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The Republic of Pirates – Founded in 1706, a loose confederacy run by privateers-turned-pirates in the port of Nassau, on the island of New Providence.
THE COLD HAD crept into the cabin. They lay on the floor in blankets, most of their clothes strewn about. But for the quiet creak of timber, and the groan of taut ropes, all was quiet. The ship heeled, though not as heavily as before, John noticed. He slipped free of Ben’s arms to retrieve another blanket, then returned and placed his head against Ben’s chest. They had been lying there only a few moments, and neither of them had spoken. Yet Ben’s arm came up around him and made him feel at home. They lingered in this simulacrum of safety a moment longer. Neither one dared break the spell.
John soaked it in. He closed his eyes and inhaled his lover’s musky smell and pressed his ear against his lover’s chest to hear the heart beating within. He held fast to him, feeling his manhood stiffen but not meaning to do anything else with it, not right now, not when the most important thing was holding on for dear life.
John knew it would be Ben who made the rational decision to break away, as he did, with some reluctance. The privateer captain walked nakedly around his cabin, gathering his clothes, his body shining from sweat and the golden lanternlight. John stood up and started to follow him, started to take Ben by the hand and make him put his clothes back on the floor, but Ben gave him a look of warning and John froze. “I’m needed topside. Your people will be wondering where you’ve gone.”
“They won’t have to wonder,” Laurier whispered, and took Ben’s hand.
Vhingfrith drew back, but not hard, and the Ladyman kissed him softly on the cheek.
“We cannot linger,” Vhingfrith said.
Laurier looked down at his lover’s hand, at the two golden rings and the one silver one, the others made out of brass. They all glimmered in the lantern’s light. One of the golden rings was on the middle finger, and Laurier ran his fingers along its engraving: Macte virtute sic itur ad astra.
“We cannot linger,” Vhingfrith repeated.
“I know.”
For a protracted moment they only stood there. John looked at Ben, and Ben averted his gaze from everything. “You had better go, or Anne will leave without you.”
“Anne Bonny won’t leave me for anything.”
“Still.” Ben still could not look at him.
John nodded, and then went about dressing himself. Once everything was tucked and buckled, he unbolted the door and stepped out into the dark corridor. He took one last look back at Ben before shutting the door, soaking in his visage and hoping that the sun would return so that he could see the man one more time in the sun. He always glowed in the sun. Thinking on that, it brought to mind their predicament, and a worry that had been growing in John’s soul. The lovemaking had been a distraction, no doubt something both he and Ben needed. But now, the question finally needed to be asked.
“Where do you really think the sun is, Ben?”
Benjamin had just pulled on his breeches, and now looked over at him. “What makes you think I know?”
“You always have an idea about all things. Theories.”
Ben said nothing. John sighed and started to leave.
“There is still a sun,” Ben muttered. John looked back at him. “Greek philosophers knew it was the sun that put light into the moon, and as I told the men before, da Vinci hypothesized how light refraction made it all work. If we believe these Men of Letters, then there can be no moonlight without the sun. That is the thinking of wise men, at least. But we still have a moon—two moons, at the moment—and they both shine. Ergo…”
“The sun must still be there, on the other side of the World.”
“No. I did not say the sun, Captain Laurier. Nor our sun. I said a sun still exists.”
“What’s the difference?”
Ben looked out the window. “It has been proposed, by some astute men, that each star in our sky is just like our sun, only much, much farther away. Each star may have a planet around it, like Jupiter, like Saturn, like ours. If that is the case, then we may have swapped positions with another world out there.”
John was aghast. “Swapped positions? What the devil are you talking about?”
Ben sighed. “I cannot answer for it, John. We have our moon, but we also have a new one. And it would explain the shifting of the stars—we may merely be looking at them from a slightly different vantage in the Universe.” He shook his head and rubbed his temples, as though it all gave him a headache. “Something has happened, and there is scarce a dark thought but what now plagues me.” He looked at his wounded hand, the fingers lightly shaking. Was he frightened, or cold? His breath was coming out in little white tufts. And John wanted nothing more than to rush over to him and kiss those fingers until they ceased their trembling.
“A sun will rise eventually, mark me,” Ben said. “And slowly. Very slowly. These moons conspire to slow the Earth, and whatever sun is coming from around the other side of the planet, it will rise slowly.” He added, “And then we shall truly have men losing their good sense, and what few men are still loyal to us…may ultimately decide that the mutineers were right all along. Especially after…what you and I just did. Surely some of them will have heard…” Yes, indeed, their lovemaking had been loud.
