image [https://i.imgur.com/15eGPa6.jpg]

escutcheon – The part of a vessel’s stern where her name is written.

THE INTENSE TIDES of the past fourteen days had not been kind to the shores, much of them had been ravaged, much like what was described of the earthquake of 1692. Trees floated in the water and smacked up against the hulls of their ships. Bodies, too. Men, women, and children floated face-down in the sea, along with animals, dogs and felines, sheep and other cattle, and a stupendous amount of debris from wagons, houses, and various buildings that had been by the shore when it happened.

Anne Bonny determined they were looking at Jamaica’s northeastern shore, which was not, she believed, exactly where the two captains meant to come upon the island, and questions soon arose about whether or not this was, in fact, Jamaica. But soon landmarks began to appear. Blue Mountain Peak was unmistakable in the distance, its shape distinctive as the sun rose higher. The stars began to recede. Stars, Bonny noted, that looked much more like the stars she was familiar with. We made it, Abner. We’re back home. Out of the Hellmouth.

There was rejoicing on her ship, and she could hear such cheering carrying across the silent waters, coming from the Lively. The men were never more certain than ever that this nightmare had passed. Anne wasn’t so sure.

Of anything.

Ages ago, she had come to these waters with hardly a clue about herself, without even her true name. Anne’s mother had been a servant to a man named William McCormac, a lawyer in County Cork, Ireland. McCormac was married, but apparently fell in love, or lust, with the fiery red-head working in his house. They had an affair, and when Anne was born, McCormac started dressing her as a boy and calling her Andy. Anne lived the first ten years of her life believing she was, in fact, a boy. But when McCormac’s wife discovered his infidelity, she threatened to ruin him unless he divorced her. William McCormac surprised everyone by dropping the “Mc” from his name and marrying Anne’s mother, and the Cormacs moved across the ocean to the Province of Carolina.

Life there was a trial, and its memory existed now as only a grey haze of events that sometimes seemed to have happened out of order. Anne’s mother had been attentive and kind. She died when Anne was twelve, leaving her with a cruel father who, Anne suspected, saw only his own faults writ large in the features on her face. He ignored Anne until he was angry, and then he demeaned her verbally. Anne had been wroth with him, and lashed out. In an argument with a servant girl she suspected was fucking her father, Anne stabbed the girl with a knife, nearly killing her. After her father beat her bloody, Anne ran away, and took in with a man named James Bonny, who she married as soon as they were able to find a priest. She and James moved to New Providence, to live among the Republic of Pirates, where he had brothers already working as carpenters.

And then other things happened, another grey haze she could not account for. It was as if someone had reached into her brain and surgically removed a chunk of her memories, and then jumbled the rest of them up. She remembered meeting a man named Jack Rackham, and she remembered Jack offering money to James to buy her. She remembered an argument, and a fight, and James lying in a bloody pool. And then she was with Jack. Her dear Jack.

And then she was aboard the William and she was a pirate and she wondered if all that other stuff about her mother and father was only a dream. Had any of it been real? Perhaps that was why all this strangeness did not frighten her the way it did the others. It drew her in, hour by hour, like a song reaching its crescendo, she felt the final, logical conclusion was about to drop on top of her.

Where is Jack? she asked of the sun. Where did you take my Jack? Is he in the same place where you were hiding?

Presently, Anne stood at the starboard railing. Behind her, the men were all working the ropes and yards. She was not involved in any of it, and none of them paid her any mind. None seemed the least bit upset she was not helping them at the moment. Anne helped when she wanted, when she felt she was absolutely needed.

She looked at her hands, callused and scabbed over from the days spent helping with reefing and repairs. The hands she ran through Jack’s hair, across his lips and thighs. Where is Jack?

“Where is everyone?” someone muttered beside her.

