image [https://i.imgur.com/DqimdvY.jpg]

Port Royal – The capital of Jamaica, population approx. 8,500.

THEY CAME AROUND the Southern Hook at a little past two o’clock on what Vhingfrith assumed was September 5th. The wind was where he wanted it. Pure white clouds sailed evenly across the sky before them and they were moving at about three knots, he judged, with Hazard half a mile behind them. He stood on the quarterdeck, pacing behind Dawson, watching as the remains of the small village of Henley came into view. Henley was a quaint little fishing village that sat once perched on the stony, sand-covered edge of the Hook. Lively kept well away from the Hook’s shallow shores, but Vhingfrith saw the crashing waves still tossing up flotsam and jetsam. The detritus of numerous huts and cabins that had once squatted by the sea were splashed onto the beach. The keel of a small fishing boat lay in the water upside-down, with no sign of anyone trying to retrieve it. Twenty or so black slaves moved about the shore, piling up salvageable wood while armed militiamen supervised. The militiamen waved, and Benjamin waved back.

He looked at his timepiece. How did time slip past us? He ran his tongue along his teeth pensively, certain he was still missing something but unable to pin it down. Hollinger’s account of things on the island, and his message from Woodes Rogers, both caused him consternation. On the one hand he might have the Coronado and the Santio Domingo within reach, and on the other hand…he and his crew had just passed through the firmament. Or some other medium like it.

Pacing some more, Benjamin glanced back at the Hazard, and could not but acknowledge that his thoughts would be much, much clearer, were they not mired by the kiss he had given John Laurier before he left. After John left his cabin, Benjamin had sat a while in silence, neglecting his duties as captain far longer than he ought. He remembered kissing the Ladyman, and calling him Johnny, two things he swore he would never do again. And once he got up from his chair, he’d found himself taking a razor and shaving himself carefully. Then he took a brush and thoroughly brushed his long coat. He brushed off his tricorne and shined his brass buttons, too, then took soap and oil and cleaned his leather boots, as well as the baldric that held his sword. Then he’d fluffed out his lace-trimmed ruffles that stuck out from his sleeves. And then he’d combed his hair back, flat against his scalp. The grooming was a kind of coping mechanism, but it also served another purpose. Soon, his image would need to be pristine. Soon, he would be on land, and the critical eye of both Englishmen and Dutchmen would be upon him.

Benjamin kept glancing at the Hazard. Occasionally, he thought he glimpsed one of John’s skirts flapping in the wind. The blue one. Benjamin had never really known why he dressed like that. John tried explaining it once, saying it was first a game, something to play with men’s minds, and then it had turned into something else, something to do with self-determinism and some other metaphysical nonsense. But John could never fully explain his philosophy on that. Or, rather, would not, deepening the mystery of him. Vhingfrith imagined John in that blue dress. In those tall cavalier boots. His blue, daring eyes. His insouciant strut…

Vhingfrith recalled Hollinger’s words, and a terrible image flashed in his mind: John swinging from a rope. He cringed, and immediately banished the thought to the darkest corner of his mind and swore he would never look there again. He wanted John to stay away from Port Royal. He wanted to tell John to stay away. But somehow, in John’s presence, the words could not reach Benjamin’s tongue. John sometimes had that power over him.

“Contemptible man,” he muttered. “Damn his eyes.”

“Sir?” said Dawson.

Vhingfrith sighed. “Just remarking on the sun, Mr. Dawson.”

“God Almighty, but it’s good to see it again, ain’t it, sir?”

“It is, my old friend.” He looked at the portly old helmsman. He stepped closer to him. “Before we go in, Dawson, I want you to know…I’ve had few friends out here. I am not even sure I can count you as one of them, but you have been the most loyal. For that, at least, I thank you.”

Dawson looked at him, surprised. “Aye, sir. You’re welcome, sir.”

“Should anyone ever make you an offer to forget your loyalty, make sure you come to me before betraying me, and I’ll double whatever they’re offering, in exchange for their names and locations. And if you should hear any rumours that you think could be advantageous to me, you’ll find twenty shillings waiting on you if I hear about it before anyone else. Do you think this is a fair deal, Mr. Dawson?”

