Unlike merchant vessels, warships do not pay for themselves in times of peace, and for that reason the permanent fleets maintained by the Minaria's sea powers are comparatively small and not up to the task of commanding the sea lanes when war breaks out. Consequently, the maritime nations send out the clarion call for auxiliary naval units when the need arises.
The four main classes of privateers are by no means mutually exclusive; one sea rover might serve on board each type during course of the same war. Whatever their current classification, mercenary fleet captains are a colorful and individual lot. But of all those alive today, the Bilge Rat is undoubtedly the most renowned.
Born into a wealthy family of Hothior, who could have been so prescient as to suspect that Lord Armon Trelaine was destined for a life of infamy upon the high seas? The Trelaines were a merchant clan ennobled by King Melwert of Hothior and, dwelling in the river town of Nazlon, they had long benefitted from the inland trade coming down the River Deep from Muetar.
In order to begin his son's education in the world of business, Armon's father, Hasmo Trelaine, took young Armon on a business voyage to Port Lork in the year 1329. The vessel never made its destination, for it was overhauled by "Scarthroat" Andelys, a pirate captain with a reputation for appalling barbarity.
Hasmo Trelaine and his crew could not prevail over the savagery of the freebooters who swept over the gunnels. The pirates hacked to pieces every man who dared to put up a fight, including the doughty merchant prince, and, afterwards, Scarthroat looted the ship, taking all the surviving passengers prisoner, Armon being one of them.
As was the pirates' custom, Scarthroat sent word to the kin of his wealthier captives, demanding heavy ransoms. While awaiting a reply to his demands, the pirate captain returned to his squalid base upon Claw Island in the Westward archipelago. Several ransoms arrived and prisoners were released, but Armon's was not among them. His inheritance was now controlled by his uncle Daymar, who wrote an insulting reply to Scarthroat. He called the pirate a liar and a swindler ?? writing that it was common knowledge that Armon, just like his father Hasmo, had been cruelly murdered. Therefore, no ransom would be paid.
Fuming, Scarthroat could barely be restrained from strangling the youthful prisoner then and there. His officers persuaded him to instead send Armon with a group of other unransomed captives to Slave Island, to fetch whatever price they might bring.
Slave Island is one of the great slave clearing houses of Minaria. Typically, most of the hapless victims sold to foreign merchants and smugglers from Slave Island are prisoners kidnapped by raiders and pirates. The island itself is administered by a council of prominent filibusters which maintains a facade of order over its sordid operations. As Slave Island provides cheap slave labor and beauty to the Minarian continent, no general movement to close it down exists.
It was Armon's fate to be purchased by a pirate, "Red Sash" Ezzard, a Zefnarite renegade. A demanding master, Red Sash used Armon for a ship's lackey, whose duties included bailing water and killing rats down in the bilge. From this humble occupation came his nickname, "the Bilge Rat." Harsh existence toughened Bilge Rat, however, and by his later teens he had proved himself a talented sailor. Even so, the youth had not forgotten his true place in life; by saving his meager bondsman's share of loot, he finally purchased his freedom from the notorious Red Sash.
Bilge Rat found passage on a merchant lamash bound for Hothior but, alas, upon reaching his ancestral home he met a rude reception. His uncle Daymar Trelaine utterly refused to recognize him; instead Daymar ordered his varlets to detain Bilge Rat while he summoned the constables. Tried as an impostor, Bilge Rat was recognized by witnesses not as a Trelaine, but as a savage pirate from the crew of Red Sash.
The prosecutors, perhaps bribed by Daymar, called for Bilge Rat's beheading, but in respect of his youth, he drew mercy from the judges. He was given forty lashes and sentenced to penal slavery.
A stranger bought Bilge Rat and took him by cart down to the seacoast, where two of his master's friends met them. These "friends" were the same villains who had seized him in his uncle's house. Now they trussed him up hand and foot and threw him into the sea to drown. Satisfied that their homicide had been accomplished, the assassins departed in high spirits.
Unbeknownst to the ruffians, it was not so easy to drown the Bilge Rat ?? nor any man with his wits about him. The youth refused to panic and simply let his body float to the surface. Soon the action of the waves cast him up on shore, where he diligently worked off his bindings.
Paying his way with the purse of a wayfarer he had robbed, Bilge Rat crossed the River Deep on a ferry and once in the Banished Lands he felt safe from pursuit. As pirates often make landings along the barren coast of that region, Bilge Rat returned to the company of the freebooters in less than a month's time.
The Bilge Rat who made his way to the camp of his old patron Red Sash was a changed man. His visit home had instilled a bitter contempt for law into him, as well as a revulsion for both the merchant and noble classes. Piracy would be his means of revenge.
