PIRATE KING: … with all our faults, we love our Queen.
I DID NOT know if Mrs Hatley and Isabel’s mother got their baths that day. I did not know if Edith – Eddie – was granted his hair-cut. I did not discover until some days later whether or not Hale got his film back or if Bibi arranged a more satisfactory news photograph or if Fflytte found a local capable of working the ropes. And some things I never did learn: if Hale knew that June was his child; if the girls found a source of chewing gum in Morocco; if Rosie screeched forever in the air above Salé.
Two things I knew, when I staggered into my own very small, very dim hotel room, very late that night. First, a telegram from Scotland Yard informed us that Lonnie Johns had been found, alive and well, having returned from an illicit holiday in Barbados with a Member of Parliament she’d met in the course of making Rum Runner. And second, that I was wearing the same goat dung – coloured robe I’d put on that morning; the itching from the wool (I prayed it was only from the wool) was driving me mad.
I tore it off and threw it into a corner, replacing it with a dressing-gown I had chosen from a heap of cast-off clothing Rabat’s European community had hastily donated to their filmic refugees. The garment might have been designed for Randolph Fflytte, but modesty was not high on my list of concerns. I tied its belt, dropped into the armchair that was wedged between bed and wall, kicked off my boots, tipped back my head, and closed my eyes.
“Just so you know,” I said, “I plan to murder Lestrade when we get home.”
There came a ting of cut-glass carafe against tin mug, then the tap of my drink being set atop the small deal table tastefully decorated with cigarette burns.
“I may be too tired to swallow,” I groaned.
I heard another movement of clothing, then the cup nudged my hand. My fingers wrapped around it: perhaps I was not too tired to swallow, after all.
“A most successful day, Russell. You overcame a band of ruffians with minimal bloodshed, freed thirty-two British captives and a Frenchman, and prevented a war. You oversaw the peaceful change of régime of a criminal gang into the hands of a young man eager to promulgate the noblest sentiments of Victorian England. You made your erstwhile employer – he is, I trust, erstwhile? – happy by finding a source of what might be described as Moroccan actors, and in the process not only salvaged the economic future of the British film industry, but saved King and country from scandal.”
“However,” I told him, “scandal there will be, enough to keep Fflytte Films in the news for some weeks. To begin with Edith keeps trying to sneak across the river. Her mother caught her the first time. The second, she was returned by Benjamin.”
“The pretty pirate?”
“Yes. Who brought her into the dinner where the entire crew was gathered – her mother had thought she was sleeping – and asked M. Dédain for assistance.”
“Asking for asylum?”
“Asking for marriage.”
“Celeste, wasn’t it? Well, at least someone is happy.”
“Celeste is not happy. Oh, she was when she first saw him. But after a short time, the pretty young man contrived to be sitting next to Daniel Marks. Celeste swore she would talk to every newspaper in England.”
“I see.”
“Daniel removed himself to sit with Bibi, which made everything settle down nicely. Although as I came past the hotel tonight, I saw Benjamin going in through the service door. So everyone except Celeste should be happy.”
“And thus is Fflytte Films hauled from the rocks of scandal. In addition – although I do not for a moment suppose such was your intent – you appear single-handedly to have shaped the basis for a future Moroccan tourist industry, by giving the country’s hereditary buccaneers an outlet for their innate drive for plunder.”
“I’ve certainly left Fflytte Films open to plunder, at any rate.” My final duty that evening had been a long and brain-wracking English-and-Arabic, legal-and-criminal conversation with Captain La Rocha in his gaol cell, arranging for the hire – at rates just short of extortion – of the Harlequin, which (it turned out) was still registered in his name. It had been my offer to restore to its hull the ship’s previous name, the Henry Morgan, that sealed the deal with the former pirate king. “As for my employ, I’ve given Geoffrey Hale notice that he needs a new assistant.” I took another mouthful, relishing the sensation as the young cognac seared its way down my very empty gullet. I looked past the glass at the pair of filthy, blistered feet propped on the bed-covers.
“However, Holmes, I’m afraid there may be a slight delay in our departure.”
My cheeriness gave him pause. After a moment, he ventured, “Yes?”
“It would appear that while Randolph Fflytte does not mind having been taken hostage by his actors, Geoffrey Hale is not so forgiving. He firmly decrees a new set of pirates. And although I don’t imagine there will be a great problem in locating a sufficient number of dark-complexioned gentlemen here in Rabat to fill the rôles of the pirates, it will take some days to teach them their parts. During this time, Fflytte Films will be paying the cast and crew – girls, mothers, Sally, constables, Marks, Maude, and Maurice – simply to lie about in the sun.” While I talked, I had set down the empty mug, and noticed the state of my hands – the morning’s brown paint had mostly worn off, but the edges were quite disgusting. I stood, easing a crick in my back, and limped over to the room’s sole luxury, the cold-water basin in the corner.
“Yes?” The wariness in his voice was stronger; I could feel his narrowed gaze drilling into the back of my head.
“Well, instead of supporting them at their leisure, he proposes to employ them in an interim project. He is, even as we speak, madly penning the script for a new picture, to be filmed while his substitute pirates are in training.”
I looked into the speckled mirror, grimacing at the ravaged face and hair that met my gaze.
“Why does this concern us?” Holmes’ voice now contained outright suspicion. And rightly so.
“Because,” I said, turning on the tap, “we do have a means of lending assistance to the British film industry and to the House of Lords, if not the Palace itself. It seems that Mr Fflytte was inspired by today’s passage through the medina. He envisions a tale weaving together said passage with elements of Byron’s epic poem, The Corsair. Particularly the scene in which the pirate, Conrad, is rescued from a sultan’s dungeon. By a woman.”
I lifted my scrubbed face from the now-grubby towel, and met my husband’s eyes.
“He proposes to call the new picture Pirate Queen. Starring Mary Russell.”
“When stern duty calls, I must obey.…”
This one’s for Gabe:
Welcome to the madness.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Fernando Pessoa, beneath his seventy-five or eighty heteronyms, was a real person: famous though nearly unpublished during his life; a reluctant traveller whose imagination wandered the globe; author of an “autobiography” rich in content (and pages) yet so formless, readers may shape it as they like. I am grateful for the work of Richard Zenith, tireless editor, translator, and commentator on the Pessoa manuscripts – of which more than 25,000 loose pages were left to entertain posterity. Any person travelling through Lisbon must by all means visit the Pessoa museum, where his variations on one single poem cover all the walls.
With thanks to Nina Mazzo, who donated to the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library and the 826 Valencia writing project during BoucherCon 2010, and to Lonnie Johns-Brown, who gave to Heifer International’s Team LRK during the spring of 2010. The generosity of both ladies won them (or in Nina’s case, her mother) namesakes in this book.