Kage Baker - Dark Mondays

The leader was Hendrik Smeeks, because he’d been a barber-surgeon and had an education, and he spoke well. He had short words for Morgan, though: he said it was plain their designs were known to the Spanish, and that all that lay ahead was starvation and ambush, and they’d best turn back now and cut their losses.

Morgan heard him out, and then he began to talk. So artfully! Yes, he said, it would be a great thing if they were ambushed. The Spanish cowards surely had food with them, and horses. He could fancy a lovely bit of broiled horseflesh, sizzling from the fire, belike washed down with the curious dark wine of Peru, or maybe a maize-cake baked in the ashes. And what viands there’d be in Panama! Pickled fish, and sugared cates, beefsteaks, sherry sack such as the rich bishops and cardinals supped, white cheeses and oranges…

Tender and lewd as a procurer he spoke, and all men hearing him groaned with hunger, and felt the painful rumblings of their bellies. John’s own mouth watered so he was near to drowning. Morgan said it was never his custom to be a tyrant; he preferred all parties in agreement whenever possible. So, he said, he’d put it to them: whether they would venture on to feasts and plunder, or slink back like starving curs. And if they were to go on, perhaps they’d agree to leave all but a few of the canoes and march overland, now that the way was open and plain?

Which last made excellent sense, to men sick of fighting through the river mud. So they shouted that they’d go on, and some abused Smeeks for a coward. But Morgan graciously bid them leave off, saying that Smeeks was surely as good as the next man. Smeeks stalked away from him scowling. He had his revenge in time, though it cost him dear.

The next day they set off, with the main body of the men marching and others following in canoes, very much easier now that the damn things weren’t packed to the gunwales. A little after sunrise some of the boucaniers cried out that they’d spotted an Indian watching them from the woods, and took off in pursuit. They lost him, or there’d likely have been servings of long pork for breakfast, so sharp-set they were.

Around noon Bob Plum, marching near the front, shaded his hand with his eyes and stared hard into the distance.

“There’s smoke up there,” he said. Just as the words left his mouth, they heard a cry from the guide who had gone ahead in the lightest of the canoes: Emboscada! Emboscada!

“Take ’em!” said Morgan, and drawing his cutlass he led the charge, men following him like so many roaring lions. Oh, for grilled flesh, and maize-cakes, and wine! And now they could see the huts clear, and the smoke, and…

Nothing else.

The smoke hung low in the sunlight, putting a haze on things, but even so it was plain the place had been deserted. The Brethren milled around like ants, baffled and then angry. Morgan said something in Welsh, what, John didn’t know, but it had a blistering kind of sound to it. He stalked over to the guide, who was just coming up to the bank in the canoe.

“What is this place?” he demanded.

“The outpost of Torna Caballos,” said the guide. Blackstone, who’d been poking through some empty provision-bags, turned his head sharply.

Dick Pettibone found a crust of bread, just then, half-charred from being in the ashes, and straightaway another man made a grab for it. Dick backed away, clutching the crust; the other fellow made to open Dick’s guts with his cutlass, and only the fact that Morgan drew his pistol and fired stopped him.

“Now by God, the next man to raise his hand will get a bullet between his eyes,” said Morgan. “And I leave it to you all to imagine what kind of burial he shall have, look you. Go search the huts! See if any provision was left.”

John saw that Blackstone had already slipped off to the huts, and he followed after.

“Wasn’t this the place where you were bid to look for your lost prince? Torna Caballos?”

“The same,” said Blackstone, throwing back the door of one shelter. Nothing but a dirt floor scattered with straw, and a few dirty hammocks hanging from the ceiling beam.

“Looks like you been done again, then,” said John. Blackstone only gave him a disgusted sort of look and went outside to the next hut. From the shouts of disappointment echoing across the clearing, it was plain no food had been left anywhere.

At the fourth hut they tried, something was different; their boots thudded with a hollow noise as they stepped inside. John looked down and saw that the floor was made of wood.

“This must be the mayor’s house, eh?” he said. Blackstone looked down absent-mindedly, then looked away; then looked back, with gimlet eyes.

“There’s a cellar under this,” he said, bouncing experimentally. Sure enough, there was a hollow sort of boom from under his feet. John took a straw and bent down, poking it between the planks. It vanished its whole length into the dark without touching anything. He reached for another straw, from the heap that had been placed conveniently on the floor, and Blackstone caught his arm. One scuff of his boot through the straw-heap laid bare the trap door underneath.

John drew his pistol. Blackstone drew his too. With his free hand he caught the ring and threw the door back, aiming down into the dark.

“Don’t shoot!” cried someone from below.

John was so hungry, and so tantalized by the thought of hams or wine or whatever else might be hidden down there, that he jumped in straightaway. He landed fair on his feet and saw a fearful-looking Spaniard, and behind him a second figure sitting against the wall. So much he noticed before he saw the provision bags hanging from the ceiling, and as Blackstone descended the ladder John tore a bag down, and stuffed his mouth with dry bread and jerked meat.

The Spaniard had fallen to his knees in entreaty. As he saw John’s boots he began to weep with relief.

“Thank God, you have come,” he said. “I thought you were the pirates.”

John grinned with his mouth full and was on point of telling the poor devil the truth of it, but Blackstone raised his hand.

“Where is His Highness?” he said.

The Spaniard got to his feet. Stepping to one side, he indicated the seated figure.

“Here, señor,” he said.

Blackstone looked horrified, and John didn’t much blame him. The man who sat there didn’t fit John’s idea of a prince. He was naked but for some raggedy breeches, without a hair anywhere on his body; not so much as an eyelash. His skin was white as salt and he had a swollen kind of look, like a drowned man. The blank moon-face was as placid as smooth water in a millpond.

Blackstone went down on one knee before him.

“Have I the honor of addressing His Royal Highness, Prince Maurice von Simmern?” he asked.

“He cannot answer you, I am afraid, señor,” said the Spaniard.

Blackstone looked round, his eyes blazing. “What have you done to him?” he said.

The Spaniard gave a little cough. “We have done nothing, señor. His Highness’ lamentable condition is entirely his own doing.”

Blackstone got to his feet. “You had better explain.”

John had begun to feel a little sick by this time, what with the food he’d gobbled down so fast and the queer way the cellar stank, so he didn’t pay as much attention as he might have, but what the Spaniard explained was: that many years before the crew of a Spanish galleon weathered a fearful storm at sea, and put into an islet to repair their gear. There on the sand was a new-wrecked ship, the Defiance , and lashed to her mast was a man, still alive.

He was taken prisoner, along with a half-dead servant they found belowdecks, and shipped off for interrogation to Hispaniola. There, the viceroy learned that the prisoner was close kin to the English king in exile (as he was then). The Spanish hadn’t loved Oliver Cromwell particularly, so the viceroy put the royal prisoner in rather better rooms than were usually given to English heretics, and then wrote to Spain to ask, what should he do next?