Dawson gave an almost imperceptible smile. “Aye, Cap’n. I think it is a fine deal.”

“If I have ever had any occasion to commend you properly and failed, or elevated you and neglected to so it, be sure that it is only because of what we’ve all been through, and I hope you will forgive me. That being said, be so good as to tell Mr. Maxwell to bring me tea, and you as well, if you need it.”

“I should like it of all things, Cap’n.”

Vhingfrith clapped the helmsman’s shoulder. “I’ll take the steering for the moment. Carry on, Mr. Dawson.”

A moment later, the man in the crow’s nest cried out, “Port!” And when Ben looked up, he felt both trepidation and relief fighting for supremacy of his heart. For there, coming within sight around the coastal bend, was Port Royal, the jewel of the Bahamas, the very heart of the Caribbean.

Port Royal’s beach was a twisted, intermingled, semi-organized mess of docks, wooden cranes, ropes that crisscrossed like spiderwebs, and boats of every size: xebecs, feluccas, settees, trabacaloes, and tartans. People often said that the dockworkers moved like ants in a colony, but Vhingfrith thought they rather looked like maggots writhing in a wound, seeking weakness and feeding whenever they found it. Treasure-hunters boarded sloops and headed east towards imagined shortcuts to wealth—piracy, robbery, raiding, plundering, or digging up the treasure troves Spanish captains hid all over the Caribbean like seeds. Wooden cranes moaned as they hauled cargoes on and off ships. Inlets like these, carved out from the island itself by millions of years of earthquakes and steady erosion, gave ships unrivaled access to both to the heart of the Caribbean Sea and the protection of Jamaica as a whole. Inlets similar to these were dotted all around the island, making it even more ideal for smugglers.

Beyond those hectic docks rose Port Royal herself. One’s eyes caught sight of the markets all surrounding the city, and then the eyes could not help but travel upwards to the flattened parts, to the two main forts at both ends, to homes and businesses made of both wood and stone, some of them surrounded, even connected by, scaffolding and the workers upon them. A thriving city. An evil city. A city constantly under construction. Its aspects varied—from one angle it looked like several wooden-hut villages stacked on top of one another, and from another angle the old Spanish buildings and English stonework combined to make it look like a natural city of stone and mortar, and yet another angle might show you thatched-roof huts clinging to those stone buildings.

A bizarre city.

And you could smell it above even the seawater. Industrial odours and waste odours and animal odours.

They were here. They had made it. They were home. Men were cheering all around. Ragged, exhausted men, all leaping and waving their caps. Even Dawson, who had kept his cool throughout this whole ordeal, forgot his tea a moment and tore off his skullcap and danced in circles, screaming joy.

When they came near the shore, Vhingfrith called, “All hands, bring ship to anchor!” The men obeyed smartly and a little clumsily. The anchor splashed into the sea. Boats were dropped into the water and nearly every man wanted shore leave, but Vhingfrith had to leave someone to watch the Lively. And so he left a skeleton crew—Garrett, a co-pilot who had studied under Dawson, was left at the wheel, and a gunnery crew was left aboard, gunports open with cannons pointed away from the island, towards the south horizon, should any enemy vessel try a surprise attack on Port Royal. Lively joined three other sloops anchored there. It was tradition to keep a sort of honorary guard to defend the port if necessary.

Following the plan he’d concocted with John, Benjamin sent two boats of his most trusted people to shore first. He saw the Hazard doing the same. These people would not only send couriers to alert the Governor and his subordinates that new ships had arrived with treasure, they would also begin spreading the story of the “mind sickness” that had made men aboard both ships believe they had gone two weeks without seeing the sun in the sky. He waited two hours to give those people a head start, then allowed the rest their shore leave.

Next were the boats full of prisoners. Vhingfrith sent word to port authorities to have militiamen standing by to accept the mutineers. Jacobson and Galbraith glared balefully at him as they came up from the bilge, stinking and filthy, escorted, still in chains, to their longboats. Along with them was Gordon and Hoyt Burr, and Osterholm the Jew, and a dozen others that had once been loyal. As they rowed away, Vhingfrith was certain Jacobson never took his eyes off him.