Anne looked to her right and saw Dobbs. The boy looked frightened of everything now. The sun had been stolen and then returned. What did it mean? Anne was prepared to believe it had no meaning discernible to men, but she could tell Dobbs wasn’t ready for that. He needed answers or else fear would forever live in his heart. He was young, he hadn’t yet learned to stop searching for meaning.

“It looks so empty,” said Dobbs. He winced, as they all did, in the sun’s fresh light. It had been so long since they had seen the sun, their eyes could hardly take it.

Anne took out a curved dagger, and pricked the blisters on her left hand. “It does, doesn’t it?” she said.

“Where did they all go? This is Jamaica! We should be seeing ships coming and going from Port—”

“Sail ho!” They all turned as one, looking up. The call came down from the topman on the topmast. “Sail ho!” he cried again.

The Ladyman appeared from below and moved quickly along the gunwale, passing Anne. She stepped fast into his wake, following him to the prow. “Where away?” he called.

The topman shouted down, “Three points for’ard of the starboard beam! In the wind’s eye!”

The Ladyman headed for the binnacle, snatching up the spyglass from its leather case as he went. Anne could already see the dot on the horizon. The ship was big. The white sails made her easily visible on the south horizon. The Ladyman looked through the spyglass, said, “Hmmm,” and then handed the spyglass to Anne without even acknowledging her presence otherwise. So many were either dead or made prisoner, it seemed Anne Bonny had unofficially been elevated to some sort of co-captain or first mate. Peering through the lens, Anne clicked her teeth in consternation. The ship was probably four or five hundred tons burthen, and fully rigged with three masts. A frigate, meant for war. Perhaps three times as large as the Hazard. Her masts were strongly raked, to give her speed. “What do we do, Captain?”

“Can’t see her trim from here,” he said, biting his lipstick’d lip. “Can’t know if she’s a nao or not. Good sighting, Paulson!” he called up to the topman.

“Thankee, Cap’n!”

“What are we going to do, Ladyman?” Anne asked again.

Laurier looked up at the fluttering sheets. “In this wind, I calculate our speed with this cargo is about five knots…perhaps six. Ship like that, probably moves at ten. Which means if we ran she’d be on us in an hour, perhaps a little more.”

“So, what do we do?” she asked, for the third time. She stood in his way, just as Captain Laurier had started to head aft.

He looked down at her. His hands gently touched her shoulders, and then ever so kindly he pushed her to one side, and continued on. Anne watched him go. She wanted to kill him sometimes. Might do someday. But Jack had trusted him. Before he left her for good, Jack told her to find work with a trusted pirate. There were only two pirates that Captain Jack Rackham ever trusted, and the Ladyman was one of them.

The ship swayed, and the shadows of the ratlines fluttered across the deck. Anne watched the shadows closely, mistrusting them. Then she looked at the oncoming ship, and hoped it was coming for battle. She didn’t mind if she died soon. She wanted to be with Jack.

____

Her escutcheon said she was the Mallory. John had heard of her before, a half-destroyed-and-then-refitted frigate, formerly of the Royal Navy, now belonging to the East India Company, if his memory served. A storied privateer’s vessel that had raided two dozen Spanish ships and left one of them at the bottom of the sea. John forgot the name of the current captain—it changed so often, the East India Company might supplant one captain for another, and for any number of political or logistical reasons. Mallory moved up alongside the Hazard, the two ships rocking lightly in the waves. John watched her heave to, eyeing the gunports closely as a few of them slid open. The men of the Mallory looked down from their top deck, towering above the pirate vessel, and threw down ropes. Between their two ships, John noticed, three or four bloated corpses floated face-down in the water. Two women, one man. And there was something furry, a cat or small dog. John wondered what hell Jamaica had suffered while they were lost in fourteen days of darkness. He wondered what madness all the islands had undergone in that time.

Six men came over from the Mallory, including the captain, a barrel-chested man with a wig and who doffed his tricorne hat at the same time John removed his. They shook hands briefly. “Captain Laurier,” said the big man. He gave a brief smile that showed several wooden teeth. “Hollinger’s the name. Pleasure.” He looked John up and down. John was now wearing a men’s breeches but with his feminine cavalier boots, and his lips were lipstick’d, and his eyes were blackened by coal. “This is the Hazard, yes?” said Hollinger.

