Pistoleer: Slavers Read online

  To Daniel's suggestion that they install leeboards on each side to help her sail true, the shipwright laughed, even though leeboards were common on small Dutch cargo craft because they could be swung up in shallow water or when not needed. "Leeboards are useful on barges, but not on fast ships such as this,” he was told. "Besides, they would become prime targets if anyone turns a cannon on her. This calls for an underwater solution, and I know of one that should work well."

  The Freisburn's crew were to help with the refit, for the shipyards were already fully busy fixing all the navy ships damaged in the Battle of the Downs. First the shipwright had the crew saw and rip the false keel off, and then he had it replaced with two small keels, one on each side of the true keel. The shipwright must have come from a line of fishermen for the two new keels were shaped all the world like the side fins of a dolphin, and in the way of Dutch simplicity they were known as fin keels.

  They were fitted onto the hull where the main ribs held the main mast. Because of the curve of the hull they did not stick straight down, but outward at a slight angle. Their length was determined by the depth of the true keel, so that if the ship ever settled onto the bottom at low tide, the two fins would serve to keep the ship upright and balanced as if they were braces.

  To Daniel's worry about the angle of these fin keels, the shipwright explained, "The angle is a good thing when you are sailing with a fore and aft sail. When the force of the wind in the sails forces the hull to heel over, the leeward fin will bite deeper because of the angle. At the same time, the windward fin will be more horizontal and will dampen the rolling and wallowing."

  Also repaired was battle damage such as charred sails. While doing so they installed Dutch-style blocks and tackle which would allow a smaller crew to handle the huge sails. The lateen yards, which were the long diagonal wooden spars that held the triangular sails up, were repositioned to cross the mast at the center of the yard rather than closer to the top end. This meant that the yard crossed the mast two-thirds of the way to the crow’s nest rather than just below the crow’s nest.

  This change was a Dutch improvement on the ancient Mediterranean lateen design, which made tacking a lateen less dangerous in the rolling swells of the North Sea. With the old way, to tack you had to physically lift the yard over the mast, which meant three or four men must stand on the crow’s nest and heave that heavy, twisting spar of wood with both hands.

  "With this Dutch rig," the shipwright assured them, "think of the lateen yard as a square sail rig but with a triangular sail hung from it with the free corner hanging down. You can run before the wind with the yard horizontal, like with a square sail, or you can pull one or the other end of the yard down and towards the bow, and thus use it to sail close to the wind just like a true lateen sail.

  To tack is as simple as changing which end of the yard is down and forward. Once the yard is swung around the mast and down, the free corner of the sail also changes sides of the mast, is hauled taut, and you are finished. This Dutch lateen rig is not only safer and faster to tack, but needs fewer men and none of them have to perch precariously on the crow’s nest."

  Daniel thought about it, and had to marvel at Dutch ingenuity. The number of men was not so important on a ship manned for fighting, but was critical on a trade ship where profits were eaten up by the need for large crews. Through the duration of the refit, Daniel and his crew slept aboard and provided all of the labour. After all, it was in their interest to learn everything they could about the ship before they sailed her.

  The finishing touch was to change the San Daniel's name and home port. The carved letters 'San' on the stern were replaced with 'Swift' , and Bridgport was painted below the new name. Gerrit volunteered to train the crew in the new rigging, but this took just one voyage along the Dutch coast, for the new rig was simple by design.

  On the second voyage, the crew felt confident enough to make the crossing to Lynn on the Wash in England. It was a crossing where both the Swift Daniel and the Freisburn carried cargos of Genever from the brewers of Rotown, scavenged pistols and muskets from Jock Douglas, and fine grade pistol powder and shot, courtesy of a bent Naval quartermaster.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Slavers by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14

  Chapter 3 - Home to a wedding in Wellenhay in June 1640

  The crossing to Lynn was fast and without incident although their arrival at that port caused quite a scare, for in the Swift Daniel they looked all the world like Dunkirker pirates on a raid. Oliver left the ship at Lynn and went by coach to Ely, for he was anxious to be reunited with his family and to check that his titheman's duties were being kept up. When he had been sent to Parliament as the member for Cambridge he had left those duties to his wife, his cousin, and his eldest son.

  The Freisburn led the Swift up the River Great Ouse towards Wellenhay, for they were not sure how well the larger, deeper Swift would fare with the many sandbars of this sluggish, shallow and muddy river. With the Freisburn rowing ahead of the Swift to pick out the deepest channels for them, and by using the high tides and the oars, the Swift did not have much trouble reaching the dock and ship pool of their Fen island village. They never did go aground or even touch bottom.

  The village had prior notice that they were arriving home by word of mouth, for Oliver had been shouting the news from the coach as it passed through the villages closest to the river. The rejoicing and the feasting of the clan's womenfolk had already begun before they reached Wellenhay. These women had lost one of their two ships and a third of their men, half of their young adult men, in one disaster, and so the safe return of what was now more than half of their remaining men overwhelmed even the arrival of the clan's grand new ship.

