Diplomatic Piracy, Chapter 5
I watched Muppet Treasure Island this afternoon. Guess what that means you all get. Hahahaaaaa. This has been sitting on my harddrive for like, 4 months. I have no idea why I am only posting it now. My ways are trés mysterious.
Title: Diplomatic Piracy 2: Black-Iron Key
Chapter: 5
Genre: Humor/Action/Adventure/Shameless Pirates of the Caribbean rip-off
Rating: PG-13
Previous Chapters:
1 - http://plottwist13.livejournal.com/123036.html#cutid1
2 - http://plottwist13.livejournal.com/124474.html#cutid1
3 - http://plottwist13.livejournal.com/127048.html#cutid1
4 - http://plottwist13.livejournal.com/147796.html#cutid1
Author’s Notes: You know, these are wholly unnecessary. And you know what? BIZAW.
--
Three days after Admiral Selachii and Lord Rust met in the Rat’s Chamber, Admiral Selachii and his crew aboard AMS Integer (there had been a messy misspelling in the shipyard) sailed out of the harbor at Ankh-Morpork. Selachii was at the helm, supervising as the first mate, Kevin Pender, steered. Once they were clear of the docks, Kevin consulted his map and compass and pointed the ship on course for the channel leading out of the Circle Sea and into the open ocean. As he made a note on his map, he looked to Selachii, who was watching the crew with a thoughtful expression.
“Sir?” Kevin hazarded. “If I may be so bold, could you tell me our bearings so that I may better plan a course?”
Selachii nodded. “We’ll be sailing for Hergen, Kevin. As quickly as possible.”
“Sir?” Kevin made a light pencil sketch across the map and stood up, looking to the map quizzically. “Sir I’m not aware of an conflict with Hergen, as it is. I mean, Port Rana is a despicable place, of course. Are we culling pirate activity?”
Selachii smirked as he watched the crew make the ship ready to run. “You could say that, I suppose. “More accurately, however, I’d say we’re on a bit of a treasure hunt.”
Pender paused. “Er, that’s exciting, Admiral.” Selachii nodded.
“Indeed. The ship we’re after, Pender, is fast but we can outrun them. I intend to beat them to Port Rana and intercept them in the town.” He looked to the first mate. “Is that clear?”
“Yes sir,” Kevin said. “We’ll want to stay relatively close to the shoreline then, to pick up on the winds coming across from the Edge. Should get us there in, say, three weeks?”
“Very good, Pender. Three weeks should be adequate.”
“And er, what ship should we be looking out for?” Kevin asked quickly. “Just in case we should come across them in the open sea, if they’ve had the same ideas.”
“I highly doubt it,” Selachii sighed, almost sounding bored. “No doubt their captain wanted to make a run for the be Trobi islands, where they would be much less conspicuous. The winds, however, are not to their favor this time of year, should they follow that plan.”
“You’d be right there sir,” Kevin agreed. “Seas get awfully dead out in that area in the summer.”
“Exactly.” Selachii seemed to ponder something for a moment, and then continued. “The ship we are intercepting is commonly known as The Boat, Pender.”
“The Boat?” Kevin looked surprised. “We’re going after Havelock Vetinari and his crew?”
“Yes, we are,” Selachii said smoothly.
“Isn’t he rather . . . cunning, sir?” Kevin wilted a little under Selachii’s stare. “I mean, he’s evaded all sorts of navies from all sorts of countries. No one’s been able to catch him yet.”
“Ankh-Morpork has never actively attempted to do so,” Selachii said, brushing all doubt aside. “Everyone has their weakness, Pender, and I intend to exploit his. However,” he continued, “while I doubt we’ll come upon them in the open ocean, should such a thing happen I would much rather we simply outrun them to Port Rana and avoid engaging them.”
“But . . . I mean, they might take offensive action,” Kevin shrugged. “They are pirates, really, and I would imagine they have a bit of a grudge.”
Selachii chuckled. “They won’t Kevin, don’t worry. Vetinari, at the moment, is under the impression that he is working on commission for the Patrician.”
“Oh,” Kevin said, tapping the side of his nose. “I see. Very clever, that, sir. So we’ll capture them in the harbor at Rana and bring them back to the city, will we?”
Selachii chuckled again and smiled in a way Kevin did not feel entirely at ease with. “Not quite.”
--
A month passed. For Sam, it was an intensely informative month, filled with all sorts of life lessons and other at-sea survival skills.
