Strings
| Name: | Strings |
| Location: | The Rising |
| Rank: | Ship's Bard |
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Biography
All things considered, it really wasn't such a bad thing.
They say all Irishman are born seasick; it should therefore come as no surprise that I would be averse to working on a ship. Furthermore, we being so well known for our drinking and fighting, it should go without saying that I would certainly have objected to having been pressed into service particularly aboard a ship. But I found myself quite persuaded by the eloquence of communication emanating from the barrel of the blunderbuss at my throat at the time.
What's a poor Irishman to do? At least it was not the Royal Navy, but I wasn't expecting things to be much better serving aboard a pirate ship.
So how does an unarmed Irish minstrel wind up on a pirate crew? Aye, now there's a story needin' a refill of my tankard.
There I was, minding my own business, havin' a pint in the pub (I do loves the cider, mind you), humming to myself. There was a roguish group in the corner of the pub, as there always had been, for as long as I could remember. They were a raucous group; swaths of them came and went all hours of the day and night, but the corner was never empty.
Most of them wore the oddest mixture of dirty, sea-smelling work clothes and untidied gentleman's clothing. In their own way, they sort of matched, though no two were wearing the same of anything as far as I could ascertain. It was more the carefree way they comported themselves which marked them as a crew of some kind, though what manner of labor permitted them to occupy the corner of the pub around the clock was a mystery to me.
They were none too shy of silver, neither. They drank incessantly, one amongst them in particular. As the months went by, I came to know they referred to him as "Moon", although in his presence they seemed to prefer to address him as "Cap'n". I thought it a playful feint of respect at the time.
Oh, curses, how little did I know.
Over the months I'd stayed in town, I met a few other minstrels and we put together a little troupe. We bartered with the barkeep to play regularly there for the crowds in exchange for a cider or two each night. It wasn't much, but we also got to place a hat out whilst we played, and always garnered a few coins from the regular patrons -- and several more from the vagabonds in the corner. When we had our best shows, that group was most generous. But sometimes they were so into their cups that it hardly seemed like they even noticed us.
However, there was no escaping their notice on the night I was inducted into their merry little band.
We were taking a break to recharge our voices with drinks -- but most of the troupe had disappeared into the night. I found myself sitting at a table by the dockside window, notably closer to the scoundrels in the corner than I would have preferred, when I noticed for the first time that while ships came and went all the time, one sat in the Harbour, practically a fixture. I hadn't ever really realized it before, but I don't think I had ever seen it move.
As I looked more closely at it, I realized that it was not in all that good a condition. The sails were not stowed, and they were a wreck, hanging like torn laundry. The more I looked, the more I saw telltale signs of neglect. I absentmindedly hummed something, and words describing this disaster of a ship started coming to mind. So I hummed and sang softly, under my breath, or so I thought, when suddenly on my neck I felt the cold, solid, business end of the biggest damn gun I had ever seen.
"You makin' fun o' the Rising?” an inebriated voice demanded from behind me, somewhat to my right. I recognized Moon at once. "No, sir," I lied. "Just singing about that ship over there. She looks to have a sad story. What's her name?"
There was a really long pause, and I thought for sure I had uttered my very last words.
But instead, Moon leaned in closer and said, "That, my good fellow, is indeed the Rising. So I say again," as he pressed the blunderbuss harder into my neck, "are you making fun of the Rising?”
Suddenly I was lost for words. I knew the only way out was to produce a good version of the song, one which played up to the ship's many good traits. In total desperation, I fabricated a tapestry of song out of thin air. As I was finishing it, Moon leaned heavily into the blunderbuss, causing it to drive into my neck even more. He leaned forward and slapped me on the back and said, "You're a member of my crew now. What do you think of that?"
So what is a poor Irishman to do? I feebly nodded my consent, and suddenly I found myself picked up and dragged deep into the morass of cutthroat revelers. I was coerced to drink a variety of spirits with the oddest of names, such as "Bones to Jelly" and such. My head was swimming when I suddenly had need of fresh air. How I got out of that crowd I'll never know; it seemed like suddenly there were hundreds of them and I was half blind. I had barely cleared the parkway when I lost my stomach into the bushes.
I regained partial senses at that point, and as I staggered right past the pub toward the dock, I noted the thoroughfare was filled with mud, so dark and dreary...and then suddenly I was at the water's edge, and the Rising came into full view. It was then I finished the song.
As I stumbled back up the road to the pub, the full moon was shining beautifully down upon the landscape. I wandered back inside, and was drawn into the corner with my shipmates, those vagabonds I had disdained for so long.
I was given a "short share" of the "booty", which I later learned was a rather extensive collection of money and other treasures -- ahem, shall we call it "swag" now? -- which was stored in the Rising's hold. Moon turned out to actually be the Captain of the Rising, and he rowed out to the ship every so often with the watch to collect more money from the hold.
So I must admit, there are certainly worse things that can happen to a minstrel than to wind up being a shipmate on a ship which never sails, drawing pay I didn't earn, with my two primary duties being to sing and to drink.
But what an odd ride it has been.
