Having raided the impossible-to-raid Harshtree Prison and freed Fezzik, the intrepid pirates of the Revenge escape into the night, their legend even greater. Captain Montoya promised them that when Fezzik was safely aboard ship, that they all would learn to swim. It wasn't acceptable that half of them, including the captain himself, didn't know! They just need to escape the Florin navy, hot on their heels, and find a friendly, hidden cove somewhere so that the captain can begin lessons. Read on!
2.
Swimming Lessons and Swordplay
~~*~~
Bullies. Great Britain wasn’t much different than Florin , its southeast neighbor, in that regard. Both
countries were always seeking advantage, always spoiling for a brawl, always
wanting to stoke the fires of war. The prevailing philosophy came down to this:
A people at peace is a dangerous thing.
When I was
seventeen I packed up and crossed the Channel to Florin ,
where I shortly learned that nothing changed but my geography. Not many years
after that I was recruited to the crew of the Revenge.
It isn’t a matter
of simply signing up. With all due respect to Rye Morgny, the Revenge doesn’t take just anybody. To be
a member of this intrepid crew, another serving aboard it has to know the
potential recruit personally. When and if the time comes, someone actively serving
on the Revenge seeks the candidate
out.
In my case the
serving member was a former lieutenant of the very ship I had served on in the
Navy. He had been framed by the first mate (a truly despicable fellow) for
debauchery and left to rot in a British dungeon, which, with his cellmate, they
managed to escape, but not without his friend being cut down. On his own, he
fled to Florin . The Revenge found him not long after he arrived.
I couldn’t believe
the Revenge wanted me. I hadn’t
proved myself in battle or, as the lieutenant, whose name was Ryley, with
cunning and daring by escaping a horrible dungeon. I told him. His response stuck
with me ever since.
“Perhaps not. But I
know men, what’s in them, and I always thought you were a cut above. You were
destined for far greater things than scrubbing quarterdecks!”
I met Captain
Cummerbund, who was just months from retiring. He interviewed me. He didn’t
seem to like me (at all), and I left very disappointed. Three days later Ryley
found me slouched over my mead in a pub. “You’ve got the job,” he told me. “Report
the day after tomorrow. You’ll be my Ship’s Master First Mate.”
I was floored.
It was with that grand memory that I came up behind Rye
Morgny, who was working with Dauchkin to stoke one of four large bonfires we
had built, and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
He turned to face
me. “Yes, sir?”
“Know how to swim?”
I asked.
He shook his head.
“You, sir?”
I too shook my
head. “Believe it or not, most sailors don’t have a clue how to swim. We’re quite
lucky: half of the Revenge knows.
That’s much better than most crews, on average.”
“Seems silly, I
suppose,” he mused. “I mean, we live on the water. I guess it’d it be like
taking a carriage over land but not knowing how to walk.”
I chuckled.
“Quite.”
The captain hopped
off the long boat and helped pull it in. He glanced at us, then around at the
cove. This truly was a peaceful and private little bit of heaven.
We waited for him
to speak, which was obvious he was about to do.
“Those of you who
know how to swim, please come forward.”
Twelve crewmembers
came forward, including all the women and six others, including Fezzik.
He glanced at the
rest of us. “We shall entrust your lives to the care of these dozen. I too
don’t know how to swim. That is going to end during this stay. I shall assign
one swimmer with one non-swimmer. Rank does not matter while you are under
their tutelage! While in their care, you will treat them as your superiors. I willingly
include myself in that order. Does everyone understand?”
We nodded.
He turned to
Marcell, who had waded ashore and stood now next to him. The bosun had the
captain’s fine feather hat in his grip, which he handed to him.
“Nonswimmers shall
come forward,” Captain Montoya announced, “and take a single name from the hat.
That person shall be your aquatics instructor. I shall begin!”
Holding up the hat, he reached inside and
pulled out a small rectangular bit of paper and read it and laughed. “I shall
be entrusting my life to … Ruhdsami!”
Kay Ruhdsami was
our sole Indian crewmember. He was twenty-eight years old and a first-class Master
Gunner and Tactician, having defected from the Indian Navy about the same time
I fled England .
He was dark and quiet, and a very good, steady sort. He smiled a lot but kept
to himself. He gazed at the captain and bowed. “I shall not let you down, sir.”
One by one we came
up to the hat and drew a name. Fezzik, who, unbelievably, knew how to swim (“I
can doggy paddle”), was paired with young Rye; Dauchkin got Stacie (which
elicited groans of envy from the men); Marcell drew Hindy (more groans; in fact
every man who got paired with a woman received them, along with smirking stares
and offers of piles of gold if they traded); and I? I smirked the widest, because
I was the last to draw and so already knew who I’d be paired with: Crissah.
Indeed there was a
God, thought I, most pleased. I sidled smugly up to her side. She gave me a
wink as the captain said, “No trades! And no one in the water who has drink in
them! Safety always comes first! Understood?”
“Yes, sir!” we answered
in unison.
“We shall begin
tomorrow after breakfast. In the meantime, let us relax and enjoy this
marvelous place, shall we?”
We yelled our delight
and went back to the fires and the rum in canteens waiting around them.
