By THLaird Colyne Stewart
My name is known only to my mother, but the men on my ship
call me Cap’n Bloodfox. (At least to me ears. I’m sure they call me other names
behinds me back, but they’re all smart enough to know what’ll happen to ‘em if
I hear ‘em utter such names.) I am, as me name implies, the proud owner of a
ship—a schooner that was once part of Her Majesty’s fleet. If you look
carefully under the paint you can still see her old name of Huntress. Nowadays
I calls her Interceptor.
When I was in port at a cove in Greenhithe I heard some lads
talkin’ about a group of raiders heading down the river from Petrea Thule. Them
Thuligans were apparently aiming to put the shire of Bastille du Lac under
their ‘protection’. The du Lacers were rightly nervous, as the might of the Thule archers is well
known (I have a few on my own paybooks.)
Well I’m always lookin’ for work or booty (preferably booty
that don’t take too much work to acquire) and so’s when one of them du Lacers
comes over to my table and offers me a job, I takes it of course.
The offer was good, though I ain’t gonna share with you
scurvy lot jus’ what was offered. Let’s just saw it’ll keep me in rum and
parrots for a good long time.
I went to me ship and me woman, a cap’n in her own right who
we calls Widow, had already got it rigged. She said she could smell profit in
the air. I threw on me greatcoat and told me navigator Mr. Andersen to get us
underway. Mr. Andersen’s an odd one, from Norway as I understands. Thinks
he’s a Viking.
Our ship sailed up the Trent
without running across any of Her Majesty’s fleet, and we berthed in the
Bastille port. Far out in the distance I could see the Thule ship approaching. Mr. Andersen told me
it was a drakkar. Alls I know was it was an ugly thing with a long curved prow,
and it sat too low in the water. Round shields were hung along both sides
painted with Thule ’s
star and chain.
Since we could see that it would b e
a few hours yet afore they arrived, the lads decided to practice with our
swords and harpoons just in case the fighting came to boardin’. The first thing
we did was lay out a plank over the water and took turns pairin’ off and
fightin’ on it. If’n ya fell off the plank, well, you were good as shark food
you were.
Then this fellow comes over, the local constable he is, but
he thinks he’s a knight or some such. I swear, the folks ‘round these parts are
touched in the head more of’en than not. Well this constable, he decides we
should up the ante as it were, and he took down the plank and he put a small
rowboat in the drink, and he says we’re to stand in the itty dingy, one in the
bow and one in the stern and fight it that way. All ten men and women would
take a turn until they had all fought each other.
This sounded like fun to us, though the cramped fightin’
conditions were a hindrance to many of us. In a fight against a Welshman named
Dafydd I ended up sitting on my duff on the seat whilst we continued to trade
blows. This constable, who’s idea this was, ended up fallin’ in the drink more
than once. He was a soggy lad b y the
time we was done. One feller, name of Rothgar (also from Norway , gar!) came in late, so’s he
fought us all in a row and did right well for himself, I must say. Over all
though, it was a German name of Siegfried
who come out on top.
The town bell started ringing then, and we knew it was time
to pick up our bows to fight off them Thuligans. So’s we line up on the shore
as the drakkar draws closer and we ready our bows. Only thing is, the Thuligans
are smart devils and they had sent a group of their own archers in by land.
So’s while we’re shooting at the Thule
ship, these archers are shootin’ at the Bastille ship that was going out to
meet the drakkar. What’s more, the Iron Companions, which is part o’ the army
of Septentria, were marching with ’em.
The arrows flew thicker than flies on a dead man, and I am
sorry to say that the Bastille ship was the one to sink beneath the waves. Ar,
that was hard luck. But I had b een
paid already, so’s it’s all the same to me.*
With that bit o’ excitement out of the way I went back over
to the lads for a bit more swashbuckling. This time they locked all us lads up
in a cell and told us that we had to fight our way out if’n we ever wanted to
be free men again. I swear I thought that was a ploy by the constable to keep
us all locked up, but they placed only three guards and left us our weapons. So
one by one we rushed the first guard. We only had to hit the guard once to get
past him, whiles he had to hit us thrice. The first guard was that Siegfried fellow. Not many of us made it past him
(including me, I am sorry to say). The second guard was a man by the name of Aaron Worgenson who chopped a good many of the lads
down to size. The last guard they later told me was the King hisself! Only two
managed to get past him—the Baron of Skraeling Althing, and a lad named
Benedict, who is this baron’s squire. The constable puts ‘em both in the itty
boat, and makes ‘em fight it out! Well they fight long and hard, but in the end
it’s the baron that walks away.
We then thought we’d play a game, and so we grabbed a bunch
of folk and put a bag over their heads and tied their hands in front of ‘em. It
was great fun to watch ‘em wriggle like a worm while they tried to free
themselves. The first six people to undo their bonds were then sat at a table
with bowls of seaweed plunked in front of ‘em. Some of those tryin’ to eat that
dry weed had a hard time of it, but this lass in red satin and a big furry hat
name o’ Iolanda just gobbles it down! That Siegfried
put all the weed in his gob at once, and then couldn’t swallow it as it sucked
up all his spit. One o’them Thuligan archer chaps, named Augustyn, was watchin’
this while quite calmly eatin’ his weed little bit by little bit. In the ends, Siegfried just manages to swallow his great mass of
weed at the same time that Augustyn finishes his last pinch. So’s they take
these three and b lindfold ‘em all,
and make them walk through a stretch of ground strewn with debris, while a
friend tries to talk ‘em through it. Augustyn made it in the fastest time, as
he took very long strides.
All of us are right famished b y
this point, so’s we descend on the wharf-side inn where we is all stuffed right
full of some o’ the best grub I’d et in a long while. The ‘chicken’ though
looked a lot like me parrot (who had b een
missing all day).
After we had all et our fill, me woman Widow is dragged off
by the constable to see the king. Visions of gallows is now flashing through me
head, but in a weird twist of fate they wants her to stand at court and read
out charges, rather than answer them.
As luck would have it, all the charges is good ones anyways.
It seems the king was in a generous mood, even with Thuligan pirates claiming
one of his shires as their own. So’s he calls up some folks and gives ‘em their
rewards, though I don’t know them all. I do know that this lad name of Verenko
was given an Award of the Orion, even though he didn’t already have his Award of
Arms (the AoA now being conferred b y
the Orion). Also Lord Kennric Manning and Lady Tatiianna were given these
Orions as well for their fine craftwork. Also, that Benedict bloke, who
apparently did not die of the wounds his baron kindly gave him, was given a
Scarlet Banner in recognition of his skill with the blade.
Once the court was over, me and my crew snuck out the back
door to avoid that constable and we snuck outta the bay under cover of
darkness. My sword was bloodied, my belly was full and my purse was jinglin’,
so I was a happy man.
* The denizens of Petrea Thule had constructed two very
large Norse ships for archery targets. Each ship—complete with sail—was lined
with shields. Behind the shields stuck up heads that were the actual target.
Those on the Thule
ship were actually painted to resemble Thuligans. To play the game, a line of
eight archers for each side fired at the ship belonging to the other side. If
target 1 was knocked down on the Bastille ship, then archer 1 on the Bastille
line was out of the game. After each volley, the line advanced one step. Each
archer only had six arrows, and did not have to fire if they wanted to try and
save them until they were closer. Once the first line had shot all their
arrows, secondary line archers could take the spots of any ‘dead’ archers. It
worked very well and was a lot of fun. A rousing wassail is deserved for all
the effort, energy and imagination that went into that game!
No comments:
Post a Comment