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

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

draught – The depth of water a ship needs to float her.

a man of the Molly-house – A homosexual man.

IT WAS ANNE BONNY who noticed it first.

The rest of the fellas were sat by their guns, drinking rum and playing cards. Typically they weren’t allowed to gamble, but they could play for fun, and sometimes they wagered buttons or pieces of their own hair. Anne was pacing up and down the length of the Hazard, looking away at the thousand flickering lights of Port Royal and wondering if she would ever set foot on those shores again. Jack told her once that he’d had a dream that they were married, but that he had died in a storm, and if Anne ever returned to Royal a widow, she would be without his protection, and she would die. There were vast forests that surrounded Royal, and Jack had said his dream showed him something with claws and slavering fangs reaching out of those dark woods, and pulling Anne in.

An astrologer once told her a port city was where she would die.

Promise me, if something ever happens to me, you won’t go to shore in Royal again. Promise me, Anne. That was a month before he was hanged, his death coming at the pen stroke of Woodes Rogers. That was a rumour, anyway. One of many rumours surrounding “Calico” Jack Rackham’s disappearance. A secret execution, held at midnight behind the Governor’s Mansion. Sometimes she dreamt of killing Woodes Rogers in his sleep, but then she would have to go to shore, something she’d sworn to Jack she would never do, not without him. Maybe if I could trick Rogers into coming out to sea somehow. It was a fantasy she’d often thought about while lying awake in her hammock.

Anne fingered the grip of the pistol looped in her belt. She kept flitting her eyes over to the men, who all kept playing their game, laughing loudly and occasionally glancing up at the stars, pointedly not commenting on the clear night sky. They were all looking up, wondering if this night was going to linger like the last one had. They were all looking up. At the sky.

But Anne Bonny was looking out at Port Royal. So it was Anne Bonny who saw it first. “What’s that?” she said.

Kepler, who had stepped away from the helm since Hazard was currently anchored and not moving, looked up from the magic trick Holloway was trying to show him. “What’s what?”

Anne tried to make it out. It started as a black, tenebrous shape, which whipped in the water and caused a brief tumult. A moment later, Hazard listed grumpily, her boards all creaking. Everyone looked around with a start. A barrel that the men had been using to hold their cards tilted, and some of their cards fell off. The deck swayed just noticeably, but when Anne looked up at the ratlines and nets, they weren’t fluttering.

“No wind,” she said.

“Rogue wave, then,” Kepler said dismissively. “Comes from earthquakes. Causes big waves, like the one took out Fort Arthur all them years ago.” He sighed. “Hopefully it won’t be that big.”

“Or ’opefully it will!” Jaime shouted. He was lounging beside one of the cannons, whittling a flute. “Take all o’ Port Royal with it, finally an’ fer good! Per’aps that’s what the Lord wants, after all.”

“You’re all doom and gloom, you,” said Kendrick.

“Saw enough of it these last two weeks.”

No one said anything to that. The Scotsman was always a bleak soul. A few of the men looked out at the water. The disturbance had passed, and they reacquainted themselves with their cards, and started betting their buttons and locks of hair again. Anne went to the starboard rail and looked out at the black water. It wasn’t completely black, Port Royal’s lights reflected against its surface, and the wave disturbance was causing those lights to dance and swirl. She saw something farther out, closer to shore. The Lively was wharfed, along with three other ships. Not only did those ships appear to sway, but the docks themselves seemed to rock a little. And then something breached the surface. Something as onyx-black as the waters, yet smooth and with the slightest shimmer. Several somethings. They appeared like half-spherical lumps on the water’s surface, but then quickly dipped back below.

“Kepler?” she said.

“Ayuh?”

“Get to the wheel.”

“What?”

“I said get to the wheel. Now. You men. Climb those ratlines, be ready to drop sail if I tell you. The rest of you, help me at the capstan. We may need to weigh anchor soon—”

“Wait a minute, what the bloody fuckin’ hell are you talking—?”

“There’s something in the water.”

