Chapter 2
Surat, on the Gulf of Khambhat
West coast of India
Lønesom Vind shifted at anchor as the tide raised the river under her, making her sweating captain sway on the ratlines lowered from her waist. The movement scarcely delayed Strand, who was far slimmer than he’d been when ship and crew had first been chartered by the USE mission.
Despite—or perhaps because of—the weight loss, he felt better than he had in years, and certainly far better than he had the last time he’d endured the Indian heat. In fact, the entire crew was, as a result of the up-timer’s dietary regimen, more fit than any he’d served with.
Feet on the deck of the Vind again, Captain Rune Strand smiled.
And now, to go with our good health, great wealth! At long last, we have the firman of trade the up-timers sought for us! He spun the bag hanging from his shoulder around and opened it, drawing the beribboned and medallion-strewn scroll into the light. Of course, the firman had also been accompanied by a request from John for two of the special shells the USE Navy had supplied for Lønesom Vind’s guns, but he was sure and certain they could be spared.
Eager to share the good news with his oldest companion, he looked aft and up. Loke stood looking downriver, out toward the open ocean.
Assuming the man was staring out toward the sea with the longing all of them felt, he quickly mounted the steps.
Loke didn’t turn to face him, leaning hard on the rail. “Captain—”
“Loke, we have it! We have the—” The good news died on his lips as his eyes followed the path of the younger man’s gaze.
Three small galleys were rowing, hard, upriver. Even at the distance he could see naked blades and no few bows were in the hands of those not hauling at oars. And they were approaching from the wrong direction to be soldiers of a local zamindar’s or even the mansabdar’s garrison troopers.
In fact…he turned and looked to the distant castle, city, and docks, which were just now reacting to the galleys. Poor sailors at the best of times, the local soldiery would be no help to the ships riding at anchor. Worse still, the crew had just completed a careening of Vind, and Strand, in an abundance of caution, had ordered Lønsom Vind as far from the castle as he dared. Sailors in the east never knew when the local potentate would decide that taking a European vessel was just the thing to solve a treasury problem, and being under the castle’s guns made him twitchy.
“Pirates, in Surat?” Loke asked, his wave taking in the other ships just upriver and in the deepest part of the channel, including the vast bulk of the junk owned by Jahanara Begum Sahib for the use of pilgrims en route to Mecca. “Won’t the emperor come down on them like the wrath of God?”
“With what navy? And, besides”—Strand gestured with the scroll—“we’ve had news from inland: the emperor is dead.”
Loke nodded toward the approaching galleys. “They heard before we did?”
“Seems so.” He considered shouting for his men to man the guns, but didn’t want to precipitate an attack on his ship if the pirates had another in mind.
“Timed their approach to ride the tidal bore,” Loke said.
“Eases the current they must fight and gives them an onshore wind,” Strand agreed.
The galleys altered course, settling into a staggered line on a direct course for Lønsom Vind.
“Fordømt!” he cursed. Just when things were looking up.
Loke made better use of his tongue, cupping his hands and bellowing, “Pirates! All hands to arms! Light your cords!”
Lønesom Vind erupted in shouts and the pounding of feet and, within moments, the stink of match cords from the leader of each gun team.
Strand spent the next few heartbeats estimating time, distance, and numbers. Disgusted, he shook his head and spat over the rail. “Axes, Loke. Cut the anchor line.”
“But—”
The captain cut him off. “You know I hate losing such an expensive piece of kit as much as the next ship’s master, but we’ll get perhaps one good broadside as she turns with the current, more than we would if we tried to bring it in.” He left unsaid that anchors could be replaced far more readily than lives and, while she didn’t have a great many, the cannon of the Lønsom Vind could very well even the odds, especially if the loads acquired just before they left Hamburg worked as well as the USE Navy man claimed.
If.
Loke nodded, relayed the orders.
Axes started falling as Strand bellowed to the waist of the ship: “Special load!”
“Special load, aye!”
One man of each gun team retrieved a heavy wooden cylinder and shoved it home atop the powder bag already packed in.
“Loaded-ed-ed.” The shouts of each gun’s team leader made a stammer as each gun was rolled into battery.
“Damn them,” Strand muttered, watching the shadow of the mast as the ship started to swing. “Men aloft. We’ll need some sail for after.”
“Yes, Captain!” Loke again relayed his orders. “They make a brave show, eh?” he asked, watching the pirates again.
“That they do…” He calculated distances and angles, drew a deep breath, and called, “Make ready! Two guns to a boat, aye?”
“Aye!” the gun captains shouted among themselves, designating their targets.
The crews quivered, as prepared as could be expected.
“Think the Navy man was exaggerating?” Loke asked.
Strand shrugged. “That’s why I’m going to let them get closer than he claimed necessary.”
The lead galley had a small piece affixed across the bow. It boomed, belching off-white smoke and sending its shot skipping across the water to drown a few paces short of the Lønesom Vind.
Loke sighed, answered the look his captain shot him with: “I’d hoped they might try and parley.”
The other two galleys turned slightly, angling to maximize the volleys from the mass of bowmen they carried along the raised walkway running the length of the little ships.
Arrows began arcing toward the USE ship.
