Leaving Las Venice, part I

In which Sir Kendrick experiences life on shipboard enroute to England, and encounters several passengers and members of the crew.

The House of Marco series is generated as part of developing character backstories for the white side of the Human Combat Chess game at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. I play Sir Kendrick Vaughn, the White Queen.

Once again it was morning, and Sir Kendrick Vaughn lounged idly at the taffrail of the Royal English Navy man-o-war Legend, relishing the feel of the wind moving briskly by his face. After the calms of the last few days, he had feared he would be plunged back into the stifling heat that had dogged him throughout his stay in Venice. For days there had been no movement of air at all, and the canvas had hung sullenly from the yards. The air, so full of the absence of wind that one would have thought it could hold no more emptiness, seemed to suck the sound out of the ship as well, so that there was nothing to hear but the distant grumbling of the men in the jolly boat as they strained to row the ship forward. Most conversation had ceased after the second day, and an abstracted air had descended over the entire crew. The rollicking gatherings of an evening ended abruptly on the third evening - even with their daily rum ration, not a one could muster the energy to sing a shanty or dance a horn-pipe for long. The more superstitious among the men declined to even look over the side, for fear of frightening a burgeoning breeze away, and even the more hardheaded among the crew and passengers began to do the same - if more to avoid the scowling sideways glare of an easily offended tar than to protect the easily-offended wind.
Kendrick closed his eyes and faced aft. The wind played gustily with his hair before moving forward to tend to its business with the sails. As if his countenance would frighten a breath of air away, indeed!

It was on the fourth day that things had started to become slightly worrisome. Just because silence seemed to be the watchword for both officers and men, that didn’t mean that there were no grumblings, like the subterranean rumblings prior to a volcanic explosion. Even the less-superstitious sailors were not wildly excited about the presence onboard of not one, but two women (These being, of course, the Lady Marcella and her escort, the Sister Anna Maria) - and a priest, the Cardinal Don Antonio de la Noche. In the shallows of the ordinary seaman’s mind, the worst of luck followed ships with a woman or a priest aboard, and the fact that they had two of one and one of the other meant that they might as well give up and ready themselves to be swallowed by Leviathan straight away.

But the wind had freshened last night from the southwest and they had at last began to make good headway before the morning, when it had turned fitful once again. The refreshing breeze left off its caress of Kendrick’s face briefly, then returned with a strenuous and somewhat unexpected buss. Annoyed, he opened his eyes. He squinted his eyes at the horizon, then abruptly opened his eyes wide. Possible thunderclouds on the horizon were one thing, but wrinkles around his eyes were quite another. He moved to the railing and called into the waist.

“Bosun - a glass here, if you please!”

“Aye, sir!” came the reply, and Edward scrambled quickly up the ladder. “Here you are, sir. Spot something, sir?” His tone indicated the amused contempt - barely concealed - that all naval men exhibited for landsmen, even lords.

Kendrick didn’t reply, but took a long look before snapping the telescope closed and handing it back to the mate. “I suggest you attempt to extricate that captain of yours from his cabin. It looks as if we’re in for a bit of heavy weather.”

The bosun glanced through the glass briefly at the already darkening sky behind. “Aye, so it seems, sir. Not unusual weather for this time o’ year sir, and that’s the truth. You get a calm that lasts days, and then a storm that’s been piling on speed all the way from the Americas - a gift from our Spanish friends over there, we say, no offence to the his eminence, sir - and god ha’ mercy on the laggard caught in its way, and that’s us this time, sir.”

“Indeed. And your captain..?” prompted Kendrick.

“Oh, we’d best leave ‘im where he is, sir, and that’s the truth. The mate’ll have us all trimmed and running before the storm before you could convince the captain to show ‘is nose, meanin’ no disrespect. A fine man, our captain, none finer, but, well -” he hesitated.

“No head for the sea?” suggested Kendrick.

The mate barked a laugh. “Oh, very good sir, very good indeed - uh,” he hastened to explain, seeing Kendrick’s raised eyebrow - “Y’see, that’s what we call the, uh...the, uh...the privy sir, so when you said -”

“I see,” remarked Kendrick, his tone cold as the freshening breeze. “How the laughter must make the evenings fly by up in that - what d’you call it-” he gestured, “up front.”