The first thing he learned while on the Boat was that he knew almost nothing about pirates, or sailing. His books had been informative on history and stories, yes, but of course those had been glorified and gilded-over to sound much more grand and exciting. As far as he could tell, the most nerve-wracking moments on the Boat (at least on this trip) were those few tense minutes when they passed another ship and couldn’t quite make out what country’s colors it was flying. Of course, this never ended in a naval battle or anything epic like that. The climax was, invariably, a look-alike flag being run up the Boat’s mast, and the other ship would very pleasantly ignore them completely.
The second thing he learned was how to tie a knot. He hadn’t known there were so many kinds, and as he was informed on his second day at sea “if you don’t know at least five basic knots you’re bloody useless.” So he’d gone into student-mode, observing and mentally taking notes on what the names of the knots were, how they were tied, and when they were used. He’d managed to master the square knot, a figure-eight stopper, a sailors’ knot and the bowline loop, but he had proved hopelessly inadequate at even getting close to the sheepshank. Drumknott didn’t approve, but since he had been able to handle four useful knots, the rest of the crew had voted they wouldn’t force him to learn to swim in the open ocean (yet).
The third thing he learned was that living on a ship got really, really, really (times infinity) boring. The first few days were at least a little interesting, what with really getting the ship underway for the voyage and all, but after the first week or two the number of things to do onboard dwindled. The hold could always use cleaning, of course, and people had to look after the sails and of course one person was always on lookout and another steered (usually Vetinari, who would lackadaisically sort of turn the wheel every once and a while) but other than that . . . Well. Sam learned a number of card games and other ways to battle boredom, but most days he simply prayed for a storm or an enemy ship or something interesting.
Today, however, was different. Apparently they were stopping for supplies in Port Rana. Sam helped tie things down and prepare the ship for harbor with the rest of the crew while Vetinari and Drumknott stood at the helm and conspired over a scrap of paper.
“So what do we do when we stop at port?” Sam asked Bart, who had sort of taken on a role-model position for the boy. “And how long do we stop for?”
“Dunno,” Bart said, flawlessly tying up a sheepshank that Sam had been struggling with. “Captain usually tells us how long. On a stock stop like this, though, we’re probably going to be shopping, mostly. Maybe only a day or two.”
“Oh,” said Sam. “And how long before we stop again?”
Bart snickered. “Well, since the Captain’s pretty much wanted everywhere on the far side of the Counterweight Continent and the Agatean Empire doesn’t have any ports open to foreigners . . . Probably a while.”
Sam tried not to look disappointed. “Oh,” he said slowly.
“But if you’re worried about getting bored,” Bart said smoothly, “we’re going to be sailing pretty damn close to the Edge, so that’s always a laugh.”
“The Edge?” Sam paled. “What if we go off?”
Bart shrugged. “Then we go off. Won’t happen though; never has before.”
“. . . Okay,” Sam said slowly. “If you say so.”
“Rana’s off the starboard side!” Josiah called down from the crows’ nest. Sam looked right and saw, sure enough, a brown strip on the horizon with protruding bits that were probably buildings. He also noticed there were a fair few number of ships around. He turned to Bart.
“What colors are we going to fly?” he asked, noticing that no one seemed to be paying attention to that.
“Nothing, probably,” Bart said easily, throwing a length of rope to Sam. “Tie that down, would you?”
“Why nothing?” Sam asked, fumbling his way through a sailors’ knot. Bart grinned.
“You never heard of Rana, I take?”
Sam wracked his brains. He knew where Hergen was, but beyond that he had nothing. “No, never heard of it,” he said slowly.
“I imagine you wouldn’t have, in that posh school of yours,” Bart teased. Everyone liked to poke fun at Sam’s education, but never too loudly, since Vetinari had roughly the same background, only with better grades. “It’s a pirate port,” he explained bluntly. “I mean, there is law enforcement and it is somewhat civilized, not like Krull, but it’s sort of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, you know?”
“I see,” Sam said slowly. He noticed the ship turning, and when he turned to face the bow he saw the port was now directly in front of them, about half an hour’s journey away. Bart motioned for Sam to follow him to the hold, where the emptied containers had to be readied to be moved out and where the rest of the containers had to be reorganized. Just then, however, Vetinari stepped forward, waving his right hand.
“Attention, please, for instructions or something like them?” The crew, in an astounding feat of obedience, immediately stopped what they were doing and turned to face Vetinari, who was standing on the railing by the helm, swaying slightly but astoundingly managing to not fall off. Hs left hand was, as if had been almost solidly the whole journey, in his pocket. “Yes, very good,” he said distractedly, waving the map a little.
