Hades's Revenge (3 page)

Jessop learned that having a cooper aboard
was rare on ships such as the
Victory
, but the captain had
some pull in naming Stuart Penn as his. Most any supplies or
liquids upon the ship were stored in wooden barrels, tied and
stowed in every nook and cranny.

Keeping things water tight was incredibly
important. A cannon won’t fire with wet gun powder. Food, clothing,
and other essentials had to be sealed in barrels of all sizes to
keep them from being ruined. It was Penn and Simmons who Jessop
most identified with. Once the two men noted Jessop’s affinity for
metal working, he was quickly staffed to work under them.

Penn had Jessop repairing his backlog of
damaged casks and barrels from the last storm they’d encountered
some weeks back. When he wasn’t working for Penn, he was helping
Simmons repairing things for Bartley that pertained to the rigging
and masts.

Though Penn and Simmons weren’t officers of
the navy, they were craftsman in their field and important members
of the crew, naming them such “masters-at-arms.”

Meals were where these statures in rank made
themselves obvious. The officers would not eat with anyone who was
not of some nautical rank, and the master craftsman had a ranking
all their own. It was shortly after Jessop had started working for
Penn that he found he was somewhere in the ranks of being
“undefined.”

* * *

When the bells marked the first dog watch
time, those hungry sailors not on duty and not an officer made
their way to the tween deck where they could eat their supper. The
tween deck was where the kidnapped gentlemen made their home, a
narrow deck beneath the open deck above and the storage hull. They
shuffled down the ladder, some hobbling from soreness of work or
injury. Life as a sailor was hazardous to say the least and there
was nary a day when one or more didn’t find a new bandaged wound on
his mate. The past few weeks Jessop had familiarized himself with
his fellow captured sailors, making friends with some and
acquaintances with others.

The man with the raspy voice he’d spoken to
in the darkness was a fatherly type, obviously well educated, but
not of money. He wondered how someone of his means could be so
scholarly, but didn’t feel it was his place to ask the man. His
name was Conrad Brown and his skills in math made him a quick
learner for the many calculations used by the sailing
master/captain Kramer. Kramer sought Brown’s expertise more and
more over the weeks in checking his own calculations, though Brown
spent most of his time working with Ivan Day the Master Gunner.

He was a friendly man, knowledgeable in
travel, life, and the sciences and Jessop found he was always happy
to share a meal and shoot the breeze with him. Not all the men who
had been abducted were quite as friendly as Conrad. One in
particular seemed especially defensive towards Jessop for reasons
he was uncertain. He’d tried in several instances to compliment or
defend the curtly gent named Will Rees, to no avail.

Rees grabbed the back of the chair that was
about to house a sitting Jessop. Noting a shadow at the doorway,
Rees practically shouted, “Lord Aster, please…let me help you with
your seat.”

Jessop had kept his surname to himself for
the most part on their voyage. He hadn’t been sure how such
knowledge might play out with the men, but now that the cat was out
of the bag…

“Aster?” a voice from the door came. “Are
you kin to Maximillian Aster, friend to King George and others of
the court?”

Jessop’s face flushed meeting Rees’s happy
gaze with a glare. “Yes, sir,” he answered.

“Indeed. What luck,” Crock returned rubbing
his chin as if he had a devil’s goatee growing there.

Rees’s jaw dropped when he realized his plan
had gone to pot.

“Mr. Aster, why did you not make this tidbit
of news known to me,” Crock asked sauntering among the seated men,
his stockings of white shone like a beacon against the drab brown
seamen’s clothing. He dabbed his nose with a lacey handkerchief as
if the men’s rank odor was unpalatable to him.

“It didn’t seem relevant,” Jessop said.

“Relevant? My good man, of course it’s
relevant. I fear you underestimate your importance. Someone so
familiar to our great king needs to be acknowledged.” He shoved the
plate from Jessop’s hands scattering the smoked fish, chunk of
cheese, and bug ridden biscuit across the table. “You shall eat at
the master’s table. We cannot have you fated to malnutrition on our
watch. Come, Aster.”