Benjamin was on the last boat to the docks. Once there, he and Dawson set up two tables and oversaw the dispensation of vouchers to the men who were keen on leaving his services immediately, which was almost all of them. He’d lost two pursers and a purser’s mate while at sea—all three had been among those that went mad and threw themselves into the water—and so he and Dawson had to handle much of the account-books. Benjamin sat at his table and tried to focus on the task at hand, all while his mind was still plagued by the mystery of the fourteen-day darkness.

Looking around, it was clear no one in Port Royal was as bedraggled as his men were. They had been unaffected by the unusually long night, they had not seen the two moons, they had not witnessed the stars shifting.

What the hell did we encounter out there? And how come no one in Jamaica seems to have experienced it?

The men lined up to get their loan vouchers signed by Captain Benjamin Ulysses Vhingfrith, who would be responsible for paying them all the loans back to the banks, for they could not take raw treasure with them. Doubloons, tobacco, wine, spice, salt, and sugar were all handed over to the Admiralty Court, whose representatives were quickly present, dressed in bright red coats and shouting for men to go aboard the Lively and count everything. They checked his letter of marque and his embarkation papers, making sure he was who he said he was—I should be surprised if there is another black privateer captain with a left eye that glitters like a cat’s, he mused to himself, watching them watch him.

He daren’t make that joke in front of them. Everyone hated a clever Negro.

The slaves they had taken from the Nuestra were kept close by. Vhingfrith allowed some of the auction bosses to see them before he gave permission to the militiamen to take the slaves to Marshallsea Prison, to be held there until he came for them. He made sure to get the names of the officers taking his slaves, and obtained receipts from each of them—slaves were sometimes known to disappear in the hands of port authorities, and wound up on a plantation in Antigua or Barbados.

As the slaves were being led away, one of them, a short man with large yellow teeth and a scar above his brow, stared at Benjamin. There was no love in his gaze, nor any venom, only a species of curiosity. Ben watched them go, knowing there was little that separated him from their plight, and returned to the account-books, and the line of men anxious to get their payments. Almost all his crewmen took their quittances, which said they were hereby under no further obligation to the Lively, its captain or its owner. They would all be fain shot of the Lively and her captain forever, he assumed.

This process took nearly till sundown, and Benjamin wiped his brow when it was done and paid the dockmaster to allow the Lively to come in for repairs and refit. Wharfage fees were sometimes high, a ship usually couldn’t remain docked longer than half a day. Dawson rowed back out to help Garrett pilot the ship into proper docking, then returned and shook hands with Vhingfrith before heading off to a brothel.

“Remember our deal, Mr. Dawson,” Benjamin said, as the man headed up the lane into the glittering lanterns hung from stanchions, into the vast sea of vice and sin that was Port Royal. “Double what anyone else offers you.”

“And twenty shillings if you hear about it before anyone else. Aye, Captain. I remember.” Dawson smiled and put the second knuckle of his forefinger to his head, a rare salute given to the Devil’s Son.

Benjamin sighed and faced the city of Port Royal, the second-largest English city in the whole world. Now all you have to do is find an entirely new crew, Benjamin. But I think you know someone who can help you with that, don’t you? Looking over the account-book in his hand, he had enough to buy a full crew and be ready to set sail in under a day, assuming the repairs went smoothly. But he wasn’t just any captain, and finding crews to sail with him had always been difficult. Only the truly desperate sailed with the Devil’s Son. But if there were ever a place to find desperate men…

He headed up Queen Street, passing by the huge Customs House to briefly check in and let the port authorities know that Lively was theirs to check. Some of them were new to the job, but even those that knew him gave him short shrift. One even remarked, “Where’s your leash?” The boy looked like a fresh recruit, and the others silenced him with a look. Vhingfrith gave them all courteous nods and hoped it was enough. He always hoped that was enough.

Passing the shore battery, Vhingfrith nodded to the man manning the guns. They did not acknowledge him. Feeling tense, he kept going, wondering if Woodes Rogers planned on meeting him somewhere close or if he was expected to go to the man’s house.