The ship heeled again, savagely, and they both had to reach for a bulkhead to maintain their balance.
“We need sail to Port Royal with all speed. Perhaps even farther to Nassau.”
“Why Nassau, may I ask?” John said.
“We may soon be in need of friends, and the only ones who may be ready to accept men such as us are those in the Republic.”
John did not need to ask to which Republic he was referring. “I will follow you anywhere, my darling love.” The words were past his lips and he already knew they were wrong.
“Don’t call me that,” Ben said resolutely, his eyes aflame. “Don’t.” He pulled on his shirt and buttoned it with angry, jerking motions.
It was clear Ben meant it, but now the words rolled trippingly and John knew they had to be said now or they might never be said. “You and I once had a conversation about the Greek tragedies. I told you I never read any of them, so you described them to me, and you asked me what I thought the meaning of ‘tragedy’ is, or if I could give a true, definitive example. I had no answer at the time, but I do now. I’ve thought long and hard on it, actually.”
“I do not care to listen to any of this. Not now.”
“It is a tragedy, Captain, that the people we love can never know just how much we love them. They cannot feel it, no matter how much we try and put it into words. They all die not knowing just how it feels to love them, and therefore perhaps some of them die believing they were never truly loved at all.”
“What is all this nonsense—”
“You still don’t understand, do you? To me, you are crystalline in your perfection. It was not until I held you just now that I realized how long we had been apart, and how monstrously I have wasted my time.” He snorted out a laugh. “I should not be commanding any ship, nor handing nor reefing any ship, unless you are on it.”
“I will not hear any of this.”
“Yes, you will. Apart from your father, no man has ever understood me. No man or woman has ever tried—”
“Is it true what they say you did in the Cape Verde Islands?”
It hit him like a strike to the face, and John’s voice caught in his throat.
“Is it?”
John drew up. “What do ‘they’ say, Ben?”
Benjamin fumed, and paced his cabin like a panther in a cage. “That you raided two English colonies.”
The words were seasoned by venom, and John knew that, like his own words of love and affection, Benjamin’s words had been barely contained for some time now, waiting to get out. “They were small colonies—”
“So it’s true!” Ben’s voice thundered.
“If you will permit me to finish, they were small colonies of privateers. Captain Stephen Errenwright of the Light Touch had raided a little island where I kept a handful of my men to guard our stores. He raided the island, killed all but one of my men, and left with everything of ours. All our stores to survive the season.”
“And so you took raw vengeance!”
“We took back what was ours—”
“And then some, from what I hear!”
“How can I help what extra my men take behind my back? Are you accountable for every one of your men, Captain Vhingfrith?” John glared at him. “And is it true what I’ve heard about you? That you’ve taken to hunting down pirates? Eh? Is that you, Benjamin? A pirate hunter? They say men have hung because of you. Is it true?”
“If you mean to make me feel guilty for hanging murderers and rapists, you will be disappointed, sir.”
John snorted in disgust. “England has your heart, sir, though for the life of me I do not know what she has done to deserve it more than me. You’ll do anything for her, even believe her lies about me. Yes, I am a pirate, but only because one of England’s favourite privateers elected to make me a target. Woodes Rogers, damn him, is my truest enemy! That fucking privateer made me his target. England used us up, just as they’ve always done, and then meant to cast us aside, even murder us! And I chose not to let myself, nor any those men that died for me on that island, to be taken granted. So, I made sure they would goddamn well remember us.”
“As if you ever gave two shits about any of your men! How many have you murdered tonight to keep control of the Hazard?”
“As many as I had to,” John said, stepping towards him. “And I daresay I’ll kill more before I cross through the true Hellmouth.”
“If they cross you, you mean.”
“Or you.”
Benjamin snarled. “That is your idea of honour, is it?”
“What the fuck is honour? I don’t know that word. Pressed, I don’t think I could even spell it, not even with a pistol to my head.”
Those words hung in the air between them. Time seemed to seep into the timbers. The room swayed.
At last, John said, “You cling to that word like a rope. Honour. But what is it? Who dispenses it? Where does it come from? Do you still not understand that your honour means nothing to them?” He pointed up, towards the main deck. “You can take all your pretty words and secret knowledge and recite it all while walking on water, and they’ll still never be half as loyal to you as I have been.”
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“And for what do I owe this great loyalty?”
“Love, you stupid bastard! And you could have it all, if you would but give up this sad notion that you could ever be a gentleman to them, welcomed into a society of Men of Letters and great men of airs. You cannot earn their love! You spent too long watching men kowtow to your father, respecting him, and you want that for yourself! I understand, Ben. But you cannot have it. At least with me you can have something few people ever find.”
