“Friend? Is he a lord as well? I thought you English were particular about your coloring.”
I’m not sure why an African pirate might have reason to know this—or why words like earl and viscount would mean anything to him unless he’s been studying the peerage on the off chance a hostage situation such as this arose—but I say, “He’s not a lord, but we’ve all people who will come looking for us.”
“People who will pay for you?”
“So long as we’ve still got all our limbs when we’re returned. We’ve been separated from our company and we’re trying to get to Venice to meet up with them but we haven’t any money. So you can cut off my finger, but know that decreases my value considerably.”
“How much do you think your father has authorized your cicerone to pay in the event of kidnapping?”
I am, first, not certain those terms were ever written into my father’s agreement with Lockwood, and, second, not certain my father would give a ha’penny to have me back. And we have absolutely no company to speak of in Venice—that’s entirely a rook—unless you count the duke and Helena, who may very well be waiting for us there. This lie is going to fall apart like wet newsprint if he actually takes to it.
I’m spared answering by a frantic slapping on the door. Scipio nods to Ebrahim, who opens it, revealing their greenhorn with a spyglass clutched in his hands. “Ship to the north, Scip,” he says, panic pitching his voice.
“Well then.” Scipio jerks his knife out of the table and stashes it in his belt. “Let’s see the men to stations. Roll out the guns—”
“It’s not a merchantman,” the lad interrupts. “It’s the French Royal Navy.”
“What?” Scipio makes a break for the deck. I follow, but Ebrahim seizes me by the arm, making certain that if I’m going anywhere, it’s with one of his hamlike hands locked around me.
The men are gathered at the starboard rail, staring out to the water and murmuring to each other. Felicity and Percy are nowhere to be seen, and I have a sudden, horrid vision of them being tossed overboard while I was conferencing with the captain.
Scipio takes the steps up to the quarterdeck two at a time, then whips an agate spyglass from his coat and raises it to his eye.
“Is it truly the French?” one of his men calls to him.
Scipio adjusts his glass. “It’s a navy frigate—French pennant,” he says. “Twenty-six twelve-pound long guns, six of the twelvers.” It’s clear from his tone that’s more guns than we’ve got on board.
My first thought is that we’re saved.
My second is that we are now in a whole different variety of trouble.
“Do you think they’ve spotted us?” Ebrahim calls. “They’re far out still.”
“They’re angling this way.” Scipio lowers the glass and looks up into the rigging. “Strip the colors! We’ll not be running a black pennant if we’re to be seized by the navy. Get a French flag up—anything, get anything up. Roll out the guns—”
“We can’t fire, there’s still a chance we might fly,” one of the men argues.
“Then fly. Hoist all sails, and run out the sweeps if you won’t roll the guns. Get him out of the way,” he snaps at Ebrahim, and I’m again seized from behind, and then tossed into the second cabin below the quarterdeck.
Percy and Felicity are seated on the cabin floor with their backs to the row of looted luggage from the xebec. Their wrists are still bound, and, dear God, they really are waifish looking. Felicity’s hair has gotten lank with grease, the tail of her plait crusted pale gray with seawater, and she’s still in the same Jesuit as when we were robbed by the duke and his men. The taffeta has shifted from golden to dirt brown, and the embroidered blossoms along the skirt are beginning to unravel.
Percy flies to his feet when he sees me. “Monty! What happened? Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?” He’s speaking so fast his sentences step on each other.
“I’m fine, Perce.”
“He said he was going to—”
“He didn’t.” He grabs each of my hands in both of his and examines them, like he doesn’t quite believe me. I wiggle my fingers for emphasis. “All still attached. Would you like to have a count?”
His shoulders slump. “Dear God, Monty. I really thought—”
“Yes, I heard you shrieking.” I press my palms flat against his. “Much appreciated.”
“What’s happening on the deck?” Felicity asks. She’s on her feet now too, standing with her face to the rippled glass panes set into the door. She’s not looking quite as concerned about me keeping all my appendages as I would like.
“There’s a ship coming our way,” I reply. “French Royal Navy. The pirates are going to make a run.”
“The navy will o
“We can’t let them know who we are,” I say.
“Who? The pirates? I think you already did a bang-up job of announcing us.”
“No, the navy. If they find us, we’ll be in trouble.”
“What are you talking about?” she replies. “We’re already in trouble. That ship could be our rescue.”
“If we’re taken by those navy men, they’ll send us back to Lockwood or Father. They might even hand us over to the duke if he’s got some sort of notice out to be on watch for us, and then we’ll never get to Venice.”
“So, which is worse?” Percy asks. “The duke or pirates?”
The worst thing would be never making it to Venice for Percy—particularly now that I’ve had his hand on my knee and his mouth that close to mine. I’ll not give up on getting to the sinking island for him, even if it’s by pirate ship we have to travel. “I think I have a plan.”
“Would you care to air it for the rest of us before you act?” Felicity asks. But before I can, the cabin door is thrown open and we’re greeted by Scipio and two more of the pirates in silhouette against the dawn.
“We need this out of sight if we’re boarded.” Scipio pushes past us to hoist one of the trunks onto his shoulder. No one is stopping me, so when he goes out onto the deck, I chase after, Felicity and Percy at my heels.
“We can help you escape the navy,” I call.
“Get back in the cabin,” Scipio replies, barely looking at me.
“No, listen.” I step between him and the stairs leading to the lower deck. I think he’s going to shove me out of the way, and I flinch, but he stops, trunk still balanced upon his shoulder. I swallow. “You know that ship will catch you, and you know you’ll be outgunned if you stand and fight—even running from them makes you look guilty. You’ll be either slaughtered or taken back to Marseilles and hanged for piracy. But we can help you get away.”