Port Royal was loud during the day, but twice as loud at night. Lanterns, torches, and candles hung from both wooden buildings and adobe huts. Lamplighters moved slowly up and down the streets on their horses, alongside old sailors with tar-stained hands, and militiamen who tried to keep some semblance of law and order. Dark doorways were often occupied by prostitutes in colourful makeup and dandy dresses. The men of Port Royal were surprisingly well adapted, not quite fine English gentlemen, but not wholly dregs, either. There were definitely pirates in tattered rags and covered in sores, even some walking about naked, but there were also men wearing breeches of crimson taffeta, as well as velvet doublets with gold buttons, and velvet shirts with gold lace.

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Multistory brothels dominated much of Queen Street. Half-collapsed government buildings loomed over each lane like disapproving parents, eyeing you, warning that they knew what you were up to. Dark windows opened and pies were set out on windowsills to sell. A slave auction was just being wrapped up, two old black women that had not sold were being led by leather collars, and shoved into an enclosed wagon. They both looked at him with dead eyes as he passed.

The heat of the night was strong, almost oppressively so, but Benjamin was glad of it over the alternative. After fourteen days of frigid night, he swore he would never complain about Caribbean heat again. God in heaven, is this real? Did we really make it out of the firmament and land back at home? It still felt surreal, and once or twice he found himself looking down at the ground which he trod, confirming its sturdiness, its reality.

He looked back at the wondrously vile city, this beautiful city, taking it all in.

Port Royal was a city built upon an older, collapsed city, one half washed away by the tidal wave of 1692. Parts of it resembled a shantytown, certainly High Street, with its three hundred-odd wood houses, sheds, and mud huts all crammed together. But built all around it were winding streets and even scaffolding that had once been used for repairs. That scaffolding now just sort of lingered, having become sort of like elevated roads going across rooftops. Bridges crossed a small inland river, in which bobbed pinnaces and canoes bringing supplies from Kingston.

He walked by the gibbets, their ropes swinging gently in a breeze, awaiting their next customer. A drunk sailor bumped into him carrying a flagon of Kill Devil Rum, a trademark drink in Port Royal. The sailor looked at the half-Negro in captain’s dressed and laughed and stumbled across Queen Street, then dropped his pants in front of the Governor’s Mansion and pissed on the wrought-iron fence. Benjamin had been inside the mansion a few times, even had dinner there when Lloyd was governor, but that had been when his father was alive and most people assumed the young half-Negro was the old man’s slave. Walking in there now would be nearly impossible.

Walking inland meant going uphill. About midway through the city, he came upon The Quick Lady, a drinking hall that had stood since the time the Spanish owned this place. From this high vantage point, one could just make out Lime Cay, where ships usually let out their main sail and started gaining speed. One such ship was just heading away from port, vanishing into the thickening night.

Turning south on York Street, Benjamin passed St. Paul’s Court and came into the fish market, where men and women were still shouting from their stalls at this late hour, trying to attract customers before closing time. He saw Fort Charles, the only fort to be completely undamaged in the earthquake and tidal wave twenty-four years prior—others either half-sank or totally sank, and new forts had been placed around the port’s perimeter.

He walked as a man utterly alone in the Universe. The prostitutes wouldn’t even touch him, nor offer themselves. They recoiled in disgust, like he had the yellow jack or the bloody flux. Revelers dancing in the street laughed as he went by, as if he were a joke. One drunken sailor spat on him and laughed. Benjamin stopped to stare at the man, and everyone around watched the moment transpire. Nothing else was done. The man stopped his laughing, and that was enough of an apology for Ben, who walked on, searching for The Golden Goose.

He didn’t know it, but he was being stalked by John Laurier.

____

The Hazard never came into port properly—she remained anchored just offshore, gunports opened and cannons aimed south. As night approached, the Ladyman remained on deck with his crewmen, all watching a near-crescent moon appear in the sky behind raked clouds. How long will this night last? he thought. He imagined they were all thinking it. And will a second pink moon appear from behind the first?

An hour passed. The night seemed ordinary. He still didn’t trust it.