“You understand nothing, Captain Laurier.”
“I understand that you find me reprehensible, though I torture myself to guess why. Is it because by associating with me, your name may be held even lower in contempt than it already is, as a deviant half-Negro captain? And that you lessen your chances of becoming one of them?”
“It is because you are a pirate and you cause me vexations.”
“Vexations?” John laughed. “Is that what you call what we were just doing?”
If Benjamin’s face could be seen to blush in the dark, his dark cheeks might have done so.
“Let me ask you, if not for friendship, then why did you help me with the Nuestra?” John said. “Why answer a pirate’s message at all? You could have pretended to answer my call, and arranged an ambush to take me and my pirate crew in. So why didn’t you? Was it only for the plunder?” He shook his head. “I think not. I think there is more to it than that.”
“I will not make comment on the act you and I have just committed—”
“Act. You make it sound all so capricious and evil. It is an act of love, if you have to call it an act at all!”
“If I may, Captain, I will say only that it is an urge you and I ought not indulge in, and I own that I do not yet have a solution to it. And as for the Nuestra, you place responsibility for my involvement at the feet of my affections for you, whatever they are. You think love made me come to your aid?”
“If not love, then what?” John tore the locket from his neck. “If not for this, then what?”
Benjamin sneered, and walked around the desk and tore open a drawer and pulled out a book. It looked like a ship’s log, and the cover of it looked to John to be written in Spanish. “The Nuestra’s log.”
John looked at it a beat. “Her log?”
“Yes. Much of it is written in code, but Father taught me to read some of it, and I know a man in Royal who worked for the Intelligence Office and is familiar with some of the codes used by the armada.”
It took a moment for it to sink in. “You…wanted her logs?”
“The prize in plunder was also nice, its reward will help pay for more ventures out this way, to continue the hunt.”
“The hunt?”
“For the Santo Domingo de Guzman and the León Coronado.”
John nodded. “I see,” he said. “I see.”
“I apologize if you feel there was anything more to it, Captain Laurier. But you will recall my letter of marque is for the hunting of Spanish naos.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I recall. Just as I recall the Santo Domingo’s Captain Morales is, in his way, responsible for your father’s death.” John smiled. “A moment ago you chastised me for even thinking upon vengeance as a motivator for how I manage my crew.”
“I assure you, it is not vengeance, but duty that impels me to—”
“Duty. Honour. Code. All words and manners you have adapted to the occasion, in vain hopes to solidify yourself as above me. Above everyone. Well, I see you there, Benjamin. We all see you there, sitting high—”
“Listen to me, Captain Laurier, and please take no offence—”
“Stop calling me that! My name is John and you bloody well know—”
John silenced himself. He stood there a moment, realizing once more, as he had ages ago, that this was going to lead right back to their last argument, which almost ended violently. It took him a few breaths to recompose himself, and then licked his lips and said, “The stars. They are oriented differently. Can you still navigate by them?”
Benjamin seemed happy to get back to business. “They are roughly in the same condition, though some are gone, and others are new. I will do my best.”
“Then Lively ought to take the lead. We will follow behind you.”
“I believe that is the best course.” He added, “And Captain? Be so kind as not to stray off course for any reason. If you try any tricks with me, I am athwart your hawse, and I will not tolerate it.”
“You think so little of me? That I would try to slip away in this lasting dark, and leave you now? After all I have done?”
Vhingfrith sneered. “Honestly, I do not know your mind. Your mind…it is like an eel, slithering in the night. And it gives me less of a headache if I do not try to guess at all your schemes. So, please, get to your ship, and we will proceed with all speed.”
They looked at each other a moment.
“All speed, Captain Laurier.”
John opened his mouth. It felt like there was more to say, and yet if Ben was right, and an alien sun was soon to rise, then there was no time to spare. They had to get to Port Royal before all their crewmen lost their minds completely. He nodded, and turned and walked through the empty companionway, through the empty galley. What few men were left loyal to the Lively’s captain were on the main deck coiling rope and guiding the yardarms to best catch the wind. One could always tell when a ship had stopped moving, and he realized Lively had tacked away from the small island cay and anchored a hundred yards to starboard of Hazard. All around, crewmen gave him severe looks. Accusatory looks. They knew what he and Vhingfrith had been up to down below. John suddenly felt targeted, and hastened to the rail, where Anne Bonny and the others were waiting for him. He glanced over the starboard rail and saw that Lively’s crew had towed their longboat alongside.
“Ready, Captain,” said Bonny.