“So we’re going to be making berth in Rana,” he said slowly, in case there were some crewmembers who hadn’t quite caught on yet (and indeed, there was a man slowly coming to the realization that they were going to be making berth behind Sam). “Er, it’ll be a quick stop for two reasons. One, because we need to keep moving on this commission; we have a time limit, gentlemen, and I would very much dislike to not finish within it,” he said, making a face. “Second, because I am very much wanted in Hergen and I would rather not hang about.”
“’Ere, I didn’t know we were wanted in Hergen,” the slow crewmember said, somewhat resentfully. “’Ow long ‘as that been goin’ on?”
“Oh no no you’re not wanted there,” Vetinari said, waving the map in a placating gesture. “I am. No worries though, their dock crews are easily bribed and pretty stupid. So. Who wants to be captain this time?”
Sam looked to Bart, bewildered. “What?” he hissed.
Bart snickered. “This is the routine whenever we go somewhere the Captain’s wanted. See, there are some countries looking to arrest him for something petty so they can turn him in to a bigger country and collect on the reward. So we pick a new Captain for that port or whatever and a new name for the Boat so he gets around the whole thing.”
“Oh,” Sam said. “Well that’s pretty clever.”
“It’s always worked thus far,” Bart agreed.
Vetinari was looking out over the crew, expression minorly disappointed. “What, no volunteers? It’s really not that hard, you just make up a name and give the nice man, woman or other type of individual some money.” He sighed. “Fine. Blenkins, you’re it.”
“I had to do it last time!”
Vetinari pulled his hat down over his eyes, shoulders slumping. “Josiah, then. And that’s final, captain’s orders and everything else official.”
Josiah grumbled but didn’t say anything decipherable.
“All right, as far as what we’re doing here . . .” he peered at the map a moment and swayed a little as the ship rocked. “No stealing, rape, pillaging, blah blah, the whole ‘law-abiding citizens’ routine. We’ll probably leave either late tonight or early morning so it would probably be best if you’re all back here tonight. You all will be stocking the ship up. Drumknott has the list,” he said, gesturing in the first mate’s general direction. “Are we clear?”
“Where are you going, cap’n?” the slower man behind Sam asked. Vetinari gave him a blank look and then shrugged, smiling slightly.
“You know, captainly things. And that sort of thing.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Vetinari jumped down and made his way back to the helm. “As you were!”
Bart and Sam moved back off toward the hold.
“Was he drunk?” Sam asked somewhat incredulously as he followed Bart down the stairs.
“When isn’t he?” Bart countered.
Sam thought about that for a moment. “But why?” he asked finally. “I mean, how can he function at that level all the time?”
Bart handed Sam a mop as the proceeded into the hold. “He tried to sail sober once,” he reflected. “It didn’t work out. Downright scary, it was.” He looked to Sam and shrugged. “He’s a genius, you know. And he had a bad run a few years back.”
“But what do either of those things have to do with anything?” Sam was confused - his mother and father had always spoken so highly of the man and in person . . . Well, he was sharper than most people, but he wasn’t the calculating genius he’d pictured.
“You try going from ruling the biggest city in the world and being good at it,” Bart said slowly, “to being nothing in a period of twenty-four hours. That alone’ll drive you mad, if you think about it too much. And the Captain thinks and awful lot when there isn’t much rum.”
“Ah,” Sam said. He supposed it should have been more obvious, but then again he never remembered Vetinari being Patrician; he’d only been two when the man was exiled. It was almost like an afterthought to Sam, and he rather suspected Bart didn’t remember much either. He must’ve picked up on it from the others.
Sam and Bart mopped and tied things down in silence from that point on. Sam realized he was aware when they got into the harbor - the ship was no longer rocking violently and the remaining animal (a goat he’d named Spew after its ability to hit humans from all the way across the hold) seemed to instantly calm. Bart leaned his mop up against the wall and motioned for Sam to follow as he made his way to the deck. The rest of the crew was lined up along the railing; some with ropes in hand, others without. When he looked to the helm, however, he realized Vetinari was nowhere to be seen, and Josiah was conversing with some men Sam had never seen before.
“What’s going on?” Sam whispered, joining Bart on the rail.
“Figuring out where to put us,” Bart answered. “Looks pretty crowded,” he added, looking over the harbor. “A lot of people choose to berth here over the winter instead of Ecalpon; better weather.”
“Ah.” Sam watched as the men pointed to a general spot on the docks and then shook hands with Josiah. Then they headed to the side of the Boat, where they climbed down the side on a rope ladder and into a rowboat, presumably to await other ships. “Where’s the Captain?” he asked very quietly, lest the men were still listening in.
Bart shrugged. “Dunno. Cabin, probably.”