____

The man that owned The Golden Goose was named Otis. No one knew his last name. The Ladyman heard a rumour once that the reason Otis did not give his last name was because he was wanted for murder back in England, and that the price on his head was so high, any pirate would turn him over to the island tribunal. But John didn’t believe that, for he’d sailed with Otis back when they were both just getting started in privateering, and besides being only a fair sailor, Otis was anything but violent. Wouldn’t participate in any fighting at all, in fact, not even when against the bloody Spanish. No, Otis wasn’t violent. What he was was a preternaturally savvy man who saved his earnings from privateering and used it to buy The Golden Goose a decade ago. He was also “on the account,” as the Republic of Pirates called it, meaning he was technically a pirate himself, though he never sailed these days. But the information and gossip he provided, along with services to store a pirate’s bounty in his wine cellar, out of which he gave out loans like he was running a bank, made Otis invaluable to John Laurier and others. A man on the account yet operating on land like a lubber was always good to have.

“Otis,” the Ladyman said, sidling beside the main bar.

“Ladyman,” said the old fella. He was grey-haired and wore pink sores all over his face. The right eye was missing, John had been there when it was taken. Not in battle, but by a drunken pirate named Sully, who went into a rage one night when he was caught gambling aboard the Lively. Captain Vhingfrith (Benjamin’s father) had tied Sully’s hands behind his back for that, and dropped him into the sea. “The Negroes can’t drink ’ere. Sorry.”

John glanced at Akil, then shrugged. “Wouldn’t dream of it, old friend. But what about young Dobbs, here?” He clapped the boy on his shoulder as he ambled up to the bar. “The little nipper shot a few Spaniards in a storm, in near perfect darkness, while perched up in the crow’s nest. I’d say he’s earned something better than the swill we have on the Hazard.”

“O’ course, young master,” said Otis, who provided a glass and a decanter of wine. “Anything for a young nipper. You on the account yet?”

“Not yet,” Dobbs said. “But perhaps someday.”

“He won’t take the oath if I can help it,” John said. They both looked at him. “Something better for you awaits, Mr. Dobbs, other than a miserable pirate’s life.”

“Like what, sir?”

“I don’t know yet, I’ll let you know when I do.”

“And how is the Hazard, by the way?” asked Otis, cleaning a filthy glass.

“She’s well. I’ll tell her you asked.”

“Heard Abner retired out there. Bad business.”

John could sense Dobbs’s uneasiness while he drank. He tried not to call attention to the boy, who probably would war with his guilty conscience for a while, and hopefully come through it the better. “Men lose their minds at sea. Sometimes on our small wooden worlds, out there in the sea, they choose to jump. You remember Cronenberg, don’t you? Fellow got scalped by the Caribs, went mad when he saw his reflection in Johnson’s mirror, and leapt into the sea?”

“That was Maier. Cronenberg’s the one died of bloody flux. But I’ve heard other strange tales, Captain,” Otis pressed. “Most peculiar things.”

“I’ll bet you have,” John said, surveying the drinking hall. His eyes touched momentarily those of Benjamin Vhingfrith, who looked back at him darkly. John smiled back and kept looking. He spotted Tomlinson and Jenkins in one corner drinking. Jenkins had a serving lady in his lap, squeezing her breasts. She slapped him, but laughed afterwards. He also spied long, tall Mr. Tyndall, the Lively’s surgeon everybody called Scarecrow, in the corner drinking alone. John wondered if he or Ben would ever be able to get any of these men to sail with them again after what happened. “Strange happenings get turned into stranger tales,” John said, shrugging. “I would put no more thought into it, Otis. Give us a drink, would you? Same as what the nipper’s having.”

“It’s not just you, Ladyman,” said Otis, filling a glass with gold liquid.

John looked round at him. “Pardon?”

“Said it’s not just you that saw summin peculiar out there.”

John leaned in, took his brandy, and downed it. “Well, do not leave me in suspense, sir. Speak plainly. For I’ve been at sea these many months and long to hear some good gossip.”

Otis scratched his chin with his left hand, the one missing the pinky finger. John had been there for that, too, when the stays snapped, and a rope ripped Otis’s hand to pieces. Mr. Archer, the ship’s surgeon, had done all he could to save the other fingers. “Word comes from the boys over in Haiti.”

“The Brethren?”

“Aye. A pair o’ messengers came by here not long ago, sent by them privateers over on Tortuga. Said something similar happened away in England, and again somewheres up in the Colonies. People reporting two or three days without a sunrise. Thought it was madness, me. Those people of Massachusetts Bay…they’ve been known to be melancholy. Some disease went through them not long ago, so I thought to m’self, ‘That’s all it is, just melancholy.’”