Laurier looked at her. The woman had no judgment on her face, nor did most of the men with her. “Then let’s go.”
As they stepped over the railing to climb down to the longboat, Laurier gave a look at the crew about the deck. Every face held contempt. He smiled at them, and gave a wave.
“While you and Captain Vhingfrith were conferring, I rowed across to see to the Hazard,” Bonny said. Water splashed over the longboat’s gunnels, and they had to fight to keep the boat pointed in the right direction, for the waves were sending them in the wrong direction. Laurier decided he would have to take up a pair of oars, as well, and put his back into it. “There was a small group that opposed you, led by Oliver, but they’ve been chained and put below.”
“How many?” he hollered above the waves.
“Nine.”
More water splashed over the side and soaked them.
Nine. Including Oliver, who was reliable on the tiller. That was a blow, considering they had also lost Abner. A well of emotions came over him briefly, and Laurier was for once glad of the turbulent waves, else the others would have seen him shaking uncontrollably. He was suddenly very afraid, and he wanted nothing more than to be in Ben’s arms, to be back in that cabin, in that protracted moment where they had held each other and pretended to have safety and contentment.
When he reached Hazard, it was Akil who reached down to haul him up. Laurier clapped him on the shoulder. Akil and the other former slaves were barely even known to the rest of the crew, and yet both immediately sensed they needed one another. There is something about the gestalt of desperate men that sometimes makes for hardier bonds, he thought. Okoa limped across the wavering deck on crutches, and said, “Kepler say, Captain is welcome back. Ship is yours. Kepler say ready to tack northwest.”
“And what does Akil say?” John asked. “Are he and his men happy? Is there anything they need?” He wanted to keep all his remaining allies happy.
Okoa spoke to Akil, then translated to John, “Akil say he and his brothers happy to be aboard. Look forward to more freedom.”
More freedom. Sounds lovely, Laurier thought.
He nodded and looked around at their faces. Dobbs was nearby, hair soaking wet, a pistol tucked in his waistline. Reginald, Walker, and Jaime were all holding onto ropes, ready to pull the yardarms round to take in the wind’s power. LaCroix came up from belowdecks, his clothes and hair as wet as Dobbs’s. Doubtless, they had been working overtime in the bilge.
“You are the quartermaster now, Mr. Okoa,” Laurier said, without ceremony. “Congratulations on your promotion. I will need your help. You know the orders well enough, and you’ve held command of Hazard whenever I’ve gone ashore. Hazard knows you, she will appreciate your guidance.”
Okoa’s eyes widened. His chest inflated a tad. “Thank you, Captain.”
“Your first order is to weigh anchor.”
“Aye, Captain. Weigh anchor!” he boomed.
While the crew went to their stations, John ambled his way over to LaCroix. He opened up his coat and pulled out the three glass spheres filled with alchemical mixtures. Once he handed them to the Frenchman, he said, “I’m glad I didn’t have to use them.”
“As am I, Capitaine. Else, the Lively would likely be in flames right now. How did you quell it without violence?”
“There was some violence. I will tell you about it later.” He turned to the long-legged man walking up to him. “Mr. Isaacson, stow those cables in the orlop. Mr. Owens, if you would join me at the helm.” Together, they marched up to the wheel, where Kepler, the old man, appeared to be fighting with the wheel.
“She’s wind-rode, Captain.”
“I see that. So you both know, we are following the Lively. Captain Vhingfrith has the best mind for setting a course under these…unusual circumstances.” He looked aft, where Lively was already starting to surge forth and take the lead. “Mr. Owens, I will need to confer with you over the charts, just in case something else goes awry on the Lively. We’ll want to know our own way.”
“Aye, sir.”
Laurier took another worrisome look at the Lively and then headed below. After consulting with Owens in his cabin, he dismissed his navigator and paced alone in the room. For a moment his stomach lurched. These seas…they swayed unnaturally. The room was dark because no one had lit a lantern. It suddenly occurred to him how very precious candles and lantern oil was soon to become, for if there was no sun—or, if Vhingfrith was correct, and a sun of some kind was indeed still on the other side of the globe, and nights were now going to last longer—then they would be in deep need of fuel for flames. Very deep need.
Laurier took a deep breath, and thought he smelled Vhingfrith in the room with him, to the point he nearly searched for him.
The room was so very cold. Practically winter.