“Well that’s not very good hiding,” Sam muttered.
“Nothing to hide from yet,” Bart smirked. Sure enough, Vetinari emerged from the Captain’s cabin after Josiah casually stomped his foot. He made his way up to the helm and took note of where the ship was to be docked before heading down to the deck.
“So we’re not to get up to anything, boss?” one of the sailors, Faroli, asked tentatively. “Nothing at all?”
“If Drumknott doesn’t say you can do it, don’t,” Vetinari responded simply. He made his way over to Sam and Bart. “Clear off Bart, go do something with some ropes or something.” Bart shot a smirk to Sam before making his way over to another group of sailors, who were talking and waiting around to tie the ship down.
“Sir?” Sam asked cautiously. He and Vetinari hadn’t really had much contact since the first couple of days beyond him shouting orders at Sam. It was mainly Mr. Drumknott and Bart that helped Sam along.
“You’re coming with me,” Vetinari said without preamble, walking toward the stern of the ship. Sam, bewildered, followed.
“Sir?”
Vetinari stopped and turned, looking Sam up and down. Then he shook his head and kept walking. “Uncanny,” he muttered. “Follow.” He jumped up on the back railing, sizing up the distance from the ship to the dock. Sam froze.
“Sir?”
Vetinari sighed again. “As much as I relish reminiscing every meeting I ever had with your father in the space of, oh, thirty seconds, sometimes I do enjoy complete sentences.”
Sam paused for a minute. “What?”
“Oh another word; progress. Do go on.”
“Er.” Sam paused, gathered his thoughts, which was entirely too difficult to do considering Vetinari wasn’t even paying attention to him at the moment, and then went on, “Sir, I’m sorry, but I can’t swim.”
This time it was Vetinari who stopped moving. Then, very slowly, he turned around. “You what now?”
“I can’t swim,” Sam muttered, more thoroughly embarrassed than he ever had been in his life. “I just . . . I never learned in the city.”
Vetinari was rubbing the bridge of his nose. “So wait a minute here, and let me get this all straightened out.” He paused. “You, the son of a rich noble couple who still happen to have some influence in my city, decide to stowaway on my boat, am I correct thus far?”
“Er, yes?”
“Good, good. So you stowaway,” Vetinari continued, jumping down and walking over to Sam, apparently thinking very hard, “by hiding in the hold, with all the animals and whatnot, without giving any thought to the fact that ships have a limited food supply and, as you learned, rock a lot and travel great distances on the ocean over long periods of time. Am I still right?”
Sam was blushing bright red from his hairline to his neck now, and didn’t trust himself to speak without sounding daft. So he just nodded uneasily.
“And the icing on this whole wonderful cake,” Vetinari said, drawing even with the boy and using his considerable height and almost-decent (today) skills at standing still to loom to his best ability, “is that you, incidentally, don’t know how to swim.” He bent down so that he was at eye-level with the boy. “Did you use your brain for even five seconds, or is that an overestimation?”
Sam didn’t respond. He was pretty sure he was about to cry. Vetinari watched him for a minute before turning away.
“Right, well I suppose there’s another way we can do this.” He paced up and down the railing as Josiah steered the ship alongside the dock. Bart and the others were all standing along the dock side of the rail, holding ropes, ready to tie the ship fast. Vetinari looked at them for a minute and the grinned. “Get me a rope.”
Five minutes later, as the ship was still moving into its space on the dock, Sam found himself looking at a rope, hanging innocently from the rearmost mast of the ship. Vetinari was testing his weight on it and, apparently satisfied, thrust the rope to Sam. “So wait, I do what now?” Sam asked, fumbling the rope and looking incredulously to the dock, which was still about ten feet away. Thankfully, the harbor was crowded - there were enough ships docked that he and Vetinari’s unconventional disembarking would go unnoticed.
“You grab the rope,” Vetinari said slowly, as if speaking to someone vastly less intelligent than himself(1), “and swing over to the dock.”
“But I can’t swim!”
“Docks are solid, Sam.”
“No but, I mean . . . I mean there’s like, ten feet of water there! What if I fall?” Sam was trying not to visibly tremble, but it was a near thing.
Vetinari sighed and slumped a little. “Sam, I will lose all faith I have left in humanity if you cannot manage to flail ten feet through the water to the dock.”
“But -”
“People float, Sam.”
Sam swallowed and grabbed the rope, testing his weight on it. “And this is the only way?”
Vetinari paused for a minute. “No,” he said slowly. “But it’s the way we’re going to do it.”
Sam looked to the man incredulously then nodded weakly. “Okay,” he stuttered with a gulp. He climbed up on the railing, took an extra firm grip on the rope, and swung.
