Free Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key by Kage Baker

be a stylite,” said Mr. Tudeley. “Certainly I have not been destined for earthly happiness. God knows I have suffered constant mortification. 1 wonder whether that will mitigate in my favor, when I stand before the Throne of Judgment?”
    “Maybe,” said John, feeling a prickle of sweat as the temperature went shooting up. Mr. Tudeley took out a filthy handkerchief, mopped his brow, and observed:
    “There’s a sail over there.”
    “What? Where?”
    “That way.” Mr. Tudeley pointed. “Ought I to shout?”
    “Aye! You’re the lookout.”
    “Halllooo! I see a ship!”
    “No, you stupid—Ahoy! Sail to larboard!”
    “Well, that’s certainly set them to scurrying about like ants,” said Mr. Tudeley. He put his handkerchief away and unlooped a little bellarmine jug from his belt, in which he carried his rum ration. He uncorked it and had a thoughtful pull. “I suppose now we’ll assail some innocent vessel, slaughter her sailors, and take her cargo?”
    “That’s the general idea,” said John uneasily. Both the stain on the sky and the unknown ship were moving quickly. The ship was now hull-up over the horizon and making straight for the
Harmony
, showing no inclination to evade her. Looking down, he saw Captain Reynald opening his spyglass to have a look at the strange vessel.
    The captain regarded her in silence a long while, as gleeful men ran around him getting ready for the attack. They loaded small arms and piled them up, and brought up a coil of slow-match to portion out to the gunners. A whetstone was passed from hand to hand, as men put edges on their blades and boarding axes.
    Captain Reynald closed up his glass with a snap. “Belay! We run, gentlemen. We are foxes, but they are wolves. Make the sail!”
    “What d’you mean?” John heard Anslow demanding. Captain Reynald held out his spyglass with an ironical expression. Anslow stepped into view from where he’d been obscured by the mainsail and took it to see for himself. John saw him peering out at the oncoming stranger. John turned round and looked hard. He was young then and his eyes were sharp; he could just make out the tricolored flag.
    “Oh bugger,” he said. “It’s a bloody Dutchman.”
    “Is it?” Mr. Tudeley had another drink of rum. “Have they anything we want?”
    “A lot of guns, by the look of her,” said John unhappily. Men were scrambling up into the
Harmony
’s rigging as fast as they could go to let out sail, and the little
Fraternity
had already changed course and was skipping away like a hare.
    “One side!” shouted a topman, shoving past John to run out on the yard.
    “Guns,” said Mr. Tudeley in a meditative voice. “That would be cannons, am I correct?”
    “Aye.”
    “Of which we have only that swivel gun on the rail?”
    “Aye.”
    “Seems rather an oversight on Captain Reynald’s part, doesn’t it?”
    “I reckon he’s been counting on speed and the sharpshooters, like he done when he took us,” said John. The Dutchman still came on, bearing down on the
Harmony
; who spread her full compliment of sail at last and, tacking, took off after the
Fraternity
. Mr. Tudeley clutched the mast, closed his eyes and swore under his breath as they came about. John gripped hard on the topmast shrouds as they swung through the full arc, too busy looking back at the Dutchman to mind the sway.
    She seemed too orderly and clean for a pirate, but there was a lean hungry look to her that didn’t square with John’s notions of a Dutch West India ship. Clearly she meant to give chase, though; for she was unfurling more of her canvas and swinging her bow to follow the
Harmony
.
    The
Harmony
raced ahead, not letting her close the distance. The wind was hot as though it blew out of Hell now, screaming in the shrouds and stays. John’s hair whipped his face like wire and he turned away, but not before he saw the puff of smoke from the Dutchman’s larboard bow gun. A moment later he heard the
boom
, and saw the