After many adventures and narrow escapes, Red Sash and his crew came to grief. They harpooned a young sea serpent in the middle of the ocean, eager for the high prices that its venom would command back in port. Unfortunately, the creature's parents were near and smashed the boat in their fury. Most of the crew perished with Red Sash, but Bilge Rat and some two dozen men crawled into a lifeboat that had not gone down with the wreck.
The twenty?five men, without provisions or shelter from the summer sun, drifted aimlessly. Hungry and depressed, the crew was encouraged only by Bilge Rat's cool direction. With Red Sash dead, Bilge Rat, strong of will and clear-headed, was the natural leader of the group. Finally, when even Bilge Rat had reached the point of despair, a large ship hove into view.
The pirates seized the oars but, upon drawing closer, realized the vessel was not a merchantman, but a Miviorian warship, the Sentinel. As Bilge Rat's crew had recently been active against the Reiken convoys, they knew they were not likely to be received in a friendly manner.
The captain of the Sentinel observed the small boat, but guessed that they were enemies from the fact that they had not signaled distress. Since it was not the custom of the sea to rescue enemies and he did not fear so small a boat, the captain ignored the pirates, assuming they'd soon be swamped by a storm or die of thirst.
Under the slack winds which prevailed, Bilge Rat kept pace with the lamash until nightfall. Determined to take the ship by storm, he carefully brought the boat up against the bow. There were no lights in the lifeboat and the bored watch on board saw and heard nothing on the dark waters around them. Before attacking, Bilge Rat gave a wounded sailor a hatchet with which to chop a hole in the boat after they left it. The pirate leader realized that hard fighting lay ahead and if his men retreated to the lifeboat they were all doomed.
Seizing every rope or projection on which they could lay their hands, the pirates clambered up the sides of the warship and rushed at the watch like two dozen yowling cats. The Miviorans had seen nothing, heard nothing, and all of a sudden they were attacked by shrieking marauders in the dark. Believing they were beset by devils who had dropped down from the sky, the terrified watch tumbled below to hide, even forgetting to give the alarm.
The exits to the forecastle were barred and taking control of the ship afterwards was easy. The first thing the pirates did was to eat a rousing good supper; the second was to make sail for Slave Island with their prize.
When the profits of the capture were divided, the pirates formally elected Bilge Rat their captain. The prize ship Sentinel was manned by rough-and-ready recruits and renamed the "Reaver." Thereupon Bilge Rat embarked upon a piratical career that made him the most successful pillager of his time.
Even so, Bilge Rat's reputation was less black than many of his brother captains'. He spared lives as much as his line of work allowed and Bilge Rat especially bettered his peers in the treatment of women. If his fair prisoners were not the daughters or wives of the wealthier classes, they were not sent to the auction block of Slave Island. Indeed, many good ladies who could afford no ransom were frequently sent home without one. Only once did his kindness to the feminine sex bring Bilge Rat and his crew to misfortune.
That occasion arose when his fleet of prize ships encountered the fleet of the veteran freebooter Scarthroat Andelys, the man who had murdered Bilge Rat's father a dozen years before. Overawed by the superior strength of Bilge Rat's fleet, Scarthroat's men dared not to oppose Bilge Rat's demand that he and Scarthroat duel to the death with cutlasses. The elder pirate was a cutlass expert and not a man had dared to cross blades with him in ten years. Accordingly, Scarthroat accepted the challenge boldly.
When the duel commenced it became clear that Scarthroat's expertise had grown rusty through disuse. Bilge Rat's youthful speed gave him the decisive advantage and he swung his heavy blade through a gap in his opponent's guard. The villain crashed to the deck, stricken.
Scarthroat's crew watched the old pirate die without remorse, then gave Bilge Rat a rousing cheer. By the custom of the freebooters, he had won the right to command them.
Suddenly a woman's complaint sounded through the shouts of the men. Bilge Rat turned to see some of Scarthroat's underlings dragging a girl in boy's clothing forward. He recognized Tana Andelys, Scarthroat's daughter, whom the crew was offering up for his vengeance.
Instead of being pleased, the captain berated Scarthroat's sailors for their disloyalty, then told Tana that since she had never done him a wrong, she would be returned safely to the Westward Islands.
Unlike many Minarian professions, pirates welcome exceptional young women into their trade. So it was an experienced pirate who warned Bilge Rat that he had better slay her here and now, or face her revenge later on. But Bilge Rat ignored her threats amiably and put her on a ship bound for home.
Bilge Rat would have cause to remember Tana Andelys' warning later, but for now he sailed north and took numerous prizes along the Mivioran coast. He established a base along the Ogre Land coast, now commonly called Trelaine's Island, and sold his loot in the city of Addat, which for a long time had been engaging in an illegal trade with freebooters.
Alas, pirates seldom know when to leave well enough alone. The pirate "Four?fingered" Orchor had recently taken several prizes belonging to Addat citizens and reaped a good harvest of transshipped Elven goods.
