1012. Chapter 1012

After Much Ado About Murder

Episode 8.20

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: He who hath no stomach for this fanfic, let him depart, his passport shall be made, But no crowns for convoy will be put in his purse as I make no money from this. Rating: K. Time: See above. (and below).

"Would you become more…respectable?" Kate asked.

"Would I give up sleeping with men out of wedlock?" Alexis laughed. "Probably not. But if I am recognized as someone like Lady Katherine, I won't need to use my body to get what I want. I'll do anything you need. I'll be your maid. I'll be a seamstress, a cook, I'll get on my hands and knees and scrub floors. Anything."

Kate shook her head. "You won't learn much scrubbing floors. While we are in the field, you'll be my maid. It's not a taxing job as I know well how to care for myself. And I have a number of books that you can read. I have only a few with me, mostly engineering and medicine, as they seemed to be the most useful in wartime. But I have many more back in Pola. My mother was a very intelligent and well read woman. I have continued her path."

Alexis quickly knelt before Lady Katherine. "I swear that I will serve you honorably and honestly for all of my days."

"I suppose you should move your things to our tent." Castle said.

"Perhaps you could move to my tent? Um, our tent? It's larger than yours. Grams and Meg can take your tent."

Castle lo0oked around at the tent, which was quite well furnished. "How did you get the tent and its furnishing?

Alexis blushed. "Would you believe it stuck to a wagon?"

Kate took Rick's hand and led him from the tent.

Castle's army was approaching the third town that Alexis had found with a shipyard. The five liburnians came ashore at the same time as Rick's horsemen rode into the town. Will Fox rode to the beach to meet Rick.

"Sir Richard, this town is like the last two we hit. The food and some loot are all piled in the town square. It's like they're trying to propitiate us by leaving an offering."

"More likely a bribe." Castle said, jumping down onto the beach as his troops followed him onto the beach. "Do they really think they won't burn their shipyards and the town itself. These people are all pirates, damn them."

Senor de Esposito rode up. "We won't be burning the shipyard here very soon. There's a fine liburnian that looks completed and a smaller warship that I think we can finish. We need to have Senor Jinnah look at them."

Castle called back to Hamid. "Hamid, we need you to examine two ships here. They appear to be complete, or nearly so."

Hamid ibn Jinnah jumped off the ship and followed Castle and his captains to the shipyard. He smiled as soon as he saw the two ships.

"Yes! Two fine ships. I believe that with the sailors we have, I can have them in the water and ready by tomorrow. It will be a problem with crewing them, however. I'll have to take men from our war galleys and distribute them on our two new ships. One is a liburnian and the other is some sort of scout, I believe." Hamid walked around the smaller ship, nodding to himself. "Yes. Yes indeed. She's very lightly built, for speed and has ten oars a side." Hamid bowed to Castle. "If I may gather my seamen?"

The work went quickly and the two ships would have been ready by the next morning. However, a thick bank of fog had settled over the coast. Hamid decided it was much easier to stay ashore until the fog lifted. By noon, the fog was as thick as ever.

As he stood on the deck of the Liburnian, imagining how it would sail, Hamid suddenly heard something from the sea. It was very faint, but he knew what it was.

"Sir Richard. Gather your army. There are several ships approaching us. Large ships, I believe."

As Castle began barking orders, Hamid ran to the seashore to get a better look.

"Three ships! No, four. No more than four. And much larger than out ships, I think they must be….Wait! I see the flags. A red flag! Yes! These are the Sultan's ships. They're Turkish!" Hamid ran into the surf and began bellowing in Turkish.

Four ships ran onto the beach, one on either side of Hamid. Castle could hear yelling in Turkish between Hamid and people in the ships. Then a dozen well armed men jumped down onto the beach and approached Hamid. To Castle's surprise, the men fell to their knees in front of Hamid. Hamid was no longer yelling, and Castle could not tell what was happening.

"Sir Richard, would you please come over here and bring Lady Katherine and Alexis with you?"

"I don't like this." Castle said to Kate.

Kate took his hand. "I don't think we can fight them. I can see more ships out there, I think."

Through the fog, they could see indistinct shapes moving.

"We'll try talking then." Castle turned. "Will, will you bring Alexis here?"

When Alexis arrived, the three strode to the beached galleys and the knot of men on the beach.

"Sir Richard, would you be so good as to take off your boots?"

"My boots? Why?"

"My friend, Selim Bey, the commander of this fleet, wishes to examine your feet. Please."

Castle shrugged and took off his boots. One of the Turks knelt and examined his feet very closely. Then he stood and ran his hands over Castle's head. Then he reached around and grabbed Castle's ass.

