“Blacktooth,” whispered Bottom. “Captain of the watch.”
Chapter 3
The Watch
The captain of the watch, Blacktooth, was the sort of beetle-browed brute I’d encountered my whole life at the fringes of royal courts: large men whose talent for violence and incapacity for original thought carried them into middling positions as enforcers, jailers, and executioners. There had been a dozen or so of that stripe on the pirate ship, and if not for my own wary quickness with a blade or fear of Captain Jessica’s vengeance (she’d once dirked a fellow pirate in the dick for touching her bottom sans consent) I’m sure I would have been pummeled and cast broken into the sea long before we were set adrift. ’Tis best to proceed with caution when confronted by such slow-witted, quick-tempered creatures, particularly when they are backed by a ferrety second with a cocked crossbow.
“Bow to your betters, thou chicken-witted catch-farts!” exclaimed the puppet Jones, much to my surprise, because I had not thrown my voice nor worked the ring and string that move his mouth, which, generally, is how the puppet makes his point.
The ferrety watchman raised his crossbow and aimed at my chest. I dropped Jones and dove behind the thespians as I drew one of the daggers from the small of my back. Once I heard the bolt fly I might close enough distance between myself and the watchmen to send a dagger at the big one before his sword could clear its scabbard. There’d be an instant while the smaller one tried to reload, and I could send a second dagger to his throat. The big one would still be staggering, my slim blade a bloody brooch in his breast, but with good fortune, Drool could help me bring them both to a swift finish. (I am not a fighter by nature, and spent much of my time during pirate raids in the rigging shouting encouragement to my mates and withering insults at the enemy, but Drool, if you caught him between wanks and snacks, could summon great strength and fury when the dashing of brains needed to be done.)
I came to my feet, leapt, then launched myself off the shoulders of Snout the bunny-hatted tinker—a vault I hoped would put me in knife-throwing range of the watchmen. But alas, no bolt was loosed, and as I somersaulted, I saw the captain pushing his cohort’s crossbow down. I landed lightly, and light-headed, not twenty feet in front of them. I shook off my dizziness and went to one knee with a theatrical flourish, fitting my dagger back into its sheath as I bowed.
“Gentlemen!” said I. “Good day to you, and greetings from our humble troupe of players, the Mechanicals!”
“The Mechanicals!” repeated the players (may all the errant gods bless them). They bowed in a rough approximation of unison.
The captain scowled at the archer. “Burke, we of the watch do not shoot a man for sporting an impotent puppet.”
“Impudent,” corrected Burke.
Blacktooth then turned to us, doffed his bronze officer’s helmet, which looked like it might have been used recently for boiling beans, and said, “Beggin’ your pardon, gents, Burke is under training these two years and is yet a nematode in the ways of the watch.”
“Neophyte,” corrected Burke.
“Take the shot, ya scurvy coward,” said the puppet Jones from his spot lying in the dirt. “Or haven’t you the stones for a fight?”
How? It was my smaller voice but not from me. Drool, perhaps . . . “Drool, stop that!” I called.
The great ninny opened his mouth and an avalanche of half-chewed bread tumbled down his front. Not Drool. What trickery was this?
Then four more watchmen with spears stepped out of the wood and the notion of a fight or escape sizzled like a butterfly in a firestorm.
“Halt!” said the captain. The watchmen stopped. Blacktooth turned and stepped up to me—loomed, as it were.
The ferrety archer slung his crossbow onto his back by a leather strap and scampered past me. “Show your passports, citizens,” he commanded.
Each of the Mechanicals produced a wooden chit from his pocket or from a lanyard around his neck, each chit bearing a wax seal and burnt inscription of some sort.
Burke read aloud from each chit before moving to the next. “Peter Quince, Joiner’s Guild. Nick Bottom, Weaver’s Guild. Francis Flute, Bellows Mender’s Guild.”
“You have enough broken bellows to support a guild of menders?” I asked Flute.
“There’s just me and another fellow,” said Flute from the modesty of his veil.
“Where is your stamp, little one?” Blacktooth asked me. “It is unlawful to be indignant in Athens.”
“Indigent,” said Burke. “Unlawful to be indigent.”
Blacktooth glared at his second; turned back to me. “Art thou a knave?”
I stood to meet his gaze and fell short only by a foot or so. “I am no knave, sir, but I’m most certainly indignant, thou putrid toss-toad, thou—”
“Master Pocket,” said Nick Bottom, jumping between me and Blacktooth just as I was about to launch into a crushing recitation of the captain’s ancestry, beginning with the syphilitic rat that impregnated a dusty boot to produce his mother.
“Master Pocket,” said Bottom, “is our new maître du théâtre.”
“Sounds suspiciously fucking French,” said the puppet Jones. “I say fillet the rascal.”
Did they all hear the puppet speak, or was the puppety voice a phantom born of my fatigue and a blow to the head?
Blacktooth loosened his sword in its scabbard, which served to capture my attention.
“I am a traveling actor,” said I, the very ideal of a penitent player. “Here to serve the king.”
“The duke,” corrected Burke with a growl.
“Indeed,” said I. “The duke.”
Blackfoot looked me up and down, shot a glance at my puppet stick, then looked back to me. “You wouldn’t be Robin Goodfellow, would you?”
I sighed. “I am not.”
“Yet you wear the motley of a fool . . .” Blacktooth bent over, put a finger under one eye to better examine me. “Are you sure? If you are, the duke has sent us to fetch you.”
Burke raised his crossbow and trained it upon me. The four spearmen lowered their spears and stepped forward.
“We are fools,” said Drool, climbing to his feet. And they all turned to look at the dim giant, who stepped up to the four spearmen, puffed his chest, and said in a voice borrowed from Blacktooth, “And pirates.”
“Drool, no,” I called.
“Bloody viscous pirates, ya scurvy dogs!” Drool continued in the borrowed voice.
“Vicious,” corrected Burke, by habit. He swung his crossbow toward Drool and raised it to aim.
“I think fucking not,” said I. In a single motion I pulled a dagger from the small of my back and flung it underhanded at Burke, where it buried its point a thumb’s length into his bum cheek. The watchman screamed as he let fly his bolt, which sailed well over Drool’s head into the forest.
Meanwhile, Blacktooth had drawn his sword and made a mighty swipe that would have relieved me of my head had I not leaned away. I could hear the blade whistle through the air as it passed by my nose. I scuttled away from Blacktooth, readying myself for a second dodge, but the captain held his sword fast at en garde, then looked around it, as if the blade might be blocking his vision.