Chapter 37
As Mary worked on cleaning up Liza’s wound as best she could, shouts rose
up from outside the ship. John smiled.
“The dyab say that the battle is over. They have killed all of the white
devils.” Then his face fell. “Oh, but not quite, it seems. Ach! Too bad for
him! They have caught one of the devils!”
Liza bolted upright. “We must go and see what they are doing. John, I am
serious, they cannot do anything to the man. I will not allow it, custom or
not.”
John put his hands up. “Alright, alright. We will go see what is going
on.” He went over and looked down the hatch and yelled down, speaking to the pirates
still below. Soon they all climbed out and helped John unfurl a rope ladder off
the side of the ship. Within a few minutes Liza and Mary found themselves
surveying the battlefield. Liza waved as she saw Will, Moto, the General and
the Colonel coming over from Henri’s ship. They seemed no worse for wear.
“Liza!” Will shouted, his expression shocked as Liza cheerfully waved. It
was only a sharp pain that reminded her of how she must look, her bloused
soaked in blood.
“I am alright! Grazed is all!”
The General picked up his pace and so was breathing fairly hard when he
got to where Liza was standing.
“Young lady! You are hurt! Unacceptable.”
“General sir, I have checked her out, she is okay, I promised!” Mary
said, giving Liza a sideways smile.
“Well, still not acceptable.”
The Colonel tottered up, evidently he had been able to already secure a
bottle of liquid courage. “Are you
alright Mary dear?”
“Yes Uncle!” She said, rolling her eyes.
Soon a small knot of them were standing around as Henri disembarked and
came over. He raised his hands and smiled.
“Wonderful!” He shouted several times. “Good, good!” he said several
more, and then crumpled to the ground.
“Papa!” John yelled. The colonel spun around and for some reason decided
that this was his moment and quickly followed John as he ran to help the fallen
Henri.
“There’s a sniper someplace” Will yelled as he spun, trying to find out
where the person could be hiding.
“Everyone take cover!” Will shouted. Liza spun on her heels too, looking
for a place a sniper might hide.
“Get down!” Will yelled, but Liza did not pay attention and instead
reached for her elephant gun. With one smooth motion she cocked it and brought
it up. She had seen a small cart tied up to a low bank. She aimed at the cart
and then shot just below it. A scream went up and a man limped out from behind
the cart.
“I have him!” Liza yelled just as another shot rang out and the man
crumpled falling into the hard earth face first. Liza spun around to see Will
still holding his pistol out. She glared at him as she put her own gun away.
“I had him Mr Cogsworth.”
“I know, I just… wanted to be
sure…” Will said, sheepishly, but Liza just brushed by him as she ran over the
figure of Henri. John was cradling him in his lap as Mary, who had also rushed
over, tried to stop the bleeding from a large wound in Henri’s shoulder.
“How-“ Liza started but Mary just looked up and shook her head. Within a
moment there were a dozen of the Navassians surrounding the dying king. Liza
eased her way back out of the closing circle. As the pirates formed a wall around
the king she thought she heard a frail voice speaking in Creole.
“Liza, Look, I am sorry-“ Will came up to her as she walked away, she put
her hand up to stop him.
“Not now, not now. We have bigger issues ahead of us Mr. Cogsworth.”
“I wish you would call me Will.”
Liza ignored him. “We need to find the General and cement a plan. With
Henri gone things will be in disarray here, perhaps. We must wrap things up
here and make our way back to England as fast as possible. Ingellsdin will
already be there… Where is the captive?”
Will pointed to a small knot of Arawak who were tying up the last
surviving of Inglessdin’s men to the outside of a basket. The man looked
terrified.
“Stop!” Liza said as she strode up to the group, who looked shocked and
momentarily took a step back. Will ran after her.
“Liza, please, we need to be careful!”
Liza spun on her heels. “Yes.. Will,
we do! We must be careful that these… that the Arawak do not kill this man.”
She continued up to the tied man. “Do you speak English?”
The man nodded and managed to croak out “Yes.”
“Good, tell me, is Ingellsdin here, in the Caribbean. I know he’s not here.”