The Ladyman disembarked on a boat by himself, leaving his ship in Kepler’s capable hands. He took his prisoners ashore and released them. As pirates, they fell between the cracks of that jurisdiction only murkily defined by the Admiralty Court—they were not privateers, they had no letters of marque, and so the ill-fated insurrection and its participants weren’t anything the court tribunals would care about. As far as they were concerned, it was criminals abusing criminals, and so the only punishment the Hazard’s mutineers would face would be the damage to their reputations, affecting their ability to find a ship that would take them.

So, the Ladyman went to shore with Akil and the other five Africans. He trusted Akil enough at this point, but there were still issues to surmount. His logic was this: bring the Africans into Port Royal to ostensibly act as slaves, leaving their shackles on, giving them every chance to witness Royal and see that he had not been lying when he said they would not be welcomed anywhere else besides his ship. That ought to help unify them to his cause. John also brought young Dobbs, but left Anne Bonny back aboard the Hazard, lest anyone get any funny ideas about taking the ship.

Being a pirate, his loot did not necessarily need to be handed over to the Admiralty Court for surveying. Having secured his bounty without a letter of marque, John was under no obligation to pay the fifteen percent owed to the Crown. If he came into port, that could prove a problem, and militiamen might try and seize his treasure. That was why Hazard had to stay out in the water.

Now he strutted down the lanes in full regalia. A white and black bodice pulled in his stomach and accented his muscular chest, and the red floral skirt occasionally whipped in a breeze and revealed he was wearing no pants, only women’s lace and straps, all the way down to his boots, and his pale, shaved legs shone in the lanternlight. He wore red rouge and lipstick, and had his blond hair combed back flat, and wore his signature tricorne. Crisscrossing pistols on his belly and a cutlass at his hip warned anyone about making a comment about his appearance. But his reputation preceded him. This was the Ladyman, after all—not half as famous as Blackbeard or Black Caesar, but still recognizable anywhere on Queen Street or High Street.

His tall leather boots were the most mannish thing about him, and they stomped up the mud-covered stone steps of the cordwainer’s shop. The man who ran the shop was moving about inside with a candle, putting away all his shoe-making tools and shouting at a young girl to restock the shelves for tomorrow. John knocked on the doorframe and said, “I’ve come for shoes.”

“Come back tomorr—” The cordwainer stopped when he turned and saw the Ladyman in his doorway, and behind him the six large Africans. “Captain Laurier.”

John smiled. “Hello, Charles.”

“I heard you’d returned. Billingsley said he saw your ship anchored.”

“I just came for my shoes.”

“Your shoes. Of course, of course, your shoes.” The old man snapped his fingers at the young girl, who disappeared behind a curtain. “Just a moment.” When the girl returned, she had a shining new pair of cavalier boots, and Charles presented them proudly. “There’s a cushioning there, all the rage in Paris. That’s what I’m told, at any rate. Helps with the arches. Here, try them on! Try them on! I know you’ll be happy! How was the sailing?”

“It had its trials.” John removed his boots and tried on the new ones, then took them off again and handed them to Dobbs. He clapped Charles O’Brien on the shoulder and said, “Now, what secrets do you have for me, old friend?”

And so, Charles told him what he’d collected.

John then strode down High Street until he came to The Red Thread. He banged on the door three times until the seamstress and her husband came stumbling outside, the former with her pistol and the latter with his dagger. They both gaped when they saw him. “Abby, Franklin, so good of you to take my business at this hour. Is my dress ready?”

Franklin’s Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, and Abby vanished wordlessly back into her shop, where she and her husband slept during off hours. John was allowed in, but told Dobbs and Akil and the others to keep watch outside. He handed Akil one of his pistols, and Dobbs the other. They both looked at him agog, and he winked at them as he shut the door.

“Here it is,” said Abby, who came limping into the living room on the wooden leg the Ladyman had secured for her six years ago. With consummate delicacy, the old woman laid the dress on a table and handed John a candle to inspect it more closely.

John nearly gasped when he saw it.