--
(1) This constitutes the vast majority of people on the Disc.
Title: Diplomatic Piracy 2: Black-Iron Key
Chapter: 5
Genre: Humor/Action/Adventure/Shameless Pirates of the Caribbean rip-off
Rating: PG-13
Previous Chapters:
1 - http://plottwist13.livejournal.com/123036.html#cutid1
2 - http://plottwist13.livejournal.com/124474.html#cutid1
3 - http://plottwist13.livejournal.com/127048.html#cutid1
4 - http://plottwist13.livejournal.com/147796.html#cutid1
Author’s Notes: You know, these are wholly unnecessary. And you know what? BIZAW.
--
Three days after Admiral Selachii and Lord Rust met in the Rat’s Chamber, Admiral Selachii and his crew aboard AMS Integer (there had been a messy misspelling in the shipyard) sailed out of the harbor at Ankh-Morpork. Selachii was at the helm, supervising as the first mate, Kevin Pender, steered. Once they were clear of the docks, Kevin consulted his map and compass and pointed the ship on course for the channel leading out of the Circle Sea and into the open ocean. As he made a note on his map, he looked to Selachii, who was watching the crew with a thoughtful expression.
“Sir?” Kevin hazarded. “If I may be so bold, could you tell me our bearings so that I may better plan a course?”
Selachii nodded. “We’ll be sailing for Hergen, Kevin. As quickly as possible.”
“Sir?” Kevin made a light pencil sketch across the map and stood up, looking to the map quizzically. “Sir I’m not aware of an conflict with Hergen, as it is. I mean, Port Rana is a despicable place, of course. Are we culling pirate activity?”
Selachii smirked as he watched the crew make the ship ready to run. “You could say that, I suppose. “More accurately, however, I’d say we’re on a bit of a treasure hunt.”
Pender paused. “Er, that’s exciting, Admiral.” Selachii nodded.
“Indeed. The ship we’re after, Pender, is fast but we can outrun them. I intend to beat them to Port Rana and intercept them in the town.” He looked to the first mate. “Is that clear?”
“Yes sir,” Kevin said. “We’ll want to stay relatively close to the shoreline then, to pick up on the winds coming across from the Edge. Should get us there in, say, three weeks?”
“Very good, Pender. Three weeks should be adequate.”
“And er, what ship should we be looking out for?” Kevin asked quickly. “Just in case we should come across them in the open sea, if they’ve had the same ideas.”
“I highly doubt it,” Selachii sighed, almost sounding bored. “No doubt their captain wanted to make a run for the be Trobi islands, where they would be much less conspicuous. The winds, however, are not to their favor this time of year, should they follow that plan.”
“You’d be right there sir,” Kevin agreed. “Seas get awfully dead out in that area in the summer.”
“Exactly.” Selachii seemed to ponder something for a moment, and then continued. “The ship we are intercepting is commonly known as The Boat, Pender.”
“The Boat?” Kevin looked surprised. “We’re going after Havelock Vetinari and his crew?”
“Yes, we are,” Selachii said smoothly.
“Isn’t he rather . . . cunning, sir?” Kevin wilted a little under Selachii’s stare. “I mean, he’s evaded all sorts of navies from all sorts of countries. No one’s been able to catch him yet.”
“Ankh-Morpork has never actively attempted to do so,” Selachii said, brushing all doubt aside. “Everyone has their weakness, Pender, and I intend to exploit his. However,” he continued, “while I doubt we’ll come upon them in the open ocean, should such a thing happen I would much rather we simply outrun them to Port Rana and avoid engaging them.”
“But . . . I mean, they might take offensive action,” Kevin shrugged. “They are pirates, really, and I would imagine they have a bit of a grudge.”
Selachii chuckled. “They won’t Kevin, don’t worry. Vetinari, at the moment, is under the impression that he is working on commission for the Patrician.”
“Oh,” Kevin said, tapping the side of his nose. “I see. Very clever, that, sir. So we’ll capture them in the harbor at Rana and bring them back to the city, will we?”
Selachii chuckled again and smiled in a way Kevin did not feel entirely at ease with. “Not quite.”
--
A month passed. For Sam, it was an intensely informative month, filled with all sorts of life lessons and other at-sea survival skills.
The first thing he learned while on the Boat was that he knew almost nothing about pirates, or sailing. His books had been informative on history and stories, yes, but of course those had been glorified and gilded-over to sound much more grand and exciting. As far as he could tell, the most nerve-wracking moments on the Boat (at least on this trip) were those few tense minutes when they passed another ship and couldn’t quite make out what country’s colors it was flying. Of course, this never ended in a naval battle or anything epic like that. The climax was, invariably, a look-alike flag being run up the Boat’s mast, and the other ship would very pleasantly ignore them completely.