John waved his glass for another refill, and drank it down. “But?”

“But the messengers, they say the Brethren have it on good authority it’s happened elsewhere, too. Them same Catholics what still believe in old Guy Fawkes’s methods, they’ve claimed the whole world has offended God, and that these are markers mentioned in the Bible. The end of days, and whatnot. And them strange cults popping up all over London, all the rage in Paris, too—I hear they’ve summoned this darkness to us, that they welcomed it.”

The Ladyman bit his lip, lost in thought a moment. “And all these people that claim to have seen a day with no sunrise, did they see anything else during the long night?”

“Aye. Extra moons. Red ones, gold ones, moons made outta emerald. Clouds made o’ liquid light, within which they said swam a leviathan. A leviathan in the sky!” Otis snorted. “Yours ain’t the only crew’s been seeing strange things, Ladyman. Some in Haiti say this is the new order of things. There’s a Lutheran here on the island now, man from Scandinavia or somewheres, says he’s here to help the Protestant priests of Port Royal. He says this is the way o’ things now. The new normal. There will come a day when the sun never rises anywheres again. He says so.”

“And a priest never lied.”

“Careful there, Ladyman. Careful. I tolerate a lot in the Goose, but I don’t tolerate blasphemy. That sort o’ talk is only welcome on your ship.”

John sighed. Waved a dismissive hand.

Dobbs had stopped drinking or even looking around, and all his attention was now on Otis. John thought all this talk was very interesting, but it also did not get him anywhere. If the natural world was changing, far be it for him to say why or predict its new mechanics. Of all Nature’s gears and levers, the only ones he understood had to do with the sea and the weather as it pertained to navigating. “Well, I’m glad at least we weren’t just going mad out there. But we’re beyond all that ugly business now. I came here on an enterprise.”

“What sorta enterprise?”

“One for which I will need repairs for my ship. She saw lots of action, I’m sure you heard. The Nuestra gave as good as she took, and even though we won, and able to conduct some repairs while at sea, I will need one or two things done to the Hazard before we leave this place. Is there still an opening at the Turtle Crawles for a pirate vessel to repair?”

Otis shrugged, and wiped the bar down with a dirty rag. “Ought to be.”

“Ought to be. Meaning if the right amount of shillings meet the right pair of hands.”

Otis smiled. “As yeh say.”

“I’ll need new rigging. Some of ours snapped in all the fighting. Replacement masts so we can repair at sea if we need to. New portside railing. And I’ll need a man with a good eye to have a look at our rudder, Hazard was dragging a bit after the Nuestra, and Kepler seems to think she’s splintered at the bottom.”

“How is Kepler? On his last leg yet? He was coughin’ up blood last I saw him.”

“He got over that, good sea air did it for him. He’s as fine as ever. In his prime, in fact. Can you help me with repairs or not?”

Otis licked his lips. Scratched his chin again. “I could make inquiries, but ol’ Rogers has made it plain—pirates aren’t supposed to be welcome. At all.”

The Ladyman handed him a sack filled with forty shillings. “Understood. Please work your magic. And please hand this out to any dockmaster willing to make an exception.”

“I can do that for yeh. But they may try and cheat you. Being your only option, and all. They’ll try to hornswoggle you.”

“I have an engineer. He’ll know what’s a good price, and can bargain on my behalf.”

Otis chuckled. “So you’re still travelin’ with the Frenchman, too, are you?”

“Yes.”

“I thought for sure you’d toss him overboard ’fore long, but I should’ve known his strangeness would be welcome on the Hazard.”

“Make sure the dockmasters know LaCroix’s reputation. And while you’re at it, ask around for a man called Williamson. First name Peter, I believe. Peter Williamson III. Last time I left he had a pair of twelve-pounders he was trying to sell, but couldn’t find anyone reputable because every cannon had the mark of the boys over in Menorca.” Which meant the cannons once belonged to the Royal Regiment. Cannons like that were indeed powerful, but they could never be placed on a privateer vessel, either the Ordnance Board or the Navy Board would snatch them up quick and reorient them on one of England’s own vessels. John had tried to tell Williamson he could not hope to sell them at full value, but the man would not part for anything less than their full market worth. The second you came into their possession, they lost all that worth, and now they are only fit to be used by pirates, John had said to him. “If Mr. Williamson is still trying to sell them, tell him John Laurier wants his twelve-pounders for sakers. Tell him I can actually pay”

Otis looked taken aback. “What about Hazard? Can her timbers take the recoil of twelve-pounders?”