The study was large, circular, and glowing softly orange-yellow
by the quietly crackling fire in the large hearth to the left. A bearskin rug
lay in the room’s center; on the other side, tall bookshelves and a ladder to
get up to the highest tomes waited in homey shadow. Between them and the hearth
was a door that led to his bedchamber.
Dynatis Rugen
wasn’t looking that way, however. He was staring impatiently towards the right
and the corridor that led back into the heart of the castle.
This study once
belonged to Prince Humperdinck. It was where he used to hatch his plots and
schemes. He and Count Rugen used to sit in here for many idle hours sipping
brandy and enjoying their well-deserved privilege and position. Many an evening
they’d order the palace guard to grab a villager and haul him or her to the Pit
of Despair where, snifters in hand, they’d go so they could make the dirty
commoner suffer. They’d have the corpse fed to the palace’s guard dogs.
It was an excellent
way to maintain fear, to make sure the rabble knew their place, and to educate
themselves on the limits of human suffering, which was always helpful.
Dynatis frowned.
The new king didn’t care for the Pit of Despair, only that “the good work” in
it continued. The new king was concerned only about tribute. He lived cloistered
in his opulent apartment, making only occasional appearances in the palace, and
even rarer appearances before his subjects. He was the nephew of the old king,
Humperdinck’s first cousin, and lived, in his words, “only to rule.”
That included friendship.
The new king—King Ecclesius, as he had been titled—had no use for it, nor for
this study, which he simply gave to Dynatis with a dismissive wave. “It’s yours
to use as you please. Do your job and you may keep it. Don’t do your job and
I’ll give it to someone else. Now leave me!”
The king had been
very disappointed to hear that the Dread Pirate Roberts had successfully
assaulted Harshtree Prison and had freed one of its inmates. To make his
displeasure real he had Dynatis strapped to the Machine and given a “light”
disciplining. The crank was lifted to one-half for ten minutes.
The water had
flowed and the wheel turned and Dynatis Rugen wished for death. The guards
unstrapped him and carried him back to the castle and put him gently to bed,
where he stayed for three days, recovering.
He went back to
work with twice the desire as before to exact revenge upon that pirate scow and
its Spaniard captain.
He sighed and glared
at the corridor.
“GUARD!”
He heard the guard
at the end of the corridor come to attention and hurry to the entrance, where
he stopped and saluted stiffly.
“Where are they?”
“Forgive me, My
Lord. The carriage must be …”
“Must be what?”
“My Lord, it is
raining. Perhaps the carriage got stuck.”
“That’s all you’ve got—excuses? Get out!”
The guard saluted
quickly. “My Lord.” He turned and hurried back down the corridor.
That damn Spaniard
had run his father through and kidnapped the princess. He had humiliated King
Humperdinck, who was shortly afterward exiled to France ,
then thrown out and captured back here in Florin ,
where he died in Harshtree. The coup spawned talk of revolution. The peasants
saw that tiniest flicker of hope and started talking, started acting like they
had rights.
The new king was crowned and the rebellion
quashed. Dynatis had been selected to follow in his father’s footsteps. The
king’s first order: “Crush the citizenry.”
Tirelessly now for
over a year, that is exactly what he had done.
But he deserved a little
more of the taste of the good life his father had enjoyed! If it couldn’t be
the king, then he knew who his second choice would be.
If only he’d bloody get here!
The door swung open
that instant, as if fearful of his slipping temper. Multiple footsteps hurried
down the hall.
Guards appeared
suddenly, one to each side of a small bald man, who shook the weather off and
gave him an evil, lopsided smile.
“My dear Count,” he
simpered, inclining his head.
“Bacco!” cried Dynatis.
“It is wonderful to see you, my old friend! Come, take off your wet things and
have a seat!”
“Indeed I shall,”
said Bacco. “I believe we have much to discuss—say, a nasty Spaniard with
delusions of greatness?”
“Yes, yes!” said
Dynatis.
Just the mention of
the captain of the Revenge was enough
to cause him to grip the quill in his hand until his knuckles were white. “Let
us talk about what we can do about that Spaniard and his quaint little boat,
shall we? Guards! Get this man some warm brandy at once!”
These weeks had passed almost without notice. That’s the odd
thing about living happily. Time loses all its earth-bound density and floats away.
It seemed only yesterday we were drawing names out of a hat to determine partners
for swimming practice.
I found myself
gazing at the calendar in the captain’s quarters and shaking my head in
contented disbelief. That was almost four months ago!
We all learned how
to swim. We learned the Australian crawl (Hindy) and the backstroke (also
Hindy), and the breaststroke (Emeri). We learned how to hold our breath and how
to sidestroke (Ruhdsami). We learned how to “doggy paddle” and float
comfortably on our backs (Fezzik, of course). Some of us got so water-proficient
that we could dive into the deepest part of the cove for clams and mussels and
other shellfish, which we brought up and devoured with great relish. We became
much better fishermen-and –women. The water was warm, turquoise blue, and clear
as glass.
