reposted from the original, 8/17/04
In which the party is caught in a storm at sea, and much is revealed of a storm brewing elsewhere as well.
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 played Sir Kendrick Vaughn, the White Queen.
The storm lashed out wildly and the ship ran before it like a fox before the hounds. The wind, so gentle and caressing just that morning, was now a banshee howl that rendered conversation on deck nearly impossible. The crew was forced to relay commands by staggering up to one another and screaming their messages at a distance of mere inches from the ear of the recipient. Belowdecks, it was hardly any quieter, as the song of the storm was joined by a creaky and groaning chorus from the fleeing ship itself – not to mention the percussive accompaniment of the sea. Limpid and inviting of contemplation in repose, now each wave was a battering wall that sent the ship shuddering and all thoughts scattering as everyone fearfully anticipated the next shuddering impact.
Sir Kendrick Vaughn hardly minded the storm at all. His imperturbility came not from faith in the capability of the crew, although they seemed (With the exception of their reluctant captain) competent enough, though soaked to the skin and weary after hours battling through the battering weather. Nor was it with the confidence of God, for it hardly seemed worthwhile to offer up his own half-hearted prayers when the communiqués of a Jesuit Cardinal were undoubtedly rising (Surely buoyed by the nunnish fervor of Sister Anna Maria) from the cabin next door on a far more direct route to the Holy Seat. Rather, Kendrick left his trust in the unspoken proposition that existed between him and the Neptunian deeps – he would refrain from interference in the ocean’s affairs, and in return the ocean would not ruin his unquestionably fabulous articles of clothing by any unnecessary wettings that might follow a shipwreck. As he had conscientiously left the fishes, whales, dolphins and sundry kraken to their own devices, he had no fear that the sea, even in this roaring state, would fail to uphold its end of the bargain.
Lord Marco della Bianco, on the other hand, was in a high temper – although Kendrick shrewdly guessed this might have a closer connection to His Lordship’s general run of luck with the cards than with the currently turbulent voyage.
“Madre del dio!” he swore, getting up and attempting to stride angrily about the cabin. However, he misjudged the height of the overhead deck beams and fetched himself a solid clout, which, followed by a suddenly lurch of the ship sideways, persuaded him to quickly resume his seat. “Will this storm never end?” he complained, gingerly rubbing his head. “Tell me, Signore Kendrick – is the weather of your England as recalcitrant and mercurial as it is upon the ocean surrounding it? For if so, I’ve more than half a mind to order this miserable ship turned about right now!”
“Now, Marco,” replied Kendrick calmly, shuffling the deck of cards smoothly even as the deck beneath his feet assumed a precipitous incline. “How would your bride-to-be feel, waiting so expectantly on the stormy shore, to find that her future husband had turned tail and fled before even seeing her? My word upon it, her hope and trust in you shines forth like a beacon through the dark clouds to guide you safely to her port – and you would turn your back? Shame, Marco, indeed, that such a slight rainstorm could dampen your ardor so easily.”
Marco’s eyes grew wide, and he gripped the table as Kendrick dealt their hands. “Denti del Dio, you are right,” he whispered. “I had not considered...grazie, indeed, Kendrick, my friend.” He leaped to his feet – ducking hurriedly to protect his head this time - and staggered to the door, flinging it open. “Bestir, my friends,” he shouted down the passageway. “At the end of this paltry breeze lies my bride, and I would not waste a moment more! Courage, my friends, and speed our way! I-” he would have continued in this vein, but faintly from above came a shout in return, and he closed the door and lurched back to the table with a puzzled expression on his face. “Kendrick, il mio amico, I confess - though I had many fine tutors, the language spoken by your sailors hardly seems to be English at all. What does it mean, this ‘bugger off’?”
Kendrick’s expression froze, and after a barely perceptible beat he replied carefully, “It means, Marco, that the sailors understand the urgency of the situation, and they are already straining to their utmost to bring you safely to the embracing havens of both England and your bride-to-be.”
“Ah, indeed – that is a fine spirit in these sailors, my friend. We Venetians are masters of the Mediterranean for generations, but truth to tell, I think we hardly have to face storms such as these. Pray to God that he sees us through.”