The dress was a single piece that flowed from neck to ankles. It was a yellow-and-red wonder, with frills around a plunging neckline that would look like flames as the wearer moved. The piece was a careful blend of wool, linen, and silk, with an elastic quality about the waist that allowed some room to breathe. The right sleeve was long, while the left sleeve ended above the elbow, and the whole piece was accompanied by white satin gloves with pearl buttons, and rough padding that would make it easier for them to grip a cutlass or pistol. A metal piece was woven into the back of the right hand, where a silver timepiece was inset.

“Is it everything you asked for, Captain?” asked Abby.

“Oh…oh, Abby. You’ve outdone yourself. This is a masterwork. I dare to venture there isn’t anything else like it.”

“In all of Port Royal, sir?”

“It all the world, sweet woman.”

Abby smiled and covered her mouth with a hand. The woman was an artist, with a complicated history of how she had come from a popular street of seamstresses in England, only to wind up here in what was commonly known as the Wickedest City in the World.

John said, “Do you have something for me to put it all in?”

“I made something for you,” said Franklin, who dashed away and quickly returned with a small wooden box.

After John had delicately placed the dress and gloves inside, he looked up to his friends and said, “Now, what secrets have you to tell me?”

And so they told him.

The Ladyman floated out of the seamstress’s shop, heading south towards Lime Street. A crack of gunfire sounded from some alleyway. Someone screamed. Sounded like a fight. John and Dobbs never broke stride. Akil and his friends looked around sharply, searching for possible attack. Remembering himself, he took the pistols back from both Dobbs and Akil and stuck them in his belt.

“What did you find out, sir?” asked Dobbs, hopping so as to avoid stepping into horse dung.

John paused to let a wagon filled with straw and a dead pig go past, then continued down the lane. “Just some corroboration of what Charles told me back there.”

“Which was what, sir?”

“That there is a trader who may have what we need to recrew and set sail for Porto Bello.”

“Porto Bello, sir? Why do we want to go there? That’s all the way across the sea, and has only a small French fort, and not much else to recommend it. Unless I’m missing something?”

“You are indeed missing something, little nipper.”

“What, sir?”

“I’ll fill you in when I know more. All in good time, Mr. Dobbs.”

“Yes, sir. But what do we need this…traitor for? Who did he betray?”

“What?” John looked down at him and laughed. “No, not a traitor. A trader. A tradesman who may have what we need.”

“What does he have that we need?”

The Ladyman glanced back at Akil and the others, who were all busy watching out for an attack. “I’ll tell you later. But for now—” He broke off when he saw Benjamin. It was impossible to miss him, the only black man dressed as a white on the street. He walked briskly and brazenly out in the open, and John paused for a moment, leaning against a lamppost, watching his love walk alone. Alone in a sea of fiends.

Where are you going, Ben? John decided to find out.

Picking up his pace, he bounded around the corner of a recruiter’s office, closed at this hour.

“Captain, where are we going now?” Dobbs asked.

“Hush, Dobbs. And follow me. Akil?” John pointed two fingers at his eyes, then pointed at the throng of people around them. Akil winced, then looked around, and nodded, seeming to get the message: Keep your eyes peeled with these people.

John climbed the steps of the Old Church, where he slid behind a wooden statue someone had carved (poorly) to look like the Virgin Mary, and spied on Benjamin Vhingfrith as he made his way to Lime Street. Dobbs and the Africans stood at the bottom of the stairs, receiving queer glances from the people passing by. Three militiamen, upon seeing only a small boy attending the six large Africans, started over. But when the Ladyman descended the stairs, and they saw he was with the Africans, the militiamen all hesitated.

Dobbs looked afraid. The slaves too. Except for Akil, who seemed to sense violence was near and looked ready. The Ladyman recalled that the large man claimed to be a war chieftain for his people, and it was just one more reason he had brought Akil with him to shore.

The militiaman with a white stripe on his collar stepped forward, a lieutenant with a rigid face. He carried a musket in his hands, its bayonet pointed vaguely at John. He started to say something, probably going to demand some sort of writ to prove the Ladyman’s ownership of the slaves. But he never got that far.