Speaking of glass: Rye Morgny surprised us by
informing us his father had taught him glass- and metalwork. To that end he put
together a rudimentary pair of goggles we could use underwater. The first pairs
fell apart; but continued improvements to the design finally yielded a fairly
efficient, leak-proof, and safe pair. Eventually he made two more from spare
portals found in the bowels of the ship.
We took the time to
clean the Revenge of barnacles now that
we all could do it. It was exhausting and time-consuming work, but rewarding.
We effected much-needed repairs to her and today she gleamed like brand new.
Our swimming suits
were durable and comfortable. We became used to seeing one another traipse
about in what amounted to paisley underwear.
The captain
promised that we were all going to learn not just how to swim, but how to fight
as well.
We were pirates.
Fighting was second nature to us. With the exception of Rye (initially, at least), we were all good in
a scrape. But that’s not what the captain was talking about. He wanted us to
learn some of his godlike skills.
To that end he put
us through our paces, teaching us as his father taught him and then as he
taught himself after his father was murdered. The lessons of his decades of
devoted study he gave to us without hesitation. It was a gift without price and
one we accepted it with great thanks. He didn’t want us to be great fighters,
he told us. He wanted us to be great peacemakers.
If a fight started, he wanted it to be over within moments and with us as the
victors. That’s what he meant by “peacemakers.” It was our peace he didn’t want disturbed. This we all agreed to heartily.
When we weren’t in
the water we practiced swordplay in the large training circle we’d constructed
in the center of the camp. We gave up the rum and the late boisterous nights.
The day’s activities were so strenuous that none of us had any desire to make
merry after the sun went down. One of us would tell the rest a story as dinner
digested and drink becalmed us. They were always stories of grand adventures
and daring deeds, and we’d settle in and listen raptly. Marcell and Dauchkin
were natural storytellers; so were Liliana and the captain. Like children, many
of us drifted off as we listened. It was a rare thing for any of us to be awake
after ten. The night’s fires would die down as we slept around them. The stars
above twinkled in friendship.
Always the captain woke
before all of us. Many times he’d be busy cooking breakfast—a captain cooking
breakfast! We lived off the bounty of the sea and the surrounding land. Just a
bit inland was a small farm. The farmer, a genial chap named Kelale, learned of
our presence (he saw the smoke from our bonfires) and gave us a whole side of
beef, for which we paid handsomely. We dined at his home several times and helped
out around the farm when we could. We feasted on sweet corn and huge, juicy
oranges and paid him to restock our ship’s stores with wheat, dried beans, and
flour.
Bavus-Naguty’s
countryside was beautifully green and hilly. A village named Noush was fifteen
miles inland; we took several treks there, where a metalworker named Lagesius
sharpened our swords and outfitted us with new ones, including Rye , whose skills as a swordsman had improved
beyond all measure. He was swift, cunning, and inventive with a cutlass, so
much so that the captain noticed and complimented his improvement. The pride in
Rye ’s eyes was
something to see. Handing his new blade to him, I could only think about how
he’d gone from a liability to an almost certain asset. He’d already tasted
battle; it was only a matter for him now to become accustomed to it.
I left the
captain’s quarters, closing the door behind me, and made my way upstairs to the
topdeck. There was no one else onboard besides me. The Revenge sat light and happy in calm cove waters that only this
morning had dolphins swimming in them.
I went to the port
railing and gazed overboard. I could hear people laughing next to the ship.
Fezzik was floating
on his back. Sitting on top of him were Stacie, Liliana, and Rye . They were splashing each other. Fezzik
was so large and strong that he didn’t seem to struggle with their weight or
motions.
“Duncan !” he shouted, smiling. “Come in!
There’s room for one more!” His massive right shoulder lifted and dropped a
couple times.
His passengers
glanced up at me. “Yeah, come in!” shouted Stacie. She splashed water that hit
the side of the ship but didn’t quite make it up to me.
Just then we heard
a cry from shore. It was Crissah. She was motioning frantically for us to go to
her.
The captain stood
behind her, as did Marcell and … Kelale? The farmer? All were motioning as
well.
Other crewmembers
were dropping what they were doing and hurrying toward them.
I mounted the rail
and dove in and began swimming. Fezzik’s passengers had abandoned ship and were
swimming too. Fezzik followed. He wasn’t speedy, but he’d eventually get there.
We gained the warm white
sand minutes later. The entire crew was in animated conversation with the
captain and Kelale. Fezzik was still a few minutes out at his current speed.
“What’s going on?”
I asked.
Crissah was crying.
I went to her. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
She wouldn’t answer
me.
When Fezzik finally
lumbered ashore and joined us, the captain, glancing at Kelale, said, “Go on.
Tell them.”
“I went to Noush for supplies,” said the
farmer. He glanced ominously at Rye .
“There was a messenger there … all the way from Florin .
He was sent to deliver a message to all coastal villages as far south as Morocco if need
be. He was sent by the king’s henchman and has been traveling for two months. I
told him he could stop looking, that I knew where the Revenge was and would deliver his message.”
The henchman—the
vile Dynatis Rugen.
Kelale held up. It was clear it was bad news.
Crissah, who didn’t cry, was proof enough.
Chapter Three
~~*~~