“I believe she’ll do fine, if I only burden her with two. Any more than that…” He shrugged. “You’ll pass the word around?”

“Of course.” Otis eyed him closely. “You’ll be lookin’ for another crew, too, then? I can post an announcement on the wall, see who turns up. Got some green boys, fresh off a Dutch merchantman that jumped ship. Heard they’re fair sailors, and desperate for work.”

“No, but thank you.”

Otis winced. “How are you gonna sail without a crew, John?”

“A sloop can operate with less than ten crew, you know that, Otis.”

“Aye, but yeh can’t board another ship with only ten fighting men. You’ll need a crew.”

“I just need a few points of gossip made clear to me. The Smith plantation. How is it these days? I heard he’s not on the account anymore. That’s what Abby and Franklin say, anyways.”

Otis had just lifted up a glass from behind the bar, and was in the middle of spit-shining it, when he froze. Looked at the Ladyman. “Now, why do you want to know about Raymond Smith’s plantation, Captain Laurier?”

“I just want to know how the sugarcane business has fared in the last year.”

Otis took a towel, draped it over one shoulder, and set the glass on the bar. “You thinkin’ of getting into the sugarcane business?”

“Is he on the account or not, Otis?”

“You know, I shouldn’t have to recite the Code to the Ladyman. If it’s information yeh want, I have to know we’re all squared away, and that nothing you do will upset the balance o’ the Republic boys.”

Laurier sighed. He started to say something, but just then two men play-wrestling bumped into him, and then into Dobbs, making him spill his drink. One of the men laughed at the boy, until he saw Dobbs was with the Ladyman. One of the men tipped his hat. The other one just averted his gaze, and looked at Akil and the other Africans with trepidation. The encounter was over in less than a couple heartbeats, but a few had seen it, and a couple of those looked disappointed that no one had taken a swing. Laurier looked back at Otis. “You want assurances that I won’t fuck things up for the boys in Nassau? I understand completely. But I’ve just heard it from two trusted sources that Raymond Smith is no longer on the account. So why are you protecting him?”

“Not protectin’ nothin’, John,” Otis said, lifting another dirty glass and wiping it. “Smith no longer pays his dues to Nassau, so the boys there ain’t counting him as bein’ on the account. But his plantation sure as bloody hell supplies the Republic with food, and Smith pays well for all o’ them slaves.”

“His slaves. How many does he have now?”

“Why?”

“Just answer one damn question of mine without more questions, Otis, for the love of God.”

Otis’s one eye squinted. The eye gave an appraisal of the Africans in John’s company. He was trying to figure something out. “You have a plan, don’t you? Some scheme?”

“Otis—”

“You want to sell these Negroes to him? Is that it?”

At this point, Akil, who had shown an ability to understand increments of English, looked around sharply at Laurier, who could feel the Negro’s intense gaze boring into him. Akil stood there, holding the box with the Ladyman’s new dress in it, looking like he might be considering bashing the captain’s head in with it. “I want to talk to him about many business arrangements,” John said carefully.

“Yeh know he hates you.”

“I have heard tell of his dislike of me. Though I don’t know what I could’ve done to ever deserve—”

“Yeh lay with men, John. Yeh dress like a woman. Smith’s the son of a priest, thinks the only thing lower than a man o’ the Molly-house is one who lays with their kind.” Otis used his chin to gesture to the Africans.

“He’ll be happy to know that his gravamen with me has no grounds. I haven’t lain with any of these,” the Ladyman laughed, keeping it light. “But tell me, since he’s no longer officially pirating, then he’s officially no longer on the account, which means…the Code does not apply to him. Is that what I’m hearing?”

Otis sighed. “What do yeh want with Raymond Smith, John? I won’t ask again. I have to know, since it’s his plantation supplies a lot of the food and drink in this place.”

Seeing no other recourse, John lied. “I do want to sell him my slaves. But if I were to…come out the better for it, let’s say. Would I be punished for hornswoggling the old fool?”

Otis licked his lips pensively. “No. If yeh sell him inferior product, suppose that’s his own damned fault for not bein’ more careful.”

