“It depends.”
“‘It depends?’ Upon what?”
Barto leaned far back in his chair. “It depends upon how many reales you have to spend.”
“I see. Well, how much would it cost to hire all of your men?”
Barto smiled. “All of your reales.”
St. Eustatia, Caribbean
With the dawn silhouetting the culverins that jutted out aggressively over the ramparts of Fort Orange behind them, Maarten Tromp turned to look into St. Eustatia’s wide leeward anchorage. Almost thirty-five hulls lay invisible there, except for the spars that stuck upward from them. Like crosses in a water-covered graveyard, he thought gloomily, Which is what this harbor will become, if we—if I—fail to dance every one of the next steps correctly.
Soft movement behind him meant the only other man in the skiff, besides the combination steersman and sail-handler, had approached. “Should we take you straight to the Amelia, Admiral?” asked Jakob Schooneman, captain of the Dutch fluyt Koninck David. A merchant, an adventurer, and now, quite obviously, a confidential agent for the United Provinces and possibly for the USE as well, Jakob Schooneman had been absent from the Caribbees for many months. He had made a northern passage back to the New World, touching at several places along the Atlantic coastline, searching for other Dutch ships that could be spared for Tromp’s fleet: the last in this hemisphere flying Dutch colors after the disastrous Battle of Dunkirk, not quite two years earlier. Jakob Schooneman’s success had been modest, at best.
Tromp nodded, not turning to face Jakob Schooneman, determined not to look him in the eyes until he could be sure of what the captain would see in his own. Tromp looked up at the sides of the hull now looming out of the charcoal-blue mists: the Amelia, his fifty-four-gun flagship, and one of the few to survive the withdrawal from Dunkirk. He could still see her as she was during that perilous October flight across the Atlantic to Recife: her hull scarred and holed by cannonballs, most of her spars and rigging incongruously new because almost all of what they had sailed into battle with had been shot away or so badly savaged that they had to replace it as soon as they knew they were free of Spanish pursuit. Only the stout mainmast remained of the original spars, black with both age and grim resolve. Or so Tromp liked to think.
When he could discern the faint outlines of her closed gun-ports, he turned to the master of the Koninck David. “Thank you for coming to see me directly, Captain Schooneman. Your visit was most informative.”
“Glad to have been of service, Admiral.”
“Which we are happy to return. The lighters will be out with your provisions by noon. You are sure that none of your men wish shore liberty?”
Jakob Schooneman smiled crookedly. “‘Wish it?’ They most certainly do. I wish it myself. But circumstances dictate otherwise, wouldn’t you agree, Admiral Tromp?”
Tromp suppressed a sigh as he looked into the purple-gray western horizon. “Yes, they do.” Now close abeam his flagship, Tromp called up to the anchor watch. The ship above him was silent for the moment it took for the watch officer to stick his head over the gunwale, squint down and determine that yes, it truly was the admiral arriving before the full rose of dawn was in the sky. Then the Amelia’s weather deck exploded into a cacophony of coronets and drums which rapidly propagated into the lower decks as well.
“Nothing like an unannounced inspection to set the men on their toes, eh, Admiral?”
“Indeed. And it is a serviceable pretext, today.” An accommodation ladder was dropped down along the tumbledown of Amelia’s portside hull. In response, the skiff’s tiller-man lashed his handle fast and grabbed up a pole to bump against the fifty-four-gunner’s planking, keeping them off. Tromp put out his hand. “Fair weather and good fortune to you, Captain. You have need of both, it seems.”
Jakob Schooneman’s lopsided smile returned. “I shall not deny it. And you, Admiral, the same to you.”
Tromp nodded, prepared to ascend, thought Yes, I need fair weather and good fortune, too. For all our sakes.
Tromp was surprised to see lanky Willem van der Zaan waiting for him at the forward companionway. It was Tromp’s wont—indeed, most officers’—to first head aftwards for their berths. But here was Willi, waiting at the forecastle, his cuffs rolled up neatly and pinned, even.
Tromp managed not to smile at the fresh-faced youngster’s quick nod and winning smile. “You are up early, Mr. van der Zaan. And more mysterious still, you knew to wait for me here, at the other end of the ship from my quarters. Have you been consorting with sorcerers?”