Chase the Morning

All Stryge did was smirk up at me in the firelight and shrug, and that was the last straw. A fury such as I’d seldom felt or given way to rolled over me like cold lightning, and I felt my hair bristle. ‘Damn you!’ I yelled. ‘There must be something! And you’re going to help me find it here and now – or I’ll wring your scrawny bloody windpipe into nothing!’ Jyp shouted something I was past hearing. ‘By God I will! And I kicked the boiling can at the Stryge.

Somehow he must have had a hand up to deflect it. The can bounced aside, a great plume of water leaped hissing into the fire, but not a drop touched him. A huge steamcloud boiled up around me, and it smelt not dank and oily as you might have expected, but soft and salty and warm as a tropical seawind. Fynn snarled and sprang up, and I saw with a thrill of horror that even without the firelight his eyes glowed yellow as amber. At my side I heard the rasp of sword leaving scabbard – and the sharp click as it was thrust back. Jyp’s hand landed on my shoulder.

‘Easy, lad!’ he hissed. ‘Keep off the shoals! You don’t know the lie of ’em! Give me the helm a minute!’ He turned to Stryge. ‘You said you’d help, old man, and so you have. Okay, damfino, but that’s just the easy part, making sure what anyone could’ve guessed. Not the kind of work we need to come to Le Stryge for, that, is it? Not enough to level any scores, is it? And not at all like the great Stryge to leave a job halfway done …’

I held my breath, as the steam dispersed into the darkness, and the old man huddled over the last embers of the fire. Fynn stood tense, ready, rigid except for the constant opening and closing of his fingers and his panting breath. He relaxed only when the old man spoke, and his tone had changed to a complaining whine. ‘You young folk, never ready to show any spirit! Never ready to go out and do, want everything laid out before by us who’ve had to work for it! Thought better of you, pilot, but you’re just like all the rest. No balls.’ He glared at me. ‘Though there’s some with no soul, either. And precious little brain. What d’you expect me to do when they’re off and away already? Why d’you think they hurried? Afraid of you?’ He snorted, and blew his nose on his fingers. ‘Once out of harbour, safe, and well they knew it.’

I looked aghast at Jyp, who shook his head angrily. ‘Lay off it, Stryge. There’s plenty that can be done so far off – and you can do it. As we both know!’

‘Not without damaging your precious little bit of skirt as well. Your sweet little Clare. So otherwise it means fitting out a ship, doesn’t it, and going after them! You wealthy? Hah?’

‘No,’ I said unhappily, thinking how much I could raise on my flat at short notice, and the car, and the sound system – though that was last year’s, and unfashionable with the reviewers these days. ‘How much would it cost?’

Jyp clicked his tongue. ‘A lot, Steve. I’d help with my mite of savings, but it wouldn’t make much odds. A decent ship, why that’d cost nigh on two thousand, with another thousand for a crew, five hundred or so on supplies.’

‘Thousands of what?’

Jyp blinked. ‘Why, guineas, of course.’

‘Guineas? You mean, one pound five pence? In modern money?’

‘What other kind is there? Money’s money.’

I gaped at him an instant, and then suddenly I burst out laughing in sheer disbelief. ‘Jyp, you can’t be serious! I earn more than your two thousand in a month! My savings –’

‘No kidding? Ah, but it’s got to be gold,’ he warned, tapping the side of his nose knowingly, ‘and it’s a hell of a poor rate you get for it when you’re in a hurry –’

‘Never mind the rate!’ I barked. ‘If I could lay hands on that sort of money in a couple of hours, can you find me a ship? And a crew? And how soon?’

‘You mean it?’ Jyp slapped his scabbard a ringing blow. ‘The best, pal! And by sunup! Starting with the best pilot afloat if you’ll have him, namely me! I was getting kind of bored ashore, anyhow. And you’re setting your course for strange waters –’

I was nearly speechless. ‘Jyp – it’s far beyond anything I’ve ever done for you! I’m more grateful than I can say –’

But Jyp had already rounded on the Stryge. ‘Satisfied, you old polecat? You ready to help now? Or have we just called your bluff?’

The old man snuffled noisily. ‘Get you your ship, and I’ll come along.’ Jyp blinked again; evidently he hadn’t expected that. He was just about to object when the Stryge added ‘Provided, of course, I can bring a brace of friends –’

For the first time I saw real alarm cross Jyp’s face. ‘Not on any ship of mine!’

‘Jyp!’ I whispered.

‘You don’t know, Steve! He’s ill enough company, but lordy, any friends of his’ll be worse –’

‘Take it or leave it!’ growled the old man.

‘We need him, Jyp,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t think of anyone else.’