The second thing he learned was how to tie a knot. He hadn’t known there were so many kinds, and as he was informed on his second day at sea “if you don’t know at least five basic knots you’re bloody useless.” So he’d gone into student-mode, observing and mentally taking notes on what the names of the knots were, how they were tied, and when they were used. He’d managed to master the square knot, a figure-eight stopper, a sailors’ knot and the bowline loop, but he had proved hopelessly inadequate at even getting close to the sheepshank. Drumknott didn’t approve, but since he had been able to handle four useful knots, the rest of the crew had voted they wouldn’t force him to learn to swim in the open ocean (yet).
The third thing he learned was that living on a ship got really, really, really (times infinity) boring. The first few days were at least a little interesting, what with really getting the ship underway for the voyage and all, but after the first week or two the number of things to do onboard dwindled. The hold could always use cleaning, of course, and people had to look after the sails and of course one person was always on lookout and another steered (usually Vetinari, who would lackadaisically sort of turn the wheel every once and a while) but other than that . . . Well. Sam learned a number of card games and other ways to battle boredom, but most days he simply prayed for a storm or an enemy ship or something interesting.
Today, however, was different. Apparently they were stopping for supplies in Port Rana. Sam helped tie things down and prepare the ship for harbor with the rest of the crew while Vetinari and Drumknott stood at the helm and conspired over a scrap of paper.
“So what do we do when we stop at port?” Sam asked Bart, who had sort of taken on a role-model position for the boy. “And how long do we stop for?”
“Dunno,” Bart said, flawlessly tying up a sheepshank that Sam had been struggling with. “Captain usually tells us how long. On a stock stop like this, though, we’re probably going to be shopping, mostly. Maybe only a day or two.”
“Oh,” said Sam. “And how long before we stop again?”
Bart snickered. “Well, since the Captain’s pretty much wanted everywhere on the far side of the Counterweight Continent and the Agatean Empire doesn’t have any ports open to foreigners . . . Probably a while.”
Sam tried not to look disappointed. “Oh,” he said slowly.
“But if you’re worried about getting bored,” Bart said smoothly, “we’re going to be sailing pretty damn close to the Edge, so that’s always a laugh.”
“The Edge?” Sam paled. “What if we go off?”
Bart shrugged. “Then we go off. Won’t happen though; never has before.”
“. . . Okay,” Sam said slowly. “If you say so.”
“Rana’s off the starboard side!” Josiah called down from the crows’ nest. Sam looked right and saw, sure enough, a brown strip on the horizon with protruding bits that were probably buildings. He also noticed there were a fair few number of ships around. He turned to Bart.
“What colors are we going to fly?” he asked, noticing that no one seemed to be paying attention to that.
“Nothing, probably,” Bart said easily, throwing a length of rope to Sam. “Tie that down, would you?”
“Why nothing?” Sam asked, fumbling his way through a sailors’ knot. Bart grinned.
“You never heard of Rana, I take?”
Sam wracked his brains. He knew where Hergen was, but beyond that he had nothing. “No, never heard of it,” he said slowly.
“I imagine you wouldn’t have, in that posh school of yours,” Bart teased. Everyone liked to poke fun at Sam’s education, but never too loudly, since Vetinari had roughly the same background, only with better grades. “It’s a pirate port,” he explained bluntly. “I mean, there is law enforcement and it is somewhat civilized, not like Krull, but it’s sort of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, you know?”
“I see,” Sam said slowly. He noticed the ship turning, and when he turned to face the bow he saw the port was now directly in front of them, about half an hour’s journey away. Bart motioned for Sam to follow him to the hold, where the emptied containers had to be readied to be moved out and where the rest of the containers had to be reorganized. Just then, however, Vetinari stepped forward, waving his right hand.
“Attention, please, for instructions or something like them?” The crew, in an astounding feat of obedience, immediately stopped what they were doing and turned to face Vetinari, who was standing on the railing by the helm, swaying slightly but astoundingly managing to not fall off. Hs left hand was, as if had been almost solidly the whole journey, in his pocket. “Yes, very good,” he said distractedly, waving the map a little.
“So we’re going to be making berth in Rana,” he said slowly, in case there were some crewmembers who hadn’t quite caught on yet (and indeed, there was a man slowly coming to the realization that they were going to be making berth behind Sam). “Er, it’ll be a quick stop for two reasons. One, because we need to keep moving on this commission; we have a time limit, gentlemen, and I would very much dislike to not finish within it,” he said, making a face. “Second, because I am very much wanted in Hergen and I would rather not hang about.”
