Ship’s log. “The war of the lilies” part 1 &2
There is a ship sailing the seas of Castilla. A ship of pirates.
Her name is the Avventuriera,and she will soon be famous for a thousand acts of piracy, battles, conquers, and endeavours that will become the stuff of legend.
Soon.
For now she’s “just” a beautiful ship belonging to a family of riches; an ocean-faring brig with a hull of black with a red stripe, loaded with a crew of unbelievable scum and captained by a man lacking his right eye and thirsting for adventure: his name is Gord of Falcovia, and the Avventuriera is his world.
That gentleman pirate is me.
Not long ago, at the beginning of Fall, in the beautiful port town of Tortuga, we heard a story about the return of the Black Freighter, a legendary ship of demons and phantoms, created to recover the vilest of those dead at sea, that even hell won’t deign to swallow : but as soon as we had put our head to this fantasy, the port was shot up by the cannons of Montaigne ships, looking to make more enemies; as if the fleet of near Castilla, with which they were officially at war, wasn’t enough to supply their pockets with coin and their blades with blood.
Pursuing those fastidious frog-eaters, we found someone in their cells: a priest who begged us to bring to the Castillan viceroy some papers he’d tried to defend from the usurpers who seized him and the ship he was travelling on.
Now, a favour to the Viceroy of Castilla is no laughing matter.
So we came to S.Cristobal, the heart of the realm; but he could not receive us, due to the enormous bulk of work he’d been burdened with for months. A war being lost brings much grief and loss, and no shortage of nobles bawling at his door to get their lands and titles back, and be able to pay their debts.
But that very nights, we received the best of passes: a visit from masked swordsman El Vago, protector of Castilla.
As my young midshipman Ortica soon explained, this sturdy patriot is the best hope for the castillan people to see its wrongs righted: wrongs that Cardinal Verdugo, a man of Theus famous in all the world for being close to the king and prone to warming himself with burning heretics, is busy seeding the land with, like a farmer feeding his chicken.
The vagabond talked for long about the war between Montaigne and Castilla, due mostly to the brilliant cardinal’s idea to infuriate a witch-blood emperor, and asked whose side we would stand on.
Have I already told about how the montaigne shot up my favourite port to get out of doubt of whose side tortuga would take?
So, having cleared that point, the day after we were able to see the Viceroy, Don Andres.
He was a gentle and educated man, of sharp wit and a thousand matters to resolve – most pertaining to the saintly cardinal. He proposed to pay the finding of the papers generously, out of his own pocket.
We also profited of our illustrious host’s kindness to give a little schooling to our little ortica. The only kind of school the kid really likes – namely how to better kill people. The viceroy is in fact also known as one of the masters of the swordsman’s guild, an istitution devoted to the learning and teaching of the schools of the sword, and gathering in itself those who show affinity for one or more of those.
As there is no peace in heaven, though, as soon as we left him, we ran into some more montaigne, (who had no doubt come into port under a false flag) right while they assassinated Don Andres’ first secretary.
We almost left Ortica’s skin on their ship and mine on the dock just underneath it, before those lionhearts made for the sea.
It took me a whole day to recover from my wounds: day that Ortica did not surely spend quietly, i don’t know, making knots in the rigging or something like that: no! The rascal managed to give some more headaches to his old captain managing to be found by some strange girls with magic powers, who, as she couldn’t “contact” him in person, maybe scared by my ship and my men, did not come aboard the ship, but left a word burned on my sails, detailing what she thought of him.
My thorough demands for an explaination from my midshipman were interrupted by an inquisitor priest, who, made curious by this strange fact, was looking for explainations too.
The whole ship was searched, down to the bilges, but nothing was found apart from the laughter of the men and some nasty looks from most of them. So nothing came to him from his search, but the interest of Inga, our sweetly ussuran officer, who is also a skinchanger witch and does not appreciate being searched.
So she resolved the matter quickly and finally, following the inquisitor to his quarters in a nearby monastery, and literally eating him whole. So, at that point, it was the moment to take sail again.
After a short pursuit our montaigne friends – who missed us so much – were found again and promply boarded. Inga proved herself by changing in a marvellous, massive white killer whale, and devouring those who tried to flee at sea, while ortica almost fell headfirst into one of those “tears in reality” that the montaigne sorcerers so love to use.
So, i hereby swear it has become personal. Theus be my witness, i, Gord of falcovia, Captain of the Avventuriera, officially declare to the nation of Montaigne,
For now and forever,
WAR!
Gord Di Falcovia