“And his plantation? Is it true he no longer has militiamen guarding its perimeter? I just want to know in case he orders me to be detained, what sort of resistance I’m dealing with.”

“There’s not enough draught anywhere in the ocean to hold afloat a ship with that much horseshit in it, Captain Laurier.” Otis shook his head ruefully. “But all right. It is true, he no longer can afford to keep the militiamen as guards. It’s been a couple o’ lean years for Smith.”

“Does he have any protectors left at all?”

“Just his grown sons. Two of them, I believe. And three or four of his brothers who have gone into enterprise with him. Mark me, they’re more dangerous than any militiaman. One of ’em, Josephus, he was on the Royal Sovereign when it collided with those Spanish pirates. Killed seven of them with just his sword. Big fella, big red beard. Look out for him.”

Laurier rapped twice on the bar with his knuckles. “Thank you, Otis. You’re a true friend.” John dropped him three shillings and Otis let them sit there. He didn’t have to scoop them up, no one in their right mind would steal coins off the bar of The Golden Goose. John put his tricorne back on and tipped it. “I’ll be leaving soon. I’ve got room for you on the Hazard, if you ever want to see the ocean again.”

“I can see it just fine from up here.”

“Of course. And, if you see Captain Morgan, tell him John Laurier is about to complete what he could not.”

Otis blanched. “Captain Henry Morgan? He’s dead, John. You know that.”

“I meant in the afterlife. I anticipate that soon I shall not be welcome in Port Royal, Otis, and should you die before I see you again, you will tell Morgan, won’t you?”

The Golden Goose’s owner chortled. “Will he understand the message?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Then I’ll tell him, and on your own head be it. Oh, and tell your friend over there Jacobson and his lot are free.”

John stopped. Turned back. “What?”

Otis nodded towards Vhingfrith. “They let his mutineers go not an hour ago.”

“You mean the militia didn’t even hold them for a single night?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Jacobson and the others said they were victims of this ‘mind sickness’ your people have been talking about. It seems the tribunals don’t have time to suss it all out, so they fined them all, and let them out.”

“No retribution? No punishment of any kind? They mutinied on a ship with a letter of marque! A captain sailing on behalf of the Admiralty Court—”

“Yeh know why this happened, John.” Otis shrugged. “Nobody likes Vhingfrith. Nobody. I don’t much like the half-breed myself, but he is a payin’ customer and he is your friend, so…”

John’s jaw tightened. He sighed. “Thank you, Otis.”

“Of course, sir. Anything for a fellow man on the account.” He tipped his head and turned back into the supply room.

John looked across the Goose, at Benjamin, who was leaning over the table now and listening intently to the corpulent man with the long grey hair. Dobbs was right behind the Ladyman, as were the Africans, all of whom were giving John wary looks. He was just about to say something to Akil, to explain some things to him, when a hand touched his elbow. John looked around at the owner of the hand, who said, “You ne’er apologized.” John blinked. It was one of the men that had bumped into him and Dobbs. A tall, lean fellow with a face pocked by acne scars and a lazy eye.

“Excuse me? Apologize? For what?”

“For bumping into m’friend and I, you lily-livered cunt.”

Behind the scar-faced fellow, his friend, much shorter than him, was sweating and ostensibly nervous, and his hand rested on a dagger that had not yet been drawn.

“Friend, it was you that bumped into me, and caused the nipper here to spill his drink,” the Ladyman said, pointing to Dobbs. “I’m certain others saw it. You could ask them—”

“Don’t need to ask nobody, fancy man.” It was obvious what the man meant, for his one good eye took in John’s manner of dress.

“Take your hand off me, sir, or there will be reprisal.”

“Reprisal? That so?”

“Yes. That is so.”

John spotted two men standing up from a table just behind his assailants, and since he didn’t recognize them, he assumed they were against him. A few other people cast looks in John’s direction, including Benjamin, who broke off his conversation to turn round in his seat and watch the encounter.

The Golden Goose had gone almost silent.

“My friend,” John said slowly, “you are mistaken. You and your friend here bumped into my young crewman here, and then you drunkenly staggered off. Since you both seemed deep in your cups, we decided to let the matter rest. I did not even ask for an apology.”

“You bumped into us,” the fellow said stubbornly.