There was no point in denying it. If the man had wanted to blow them out of the water and claim the reward for a pirate’s head, he could’ve done so. By coming aboard, he had basically given them the chance to take him hostage, but Hollinger also knew John Laurier wouldn’t do that since the Mallory’s gunports were open and aimed. This arrangement put them all more or less on even ground.

“This is the Hazard, yes,” John said. “And that is the Lively.” He pointed to the ship coming up around the other side of Hazard. And there is the reason he is being so friendly. He saw a privateer and a pirate vessel sailing alongside one another, and didn’t know what to make of it. “Captain Vhingfrith is her captain—”

“I know Vhingfrith very well,” Hollinger said, cutting him off and walking around him. “In fact, it is fortuitous we should meet. I was given a message by a friend of his in Royal, and told that if I saw him, I should give it to him.”

“I see. What’s the message?”

“Pardon me, Captain, but it is for Benjamin Vhingfrith.”

“Of course.”

They both stood waiting for the ropes and planks to be put in place between Hazard and Lively. Hollinger tried and failed to not look at the Ladyman’s painted lips and eyes. Then Benjamin came striding over to meet them, along with two of his men. Vhingfrith doffed his hat and tucked it under his arm smartly, and smiled as though greeting an old friend. “David. How long’s it been?”

Hollinger shook his hand. “Two years and nine months. I believe it was Christmas near the Governor’s House.”

“So it was. By God, man, but it is good to see you.” Benjamin smiled wide and clapped Hollinger on the shoulder.

But Captain Hollinger looked surprised by that, lifting an eyebrow. “I…am glad to see you, as well.” Hollinger smiled, but also appeared uncertain. Something about his demeanor struck John as athwart. The man peered around at the pirates on Hazard’s deck, and his eyes moved slowly, like he was counting them, like he was trying to figure something out. And something else struck the Ladyman—They do not appear to be in a panic. Looking at Hollinger and his men, as well as the crew peering down from Mallory’s rails, he did not get the sense they were wary about anything besides pirates. And something else…what was it?

It hit him.

All our people are squinting because of the sunlight. Hollinger and his men…they appear to be just fine in the sun.

John felt uneasy about that. He gave Anne a look, and she passed it to Okoa and Dobbs. Be ready. But he didn’t know what they ought to be ready for. A nagging feeling held him, though. Hairs raised on his neck. John looked up. Gulls flew overhead, calling to each other. Peeking over the railing, he saw more corpses bobbing up and down, one of them face-up, a man’s pale flesh and eyes facing the sky. Embers of fear still lived in those dead eyes. John looked farther out, saw fish jumping in the water. Everything seemed normal. Besides the corpses, of course, and the occasional debris from a destroyed cabin or hut. The world did not seem disturbed at all. What in hells…?

“—and when I saw your transom, I knew it was you,” Hollinger was saying. “I remembered the scraping we took when passing by those cliffs all those years ago, when you and I sailed to…eh, where was it? Oh, never mind. Never got that repainted, did you? Ha! Your father was the same way. Cosmetic damage bothered him none at all!” He chuckled, and removed a handkerchief to wipe his sweaty brow.

John watched as Ben smiled politely and bowed almost imperceptibly. “You recall him very well. My father was careful where he spent his money, true. Some thought him an impecunious man because of it—”

“But I knew better! Haw! I knew he kept a stash somewhere on these islands. Somewhere on St. Kitts, I assumed. I tried to prise it out of him one night, over rum at The Quick Lady, but he never would yield his secret.” Captain Hollinger stopped smiling and looked around at all the pirates, as if suddenly remembering they were there. His eyes lingered a moment longer on Anne, and then he said, “Bit undermanned, aren’t you, Captain Laurier?”