Therefore, unbeknownst to Bilge Rat, Addat had changed its attitude toward pirates. When the captain sailed a loaded prize into port, the citizens lured him ashore and threw him and his crew into irons.
Another pirate might have been lost to such ill-fortune, but Bilge Rat possessed a sharpness of wit that excelled the most cunning of his peers. He had noticed a Rombuni warship in the harbor just before his capture and this fact inspired a plan. He made friends with a prison slave, a man who had been a pirate himself a long time past. For a promise of purchase and freedom, Bilge Rat induced him to bring pen, paper and ink. Then he gave the slave what he had written, telling him to take it to the city governor, pretending that he was a dispatch-carrier from the Rombuni ship then under anchor.
The man did so, and when the governor received the letter he believed the Rombuni captain had sent it. The letter from the "Rombuni captain" declared that Bilge Rat was a lawful privateer under the protection of the flag of Rombune, and that he was "innocent of any wrongdoing." The letter went on to say that should "any harm come to the brave man and his stalwart followers" the Rombunis would take it upon themselves to punish such offenders against neutrality, even if action taken "might result in war between Rombune and Mivior."
Rather than be held responsible for a war fought for the sake of a handful of pirates, the governor ordered Bilge Rat released.
After such a near escape, Bilge Rat decided it was time to take a long?deferred revenge. Accordingly, he disguised a ship to look like an innocent trader and made for the River Deep. Once off the town of Nazlon, he stole ashore with a band of hearties. They descended on the villa of Daymar Trelaine and, finding the master absent, the pirates looted the house and storehouses and ran off the livestock. The oppressed field slaves were offered the chance to join the freebooters and two members of Daymar's family, his son and daughter, fell into Bilge Rat's hands. Carrying these off to his ship, he left a list of demands behind with a family retainer, and then had Daymar's house burned.
As instructed, the distraught father contacted Bilge Rat through agents in Zefnar, agreeing to pay the ransom and naming a neutral place to make the exchange, the mouth of the River Lakofni, south of Zefnar.
The terms were agreeable to Bilge Rat, who consequently sailed into the Lakofni upon a fleet ship called the Scimitar. Daymar's agents waited for him there with the ransom. After a count, Bilge Rat released his cousins unharmed and returned to his ship with his loot ?? his own rightful legacy.
The pirate had little time to ruminate how empty his long?sought revenge felt, for three stout vessels suddenly hove into view ?? flying the banner of Tana Andelys, the red lioness. A stentorian shout informed Bilge Rat that Tana was sailing under a letter of marque from Boarhort of Hothior and that she was defending the cause of Daymar Trelaine.
Clearly Bilge Rat could not evade the superior force in the river channel and win through to the open sea. Indeed, Tana was only waiting for high tide, which would allow her to sail in after him en masse. He analyzed the situation carefully, then sent his men to an adjacent river pier to commandeer a trade boat moored there, and also to collect all the combustibles in town.
The pitch, tar and brimstone they brought back Bilge Rat ordered spread over the deck of the Scimitar. He left only a skeleton crew on board and evacuated the rest of his men into the trade boat.
When Tana Andelys saw the two vessels approaching, she drew her ships together to block their escape and waited for the coming clash with confidence. According to Bilge Rat's plan, the men on the Scimitar ran the lamash up against Tana's craft, the Red Lioness, and lit the combustibles with ship's lanterns, before slipping away to the trade boat. Before the enemy realized the danger, the fire-ship had ignited the Red Lioness' sails and the crew was evacuating pell?mell. The commander of one of the other ships was so frightened by what had occurred that he ran his vessel aground and wrecked her. As for the other vessel, the pirates in the trade boat rowed swiftly under the cover of the smoke and swarmed aboard it like monkeys, beating down the dismayed crew. As it turned out to be a very fine ship, Bilge Rat took possession of her.
Believing that pirates who would take a letter of marque to fight other pirates were the foulest scum on the sea, he marooned his prisoners ashore, where they could make their explanations to the Zefnarite militia. Being a strong swimmer, Tana Andelys had already reached shore; as far as the latest word runs, she has neither forgiven Bilge Rat nor successfully taken revenge upon him.
His last two scrapes had convinced Bilge Rat that he had been in piracy long enough. As he could not give up the sea nor the clash of arms in which he exulted, he resolved to become an honest mercenary. One by one he negotiated amnesty from all the Minarian sea powers; in return he has fought well under each of their flags.
Returning to Trelaine's Island, Bilge Rat turned his stronghold into a barbaric palace, from which he has since ruled his isle as an absolute monarch. Only an optimist can believe Armon "Bilge Rat" Trelaine will ever evolve into a peaceable man, but to all appearances he has at last made peace with himself.