“We could be here all night arguing who bumped into whom, sir. I’m only going to ask you once more. Remove your hand from me.”

The man’s one good eye glared at him. The hand did not budge. John heard the scraping of a chair, and when he looked, he saw Benjamin had stood to his feet, though his fat friend remained seated. Three other men stood up in the room, then some drunken lout came staggering down the steps, knife drawn, like he meant to be a part of this. Tomlinson and Jenkins, who had been lost in revelry in a corner, suddenly stood up, but John couldn’t tell whose side they were on. Scarecrow remained seated. At this point, it seemed everyone was confused. Everyone in the room hated the Devil’s Son, most had at least a distaste for the Ladyman, some would have surely heard the tale their crews brought back. Some were the men that had crewed Hazard and Lively, and now, no longer obliged to listen to either captain, might see reason to score even.

“You’re touching a man on the account, sir,” John reminded his assailant. “There’s reprisal for that.”

“Fuck you an’ your daisy Negro lover!”

“Very well. Roche, you have my leave.”

“What’re you—?”

The hatchet that embedded itself in the scarred man’s face appeared to come out of nowhere. It went deep, and the man’s eyes went wide. Blood spatter went into John’s eyes, so he missed when Roche pulled the hatchet back out and struck again. This time the man’s brains fell from the opening in the side of his head and dribbled past his ears, down his neck, and his body twitched while his jaw worked up and down. His legs buckled and he swayed on his feet like seaweed in a soft current, both hands spasming as he fell backward against a table full of revelers.

Now all talk had ceased. No one moved but Roche.

Roche, the leathery-skinned Brazilian, pushed his long black hair out of his face and held the hatchet’s blade to the shorter man, who backed off. Then Roche stood over the dead body, and started hacking. First he removed the head, lopping it off at the neck with two powerful strokes. Someone darted out of the hall. Next, Roche took off the hands. Blood gathered in great pools, running along the floorboards in fast, spurting currents. The Brazilian reared back six more times, smashing the dead man’s breastplate, until his hatchet became so embedded Roche could wedge it open.

Everyone stood back, including John. Dobbs ran outside, looking pale-faced and ready to vomit. Akil watched in wide-eyed fascination and shock. The other Africans retreated to a far wall. Vhingfrith and his fat friend remained still and rigid. No one wanted to interrupt Roche’s work, not even Otis, who came out from the back supply room and stared, grim-faced, until the Brazilian was done.

And he was not done for a while longer. Red-faced and silent, Roche raised his hatchet again and again, dismembering the dead man’s corpse, defiling it occasionally by spitting on the exposed guts. The room smelled of copper and spilled intestines. John didn’t move. He watched the large Brazilian hack away, listened to the bones crack and snap, observed the men who left out the back way without saying a word. Those who had stood to help the scarred man had now lowered themselves back into their seats. The prostitutes upstairs were rushed back into their rooms by their pimps.

And still, Roche hacked away. He hacked until the arms of the corpse became a mulch, and reached into the open belly and pulled out fistfuls of guts. Panting, Roche never stopped, never looked sated. He smashed the skull until the jaw came away and teeth skittered across the floor and into the widening pool of blood.

Eventually, The Golden Goose emptied out. Some customers simply grabbed their coats and walked out, like they were late for something. When all but a few were gone, Roche Brasiliano stood up, bare chest heaving and covered in blood spatter. He wiped his brow, then swayed, dancing to a song only he could hear and laughing. When finally Roche sat back down, and took a goblet someone had abandoned and drank from it, John eased himself into a seat across from him. “Don’t worry about the body. I’ll take care of it.”

“Not worried, John the Captain,” mumbled the Brazilian. His gormless expression was half hidden by the black curtain of hair, clumps of flesh sliding down his oily locks. He was still huffing like a bull that had charged its enemies.

John nodded. “We’re leaving soon. Be at the docks when we ship off. If you still want to come, that is. It is your decision, of course.”

“You were going to ask me, sim? You weren’t going to forget me this time?”