“Of course, of course,” returned Kendrick. Lord, spare me from all these praying idiots! he thought, then said brightly, “Another hand, my lord? As you see, I’ve already dealt.”Just as your hand in life, you poor fool, Kendrick thought with a rare touch of compassion as he watched Marco frown thoughtfully at his cards. You are a participant in a game you barely understand and you let people whom you little know provide your cards again and again – carefully picked hands in which, believe me, my friend, there are no aces and few friendly faces. Your grandfather, now, he was a player of the master class, but he succumbed to the final downfall of the gambler – the grasping inability to give the game up at last. He took his stacked deck to the grave with him, and left your father, terrible bluffer that he was, to raise you - a straight gull in a world of crooked sharps. You believe – because your father believed – that this upcoming marriage will be the royal flush your family was looking for, but your flush is busted, as they say. There are already many with carefully planned tricks for your little queen. He sighed, and made a show of looking his own cards over. And I’m one of them. Il mio amico, indeed.
He made an attempt to turn his thoughts to other channels. “I wonder, my lord, whether your sister looks as eagerly for her waiting husband as do you your bride?”
“It matters little,” Marco replied sharply. “All her life, Marcella has been cursed with a streak of independence unbecoming a Venetian Signora. Now she serves our family by playing the role determined for her – wife to Cornelis Van der Buers of Flanders. Do you know of him, friend Kendrick? I’ll take...two cards, per favore.”
Kendrick dealt out two cards from the deck, ignoring how the swinging lamp caused the shadows to run and gambol around the cabin like things alive. “Van der Buers?” He pretended to think, and took one card. “I do not know the gentleman, indeed. A good match?”
“A good match? My dear Signore Kendrick, an alliance between his house – with its money-houses, factories scattered here and there across the world, and the trade goods brought back by my family’s galleys – a not inconsiderable fleet, even yet – will be the nucleus of a trade empire that will put my family back in its proper place in the world! We will again be able to hold up our heads, outface the proudest in Venice, not turn away like embarrassed beggars because we are not the strength we once were. The della Biancos will rise again!” Marco’s face was shining, and he was not looking at Kendrick, but rather beyond him, toward a glorious future that lay somewhere beyond the his current dank and heaving surroundings. So caught up in his vision was he that his hand dropped, clearly revealing all his cards – as Kendrick suspected, none of them of the nobility. He shrugged mentally, and tossed another coin into the dish at the table’s center.
Good match? Yes indeed – but not for England. An alliance between your house and those money-grubbing Dutch bastard spells certain doom for our English woolen trade, and crippling prices on imports of nearly everything else – and my utter ruin, should it come to pass. Know him? Enough to want him to proceed swiftly to his overly warm eternal reward, that I do. But that problem is, thankfully, already dealt with. A proud man, our Cornelis, and stiff-necked as all his family. What will he say when his future bride fails to turn up as promised, I wonder? A great many things, I’ll wager, and none of them sounding remotely close to “I do.”
Kendrick had already sounded out the Lady Marcella, and had discovered that, though indelicately independent as she was, her pride in her family was no less than Marco’s. A word in her ear of a smirch on the family name, a hint of mortal danger to Marco himself, and the ship entrusted to carry her to Flanders and her impatient groom would sail short one noble lady in its cargo. Kendrick had already had several quiet conversations with one or two sailors aboard the Legend – conversations in which the clink of money exchanging hands was the loudest component. They would be watching the Lady Marcella very carefully indeed, and waited only for the scheduled day of her departure to act.
After much thought, Marco, with an air of assumed confidence, tossed two coins into the dish. Outside, the wind howled derisively.
And thus, my friend, you and your sinking family is left with your upcoming marriage – to a lady who just happens to be a not-terribly-distant cousin of mine, thought Kendrick smugly. A union between your fleet, her dowried lands and my trading interests would serve the green Isle of Albion much better, I am given to understand by those closer to the royal court. And if love of country were not enough motivation, Kendrick had heard the bell-like hints and whispers of a place at court that might just be occupied by a rather fashionably dressed young lord on his way up in the world. I’ve got you, Marco, in the palm of my hand, and I intend to keep you there until my fortune is made. He inspected his cards again, then tossed an equal number of coins into the dish.
“All finished?” he asked brightly. “Time for the reckoning, then. Come now, let’s see those little servants of Fate – oh, bad luck, my lord. The weather is obviously throwing your game off something terrible. Another hand?”
The storm blew itself out eventually, and the remainder of the trip to England was uneventful. An apologetic Nature, rather embarrassed by her display of temper, made up for it with several weeks of the finest weather anyone could imagine, and it was on the golden afternoon of one of these fine days that the party trotted amiably past the gate-post that marked the border of Sir Kendrick’s newest estates.