The Randy Porpoise
The tavern keeper gripped the wheel lock he kept beneath the bar and whispered to two of his regulars he knew carried daggers to be ready. The one was old and the other was young, and so both would wind up dead. But he had nothing and no one else to work with.
The Knight of the Order lounging toward the back, conversing with a few of the mercenaries, leapt to his feet and dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword. He couldn't hope to make it through the mass or to give a fair fight in such close quarters, but his brother had died on the Ste. Geoffrey.
The serving girls caught their breath, fear and lust mingling in their lungs. Maria stiffened and searched in vain for a weapon. Her father had died on the Ste. Geoffrey.
A pack of fishermen already unsettled by the Company crossed to the door and out into the night. Whatever this was about, it wasn't worth dying for like the poor bastards on the Ste. Geoffrey.
Captain sensed the mood of the locals shift suddenly. Even through the crowd and the wine, it didn't take him long to see why.
"They don't like you," he said, cheerfully, as Saul reached the table, his movements lithe and sure, the tattoo on his back leaving snarls and fearful saucer eyes in his wake.
"A small town on a small island, Captain. These people fear those they do not know," the other man said, casting his gaze over the tavern. He fixed his eyes on David and shook his head, a slight smile playing at his lips. "And they are terrified of those they do. I will be... An unpopular companion, I'm afraid. Which is why we have made our camp at the half mark between Medina and the bay."
David nodded.
"That may be for the best anyway. We try to travel light and the extra numbers will throw off our march. And a rearguard could keep an eye on the road out of here."
"And protect the supply lines. I have ordered Rashid and Captain Omar to fan their men across the island in small groups. The Damnation shall hug the coastline east with them, and together they should provide ample warning of the Turks movements behind us and at sea."
"You're comfortable dividing your forces like that?" David asked, arching an eyebrow. Saul chuckled.
"We are very different, my dear Captain. My people have much experience with this kind of work, and they shall do it well." He smiled warily. "Much better than walking in step and lining up to be shot in the dust."
"If the Turks find..."
"They won't. "
David shrugged.
"It solves more than one of our problems. I won't argue. It is a shame that..."
The tavern keeper cut him off with a fist on the center of their table. The glint of a pistol in his hand was unmistakable; that he was aiming it at Saul was too. But the shaking hand and loose grip did not impress Captain, and by the cool gaze he'd fixed on the man it seemed it didn't impress Saul either.
"What is the Hand doing in my tavern?" he hissed.
"Enjoying a glass of wine with me," Captain answered, his voice steady. He then gestured at the goblet and raised his eyebrows at Saul. "I haven't offered you any."
"How remiss," Saul said, grinning. He accepted some and drank it smoothly.
"You bring business. I like that. Your crowd is a mite lively, but you pay in silver. Real silver we haven't seen in a while. But he ain't welcome here. Neither are you, if you share a table with the Bastard of Algiers."
"Careful. Your mayor has welcomed us."
"And my mother was a saint."
"A filthy Mohammedan whore!”
“But a saint nonetheless.”
“You might,” Henri slurred, his head resting on the table he‘d found in place of the door, “be a touch more politic about this. It’s such a lovely place. I’d hate it if they threw us out.”
“More to the point,” Saul said, “he’s waving a pistol at me.”
“Is he? Yes, I suspect he would be. You’re a damned pirate afterall. Is he going to shoot you?”
“He should.”
“That,” Henri said, rubbing his forehead back and forth against the rim wood, “is a strange thing to say. It is clear to me he shouldn’t shoot you simply for being a pirate any more than he should shoot Cap for being a mercenary. No harm intended, of course, Lord David.”
“None done,” Captain murmured.
“The fact of the matter is, your profession is immaterial to what you are to this individual gentleman, which is a paying customer. It would be foolish for him to shoot paying customers for their professions when his business is... Shall we say, likely to attract the sorts of men whose professions are liable to get them shot.” He lifted his head and caught Saul’s eye. “Almost as foolish as a man saying he should be shot.”
“A very shrewd assessment, but it has one flaw.”
“That being?”
“I sank their galley.”
“Ah.”
“And two years ago we came to visit the famed ruins of a Mosque just north of here.“
“And?“
“We emptied their treasury.“
“And stole the gold horns off the armory,“ the tavern keeper broke in, not at all sure anymore what was going on.
“And stole the gold horns off the armory. As a matter of fact, I believe we stole most of the armory as well.“
“Yes, yes. You did,” he half-shouted, half-puzzled.
“So you see, your assessment suffers for your ignorance of certain facts. It would perhaps have been wise to warn the mayor of my presence.”
“Yes.”
“Given that I have in the past perhaps offended a great many of our hosts.”
“Given that, yes. I revise my assessment in light of new facts.”
“And?”
“He should shoot you.”
“Yes. He should.”
“But he won’t.”
“No,” Saul said, shaking his head. “He won’t.”
The tavern keeper’s grip tightened, but it served only to worsen his trembling.
“He won’t shoot me because he aimed before he walked to the table.”
"You saw him coming?" David asked into the hush, seeing the game now.
“Not to worry, Captain. I am accustomed to these tight and crowded spaces, and I came here in expectation of danger. However, I have not found it. This man will not fire. Men who fire conceal their weapons until the last moment.”
“That’s a gamble,” Chen said.
“Not really,” Henri said, his head on the table again. “He’ll put it away in a moment.”
“And when he does, he may take to the mayor this message: the Red Hands will return what they have stolen three times again in exchange for safe passage through Medina and its hinterlands, and 25 dinarii each to the Maltese here whose evening has been disturbed.”
The locals gasped in unison, and after a moment, as predicted, the tavern keeper lowered his weapon and the Knight of the Order, his brother forgotten, bought a round of drinks.
“You see, Captain,” Saul said, as the air lightened and the din grew up again, “what I say of small towns on small islands.”
David nodded, and after some time, the question he had been denying himself since the corsair had joined him.
“What of you and your daughter? Will you guard the road?”
“No, I and a few of our... Hand-picked people shall travel with the Company, provided we have your leave.” He smiled. “As will Amina.”
“I’m... And there she is.”
And there she was. In powder blue trousers and tunic. The tavern was silenced immediately-first by the shock of her beauty, something Captain himself had still not grown used to, and then by the instantaneous realization of her identity by the locals and finally by the four grim giants who closed in before and behind her. And where they had been an amusing nuisance in the quartermaster’s domain, here, in what was for her and Saul and the rest of them the Lion’s, she was making full use of them.
They were dressed in the same blue, robes tied tight around their pants and vests, flowing behind them toward the hem. Around their waists were various pouches, all blue, and on their backs were enormous red leather scabbards, inscribed in a script he had never encountered in all the journeys and libraries of the Company.
Although they towered above the tallest present, the Russians and Hungarians, what was most unsettling were the veils that shrouded all but the slits of their eyes. Their shrouds and their silence demanded silence in return.
But no, what was most unsettling was how unsettled the Red Hand was at their arrival.
“I have heard, Captain,” he murmured, “that you have invoked campaign law among your men. Is this the same as that practiced by Muslim armies?”
“More or less,” David answered as quietly.
“Good.” Saul glanced at the solemn figures now moving to the corners of the tavern at Amina’s direction, and then fixed him with a serious gaze. “I think you had best belabor the point.”
David began to speak, but was cut short for that was the moment the disgruntled master of the artillery had chosen to make his long-awaited appearance.