  There was food and drink and songs and dancing, first on the banks next to the dock, which spread to the dock, and then to both ships. And there was hugging and kissing and more hugging as families and children and lovers were reunited. Robert began to wish that he had gone with Oliver on the coach, for the rejoicing of these clanfolk made him feel very much like the stranger he was. He looked around at the seeming squalor of this wealthy village.

  The damp soil of the wet Fens could not support a heavy wall, so there were no large houses, or brick houses, or stone houses. The homes were huts built on mounds high enough to keep the floor dry. The frame was post and beam supporting a thatched roof. The exterior walls were of woven reeds sealed with dried mud. Rather than a family having many rooms in one large house, they had many one-room huts.

  The largest buildings were communal, and the largest by far, and the one closest to the dock was the longhouse where the folk waited out the coldest and wettest and darkest times of winter. Today the busiest communal building was the bathhouse which had two parts. The wet part for bathing, and the dry part they called the sweatlodge. Family groups were breaking away from the feasting and dancing to go and have a turn in the bathhouse and sweatlodge. As more and more long-separated couples went to get clean before seeking the privacy of their huts for more intimate reunions, the number of dancers was thinning.

  Robert was also noticing that even though he was a vreemdeling, an outlander, a drylander, young women in their twenties were beginning to pay attention to him. They were feeding him and dancing with him, and crowding around him, and hugging him, and rubbing against him. He looked around searching for Daniel so as to ask him what was going on. Were these the village whores, for he was certainly being treated like a man with a fat purse in a brothel. When he finally spotted Daniel, his friend was also surrounded by young women.

  Robert began to panic when the young women around him began using the excuse of dancing to rub their nubile bodies against him, but a strong arm grabbed his elbow and pulled him away from them. The nubiles made some cutting remarks in their own tongue to the older woman who had saved him from them, but then they danced away. Only then did Robert have a chance to look at his saviour.

  She was older than
the nubiles, but younger than he, perhaps in her late thirties. The women of this clan tended to be fair and tall. The young ones were beautiful, but as they aged they became handsome, and this woman was very handsome. In her youth she would have outshone any of the dancing nubiles. He went with her willingly to escape the ever more bawdy behaviour of young women.

  "You must be Robert Blake of Bridgwater, Daniel's friend from his time in Holland,” she said quite formally, more like she was a well-bred Puritan woman than a Frisian clanswoman. "I am Sarah, Venka's sister."

  Robert had met Venka before. She was Daniel's sister-in-law and an elderwoman of this clan. More correctly she was now Daniel's widow-in-law, for his older brother had been the captain of the village’s ship that had been lost with all hands. At this moment, Daniel was being dragged away from his own ring of young and disheveled women by Venka.

  "They are not whores, you know, those women that were sexually teasing you,” Sarah continued. "There is no such thing as a whore in this village, just as there is no such thing as a bastard. This is a traditional village so the bloodline and the inheritance passes from eldest daughter to eldest daughter, rather than the Romanized way of eldest son to eldest son. It is far more logical, for all sorts of social problems never occur."

  "So if they are not whores, then why..."

  "The sinking has left the village unbalanced,” she replied politely. "Either women must leave it, or men must join it."

  "So they were trying to recruit me? Then I will tell them that I cannot live here. I have responsibilities in Bridgwater."

  "They know that. Daniel will have told them. Each of those lasses wants to have your baby ... in Bridgwater." She had to laugh at the shocked look on his face. "Choose one. My clanswomen excel at being lovers and wives and mothers. If this were still the bad old times, they would be searched out and abducted by slavers to be sold to wealthy husbands around the North Sea and beyond."

  "Is that what happened to you?"

  "I fell in love with a student in Cambridge. We married. We had a son. I am now a widow."

  "The same ship disaster?" he asked gently.

  "No, well before that. A riding accident, or so they said. He was a lawyer with a good practice, but he was also voluntarily trying to block the Heath family in the courts from privatizing more of the Fen's common land. He had made a good case, a winning case, but the court set it aside with his death."

  She had gone suddenly sad, so he tried to change the subject to a happier one. "But you still have your son." It was the wrong thing to say, because she broke into tears.

  "My husband was not of this clan," she sobbed. "He was of a citified Christian family. When he died, his parents claimed custody of my son and cast me out as a penniless widow in the Christian way."

  "So all you need is to find a new husband and you can claim your son back. You are a handsome woman, Sarah. You must have had offers from men."

  "Oh yes," she hissed. "I have had many offers from men. In England it is a curse to be a good-looking widow. Men ignore your mourning and hunt you down. Even my father-in-law wanted to bed me, and my brother-in-law. But single men, nay. Many men offer me their cocks but no one offers me their name. That is why I am visiting Wellenhay. To get away from Christian men. To take off my mourning black without being hissed at by other women. To try to find some happiness again, some balance."

  She saw that Robert, despite his age and the darkness of his hair and skin was blushing. "Don't worry, Robert. I don't tell you this to guilt you into marrying me. I am too old to bear you children. You need a younger wife. Any of the women you were dancing with would do you nicely."

  "We have similar problems, you and I,” he replied. "In England there are only three ways to become wealthy. Inherit it, marry it, or thieve it. I inherited my father's debts, my morality makes me a poor thief, so that just leaves marriage. I must marry a wealthy young daughter. Unfortunately, such a quest is too popular with handsome men. What young woman would choose a short and pudgy old man like me?"