“Fo’c’sle, sir, yes sir,” Said the suddenly subdued bosun. “Erm - ah, here’s the mate sir, perhaps you might want to head below? We’ll be awfully busy up here in a moment, sir.”

Kendrick nodded to Christian, the mate, and proceeded into the cramped stench that was belowdecks on one of Her Majesty’s ships of war. They had passed a few slave galleys on their way to the Atlantic, and the smell here was in no way comparable to that nasal festering, but it was bad enough. Even after a few days, it seemed to expand to fill all the available space, and it was for this reason Kendrick had spent a considerable amount of time on deck. Why, if he stayed below the smell might sneak into his clothes, and that would never do. On a whim, he moved aft to the captain’s cabin, using his stick to steady him in the already swelling seas.

To his surprise, he found the captain’s nephew Jareth squatting outside the door and whispering urgently through the keyhole. ‘Uncle! I mean, captain,” he hastily corrected himself. “Please! There’s a storm coming!”

“I don’t want to know!” groaned a voice. “First we spend four ghastly days not moving at all, and now I can’t get the floor to stop moving! Or the walls! Or the ceiling!”

“Sir-!” began Jareth, then spotted Kendrick behind him. He straightened up and tugged his forelock - just like one of the pressed men, noted Kendrick distastefully. The captain should take better care of his nephew’s education than to let him run loose as a savage among the beasts! “Oh! Good morning, sir!”

“Not for long, I fancy,” replied Kendrick brusquly. He raised his voice a trifle. “Any chance your uncle might make an appearance before this storm - the biggest I’ve ever seen at sea, I’d wager - pounces upon us and rends us like a tiger?” He was rewarded with a heartfelt groan from behind the door, and a sudden grin on Jareth’s face - quickly banished to be replaced by a serious look.

“No, sir. Feeling poorly, sir.” Jareth leaned forward and spoke in a confidential voice. “I reckon this’ll be his last voyage, sir. He’s not made for wide open spaces such as the sea, sir. On land, there’s none braver, on my honour. He should’ve followed me Mam’s advice, sir, and joined the Army. But he had a stroke of bad luck.”

“Ah? And what stroke could have severed the ties of a man so obviously bound to the land, and not to” Kendrick raised his voice again, “The vast, heaving, briny sea?”

There was another groan from behind the door.

The nephew grinned again and went on. “He was on his way to join the army in London, when the Queen happened to be parading by. Right in front of her there was a largish puddle, sir, and Uncle was always brung up as a gentleman, sir, even though we didn’t always have money, and was taught to be respectful of womenfolk, and especially Her Majesty, God save ‘er. So he leaps forward, tears off his brand-new cloak that me Mam had sewn for him, and laid it down over the puddle so Her Majesty shant get her foot wet. Well, her Majesty smiles and tramples onward, and when she gets to the far side, she says to Uncle, “Get ye up, and take a deal o’ thanks for such a gentlemanly thing,” only she says it in a ever so much more lordly way, if you follow me sir. Then she says, “As you have covered so well this puddle, it is now Our Royal wish that you cover Our oceans and protect England from a foreign wetting,” or some such, and made ‘im captain on the spot! And before you know it, he’s out on the waters, with nothing for miles but sea washing up and down, him that as would get oneasy in the middle of a smallish hayfield, and that’s the truth, sir.”

Jareth’s voice had risen as his story proceeded, and had apparently been penetrating the panel behind, for as he finished, the door was yanked open, and Captain Farrington stood in the doorway - his shirt unbuttoned, eyes bloodshot, and his hair matted and lank upon a deathly pale face. “It’s all true,” he sighed wretchedly, holding the doorframe in a deathgrip. “Let that be a lesson to you, boy, about the capricious nature of Royal gratitude. I promise you,” he shook a finger at Kendrick, before a swell forced him to make a grab at the frame again, “I promise you, upon my word as a - a seaman, that if I manage to get this awful little bobbing-cork masquerading as a boat back to Southampton dock, I will nail it there before I let it sail again! Now, if you’ll excuse me-” The door slammed. His nephew looked helplessly at Kendrick, who shrugged. As he proceeded up the passageway, he heard the boy’s fierce whispering begin again, punctuated by groans in response.