“That’s not a good sign.”
Strand nodded and, judging the time right, bellowed, “Fire!”
The starboard side of his ship erupted in a series of horrendous bangs followed by a peculiar sound he’d never heard before, something like the world’s largest, angriest nest of wasps flying very fast away from him.
The gun captains started their men on the reloading process as the smoke cleared.
Strand didn’t think a second volley would be necessary.
All three boats were drifting, decks awash in blood and less identifiable remains of men, oars stilled and sails shredded.
He’d once been on the dock when a ship’s magazine exploded at anchor, sending slivers of timber hundreds of paces through the air with man-killing force. A lighter had been approaching the vessel when it went off, and every man aboard it had been screaming for mercy.
Lønesom Vind’s guns had each discharged a mass of lead balls with similar—and far better-directed—force to that explosion. The result was carnage so great, so total, the sharks that cruised upriver would struggle to find a morsel large enough to fight over.
The sound of Loke throwing up was loud in the silence that followed.
“Dear God,” Strand breathed.
Men, like rats, often survive even the most devastating of blows.
So it was with the pirates: a few screams at first, then some slight movement from the galleys, men grasping oars or lost limbs, lathered in the blood of their companions.
* * *
The local mansabdar sent a small galley out to check on Lønesom Vind some hours after the—Strand dared not call it a skirmish, but couldn’t bring himself to call it a massacre, either—and had finally settled on—volley. Strand didn’t begrudge them the time: finding a translator was a time-consuming problem, especially since the English had their firman revoked and been forcibly evicted. In the end they used a local to translate Gujarati to Dutch, which Strand spoke passably well, even if he’d been told by his wife his accent was horribly thick.
He was surprised to see the expensive robe the leader of the delegation wore, and even more surprised as the man was introduced as mansabdar of the local imperial forces; so surprised it required him a few moments to catch up to the conversation and ask, “Beg pardon?”
“Who were these men that attacked you?” the translator repeated as his client eyed the Lønesom Vind’s guns.
“Abyssinians, from their look,” Strand said, shrugging. The distances involved made that unlikely, but he didn’t know enough about the region’s coastal communities to say otherwise.
“You took no prisoners?”
“We tried, but several jumped overboard, fearing we would fire on them again. The sharks…” He blinked to quell the memory, swallowed before continuing, “Well, the sharks had them before we could attempt a rescue. Their wounded did not survive the wait.”
The mansabdar nodded, said something Strand didn’t quite catch and the translator didn’t deign to illuminate.
Biting back impatience, Strand asked, “What’s that?”
“Swalley Hole. The English used it. Not best place, but enough to shelter one, two deep ships while waiting for firman. Mansabdar just had word from news writer: Now the English gone, pirates come. Try and take goods.”
“What of the Portos?” The Portuguese had nearly a hundred years of history in these waters, and had long since established a system of extorting pilgrims and traders heading to Mecca. Sometimes they even did what they were paid to do, and protected shipping. Certainly they were an ever-present threat to everyone.
A waggle of the head that could mean anything. “Many ships at Goa, not so many north. Especially without monsoon wind to carry trade.”
Strand pointedly looked to the shore and the many light galleys of the mansabdar’s fleet drawn up along it and asked, “So, what will be done to ensure our safety?”
The mansabdar grinned, pointed at Lønesom Vind’s cannon, and said something to the effect of: “What, you’re worried, even with those?”
Strand held up the copy of the firman. “Trade is made more difficult aboard ship, and this is the emperor’s surety of our safety.”
The man sobered, cocked his head, and said something lengthy and complicated. The translator, however, said flatly, “Which one?”
The captain resisted the urge to grab the translator by his robe and throw him overboard, but only just.
The translator must have realized how angry he’d made the big Dane because he quickly added, “Truly, all is in doubt. All mansabs must be”—he visibly groped for the proper word before finding it—“confirmed…by new emperor. Each recipient must declare their support for their preferred claimant.”
Strand’s brows knitted together, trying to piece together what that meant and hoping it didn’t mean what it seemed to.
The noble went and said something more, grin reappearing in his beard.
Eyeing Strand warily, the translator dutifully said, “Do not fear, all things according to His will, in His time.”
Damn, it does mean what I thought.
* * *
“This is not good,” Loke said as they watched the galley head ashore.
“No, it is not,” Strand said. “The fellow did say we could likely get away with trading on the firman we have, so long as we get it confirmed as soon as possible.”
“But, isn’t there going to be a war for the throne?”
“I assume so.”
“So why was that man grinning?”
Strand shrugged. “What mercenary isn’t happy at the prospect of a new contract?”
“But I thought mansabdar was a noble title? Such glee hardly seems fitting.”
“I thought so, as well. But then so is a zamindar, and I have yet to speak to one of those…” He knuckled the rail in frustration. “I am not sure how they define such things, but suffice to say it must be very different to what we are used to.”
“And what if the war comes here before the Mission returns?” Loke asked.
“It doesn’t bear thinking on. Without a cargo…”
“We’ve been at anchor too long. The men are already about to lose their minds.”
“That is so.” He sighed. “No use borrowing trouble that has yet to come home to roost.”