  "There goes Venka and Daniel, off to the sweatlodge,” she told him. "I will need to find another hut for the night, for they will want her hut to themselves."

  It took a moment for her words to sink in and then he blurted out, "What? That devil Daniel! To dare to bed his brother's widow. And she still mourning not just her husband but the son she lost on the same ship. It beggars belief."

  "It is she that will be doing the bedding,” Sarah told him, "for it's her hut, and her bed, and her will. Tonight she will tell him."

  "Tell him what?"

  "That she has petitioned the clan to become his second wife."

  "But he has never been married."

  Sarah sighed. "I thought you were Daniel's close friend. Didn't he teach you anything about our clan?"

  "I am a Puritan, and at first we had many arguements about religion, so we made a pact not to talk religion anymore. I know that when necessary he calls himself an Anabaptist, but I know that is false. He isn't even a Christian, but I like him and respect him despite that."

  "As I told you before, this is a traditional village of a sea-faring clan. We still have the customary laws that are older than King Knute's Common Law. It is because the sea can take our men from us at any time that bloodlines and inheritance go through the women. There is more to it than that. Widows tend to be preyed on by other men. Oh, how well I know that. We have a simple law that logically and simply protects widows."

  "Which is?" he was so glad she had stopped sobbing. Her eyes were drying and they twinkled at him.

  "The role of a second wife. A first wife is a wife of choice for building families with. A second wife is a widow inherited from a close blood relative. Being protected and supported by a man as a second wife, is far preferable to being a widow preyed upon by all men. In our clan a man can have only one first wife, but he can have as many second wives as the Wyred sisters of the fates bestow upon him."

  "Let me understand this,” Robert said thoughtfully. "So Daniel is going to have his brother's widow as a second wife, even though he does not have a first wife? Why would he agree to such a thing?"

  "If the blood relative is close enough, then the husband has no choice. There is no closer blood than a brother." She knew exactly the Puritan thoughts that were rushing through Robert's mind, for she had been married to a Puritan. A well-educated Puritan about Robert's age. She knew that his mind would be in a turmoil.

  "Put aside your Puritan mustn'ts and shouldn'ts,” she told him, "and think it through logically from the point of view of a tightly-knit clan. If a husband and wife can safely breed children, then it is also safe for his brother and her sister to breed. And who better to become the replacement father for the orphans than a blood uncle?"

  "So this law applies to brothers as well as sisters?" He was aghast.

  "That is what I am counting on," she replied softly, almost to herself.

  "How so?"

  "In truth, Venka really has no need to become Daniel's second wife. Her husband was not just a ship's captain, but the elected warlord of the clan, which is why she was elected an elderwomen at the young age of forty. Unlike me, she is wealthy and powerful in her own right and need not fear men."

  There was more here than she was saying. "Yet she is forcing herself on him by her choice?" Robert asked. There was no answer. "Tell me. I am his friend."

  "I shouldn't have begun," she moaned. "All right, I'll tell you but you must not breath a word of it to anyone, not until it is announced." He agreed. "Once she is his second wife, I as her sister can also petition to be his second wife. She is doing it for me, to save me from Christian widowhood."

  "And this will be forced upon Daniel?"

  "By law, he cannot refuse Venka, but I am one removed. He can refuse me. Oh, I waited too long to decide. I should have been Venka's husband's second wife. He could not have refused me, and as his widow, Daniel could not refuse me."

  "But, by what you are saying, a clansman
of this village could go on collecting wives forever. Every time a relative dies his family would get bigger."

  "On the contrary. It keeps the family intact. That is the purpose of the law. It is a good law, just like inheritance through the women is a good law. A good law to stop the social problems that plague Christian communities. And I know this well, for I am a Christian social problem."

  Robert began to laugh. He couldn't help himself. Daniel was a confirmed bachelor who had refused many times to take a wife, no matter how many women threw themselves at him. Now he was going to have two wives, and both of them were too old to bear him children. "Poor Daniel. This truly is the work of your Wyred Sisters,” he told her. In Oxford he had read mythology amongst other things. This was a classic situation from mythology. So ironic, so contrary.

  She had gone stonily silent, and then he realized how he his words had just insulted her. "I did not mean that as an insult to you. You are a woman worthy of any man, as is your sister. Please, don't take offense."

  "You are his good friend. Do you think he refuse me? I am eight years older than him, and losing my looks." She was on the edge of tears again.

  His mind raced ahead, imagining himself in Daniel's shoes, "You were a Puritan wife? Then you can read and write and cipher?"

  "Yes. I learned so that I could teach my son."

  "And though Venka has lost her son, she still has two grown daughters?"

  "Yes. Britta and Teesa. Willful girls, both of them."

  "Then he will not refuse you. He is always complaining to me that it is past time that everyone in the clan became literate, in the way of Puritans. He will not refuse you, because if he accepts you, then the clan gains a teacher." It was a good guess, and logical, but more importantly it brought a wide smile to Sarah's entire face, and she looked instantly ten years younger, and quite devastatingly comely.