He lit a lantern. Tears might have fallen as he got to work poring over the charts, and perhaps he wiped them all away absentmindedly; he could not recall. His body was moving automatically, without his input. And his mind was not truly on the charts and rutters, but instead drifting from one thing to another. Benjamin barely entered his thoughts, shockingly, and instead his mind crawled back to Kent, to his brothers and sisters he presumed were still there, still working the till. This time of year, they all ought to be worrying about next month’s harvest.
Laurier opened his journal. Each entry was short, usually just the date, the weather, the direction they sailed and any anomalies they encountered. He had not written in it since the phenomenon began. Today, as it stood, ought to be twenty-ninth of August, but who knew for sure?
At some point, Owens knocked on his door and entered, and together they each picked up their dividers and got to work speculating where they were, and plotting where they were going. No more did Benjamin Vhingfrith occupy his mind, only thoughts of survival consumed him, and his time with that beautiful man with that beautiful mind was relegated to the part of his soul that indulged only in dreams and flights of fancy. The future was a dark world, and he had better learn to navigate it alone.
____
Dobbs lay in his hammock with Rory in his lap. Almost all the other hammocks were empty. LaCroix’s wasn’t, the Frenchman lay snoring, scarcely caring about any of the long night’s events. Or at least it seemed so. Dobbs lay awake with only a single candle to light the room, and Rory purred softly as he half slept, half eyed the darkness. His hammock was near the ladder, but no moonlight came down the porthole because now both moons were gone and the stars were insufficient to light anything.
This was true darkness, of a kind his dreams had dared not even show him. No amount of fanciful thinking could ever have summoned up a scenario such as this, and he kept waiting to wake up. Guilt over killing Abner came in waves, but like the tides, it always receded and then he was calm. I killed him. But the captain gave the order. There would’ve been mutiny if I hadn’t…
Light entered the room.
Okoa came hopping down the stairs on a crutch, his free hand holding the lantern. The African now assumed the duties that were once Abner’s, checking in on each of the men. Even on one leg, Okoa managed to keep his balance, which was a feat considering the harsh swaying of the ship. Dobbs had seen Okoa speaking to Akil and the other Africans, translating for Walker, Jenkins, and Tomlinson, all of whom were trying to give the new crewmen the very basics on how to hand, reef, and sail. Now he came hopping by Dobbs’s hammock, and said, “Candles very important now, Dobbs. Use very sparingly.”
“I was only reading a little,” he whispered, closing his book and putting it away. Dobbs knew only the rudiments of the alphabet and had memorized what a few key words looked like, but any books with drawings helped him piece things together and create his own stories in his mind.
“Use very sparingly,” Okoa said again, as he walked away.
“Yes, sir.” He blew it out, and listened as Okoa’s crutches thumped back up the ladder to the main deck.
Shutting his eyes, Dobbs tried to imagine the sun again, he tried to feel the warmth of it on his face. God in Heaven, please don’t keep the sun from us. Whatever we’ve done, forgive us. If Abner were there, he would have said the prayer with Dobbs. He would have been proud to.
After a moment, Dobbs felt himself drifting off. The heavy swaying came to feel like he was a leaf on an unusually strong wind, and he slipped into dream. But then something woke him, a rhythmic thump-thump-thump from underneath the floor, and he sat up and nearly fell out of his hammock. Voices began to rise. More like deep humming.
“What is that?” he asked of no one.
LaCroix answered from somewhere in the dark. “It’s the mutineers. The ones who allied with Abner. Captain’s got them all chained up below. I was wondering when they would start singing.”
“Why would they sing?”
“What else are they going to do down there?”
Dobbs nodded. He supposed that made sense.
He spotted Isaacson walking close to him. Dobbs briefly made eye contact with the bald, burnt-faced fellow. Isaacson had the look of a man with a guilty conscience, but also of patiently allowing his predilections to play. Dobbs watched the man carefully as he went to his hammock. With Abner gone, with the sun gone, he suddenly sensed, the way we all sense when foul men feel an opportunity arise, that Isaacson might try to bugger him again.
But I have LaCroix close by. And Jenkins and the others won’t let him. They’ll stop him. Like last time. I have friends here.
Then a voice in his head said, But you’re one less, because you killed him. Poor, poor Abner.
Moments later, he heard the Frenchman snoring again. Dobbs laid back down, closed his eyes, and prayed for Abner’s forgiveness. The sun did not shine in his dreams, nor did the moons. All he saw was Abner drifting down, down, down into cold black waters. He had hold of Dobbs’s leg, and would not let go. The mutineers kept singing, and now they were loud enough that “Leave Her Johnny” slid into Dobbs’s dreams. And Abner kept pulling him down, down, singing all the while. The old quartermaster would not let go. He could carry a tune, though.