John pursed his lips, but did not answer immediately. Captain Hollinger seemed like a man who thought because his ship was bigger he was somehow more important, and could deny or admit people into his conversations whenever he liked. So John denied him that power. He let the silence last a bit too long as he just smiled and stared at the hulking man. Benjamin gave John a look, and cleared his throat. When John judged the awkwardness had lasted long enough, he sighed and said, “We’ve had our troubles, as I’m sure you have.”

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Hollinger looked him up and down again. “Lost some men, eh?” He nodded curtly as though he understood perfectly. “You must have been in the thick of it, then.”

“We were.” John gauged Hollinger’s mien once more, then looked back at his own men. The Mallory’s men all seemed wary of pirates, perhaps even wary of the half-Negro captain with the glittering eye and rings, but they did not seem to have the same sallow-faced and horror-beaten looks as the crew of the Hazard. “What was it like here, on Jamaica, when it happened? How many islanders dead?”

“Hard to say. It’s only been two days,” Hollinger said, pacing about the deck, peering briefly down into one of the hatches. Two days? John thought. Something’s not right here. Hollinger sighed, and wiped his brow again. “But I do not think it was any worse than the storm we had last year. Remember it? What a witchy thing that was. These waves may have encroached upon the shore more than last time, but the damn fools who keep building their huts right on the sand got what they asked for, I suppose. Quite a few of them will never make that mistake again.” He chuckled, but remembered himself quickly and took on a morose look. “Still, bad omens. God rest their souls, all.”

But John was barely listening to that bit. “Storm?” he said, looking around at Benjamin, who suddenly gave him a warning look. John knew that look. Ben wanted him to keep silent. But John had to say more. “There…there was a storm? Nothing more? Nothing…unusual?”

Hollinger snorted. “Unusual? No. You lads must’ve felt dipped in the scuppers, though. God in heaven, to be stuck out there when it was raging…it’s a wonder both your ships survived. A wonder and a mercy.”

“Yeh didna see the two bloody moons?!” shouted Jaime. The Scotsman was up in the mizzenmast, both feet looped in the netting, looking down on all the proceedings.

“Moons? What’s he talking about?” Hollinger said.

Jaime started to say something else, but John shot him a look. He shot them all a look, and everyone remained silent, thank Christ. There was a low murmur among the crew that Captain Hollinger could not have missed. He squinted, wondering what he was being left out of.

Benjamin came to the rescue. “There was an illusion, out at sea. A most unusual thing. Likely brought on by the storm, but…for a moment, when the clouds briefly parted, it appeared exactly as though there were two moons in the sky.” Ben snorted out a laugh and shook his head. “Damnedest thing I ever saw. Have you ever seen a thing like that, Captain?”

Hollinger lifted an eyebrow. “No, I have not. A singular thing, no doubt.” There were more murmurs, from both John’s crew and the two men Ben had brought over from the Lively. They soon went silent, but Hollinger knew something was amiss. “What’s going on? What’s got these men all rattled?”

John smiled and said, “Superstitious men, Captain Hollinger. None worse than pirates.” Let that change the subject. Though, John didn’t know why Ben wanted the matter dropped.

Hollinger gave him a sharp look, and it was clear the other matter was forgotten. “Speaking on pirates. Do you know, a packet ship recently came into Royal carrying a list of names of men and women suspected of piracy.” He glanced around at the crew, at Anne Bonny, and back at John. “England intends to crack down on such, eh, unaffiliated sorts. Lord Hamilton is in charge now, along with Woodes Rogers, who has returned from exile, and now controls the militia in Jamaica.” Hollinger looked back at Ben. “In fact, it was Rogers who asked me to bring you a message, Captain Vhingfrith.”

A blade of ice pierced John’s heart, and he shot an accusation at Ben, who maintained his composure. “What does my old friend say?”

Old friend?

“That he has information on those two ships you were looking for,” Hollinger said.