Rees was fuming in the corner, appalled by
the turn of events. Jessop was sure from his first meeting with
Crock that he was a greedy man. The prospects of rewards for
returning a wronged lad to his very rich family made Crock’s
blackened heart skip a happy beat. But what puzzled Jessop was how
Rees knew who he was.

Meals with the Masters Simmons and Penn were
much tastier compared to the worm ridden biscuits, cheese, and
smoked fish he received with his equals, but they were also more
jovial. Meals usually had some hot meat item which was often the
leftovers from the officers’ meal. Stews were common where the cook
used leftovers from other meals to make a welcome smorgasbord.

Given his knowledge of mechanics and
carpentry he learned from “Big Tom” back home, he fit in with the
conversations of work to be done, work that was done, or past
disasters from shoddy masters before.

With a full belly of salty hot fish stew and
potatoes and a few tankards of beer, Jessop wandered back to his
bed with the other abductees. He lay swinging in his hammock in
motion with the others around him, some snoring, some reading with
a flickering close-by lantern.

He thought about his best friend Tommy
Kohler, Jr., Big Tom’s son, and how thankful he was he’d learned so
much from the generous giant he often wished was his own father.
Tommy had often jested how he’d like to switch places with Jessop
and eat at the “high-table” as he put it. Jessop knew that once the
glitter of gold faded, Tommy would realize how good he had it.

The creaking and moaning of the ship became
a gentle lullaby to Jessop. There was a peace on the water far from
men and their politics. It was hard work manning a ship, but there
was a feeling of accomplishment when the men worked together to
unfold the sails. Like tiny ants running up and down the masts and
across her decks, yelling commands and confirmation as they were a
well-oil machined. When the canvas snapped to attention as a gust
of wind filled it to the breaking point, reminding the men of the
curves of a voluptuous woman’s breast.

The ship picked up speed as the other sails
filled with booms of their own pulling the ship faster. Smiles
spread on the faces of her men as the
Victory
skated across
the waves like a great swan of wood and fabric. Jessop was enjoying
this life, though there were definitely things he missed—a hot soak
in a tub, a soft featherbed, being dry for an entire day, and
eyeing a beautiful woman. Ah yes. There was much talk on the
Victory
about women. Some good, some bad, but all seemed to
miss the softer sex as much as he.

The vision of Lily, a girl he admired from
afar who lived on the other side of town, was running through a
field of knee-high yellow flowers. Her long blond hair flowed in
the wind, looking like an ocean of golden waves, then
plop
.
A heavy object fell to the wooden floor startling Jessop and making
the snoring man nearby choke and cough as he settled back into a
deep doze. It was William Rees and as he bent to pick up the
dropped book he glare at Jessop with discontent.

He was getting into his hammock when Jessop
said, “Rees. I’ve been wondering how you knew my identity.”

“You weren’t the only bloke seized from the
Ruddy Knuckles,” hitting the lump of fabric he was using as a
pillow venting his annoyance at being reminded of his failed
attempt at demeaning Jessop.

“I hadn’t realized,” Jessop replied trying
to jog his memory of the faces in the tavern that evening when he
stepped in from the rain.

“Your kind rarely do,” Rees said settling in
and opening his book once more.

“My kind? Kindly elaborate,” Jessop said
rather annoyed at its connotations, but also curious as to what and
why Rees had such a vendetta towards him.

“Your kind,” Rees said louder, but never
moved his eyes from his book, “Loyalists. Those so filled with
their own egotistical arrogance they don’t notice those around them
or BENEATH them.”

“Have I wronged you in some manner
unbeknownst to me?”

“Not personally, though I have been wronged
by many of your peers.”

“Then why are you so hostile towards
me?”

“No reason. I just don’t like your
sort.”

“Here,” Jessop said referring to the
confines of the middle deck, “we are the same.”

“Are we?” Rees said finally dropping his
book to his chest and glowering at Jessop. “You who are too good to
eat with us or work with us? You who will be offered back to his
father at land fall for a tidy little sum. No, Lord Aster, we are
not the same. Not remotely.” Then he went back to his book.

“That still doesn’t explain how you know my
name,” Jessop pushed.

