Chapter 23: News, Conferences and Decisions

One of our warships had captured another ship which we just happened to blunder across, and he had news for us so Thunder brought the captain and his officers to Flying Arrow and I had Shark go, too, to see what the fuss was about.

The captured ship was out of Big Island and headed for Central Island with a cargo of assorted foods for the island. It was overpopulated, it had more people than it could support, and taking food to Central Isle was a good low-risk way to make a reasonable profit. When they saw us they thought that we were the King of Central Isle’s fleet, on its way to attack Mountain Isle.

Their news was that the constant low-level war between Central and Mountain Isle had flared up. Someone had devastated East Isle, and no one could have done that except the King on Central Isle. The East Islanders were saying that it had been a fleet from Hunter Island, but everyone knew that they didn’t have a fleet. Besides, no one from the mainland knew where the Pirate Isles were. It had to be the King.

It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. Some of us couldn’t help it. Of course the captain and his officers took offense, but by now they knew why we were laughing. Hunter Island did have a fleet. Just as important, Hunter Island also had a King, and he could make us all work together like this.

Of course, to the best of my knowledge we had not actually built any of our ships. Did that matter? I didn’t think that the Pirate Isles had actually built many of their ships, either. Where did they all come from?

Shark, I knew, had been built just a few miles northwest of us on Mountain Isle. It had been built for Willem of North Harbor and it had been almost new when we captured it. There were only a few more of our ships, maybe three or four, that we’d been told were island-built. Most of the ships we’d captured, though, were crewed by men who knew nothing about where the ship had come from. “We captured it from a Twin Island trader three years ago” was typical.

Tom wanted to know how that changed things. I asked Mr. Black what the other islands would do. He said that they would all get ready for war but at the same time they would all try to stay out of it. The King on Central Isle -the captured trader’s captain said ‘of Central Isle’ and he said ‘on Central Isle’- was a weasel who could not be trusted by anyone; his closest allies and friends were the most likely to be cheated, robbed, or murdered.

I had to ask “Do you actually have weasels on the Pirate Isles?”

“No. It’s just a saying. I have no idea what a weasel is, but it must not be a very safe animal.”

“We have them where I come from. Think of a half-sized fox or wolf, with the manners of a rat. If you try to make a pet of one you could feed it every day for a year, and the first time you forget it will remind you by eating you. They have no loyalty at all.”

Mr. Black and the captured captain both laughed. “That’s the King, alright!” Seeing that no one scowled at them, the rest of the captured officers joined in.

I did look at them and say, seriously. “That’s not our king. Our king is an honest man who makes his promises good.”

“Does he treat his enemies fairly?”

I turned to Mr. Black. “Mr. Black? What say you?”

“I will say that he is more than fair. He has treated me far better than I would have treated him. I don’t think I want to say what I would have done if our positions had been reversed. Certainly not with him listening. I will say that I’m not always certain he’s really your King. I’ve seen him give you orders, and you say ‘yes your majesty’ and go do them. I’ve also seen you give him orders, and he bows and says ‘yes, Lord Jason’, and goes and does them. What kind of king does that?”

“The kind of king who knows that he doesn’t know everything. I am his Admiral. He defers to me on naval matters. I know more about ships and the sea than he does, so if I give an order regarding the ship or sailing, he does as he’s told. Similarly, Sir Tony over there and the Commander over there know far more about land fighting than either of us. If we’re talking about a battle on land either of them can give us orders and we will obey them. For anything else, though, I can give orders to anyone about my lands, and the King can give any of us orders about anything.”

“That makes sense. The King on Central Isle won’t listen to anyone, though. He would think it made him look weak.”

“Ducking when someone sees a catapult shot coming and yells ‘duck’ isn’t weak. It’s wise, and trusting of your men. If you can’t trust your own men, why do you have them?”

“I can’t answer that. I trusted my crew. If I didn’t trust them, I wouldn’t ship with them.”

The captain agreed with Mr. Black. “Yes. If I can’t trust my crew I can’t take them to sea. You are Lord Jason?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“What are you lord of?”

The Commander said “He is Duke of the Western Marches.”

I muttered “marshes. swamps.”

Sir Tony said “He is Admiral of the Royal Fleet, and Protector of the Southern Shores.”

King Tom said “Even more important than those, he is the hereditary Baron of Jayport. He is the ONLY hereditary baron on Hunter Island, because I trust him to raise his children to be good men and true, just like him.”

“And you are?”

I got there first. “King Tom the First of Hunter Island. And we all hope that is a hereditary title. All we have to do is keep his kids away from Lady Philipmina.” All of our people laughed at that. The Lady Philipmina may not quite have been a weasel, but she was certainly a shark or wolf.

We continued bantering for a while, then Tom called us back to the subject at hand. “Lord Jason, how does this affect our mission here?”