“Forgive me.”

“Are you rolling your eyes, under those bandages? I can tell, you know-but soft! An officer is nearby. Judging from heraldry, a Neapolitan count with at least three instances of bastardy in his ancestral line.”

Following the cue, Eliza, who fortunately had a deep, unsettlingly hoarse alto, commenced moaning.

“Monsieur, monsieur,” Jack said to her, in attempted French, “I know the saddle must pain those enormous black swellings that have suddenly appeared in your groin the last day or two, since you bedded that pair of rather ill-seeming Gypsy girls against my advice-but we must get you to a Surgeon-Barber, or, failing that, a Barber-Surgeon, so that the Turkish ball can be dug out of your brains before there are any more of those shuddering and twitching fits…” and so on until the Neapolitan count had retreated.

This led to a long pause during which Jack’s mind wandered-though, in retrospect, Eliza’s apparently didn’t.

“Jack, is it safe to talk?”

“For a man, talking to a woman is never precisely safe. But we are out of the camp now, I no longer have to step over occasional strewn body-parts, the Danube is off to the right, Vienna rises beyond that. Men are spreading out to set up camp, queuing before heavily guarded wagons to receive their pay for the day’s work-yes, safe as it’ll ever be.”

“Wait! When will you get paid, Jack?”

“Before the battle we were issued rations of brandy, and worthless little scraps of paper with what I take to’ve been letters inscribed on them, to be redeemed (or so the Captain claimed) in silver at the end of the day. They did not fool Jack Shaftoe. I sold mine to an industrious Jew.”

“How much did you get for it?”

“I drove an excellent bargain. A bird in the hand is worth two in the-”

“You got only fifty percent!?”

“Not so bad, is it? Think, I’m only getting half of the proceeds from those ostrich plumes- because of you.”

“Oh, Jack. How do you suppose it makes me feel when you say such things?”

“What, am I speaking too loudly? Hurting your ears?”

“No…”

“Need to adjust your position?”

“No, no, Jack, I’m not speaking of my body’s feelings.”

“Then what the hell are you on about?”

“And, when you say ‘one funny look and I’ll drop you off among the Poles who brand runaway serfs on the forehead’ or ‘just wait until King Looie’s Lieutenant of Police gets his hands on you… ‘”

“You’re only cherry-picking the worst ones,” Jack complained. “Mostly I’ve just threatened to drop you off at nunneries and the like.”

“So you do admit that threatening to brand me is more cruel than threatening to make me into a nun.”

“That’s obvious. But-”

“But why be cruel to any degree, Jack?”

“Oh, excellent trick. I’ll have to remember it. Now who is playing the Vagabond-lawyer?”

“Is it that you feel worried that, perhaps, you erred in salvaging me from the Janissaries?”

“What kind of conversation is this? What place do you come from, where people actually care about how everyone feels about things? What possible bearing could anyone’s feelings have on anything that makes a bloody difference?”

“Among harem-slaves, what is there to pass the long hours of the day, except to practice womanly arts, such as sewing, embroidery, and the knotting of fine silk threads into elaborate lace undergarments-”

“Avast!”

“-to converse and banter in diverse languages (which does not go unless close attention is paid to the other’s feelings). To partake of schemes and intrigues, to haggle in souks and bazaars-”

“You’ve already boasted of your prowess there.”

“-”

“Was there something else you were going to mention, girl?”

“Well-”

“Out with it!”

“Only what I alluded to before: using all the most ancient and sophisticated practices of the Oriental world to slowly drive one another into frenzied, sweaty, screaming transports of concupiscent-”

“That’s quite enough!”

“You asked.”

“You led me to ask-schemes and intrigues, indeed!”

“Second nature to me now, I’m afraid.”

“What of your first nature, then? No one could look more English.”

“It is fortunate my dear mother did not hear that. She took extravagant pride in our heritage-pure Qwghlmian.”

“Unadulterated mongrel, then.”

“Not a drop of English blood-nor of Celtic, Norse, or what-have-you.”

“A hundred percent what-have-you is more likely. At what age were you abducted, then?”

“Five.”

“You know your age very clearly,” Jack said, impressed. “Of a noble family, are you?”

“Mother maintains that all Qwghlmians-”

“Stay. I already know your ma better than I knew mine. What do you remember of Qwghlm?”

“The door of our dwelling, glowing warmly by the light of a merry guano-fire, and all hung about with curious picks and hatchets so that Daddy could chip us out of the place after one of those late June ice-storms, so vigorous and bracing. A clifftop village of simple honest folk who’d light bonfires on moonless nights to guide mariners to safety-Jack, why the noises? Phlegmatical trouble of some kind?”

“They light those fires to lure the mariners.”

“Why, to trade with them?”

“So that they’ll run aground and spill their cargoes on Caesar’s Reef, or Viking’s Grief, or Saracen’s Doom, or Frenchie’s Bones, or the Galleon-Gutter, or Dutch-Hammer, or any of the other Hazards to Navigation for which your home is ill-famed.”

“Aah-” Eliza said, in melodious tones that nearly struck Jack dead on his feet, “puts a new light on some of their other practices.”

“Such as?”

“Going out in the night with great big long knives to ‘put stranded sailors out of their suffering…’”

“At their own request, I’m sure?”

“Aye, and coming back with chests and bales of goods offered as payment for the service. Yes, Jack, your explanation’s much more reasonable-how lovely of my sainted Mummy to shield my tender ears from this awkward truth.”

“Now, then, d’you understand why the Kings of England have long suffered-nay, encouraged, and possibly even bribed-the Barbary Corsairs to raid Qwghlm?”

“It was the second week of August. Mother and I were walking on the beach-”

“Wait, you’ve beaches there?”

“In memory, all is golden-perhaps it was a mud-flat. Yes, it was on the way to Snowy Rock, which gleamed a radiant white-”

“Ha! Even in summer?”

“Not with snow. ‘Twas the gifts of seagulls, by which Qwghlm is ever nourished. Mother and I had our slx and sktl-”

“Again?”

“The former is a combined hammering, chopping, scraping, and poking tool consisting of an oyster shell lashed to a thigh-bone.”

“Why not use a stick?”

“Englishmen came and took all of the trees. The sktl is a hopper or bucket. We were halfway out to the Rock when we became conscious of a rhythm. Not the accustomed pounding of mountainous waves on jagged rocks-this was faster, sharper, deeper-a beating of savage African drums! North-, not Sub-Saharan, but African anyway, and not typical of the area. Qwghlmian music makes very little use of percussion-”

“It being difficult to make drum-heads of rat-hides.”

“We turned towards the sun. Out on the cove-a wrinkled sheet of hammered gold-a shadow like a centipede, its legs swinging fore and aft to the beating of the drum-”

“Wait, a giant bug was walking on water?”

“’Twas a many-oared coastal raiding-galley of the Barbary Corsairs. We tried to run back towards the shore, but the mud sucked at our bare feet so avidly that we had skwsh for a week thereafter-”

“Skwsh?”

“Heel-hickeys. The pirates launched a long-boat and ran it up on the mud-flat before us, cutting off our escape. Several men-turbaned silhouettes so strange and barbarous to my young eyes-vaulted out and made for us. One of them went straight into quicksand-”