An annoyed sigh came from Rees as he slammed
his book closed and turned down the fuel to the lamp making the
flame flicker then die out. “I live just the other side of town
from you. Tiny little farm I’m sure you’ve never noticed that runs
parallel to a field of mustard.”

Jessop went rigid and thoughts of the lovely
Lily popped back into his mind.

Rees continued as he pulled a blanket to his
neck, “You might know my sister. Lily. She’s the pretty young woman
you’ve been spying from afar for near on five years now.”

Jessop gulped at the rising embarrassment
that took over him as he thought on Rees’s knowledge of Jessop’s
infatuation.

* * *

With a decline in rough weather, and Jessop
as an extra hand, the cooper’s backlog of repairs to the hundreds
of casks and barrels were quickly waning. On the occasion that such
a workload became depleted, Penn often took it upon himself to
service the officers’ swords, sabers, and muskets. This too was
something that on occasion Jessop did for Big Tom.

A special concoction of oils along with a
good whet stone made Jessop the go-to guy for sharpening a weapon.
Even Penn was intrigued by Jessop’s skills in honing.

On one such occasion a prized sword was
given to Jessop to work his magic on. It was an heirloom piece
owned by Ivan Day and he set it carefully in Jessop’s hands
blanketed in a blue velvet wrap. Jessop unwrapped the specimen to
find a wondrous beauty of metal and craftsmanship. Jessop smiled at
Day when he picked up the sword and felt its weight. Never had he
felt anything so perfectly balanced. Jessop tossed it in the air
much to Day’s dismay, letting it reflect and shine brightly in the
bright sun. It twirled tip over pommel twice before Jessop caught
it gingerly finding its center of balance. A sigh of relief hissed
from Day’s lips.

“Exceptional,” Jessop said, “What a
beautiful piece.”

Having spied the flipping of the sword, the
captain made his way down to the deck where Jessop admired every
inch of the sword while Day told him a little history about it.

“Mr. Day, you must have great confidence in
Mr. Aster to let him handle your most prized possession,” Penn
said.

“Aye, Captain Kramer,” he said, wiping the
sweat from his brow.

“Mr. Aster. That was some fancy flipping you
were just performing. I think you know not just how close to the
end of your life you came. Mr. Day would have cut your throat right
here and now if you had dropped that sword.”

“My profound apologies, Mr. Day. It wasn’t
my intention to worry you. Please note that I’ve not dropped a
sword in nigh on five years,” he said as he spun the sword, the
upper blade making a circle around his wrist, then grasped the grip
once more.

“I spent most of my life with a friend’s
family. Big Tom, the father, was the town smithy. Tommy, my friend,
had no interest in learning his father’s trade, though Big Tom
often needed him to lend a hand when the number of jobs over ran
the amount of hours in a day.

“I spent every minute I could learning the
trade and assisted Big Tom whenever I could manage. Mostly we
worked on horseshoes, cart wheels, and other farming equipment, but
on occasion we would get a sword for repairs or sharpening. Tommy
and I would take turns playing with the sword when Big Tom wasn’t
working on it.

Examining the sword for a moment he
continued, “I’d say it was German. The sweeping hilt is not as
fancy as you might see from the Spanish or Italians, but I prefer
the simplicity of its lines.”

Day wiped his forehead with his forearm as
he agreed nodding at Jessop’s assessment.

“Do you have any training in swordsmanship?”
the captain asked Jessop.

“No. I’ve had some training in fencing, at
my father’s insistence, but no combat training.”

“Would you like to learn? We try to train
most of our men in some kind of combat, since we will be under
siege at times, but when I see potential like yours, I like to
promote that skill.”

“I would be an honor to learn from you,
Captain.”

“Do you have any objections to my training
your assistant at sunrise each morning, Mr. Day?”

“Not at all, Captain.”

“Good, then we’ll start tomorrow—top
deck.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Jessop said nodding to
the man, and continued, “Sir,” and nodded to Day in thanks.

“Now, get to work, son,” the smiling Day
said handing the velvet fabric that had housed the sword to
Jessop.

“I will. And I will take good care of
her.”