“’Ere, I didn’t know we were wanted in Hergen,” the slow crewmember said, somewhat resentfully. “’Ow long ‘as that been goin’ on?”
“Oh no no you’re not wanted there,” Vetinari said, waving the map in a placating gesture. “I am. No worries though, their dock crews are easily bribed and pretty stupid. So. Who wants to be captain this time?”
Sam looked to Bart, bewildered. “What?” he hissed.
Bart snickered. “This is the routine whenever we go somewhere the Captain’s wanted. See, there are some countries looking to arrest him for something petty so they can turn him in to a bigger country and collect on the reward. So we pick a new Captain for that port or whatever and a new name for the Boat so he gets around the whole thing.”
“Oh,” Sam said. “Well that’s pretty clever.”
“It’s always worked thus far,” Bart agreed.
Vetinari was looking out over the crew, expression minorly disappointed. “What, no volunteers? It’s really not that hard, you just make up a name and give the nice man, woman or other type of individual some money.” He sighed. “Fine. Blenkins, you’re it.”
“I had to do it last time!”
Vetinari pulled his hat down over his eyes, shoulders slumping. “Josiah, then. And that’s final, captain’s orders and everything else official.”
Josiah grumbled but didn’t say anything decipherable.
“All right, as far as what we’re doing here . . .” he peered at the map a moment and swayed a little as the ship rocked. “No stealing, rape, pillaging, blah blah, the whole ‘law-abiding citizens’ routine. We’ll probably leave either late tonight or early morning so it would probably be best if you’re all back here tonight. You all will be stocking the ship up. Drumknott has the list,” he said, gesturing in the first mate’s general direction. “Are we clear?”
“Where are you going, cap’n?” the slower man behind Sam asked. Vetinari gave him a blank look and then shrugged, smiling slightly.
“You know, captainly things. And that sort of thing.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Vetinari jumped down and made his way back to the helm. “As you were!”
Bart and Sam moved back off toward the hold.
“Was he drunk?” Sam asked somewhat incredulously as he followed Bart down the stairs.
“When isn’t he?” Bart countered.
Sam thought about that for a moment. “But why?” he asked finally. “I mean, how can he function at that level all the time?”
Bart handed Sam a mop as the proceeded into the hold. “He tried to sail sober once,” he reflected. “It didn’t work out. Downright scary, it was.” He looked to Sam and shrugged. “He’s a genius, you know. And he had a bad run a few years back.”
“But what do either of those things have to do with anything?” Sam was confused - his mother and father had always spoken so highly of the man and in person . . . Well, he was sharper than most people, but he wasn’t the calculating genius he’d pictured.
“You try going from ruling the biggest city in the world and being good at it,” Bart said slowly, “to being nothing in a period of twenty-four hours. That alone’ll drive you mad, if you think about it too much. And the Captain thinks and awful lot when there isn’t much rum.”
“Ah,” Sam said. He supposed it should have been more obvious, but then again he never remembered Vetinari being Patrician; he’d only been two when the man was exiled. It was almost like an afterthought to Sam, and he rather suspected Bart didn’t remember much either. He must’ve picked up on it from the others.
Sam and Bart mopped and tied things down in silence from that point on. Sam realized he was aware when they got into the harbor - the ship was no longer rocking violently and the remaining animal (a goat he’d named Spew after its ability to hit humans from all the way across the hold) seemed to instantly calm. Bart leaned his mop up against the wall and motioned for Sam to follow as he made his way to the deck. The rest of the crew was lined up along the railing; some with ropes in hand, others without. When he looked to the helm, however, he realized Vetinari was nowhere to be seen, and Josiah was conversing with some men Sam had never seen before.
“What’s going on?” Sam whispered, joining Bart on the rail.
“Figuring out where to put us,” Bart answered. “Looks pretty crowded,” he added, looking over the harbor. “A lot of people choose to berth here over the winter instead of Ecalpon; better weather.”
“Ah.” Sam watched as the men pointed to a general spot on the docks and then shook hands with Josiah. Then they headed to the side of the Boat, where they climbed down the side on a rope ladder and into a rowboat, presumably to await other ships. “Where’s the Captain?” he asked very quietly, lest the men were still listening in.
Bart shrugged. “Dunno. Cabin, probably.”
“Well that’s not very good hiding,” Sam muttered.