Ben perked up. “The Coronado? And the Santo Domingo? Both of them?”

“He did not say the names—you know him to be a secretive man, as well as I—but he said when next you are in Royal it is important that you see him about it.” Hollinger glanced sidelong at John. “And I’ll just say this in the Ladyman’s presence—Woodes Rogers plans to begin a ‘no pirates’ policy in Port Royal. None at all. He wants ships to help patrol the bays, and he’s asking for you to help him do it. He said to call it a favour for the information he has on the two ships you’re after, but also says there will be repayment.” He leaned in close to Ben, but John could still hear. “I say this as a friend. Rogers seems to be the last man in Royal who isn’t bothered by your, eh, let’s call it setback in Guadeloupe, and is also willing to look past your, eh…” Here, Hollinger appeared to walk an even tighter rope. “…partnerships with other disreputable captains. As a favour to your father’s memory, I tell you this.”

John was seething. Not about Hollinger’s words, fuck the old fat ox—what he was upset about was the association between Woodes Rogers and Benjamin. John had never known them to be friendly. But he kept an easy smile plastered to his face. No good showing a lack of control now, not after keeping his wits and his sanity intact when facing fourteen days of night. But inside he was disgusted, and felt as betrayed as he’d ever felt. Woodes Rogers was not only a hunter and a killer of pirates, but he’d sworn to destroy the Republic of Pirates at their home in Nassau. That Ben was friendly with this man…

“Thank you for the message, Captain,” said Ben. “Would you like to come aboard the Lively, share some wine for a moment? We took some nice casks from the Spaniards and I would love to repay you for—”

“No,” said Hollinger, who sniffed the air and seemed to find it putrid. He donned his hat. “We would be well away. We’ve got cargo to deliver and a ship of our own to find, the San Juan Bautista. She’s out here somewhere, and we’ve got a letter of marque from Governor Hamilton to sink her or take her a prize. But thankee, sir, for the offer.”

“Of course. But, before you go, Captain, do you have the time?”

“The time?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I lost my timepiece when we fought with the storm. Spot of bad luck.”

“I’ll say. If you can’t tell the time—”

“May as well not know the tide. Yes, that was a favourite quote of my father’s.”

“It was, it was,” Hollinger chuckled, pulling out his own timepiece. “It is a quarter past the hour.”

“And the hour?”

“Of ten.”

“Thankee, Captain. I’ll make sure I get another timepiece when I’m in port.”

They shook. It was perfunctory, done between captains, and, as Hollinger said, because of Ben’s father’s memory. Nothing more. These men could be colleagues but not friends. Never that.

But is Benjamin friends with Rogers? John thought. He would soon get it out of Ben, even if he had to beat it out of him.

“Captain Laurier,” said Hollinger, as he swept past. “If I were you, I would sail for Nassau or the Colonies, and never return. I’ll just put it bluntly. Set foot in Port Royal, and you may soon swing from a gallows. That, also, is in honour of Benjamin Vhingfrith’s father, who I know thought of you as a kind of friend. Even a son.” That was it. No goodbye, no shaking of hands. Hollinger and his men walked planks up to the deck of the Mallory, and moments later were reeling in lines and weighing anchor.

Once they were off, John stormed across the planks to the Lively’s deck and caught up to Benjamin just as he was stepping into his cabin. “Shut the door,” Benjamin said, sensing John just behind him.

John did so, and barred it, just in case. “What was all that?” he demanded. “Woodes Rogers? You’re in league with Woodes fucking Ro—”

“Contemptible man! I am not in ‘league’ with anyone! Now, be so kind as to shut up and let me think—”

“Think about what? How best to play me? Eh? How to play me long enough that you and Woodes Rogers can hang me and Anne and everyone else by the—?”