Castle stepped back. "What in the hell….?"

Hamid stepped between Castle and the Turk. "He would also like to look, and only look, at Lady Katherine and Lady Alexis."

Castle looked at the two women. Kate nodded. "As long as he only looks."

Alexis smiled. "But if he wants more than a look, he can ask me."

The Turk walked around both women, examining them closely. Then he stood back, spoke to the men with him and then had a long conversation with Hamid.

Hamid smiled and spoke to Castle.

"You may find this amusing, Sir Richard. It seems that Lady Alexis' little trick with her handgonne has gotten better with each retelling, as is often the case. The pirates now believe that you are the Devil Incarnate, complete with cloven hooves, horns and a tail. Seeing that you have none of those, my friend is much relieved. They believe that Alexis can turn herself into some sort of huge, black being and that Lady Katherine can fly and burn cities down with nothing more than a wave of her hand. My friend has examined you and I have explained that these are merely the ramblings of a bunch of ignorant barbarian unbelievers. That explains the food that has been left and the loot. The pirates fear that you will turn them all into mice or something and take them straight to hell."

"That's where I intend to send as many of them as I can." Castle snapped.

"Selim Bey was sent by our master, the Sultan, to check out this rumor of the appearance of Shaitan, as we call the Devil. I have explained who you are and that I am with you of my own free will to have my revenge upon Xanthippe for what she did to my sons. Selim Bey sees no reason to continue here. Our empire has no interest in interfering with your war."

"For now?" Castle asked.

Hamid shrugged. "For now, we will leave you Christians to yourselves." He quickly went on. "However, he has agreed to assist me in my quest. He will suggest to certain parties that you are indeed the Devil and that he is returning to raise a vast army and fleet to fight you. Probably in another year. That should terrify the pirates. He will also loan us some Christian rowers for our new ships."

"Slaves?" Castle asked.

"Of course not." Hamid said, sounding hurt. "We do not use slaves for rowers. We recruit them as part of our navy. And Christians do serve us."

"How many?"

"One hundred. Enough to man our new liburnian and the smaller scout we found. We'll have quite a nice little fleet before long."

"Istria will have a nice little fleet." Castle countered.

"Of course."

"One thing, Hamid. Why does a Bey in the service of the Turkish Sultan bow to you?"

"My mother is the sister of the Sultan. Now Sultans have had a habit of killing off male heirs of the Sultan to insure their own safety from those who would seize the thrown. But the offspring of a mere woman is no threat to the Sultan. And I have made myself useful to him."

"Useful how?"

"As a diplomat. I have represented the Sultan to the Pope, the French King, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Kings of Castile and Aragon, various Italian states and, of course, England. That's why I speak English so well. I have a talent with languages."

"I've never heard of such an emissary to King Edward, or to the King of France."

Hamid smiled. "Is that not the essence of diplomacy?"

The conversation was interrupted by a courier for Castle. He bowed and handed Castle a bit of parchment. He read it and smiled. "Our stratiotes have captured a convoy of provisions headed south. Not all of the pirates believe I'm the Devil and need to be appeased."

A convoy of more than fifty heavily laden carts was soon brought in, to the cheers of Castle's troops. Although they had gathered much in the way of supplies from the countryside, they seemed to disappear down the soldier's throats as fast as they arrived. The captured convoy would keep the army fed for a week, at least.

As Castle and his captains inspected the carts to see what they contained, they were distracted by a loud argument towards the back of the convoy. Castle was not surprised that one of the argumentative voices belonged to Alexis.

Moving quickly to the end of the convoy, he found a burly local on his knees before Alexis, apparently pleading with her in Italian. Alexis was obviously making demands in the same language.

"Alexis, what is this all about?"

The redhead dropped a curtsy and smiled. "Sir Richard. This is a blacksmith. He has his whole smithy with him. His anvil, tools, charcoal and lots of bar iron. It's perfect."

"Perfect for what?" He asked, a bit perplexed.

"For making more handgonnes, of course."

"And we need more of those because…?"

Alexis quickly looked at him as if he were a rather dull child, but then smiled. "You've seen how valuable one handgonne has been. Imagine if we had ten or twenty, or even fifty."

Castle frowned. ~Don't you need lead for the round balls you shoot? And the ingredients for the…um, mixture you use?"

Alexis laughed. "I'm sure we can find lead around a shipyard. And as for the mixture, I'll need charcoal, which our blacksmith has, some beeswax, ground acorns, sulfur, pine cones, boiled pine cones, that is, sand, some fish oil and saltpeter. Oh, and some beer."

"Is making this mixture such thirsty work?"

The saucy redhead laughed. "It's for the mixture."