“No. In fact, I am sorry to have left you last time, but we were in a bit of a hurry. But one of my reasons for coming into Royal was to find you. Fortuitous that you were here tonight, Roche.” John leaned over and patted Roche’s bloody hands. It was a thing carefully done, for the Brazilian was to be delicately handled, and only Captain Laurier had ever managed to have any small control over the man. Like many in Port Royal, Roche Brasiliano came from nowhere. His penchant for savage violence had once made him a trusted ally when the Spanish tried to invade the island over the years. Roche was a gifted swimmer, and had swum out into the bay to board the Spanish ships at night and killed many men unseen. He’d also killed English and Dutch pirates in the streets of Royal in broad daylight, hacking them to pieces with his hatchet while others watched. Once or twice he’d been jailed for it, but always witnesses said it was self-defence, and so he was released.

Most agreed Roche had the intelligence of a child, but also a fierce loyalty to those who stuck by him. He wanted to sail as a privateer, but only pirate vessels ever took him on, and even those were few. John had briefly sailed with him. During the voyage, Roche killed two of the crewmen, one for pulling at his hair while he slept, and the other because, as Roche put it, “The man not like me, I can tell, and I see in his eyes he thinking about killing me. So I kill him first.” John had not sailed with him since, but whenever he came to shore Roche would seek him out and beg John to take him.

“I want you to come with us this time, Roche. In fact, I may even need you before we set sail. I have a very special mission in mind. Potentially dangerous. Are you up for it?”

The Brazilian looked up through a curtain of bloodied black hair, green eyes twinkling by the candlelight. “What is it you have me do?”

“Do you know the sugarcane plantations on the other side of the island?”

Roche looked at him. Nodded. A small smile spread across his face, and a tear fell from his eye.

____

Anne stood by the larboard rail, watching the water with the same blank expression she’d worn all night. There had been no more disturbances since the first sighting. The water was oily calm. A light wind was coming in from the east, and clouds were moving in, blanketing the stars.

“Bonny?” said Kepler, standing by the wheel. “Can we sleep now?”

She looked over at Kepler, sagging on his wheel. Then at LaCroix. The Frenchman was standing watch at the rail, gazing hard at a fishing boat that was sailing beneath Hazard’s stern right at that moment, laden with tunny and with a few men banging on conches and singing a chanty as they passed in the night. Anne looked back at the helmsman. Back at the docks. At the Lively. At the flickering lights of Port Royal.

“Anne?” said Jaime through a yawn. The Scotsman was at the capstan along with Masters, Longbottom, and seven others. “What do yeh make of it? Can some of us sleep now?”

Okoa came limping by. “Has the danger passed, Anne?”

She took another look at Royal. A felucca that had come in from dark waters now sailed cleanly into port, and the echoes of the men singing “Lay, Daisy, Lay” carried across the night. Everything seemed normal. She nodded. “Aye. Go get some sleep. All of you.” To Kepler, she said, “As you head below, tell Hammett I’ll take the dog-watch.” And she flipped the hourglass dangling from its rope.

Kepler sighed gratefully and headed belowdecks. Anne watched him and the others go, then looked up at the empty crow’s nest. She wondered if she ought to climb up there, get a better look from a higher vantage.

“Anne?”

She whipped her head around, searching for the source of the voice. She stood facing the portside railing and the dark horizon. “Hello?”

“Anne?” The voice was a man’s, soft and withered, carrying on the wind and yet sounding like it was in her ear.

“Who’s there?”

The night remained as it had been. A flash of light moved over the deck. Anne looked around the deck, but saw no other lantern than the one hanging behind her. The light grew and grew. And then, sensing it, she looked up. For a moment she staggered in disbelief. A piss-yellow moon, huge, pocked by many craters, moved quickly overhead. Almost as soon as she saw it, it faded, dissipating as if it were made of nothing more than mist. When it vanished, an invisible wave of change rippled across the stars, a shimmer, changing them momentarily, and then they settled. It was as though a stone had been thrown into a star-spackled pond, and for a moment the ripples had deformed the reflections in the water. But it had all happened up in the sky, not in the water, and now all was calm, and Anne stood transfixed, breathing heavily.

“I saw it, too,” said Abner. He was standing right beside her. She knew it. She didn’t even have to turn and look at him. It was his voice she had been hearing. Anne froze in sheer terror. “I’m still seeing it. Oh, God, Anne, where am I? Anne…Anne…what happened? Did Laurier betray me? Did you?” When she finally turned, Anne opened her mouth in a silent scream. Piss ran down her legs at the sight of blue-faced Abner Crane, vomiting up seawater as he clutched his crucifix and wept looking at her. With hands draped in seaweed, he reached out to her. “Oh, God…Anne! It was so cold down there! I don’t want to go back—”

Anne drew her pistol.

