Birds of Prey

He guessed that since they had anchored in the lagoon his father had cast his own horoscope. He had seen the zodiacal chart covered with arcane notations lying open on his desk in his cabin. That would account for his withdrawn and introspective mood. As Aboli had said, the stars were his children and he knew their secrets.

Suddenly his father lifted his head and sniffed the cool evening air. Then his face changed as he studied the forest edge. No dark thoughts could absorb him to the point where he was unaware of his surroundings.

"Aboli, take us in to the bank, if you please."

They turned the boat towards the narrow beach, and the second followed. After they had all jumped out onto the beach and moored both boats, Sir Francis gave a quiet order. "Bring your arms. Follow me, but quietly."

He led them into the forest, pushing stealthily through the undergrowth, until he stepped out suddenly onto a well-used path. He glanced back to make certain they were following him, then hurried along.

Hal was mystified by his father's actions until he smelt a trace of woodsmoke on the air and noticed for the first time the bluish haze along the tops of the dense forest trees. This must have been what had alerted his father.

Suddenly Sir Francis stepped out into a small clearing in the forest and stopped. The four men who were already there had not noticed him. Two lay like corpses on a battlefield, one still clutching a squat brown hand-blown bottle in his inert fingers, the other drooling strings of saliva from the corner of his mouth as he snored.

The second pair were wholly absorbed by the stacks of silver guilders and the ivory dice lying between them. One scooped up the dice and rattled them at his ear before rolling them across the patch of beaten bare earth. "Mother of a pig!" he growled. "This is not my lucky day."

"You should not speak unkindly of the dam who gave birth to you," said Sir Francis softly. "But the rest of what you say is the truth. This is not your lucky day."

They looked up at their captain in horrified disbelief, but made no attempt to resist or escape as Daniel and Aboli dragged them to their feet and roped them neck to neck in the ma

Sir Francis walked over to inspect the still that stood at the far end of the clearing. They had used a black iron pot to boil the fermented mash of old biscuit and peelings, and copper tubing stolen from the ship's stores for the coil. He kicked it over and the colourless spirits flared in the flames of the charcoal brazier on which the pot stood. A row of filled bottles, stoppered with wads of leaves, was laid out beneath a yellow-wood tree. He picked them up one at a time and hurled them against the tree-trunk. As they shattered the evaporating fumes were pungent enough to make his eyes water. Then he walked back to Daniel and Ned, who had kicked the drunks out of their stupor and had dragged them across the clearing to rope them to the other captives.

"We'll give them a day to sleep it off, Master Ned. Then tomorrow, at the begi

"Please, Captain, we meant no harm. just a little fun." They tried to crawl to where he stood, but Aboli dragged them back like dogs on the leash.

"I will not grudge you your fun," said Sir Francis, "if you do not grudge me mine." he carpenter had knocked up a row of four tripods on the quarterdeck, and the drunkards and gamblers were lashed to them by wrist and ankle. Big Daniel walked down the line and ripped their shirts open from collar to waist, so that their naked backs were exposed. They hung helplessly in their bonds like trussed pigs on the back of a market cart.

"Every man aboard knows full well that I will tolerate no drunke

He paused to watch their faces, and saw the terror of the cat in their eyes, mixed with relief that it was not them bound to the tripods. Unlike the captains of many privateers, even some Knights of the Order, Sir Francis took no pleasure in this punishment. Yet he did not flinch from necessity. He commanded a ship full of tough, unruly men, whom he had handpicked for their ferocity and who would take any show of kindness as weakness.

"I am a merciful man," he told them, and somebody in the rear ranks chuckled derisively. Sir Francis paused and, with a bleak eye, singled out the offender. When the culprit hung his head and shuffled his feet, he went on smoothly, "But these rascals would test my mercy to its limits."

He turned to Big Daniel, who stood beside the first tripod. He was stripped to the waist and his great muscles bulged in arms and shoulders. He had tied back his long greying hair with a strip Of Cloth, and from his scarred fist the lashes of the cat hung to the planks of the deck like the serpents of Medusa's head.

"Make it fifteen for each, Master Daniel," Sir Francis ordered, "but comb your cat well between the strokes." Unless Daniel's fingers separated the lashes of the cat after each stroke, the blood would matt them together and clot them "into a single heavy instrument that would cut human flesh like a sword, blade. Even fifteen with an uncombed cat would strip the meat off a man's back down to the vertebrae of his spine.

"Fifteen it is, Captain," Daniel acknowledged, and shaking out the whip to separate the knotted thongs, stepped up to his first victim. The man twisted his head to watch him over his shoulder, his expression blanched with fear.