“Nothing to hide from yet,” Bart smirked. Sure enough, Vetinari emerged from the Captain’s cabin after Josiah casually stomped his foot. He made his way up to the helm and took note of where the ship was to be docked before heading down to the deck.
“So we’re not to get up to anything, boss?” one of the sailors, Faroli, asked tentatively. “Nothing at all?”
“If Drumknott doesn’t say you can do it, don’t,” Vetinari responded simply. He made his way over to Sam and Bart. “Clear off Bart, go do something with some ropes or something.” Bart shot a smirk to Sam before making his way over to another group of sailors, who were talking and waiting around to tie the ship down.
“Sir?” Sam asked cautiously. He and Vetinari hadn’t really had much contact since the first couple of days beyond him shouting orders at Sam. It was mainly Mr. Drumknott and Bart that helped Sam along.
“You’re coming with me,” Vetinari said without preamble, walking toward the stern of the ship. Sam, bewildered, followed.
“Sir?”
Vetinari stopped and turned, looking Sam up and down. Then he shook his head and kept walking. “Uncanny,” he muttered. “Follow.” He jumped up on the back railing, sizing up the distance from the ship to the dock. Sam froze.
“Sir?”
Vetinari sighed again. “As much as I relish reminiscing every meeting I ever had with your father in the space of, oh, thirty seconds, sometimes I do enjoy complete sentences.”
Sam paused for a minute. “What?”
“Oh another word; progress. Do go on.”
“Er.” Sam paused, gathered his thoughts, which was entirely too difficult to do considering Vetinari wasn’t even paying attention to him at the moment, and then went on, “Sir, I’m sorry, but I can’t swim.”
This time it was Vetinari who stopped moving. Then, very slowly, he turned around. “You what now?”
“I can’t swim,” Sam muttered, more thoroughly embarrassed than he ever had been in his life. “I just . . . I never learned in the city.”
Vetinari was rubbing the bridge of his nose. “So wait a minute here, and let me get this all straightened out.” He paused. “You, the son of a rich noble couple who still happen to have some influence in my city, decide to stowaway on my boat, am I correct thus far?”
“Er, yes?”
“Good, good. So you stowaway,” Vetinari continued, jumping down and walking over to Sam, apparently thinking very hard, “by hiding in the hold, with all the animals and whatnot, without giving any thought to the fact that ships have a limited food supply and, as you learned, rock a lot and travel great distances on the ocean over long periods of time. Am I still right?”
Sam was blushing bright red from his hairline to his neck now, and didn’t trust himself to speak without sounding daft. So he just nodded uneasily.
“And the icing on this whole wonderful cake,” Vetinari said, drawing even with the boy and using his considerable height and almost-decent (today) skills at standing still to loom to his best ability, “is that you, incidentally, don’t know how to swim.” He bent down so that he was at eye-level with the boy. “Did you use your brain for even five seconds, or is that an overestimation?”
Sam didn’t respond. He was pretty sure he was about to cry. Vetinari watched him for a minute before turning away.
“Right, well I suppose there’s another way we can do this.” He paced up and down the railing as Josiah steered the ship alongside the dock. Bart and the others were all standing along the dock side of the rail, holding ropes, ready to tie the ship fast. Vetinari looked at them for a minute and the grinned. “Get me a rope.”
Five minutes later, as the ship was still moving into its space on the dock, Sam found himself looking at a rope, hanging innocently from the rearmost mast of the ship. Vetinari was testing his weight on it and, apparently satisfied, thrust the rope to Sam. “So wait, I do what now?” Sam asked, fumbling the rope and looking incredulously to the dock, which was still about ten feet away. Thankfully, the harbor was crowded - there were enough ships docked that he and Vetinari’s unconventional disembarking would go unnoticed.
“You grab the rope,” Vetinari said slowly, as if speaking to someone vastly less intelligent than himself(1), “and swing over to the dock.”
“But I can’t swim!”
“Docks are solid, Sam.”
“No but, I mean . . . I mean there’s like, ten feet of water there! What if I fall?” Sam was trying not to visibly tremble, but it was a near thing.
Vetinari sighed and slumped a little. “Sam, I will lose all faith I have left in humanity if you cannot manage to flail ten feet through the water to the dock.”
“But -”
“People float, Sam.”
Sam swallowed and grabbed the rope, testing his weight on it. “And this is the only way?”
Vetinari paused for a minute. “No,” he said slowly. “But it’s the way we’re going to do it.”
Sam looked to the man incredulously then nodded weakly. “Okay,” he stuttered with a gulp. He climbed up on the railing, took an extra firm grip on the rope, and swung.
--
(1) This constitutes the vast majority of people on the Disc.