“—it’s just as I thought. I noticed it on Hollinger’s face as soon as he came aboard. I saw it. He and his men have not suffered the same trauma as we have—”

“Benjamin, tell me you weren’t think of turning me in when we got to Royal. Tell me that wasn’t your plan all along when you agreed to help me with the Nuestra. To get the double fortune of a nao’s treasure and the bounty on our heads! Tell me that hadn’t crossed your mind!”

“—don’t have time for this—”

“Well you’d better make fucking time—”

“Did you not hear him, John? For God’s sake, did you not hear the words coming through his wooden teeth?! I know you couldn’t have missed the truth!”

“What do you mean?”

“The storm, John! All that transpired here in the last fourteen days was a storm. Whilst you and I and all those poor bastards out there were running terrified through the fucking dark! With no sun! Two moons! Did we imagine it? Did we all just suffer the same fucking nightmare? How is it that we all went fourteen days without a sun in the sky, and yet the rest of Jamaica seemingly carried on as usual? How?” John watched as Ben tore open the rutters on his desk, and splayed out the charts that showed the Bocas del Dragón, the series of straits separating the Gulf of Paria from the Caribbean Sea. He took a divider in one hand and a parallel rule in the other, and began to mutter while tracing their course. “This is the course we originally travelled, just above the twenty-fifth parallel. And running from here, five hundred miles from Trinidad. It makes no sense…no damned sense…”

John approached from the opposite side of the desk, and reached out and pinned Ben’s hands to the oak. Then he took Ben’s chin in one hand and lifted it so that they were looking into one another’s eyes. “Ben, tell me. How long have you and Rogers been allied?”

Ben snorted. “My God, John. Would you listen to yourself? We may have just experienced a phenomenon no other man or woman ever has, or ever will, and you want to know about pirate hunters and island politics?”

“Were I a more learned man, a more curious man, I might gift a fuck about strange phenomena.”

Ben squinted at him. “John, I’ve always known you to be the ultimate pragmatist, but are you not at least interested in what we’ve just experienced?”

“We are past it. It was…I don’t know what it was, but it’s gone now. It’s over. What matters to me right now is what’s right in front of me, the man I thought I could trust.”

Ben walked away from him and tore open the window, which happened to face east. It faced the rising sun. “There it is, John. You see it now, don’t you? Were we hallucinating then, or are we hallucinating now?”

John straightened. He sighed. “I don’t know about Hellmouths or firmaments or whatever the fuck else may be chasing us. And right now I don’t care. All I care about is finding out if the man I’ve loved more than any other creature on Earth has been betraying me. Betraying me for fucking England, for gold, for the love of a country he’s never set foot on.”

Ben rounded the desk, and stood inches from him. Suddenly, he snatched John’s face in his hands, pulled him close, and kissed him. Deeply. And held him that way for several moments. John couldn’t breathe. In an instant, all was forgotten and forgiven. If it meant having the sun vanish again, so be it, he would rather be back there in Hell’s eternal darkness with Benjamin than in a world flush with sunlight but no love.

When Ben finally pulled away, he looked the Ladyman square in the eye. “John, my love, listen to me. There is no power that binds me to anyone more than you. I hate you for it. I hate myself for it. But there sits your truth.” He kissed John again, held him there, then came away and said, “But right now, we have a total of forty or so men—crew and prisoners—that are about to head gratefully back into Port Royal and tell everyone what they saw out there. You and I are deviants. There is no place for those such as us in their world. So, what do you think people will make of such a tale? What will the people of Port Royal do when they hear the Devil’s Son and the John the Doxy led men into a fourteen-day darkness? Most will surely ignore them. But enough may believe them. Enough may believe you and I brought that darkness on these men, and that we may bring it on the people of Port Royal.” He shook his head. “But now I need to figure on the time…”

“The time?”

“Yes, John. The time. Hollinger’s timepiece said it was quarter-till-ten. Mine says it’s half past noon. I dared not ask him the day, but it seems…time slipped. It wasn’t just the sun, John. Don’t you see? Time slipped past us! Or through us!”

