Gregory House - The Queen's Oranges

In the meantime Skelton was roaring his frustration at his suddenly reluctant minions and gesturing meaningfully with his heavy backsword. “Damn y’ for a pox riddled weak kneed puttock. Pull them oars like y’ pull your pizzles. Put us closer to that boat!”

Well threats worked up to point but since the dead body tumbled back, none were too keen to close the distance. Time for some inducement thought Ned. “If you get us close, five angels are yours!”

Success! The wherry pushed past its stalled companion and Ned leapt over the decreasing gap. He’d watched Don Juan Sebastian and he recalled the man’s natural ease with a blade from last year’s affair. Ned had also been busy in that time, learning off a master of defence, a veteran who’s main concern was survival on the battlefield, not pretensions of honour.

So when Ned jumped it was not the Spaniard he was aiming for. Instead he slammed into one of the forward pair of rowers. The supposed monk had a brief instant to register dismay and surprise before Ned’s arrival tumbled him backwards onto the large basket in the prow, smashing it apart and spilling its contents into the waist. Ned gave him a savage smash across the face with his clenched fist and lashed out at the other forward oarsman with his blade. The steel edge gouged splinters from the oar hastily raised in parry as the man scrambled backwards.

Don Juan Sebastian had noted the new arrival and gave a snarled command to the two remaining rowers. One about faced to help his master fend off another assault, while the larger of the two pulled out a wicked looking mace and swung it towards Ned’s head. The thing you had to remember in any fight was where your feet where. Many a fine warrior had been ignominiously slain because he hadn’t watched were he was treading. Sir John Chandos, the Black Prince’s feared henchman, had died like that with his foot tangled in a piece of clothing. Ned came a close second. His foot slipped on the spilled cargo and he fell forward under the swing of his opponent. The haft smashed into the back of his shoulder and the jarring pain numbed his arm, causing him to lose his blade. In the cramped space Ned was now in serious trouble. In a moment he would be outnumbered and weaponless. In desperation, he groped around the soggy clutter in the boats hold and grabbed whatever came to hand. It wasn’t his blade but it would have to do. Ned straightened up, ready to fling the missile at the grinning mace wielder. Then the boat gave a shuddering lurch and Ned slipped and fell over the side into the water.

They’d hit the race! He struggled against the flow, but his right hand was still numb and the torrent tore at his lips, demanding entrance. Ned was forced against one of the oak trunks by the power of the river. It may have helped for he clawed his way up the water smoothed timber and wedged his clenched left hand into a crevice between two logs. The urgent demands for air overrode the pain, and Ned pulled his face out of the water’s loving embrace just enough to gulp down a breath or two, but the fighting against the pull of the tide was draining, and even for summer the water was too damned cold siphoning his warmth.

The last sight that Ned recalled as he sank back, exhausted, into the surging waters of the Thames, was the grinning face of that smirking Spaniard. This was not at all what he wished for as his last vision before facing the Last Judgement!

***

The water rippled past him like the shimmers of heat on a summer’s day. This was a different world, not at all like some had suggested. As he drifted along the scene changed. To his front, river grasses framed an elegant dwelling made from the timbers of a foundered vessel. It looked remarkable, just like the Ruyter now he got closer, except that the fresh paint work was covered by weeds waving in the flow of the current. Ned liked it. It was a lot warmer than he had imagined and as for the company, the two naiads with their long streaming hair and willowy figures tantalisingly hidden by translucent shifts were a pleasant sight for any young lad, especially as they bathed his brow and neck with their cooling touch.

“More please. More caresses.”

“Anythin’ y’ say Ned.” A warm lip nibbled his ear. That’s when the dream vanished and Ned awoke with a sighing moan. The scene had changed. The gentle swaying he recognised as the now familiar motion of a ship at dock. The rest of the surroundings resolved themselves into the dreadfully familiar shipmaster’s cabin on the Ruyter. He could have cursed. Would he never leave this damned room! His return to the haunted cabin was not the only perplexing change to his circumstance. Another was the lack of shirt and doublet, not to mention shoes and hose and the other necessities of apparel. And something else became clear on his return to consciousness. He was in the bed of the murdered Joachim and Pieter, naked and most disturbingly-he wasn’t alone.

Ned tried to struggle out of the enshrouding sheet and blanket. He wasn’t going to go down like those two. Where was his sword or dagger? He heaved up and collapsed back into the bunk.

“Ned, wot be the matter?” came a voice from under the covers by the wall, and a graceful arm emerged from the blankets followed by a head of light brown tousled hair, and a pair of very brown eyes ringed in dark lashes.

It took a moment or two for Ned to recognise his bed mate, and there was a definite quaver in his voice. “Mary! Ahh what…what are you doing here?” Managing to free a hand, he rubbed his face in confusion. He hadn’t propositioned the punk had he? That part of the evening was unfortunately blank.

“What…what am I doing here?” Then Ned recalled another difficulty with having a young attractive punk in the same bed as himself.

“Ahh, where are my clothes?” That question went past the quaver and shaded into panic.

“In the state y’ wuz in y’ would a ruined the bed, so we took ‘em off.”

“Ahh, we? His questions seemed to be going around in circles without any useful results.

“Lizzie and me. Y’ were wetter than a fish and colder than the grave, so we stripped y’ down.”

It was an answer of sorts but that just raised more queries. The last he remembered was clutching at the pier timbers of London Bridge, struggling for breath. However the news that the two punks disrobed him was frankly worrying. “How did I get here?”

Mary pulled herself further out of the tumble of blankets, and revealed to Ned’s mixed relief, a modicum of clothing. Well, a generously unlaced bodice that almost displayed most of the curve of a pair of rounded breasts. Ned felt a sudden constriction in mutinous parts as well as a surge of panic. He hadn’t, had he? It wasn’t an experience he was like to forget. I mean a lass like Mary… How could you… Even a monk would be hard pressed to resist those swelling features and smooth pale skin.

“Y’ got dumped off by that great bearded devil o’ a northerner.” Mary pushed down the blankets and wriggling around, made herself more comfortable. The jostling movement did nothing to quell Ned’s rebellious regions, but he did have a partial explanation for his current circumstance. Skelton must have considered he was still useful enough to salvage. That was sort of good news, though when Norfolk’s man next called, he’d still have to find the elusive Spaniard again.

Just to enhance his consternation, Mary lent across, brushed a stray lock of hair off his forehead and smiled shyly. “Y’ feeling more the man? Y’ were in a dread state when they brought y’ in. Rob sent for some help, but it ain’t come yet, so we did what we could.”

He was longing to ask exactly what that aid entailed, if this was anything to go by. However his mutiny was turning into a full scale insurrection and he’d better try for distraction before events got further out of hand. “Ahh Mary, you were telling me yesterday about Edwards and Watkins?”