The man cleared his throat and looked around. “Even if I knew Iw ouldn’t
tell you.” He spat. Liza grimaced.
“Fine, well, then, Will, you are right, useless. Anyone here speak
English” She said looking to the Arawak. The man who had translated the day
before pushed his way forward. He looked at Liza and gave a short bow, which
Liza reflexively returned.
“Please miss, the man here is ours, to take back to the queen.”
“I see, where is your queen?” Liza asked, looking around. The man pointed
to a larger basket behind the pirate balloons. “She is here?” the man nodded.
“Tell me, I am not familiar with your customs, is it possible to… buy or ransom
the captive?”
The translator tilted his head. “He is a great prize…”
Liza smiled, she has traveled enough to know where this was going. The
fact was he could be ransomed; now it was just a matter of deciding the price.
“Let’s go talk to your queen, shall we?”
The man nodded and gave a short order to the men surrounding the captive.
They moved closer to the man, who gave out a pitiful cry. “Wait, miss, take me
with you! I speak Arawak too! This man here will cheat you!”
Liza turned and smiled. “Oh, I hope not, I have such limited funds.
Perhaps not enough?” and then she spun back and walked to the Queen’s
basket.
Will followed Liza and the translator as they went behind the pirate
ships. When they came to the basket they found two large guards in front of it.
The translator said something and the top of the basket popped off. Rather like
a Jack-in-the-Box, the Queen appeared at the top of the basket, at least her
head did. A rapid fire dialog occurred between the Queen and the translator.
After a few back and forth exchange, the translator turned to Liza.
“She says you have no right to the prisoner, and, respectfully, you are
to be off and not bother her about the matter anymore.” The man looked vaguely
worried, but Liza just smiled. Will cleared his throat. Liza glared at him. She
then turned back to the translator.
“Well, yes, of course, but I would like to remind her majesty of several
things. The least of which is that I just saved her life- she could have easily
been the one shot at by the sniper instead of Henri. But that is beside the
point…” Liza paused here, and let he man translate, as she knew it was not
beside the point at all. Then she picked back up.
“Plus, I am to go an argue with the King of England to fetch her a fair
price, am I to be denied this single prisoner? Such a denial would put me in a
most foul mood I suspect. But if I am being honest, I need the man as a
bargaining chip. He will help us weaken the position of Ingellsdin. If he is
dead, that does not help our position…”
After another exchange the man came back, his face wide with a smile.
“Her majesty says you make a good point. 30 gold pieces should be enough.”
Liza sighed inwardly. She has expected at least 100, but she, again, had
been around enough to know how to handle the situation. She let her face fall
and raised her voice a little.
“30? 30! For one man, not even an important man? I was considering being
generous by offering 10. I will say 15, but that is only because of my deep
respect.” She was having trouble not laughing as she saw Will’s face, he looked
shocked.
The man came back quickly. “Her majesty says you have a funny way of
showing respect. 30 was a low offer, because she likes you. 30 stands firm.”
“17, and that is all I have.”
The man shook his head after speaking to the queen. “For you, 28, but she
is growing impatient.” He added in a low voice. Liza smiled.
“Well, he is not worth that much trouble. Tell her to have fun, hope he
is worth 17 coins.” Liza smiled up at the queen and turned to leave. A rapid
and quite angry sounding conversation followed.
“Wait!” the man said “Wait, 25 is all she is willing to do, for the sake
of good will and understanding.”
Liza turned and looked directly at the translator. “22 and I will
personally see to it that the King gives her a medal.”
The man smiled and stuck out his hand “Done!” He said, not even bothering
to translate. He then turned back to the queen, who must have told him to get
the prisoner before Liza changed her mind because the translator fairly ran over,
yelling at the Arawak around the prisoner. Soon they were untying him from the
basket and frog marching him over to Will and Liza.
Will leaned over to Liza. “and how will you secure the queen a medal,
exactly?”
“Oh Will, use your imagination. I’ll lift one of Grandfathers if I have
too, he wouldn’t even miss it.”
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