“Gentlemen,” John said. “I’ve bedded at least one of you. I’ll leave it for you to guess which of you it was. So either have a good evening and be on your way, or arrest me, because I do not have proof of ownership for these men. But know that when I am taken in, I will tell the tribunal precisely which of you is the sexual deviant.” In case that wasn’t enough, John let his hand touch the curved handle of one of his pistols. “I’m also prepared to die. So there’s that.”

The lieutenant only got to open his mouth, and watched as John turned down Lime Street. John waited to hear a whistle, but was confident he wouldn’t. Captain Hollinger’s threat of more rigid laws notwithstanding, he believed Port Royal would protect him. He might be a man of the Molly-house, a sexual deviant who dressed scandalously and consorted with filth, but he was also a pirate. And Port Royal was a pirate’s haven, always had been, and it would take a lot more than an oath by Woodes fucking Rogers to change it. If the militia laid a finger on the Ladyman, they might find themselves murdered on a busy street with no witnesses. It happened.

The pirate code extended far, and protected any man or woman who adhered to it, even a blasphemer, because England was the greatest enemy of all, even above the Devil himself, and no matter what John Laurier had done, no matter what crimes against God he’d committed, he was still a goddamned pirate.

Another crack of gunfire came from somewhere in the distance, echoing through the alleyways. Drunken sailors and their ladies stumbled into the streets singing songs and dancing. Two men got into a fight near a pig pen, and while they were in wallowing the mud, twenty or so people started placing bets.

“Well?” John said to his friends, as they resumed following Vhingfrith. “What did you all think of that?”

“It was nicely done, sir,” Dobbs laughed nervously. “Had you really bed one of them?”

“What do you think?”

Dobbs smiled. “I think you played them. I think you lied, and that none of them wanted to find out that one of their own had laid with you. Or they were unsure if it was more than one of them, and so they couldn’t call you out on it.”

“Hm. That would be very clever of me, wouldn’t it?”

Dobbs’s smile widened.

John looked at Akil, but the man wasn’t looking at him. Instead, he was looking at half a dozen black men standing beside the road, wearing only loincloths and filthy jerkins. They were slaves, and each was carrying large bags of rice, looking beleaguered, with exhausted eyes gazing out at nothing as a white man on a horse trotted behind them, occasionally shouting for them to “pick it up.” The Ladyman said nothing. He allowed Akil and his friends to see it. Let them see that my words were not meant to deceive. The closest thing they have to freedom is a little island called the Hazard. Let them see their choice.

If the Africans wanted to leave him, John wouldn’t stop them. But his ship wasn’t built to sail to Africa and back, so he wasn’t going to take them home, and, as he had told them, whatever home they had was likely gone, the rest of their families sold and strewn across the globe. If they wanted to become anything more than slaves, and if they ever wanted to secure freedom for themselves or their future offspring, then their legacy started here, now, as pirates. And they would have to fight for every ounce of their freedom. Sooner they figured that out, the better.

And they also got to see, as it happened, how the half-Negro captain who had helped liberate them was treated here in Port Royal. With blatant disrespect.

Viewing him from a distance, John’s heart ached for him. He watched people mock him. Women pulled their children closer when Benjamin walked by, a prostitute made a gesture to ward off evil, and a pair of militiamen followed him closely, obviously waiting for him to slip up. John had often seen Ben this way, alone in crowds, hated, and yet somehow navigating it all like black waters. No wonder he held himself together so well for those fourteen sun-less days.

Akil and the other five Africans watched all this in grim fascination. John could only guess at their thoughts. If even a ship’s captain received no respect, even when he wore a white man’s clothes and spoke the white language, then what hope was there for them? Where else in the whole fucking world can they go? the Ladyman thought. Where else but the high seas, the Caribbean, Nassau, to fight and plunder like Black Caesar? Where else can they go?

Soon, John’s plan would come to fruition. Soon, they would come to see the truth. The only choice was criminality. The only freedom was deviancy. The only life was a pirate’s life. John had long ago accepted this truth, not long before he met Benjamin Vhingfrith. In fact, it happened right in the very drinking hall the Devil’s Son was currently stepping into.

John sped up. He wanted to know who it was Ben was going to meet.