Drake suddenly wanted to be part of it: part of the singing, the slapping, the body-huddles, the community. It all seemed, for a moment, positively jolly. But did not dare join in. His recent experiences had left him feeling as wrecked as the Walrus. He closed his eyes, and, eventually, slept.
Towards noon, Drake woke from muttering nightmares to hear excited talk amongst the pirates. They had sighted a ship. As it came closer, they saw it had green sails. Closer still, and they saw its dragon figurehead.Mulps spat, and swore.'It's the Warwolf,' said Mulps.
The masts and rigging of the Walrus advertised their presence, and it was soon clear to everyone except Drake that the Warwolf had sighted them. However, by the time the ship was bulking near the reefs, even he knew that rescue was at hand – not that the pirates seemed glad of it.
Keeping a prudent distance from the rocks, the Warwolf lowered three boats to investigate. Soon the castaways were sharing their reef with newcomers, a party of grim men tricked out with weapons and looking more than ready to use them. One was, to judge from his bearing, their leader.He carried himself like a king.
He was tall, lean, as black as Bucks Cat and as bald as a hazel nut. He was dressed in brown leather, and wore round his hips a great big leather belt from which hung a waterproof sea-pouch and assorted ironmongery. He looked dangerous. But he had come, nevertheless, to rescue them – so, at the sight of him, Drake perked up.
'Who's the bald old coot?' said Drake to anyone who might answer.
Nobody condescended to reply, but the bald old coot was in fact Jon Arabin, the Warwolf himself, an ascetic man with a taste for experiment and challenge. Arabin came onto the rocks like a conqueror. His eyes were a pale, sunwashed blue. Drake was startled to see such blue amidst such black. Steady eyes, yes, and a steady voice, which said:
'There's space afloat for any who'll swear loyal to me and mine. Even the Walrus. How about it, Mulps, me pretty fopling?'Mulps spat in reply.
'I'll take no murder on my ship,' continued Arabin, unperturbed. 'So you must swear loyal. Mulps, play the man: free the crew from their word.'
'Done,' said Mulps, nodding a little. 'Any rat in search of a sewer can run.'Nobody moved.
'Loyal is one thing,' said Arabin. 'Stupid is another.' Drake got to his feet. He felt thin, transparent, almost weightless.'I'll swear loyal,' he said.
'That's rape-meat from the last boarding!' said Andranovory. 'Take a swearing from him? He can't stand a deck, far less set sail.'
Arabin turned his stern gaze on Drake, who felt, for a moment, like dust being weighed against iron.'What can you do, boy?'
T know iron,' said Drake promptly, 'and I know steel. Yes, and rope. Climbing, splicing and knots. It's my father who learnt me ropes.'
'Aye, boy, and buggery perhaps,' said Arabin. 'But can you cut?''Cut?'
'Aye. Cut, gut, gralloch and gash. Go nose to nose with a cutlass and swim through smirking. How about it, boy? Come here!'
Drake reluctantly ventured down to the foam-smothered patch of rock where Jon Arabin stood, careless of the sea lathering his boots. As surf sucked back, Arabin tossed a dirk so it fell between them. Drake stared at the bald man's hard bones, the rough-torn boots, the ugly chunks of callus on the knuckles, the pale blue eyes as cold as the sea and as ruthless.
T can cut,' he said, and stooped, and grabbed, and jerked the dirk to the challenge.
Jon Arabin kicked him in the stomach, and he went down hard. Heart scrambling, Drake scuffled to his feet. Sick nausea staggered him, and he knew he was dead meat: but he squared back, panting, knife held tight, and stood ready.Arabin gave a little nod.
'Aye,' he said. 'You've got the makings. Get in the boat.'
7
Name: Orfus pirates.
Description: league of sea-robbers based on islands of the Greater Teeth.
Language: a dialect of Galish.
Political organization: oligarchical rule through a limited franchise democracy.
History: dates back several centuries to the Summer of Three Comets, when the delinquent Harla clan of Galish traders set up as pirates on the island of Drum, a base later abandoned after a severe dispute with the local sea dragons.
Once back aboard the Warwolf, Jon Arabin ordered a raft to be cut loose and thrown overboard. He was obeyed.
'That's their chance,' said Jon Arabin, as the bamboo raft splashed into the sea. 'They can swim for it, if they wish.'
'Why give them a chance?' said one of his men. 'Are you in love with friend Walrus of sudden?'
'Nay, man,' said Arabin. 'But Whale Mike's on that reef. He gave me a chance once, aye, when the Walrus was set to drown me. I owe him the same in return.''What's with the boy?' said a man.
'New meat,' said Jon Arabin. 'Get him some soup. Then to bed.''We've no bunk spare.''Then he can sleep on the floor. He's tired enough
aren't you boy? Aye. You'll nod away to never in an instant.'
Drake was in no state to argue otherwise. Jon Arabin knew what he was talking about.
The Warwolf stood off from the Greater Teeth that night, and put in to Gufling the next day. A slow and weary business it was, with much sounding, towing and warping before they eased the ship in to a sea-cleft which fitted them as tightly as a virgin. Gufling, Drake learned, was the smallest Tooth where a ship could berth; Jon Arabin had been exiled here by debt.
From the deck, Drake looked around with eyes which had widened to accommodate the gloom. Overhanging cliffs tossed around the echoes of boots on stone, harsh laughter and shipwork hammering. The place stank of sewage, smoke and fish heads. Dogs were barking, babies bawling, and fat women yelling in a Galish patois at times scarcely comprehensible.
'Come along, boy,' said Jon Arabin, striding down the gang-plank. 'What are you waiting for? A whore-money proposition?'
Dumbly, Drake followed his new master – wishing, for a moment, that he was a fish, free to take the sea-path back to Stokos. They fumbled their way down cockroach-haunted tunnels to Arabin's living quarters, where a confusion of women and children filled the air with tears and laughter.
Drake was shown a place where he could sleep, a side-kennel in Jon Arabin's cave complex. It was a warehouse of sorts, holding baulks of spare timber, buckets of tar, lobster pots, fishing floats, harpoons, chunks of cork and hundreds of odds and ends of rope.
'You say you know rope, boy,' said Arabin. 'Well, have we got work for you! Look on it as a challenge. Do you accept?'
'Plen pro!' said Drake in his native Ligin, meaning 'avec plaisir'.
And he sat down on the spot and began rummaging through the ropes. Jon Arabin laughed.'Lunch first!' said he.
Lunch was three different kinds of seaweed, assorted seaslugs, lobster, whore's-eggs, raw fish and roast seal, all obtained locally. Drake was glad he had learnt that raw fish was safe to eat – otherwise he might have disgraced himself by accusing Jon Arabin of trying to poison him.'Good fish,' he said.
' You' 11 find, boy,' said Arabin, 'that the Teeth must feed themselves, more or less. You'll be busy enough when the Warwolf's home. Aye. Working sealing boats and fishing.''Do I start that after lunch?' said Drake.
'Nay,' said Arabin, with another laugh. 'After lunch, it's ropes. Rope is your future, boy, till I say otherwise.'