They quite quickly were overtaken in volume by the wind, which had apparently ceased its gusting and settled down in earnest for a good blow. He could hear shouting on deck, and the thump of mens’ feet as they ran hither and thither, battening things down, or whatever it was that they did. He descended another ladder, privately cursing the sheer indignity of it all - to think, he, clambering around on ladders like an African monkey - and when he turned, he was face to face with the Don Antonio.

“Why, your eminence,” he bubbled, instantly smoothing away his irritated frown into an innocent smile. “I am surprised to find you out of your delightful accomodations. I am wending my way toward mine even as we speak-”

“As you speak, you mean,” interrupted the Cardinal shortly . “And my quarters stink. The entire ship stinks, and now I hear there is a storm coming. This will not, I think, improve the smell.”

“A storm, indeed,” replied Kendrick, winching up the cheer another notch. Though he had known Don Antonio de la Noche for years, and was as close to him as an English Anglican could be to a Spanish Jesuit in these times, he couldn’t help tweaking the Cardinal’s nose - at least metaphorically speaking. The man was astoundingly dour for a Spaniard, and nothing drove him half as mad as relentless, bubbly chatter. “It reminds me of a storm that I once saw sweeping across the moors of my northern estates - well, of course, my estates aren’t quite as expansive as the vast deep that surrounds, but I flatter myself that they are not inconsiderable, and the sight of the thunderclouds as they-”

“Sí, sí -” broke in the Cardinal. His noticeably thicker accent betrayed his impatience, and Kendrick surpressed a smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Señor Kendrick, I would find the ladies and ensure they are prepared.”

“Ah, I wouldn’t do that, myself,” said Kendrick brightly, turning a sudden lurch of the ship into a pirouette that placed him in Don Antonio’s path again. “You see, the Lord Marco, after practically dragging his sister on board by force-”

“She was escorted by Sister Anna Maria, a highly respected nun-”interrupted de la Noche hotly.

“Yes, exactly. Come, my dear Cardinal, in your long career in the Church, have you never known a nun...” he paused slyly, and the Cardinal’s face purpled. Kendrick laughed inwardly and continued, “...who had no means of persuasion besides the merely spiritual at her disposal? I promise you, a switch to your backside, begging your eminence’s pardon, is the least of their arsenal. For titulary Brides of Christ, they can be quite devilish, indeed. But as I was saying, Lady Marcella was nun-handled on board, then confined to her quarters by the Lord Marco, who then proceeded to ignore her for the next several weeks. There is a severe shaking-about in the offing, and as you so cleverly adduced, there is the smell which, despite a lifetime living next to the open sewers that are the streets of Venice, a lady such as she is not quite accustomed to. Do you see my meaning?”

The Cardinal was visibly hesitating. “Do you mean, Señor Kendrick...?”

“I mean, my friend,” said Kendrick smoothly, “That the storms above will be as nothing like the storms here below, and if you do not wish to be the anvil upon which the feminine hammer of a roused Vulcaness vents her fury, I suggest you leave her Ladyship safely confined.”

The Cardinal stood for a moment as a wary look crept across his face. Warrior of God, indeed, snickered Kendrick to himself. You’re still a man, my friend, and there was never a man born that didn’t fear a woman’s raging above even a heathen horde. “Perhaps you are right, Señor Kendrick,” de la Noche said at last. “I will, I think...return to my cabin. With the air moving throughout the ship...I feel the smell has dissipated somewhat. Good day to you, my friend, and may God bring us all safely through His storm.”

“May He, indeed,” answered Kendrick, bowing his head slightly. That’s one you owe me, Lady, he thought as he watched de la Noche stumble off in the increasingly pitching ship.

And now, to find a place to rest my sea legs until this is over. Kendrick considered a bit, then patted his pouch, in which he felt the cheerful outline of a deck of cards. With a smile on his face, he made his way to Marco’s quarters.