When Ben let him go, John stood there, rooted. His mind was swirling with conflicting emotions, yet he was aware Ben had effectively avoided answering his questions outright. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe this was his answer to those accusations. “What are you going to do?”

“What do you think?” Ben said, looking back at the charts. “I’m going to stare at these bloody charts and look through these rutters until I come up with a workable excuse for why my men believe what they believe. You and I will send our most trusted people into port ahead of the others, to begin spreading information about a malady, a mind sickness, which passed amongst both our crews and made them all delirious for these last few days.” He squinted, thinking. “We will say we caught it from the Spaniards. That ought to give it the breath of credibility it needs. Everyone in Port Royal already hates the Spaniards, and everyone knows the plague went through Spain not too long ago…”

John nodded. “Get ahead of it. Good idea. So by the time Jaime and the other loudmouths begin telling their stories—”

“They won’t be believed. Hopefully.”

“Always with a plan, my love,” John smiled.

“You’re one to talk.”

“Ah, but your plans are different than mine. I’m good at planning attacks and discerning the sea. You’re better with men.”

“Not all of them.” He sighed. “You know, I killed a man during our chase of the Nuestra. Shot him dead, right as he was going for a knife. He meant to murder me, Johnny.”

Johnny. Ben had not called him that in years. He walked over and took Ben’s hand, and was glad when it wasn’t declined. “What do we do after we spread your propaganda?”

Ben sighed, and slumped in his chair, staring out the window at the rising sun. He let John keep hold of his hand. “Then I speak to Woodes Rogers and get what information he has on the two ships.” He held up his hands placatingly. “I know, I know! You don’t trust the man, and you shouldn’t. But if he’s truly got a track on those two ships, then…” Ben shrugged. “I may also speak to a man my father knew, who is recently returned to Royal, who often had work for him at sea. Perhaps I’ll get us some work from him, harassing other, smaller ships while we spend months at sea looking for Coronado and Santo Domingo.” He shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got for now. Perhaps one or two other things…”

“That sounds like enough.”

“And what about you, John?” Ben said.

The Ladyman smiled. “I’ve got a bit of work that needs tending to, as well. Locally, not far from here.”

“But you heard Hollinger. You go into Port Royal, you could soon meet with a rope.”

“I know how to look out for myself.”

“Clearly.”

“You know, it wasn’t too long ago Port Royal was Spanish-owned. When England took hold, they realized it was surrounded by Spanish fleet. So sweet fucking England, cunt that she is, relied on us pirates to harass and assault every Spanish vessel to our hearts’ content. We established a nice little hub for ourselves in Royal. But now that the Spanish problem is getting under control, suddenly England doesn’t want us around. She would like to forget the little stain we leave on her honour.” He shrugged. “But England hasn’t got us under control. Not quite yet. She’ll get her comeuppance.”

Ben shook his head. “Amazing. You’ve just crossed through the Hellmouth, or something very much like it, and all that concerns you is getting even with England.”

In truth, Ben was wrong. John hadn’t forgotten the last fourteen days at all. The second pink moon and that lasting darkness still haunted him, but here he was, back on firm footing of the shores of reality, holding the hand of the man he loved, and he might as well as address only what was ahead of him. “Just because we went through Hell, Ben, doesn’t mean our story ends. Oh no, it’s only just begun.”

“But where will you go in Royal?”

“Why? Worried about me? What a famous thing that would be.”

Ben said nothing.

John snorted out a laugh. “I’ll be about my business. Shouldn’t take too long. After that…who knows, perhaps I’ll join you on your little hunt. If you’ll have me, my love.” He kissed Ben’s hand, then each of his ringed fingers, and finally released him. He turned and unbarred the door and stepped out into the companionway.

“When you say, ‘have you’…” Ben called to him.

John looked back. Ben wasn’t smiling, but his face was half in shadow and his cat’s-eye glittered. John smirked, and considered staying. The invitation was there. But there was work to be done, and lots of it. He bowed slightly, and closed the door on his way out.