But a moment later, Abner was gone, dissipating like the yellow moon had done. Anne stumbled backwards until she fell against a barrel, but she kept her pistol drawn and aiming at the night.

Then, from the shores of Port Royal, she heard screaming.

____

Vhingfrith caught up to the Ladyman just as he was rounding the corner to Queen Street. Dobbs and the six Africans were following rapidly behind, and Laurier was speaking quickly to them in confidence. “John!” Vhingfrith called, jogging up to him. “John! John, for God’s sakes, stop when I call your name! Tell me, what are you doing?”

Laurier stopped and looked at him. “I’m out for a walk. What does it look like?”

“What were you doing in the Goose in the first place?”

“What, a man can’t have a clap o’ thunder?”

“You were talking to Otis.”

“I was.”

“What were you two talking about?”

“What were you doing with your corpulent friend?”

“Don’t change the subject,” Vhingfrith said.

Laurier stepped closer, smiling. “Dobbs here can attest. I was watching you.”

“Watching me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think, Benjamin?” John snorted and paced the muddy street, his blood-spattered dress fluttering in the cool breeze. “Perspicacious fellow such as you, I think you can figure it out.”

Benjamin’s lip twitched.

“Yes, there it is!”

“Contemptible man. I don’t need a babysitter. But it seems you do. What was all that back there?”

“A misunderstanding, I assure you, that is all.”

“And did I hear you asking Roche to come aboard with you?”

“You did,” John said. “Few else will sail with me, so I take who I can.”

“You take others like him on, and your reputation will be worth less than the dung you’re currently standing in.”

John looked down at his shoe, and grimaced, then stepped to one side. “No doubt. But I mean to sail soon, and I’ll need a crew.” He smiled. “Would you care to join us, Captain Vhingfrith?”

“Where, to plunder more villages?” It was out of his mouth before he could stop it, but he could see John was only going to smile through the insult and let it go. “I asked Otis back there what you two were talking about. What do you want with Raymond Smith? You know he hates the living daylights out of you. He won’t do business with you.”

John shook his head. “I’m not interested in doing business with him.”

“What, then?”

“I had better not say, not until I have everything in place.”

“Like buying twelve-pounders from Peter Williamson? Otis told me about that, too. Just what the hell are you planning?”

“A surprise,” the Ladyman said, with a coquettish smile. “A surprise for everyone. But right now, forget all that. Within the hour, I will be at The Dashing Inn. Alone. No one else will be there. I’m sending Dobbs and Akil back to the Hazard.”

Vhingfrith shrugged innocently. “Why should you tell me this?”

“No one else will be there, Captain. And Winfred, the innkeeper, she can keep a secret.”

Before Vhingfrith could say anything else, the Ladyman shushed him with a finger placed to his lips. Then he turned and practically sashayed away, into the night. Vhingfrith stood in the center of the street, and stepped out of the way when a wagon driver barked at him to move. Vhingfrith stood a moment, alone in the street with his thoughts, wondering if he ought to go to Woodes Rogers tonight, or save that meeting for the morning. It’s getting on late. May as well leave that for the morning, when fresher air will make fresher heads.

A lamplighter was relighting one of the lamps behind him. Vhingfrith watched him, thinking back to Munt’s offer, then to the barbaric violence he’d just witnessed. The madness of the fourteen-day darkness was almost completely forgotten, relegated to the part of his mind where he tucked away anomalies and dark dreams. Now he was thinking of treasure, and of a dead man named Levasseur, and of how John’s legs looked in that dress.

____

The boy’s name was Rafael. His parents had come into Port Royal on the Jimenez, the last Spanish merchantmen that had been welcomed into port. His parents were both children back then, serving as deckhands. When the English took over and ran the Jimenez out of port, Rafael’s parents had been ashore fetching supplies, and orphaned in Royal. Ten years they served as slaves, but eventually earned their own freedom and opened a stall in the Fish Market at the center of Port Royal. Rafael was fourteen now, both his parents were gone, his mother dead of disease, his father murdered by unknown pirates in the street. And so, Rafael worked the stall himself.

Rafael was at the stall when he saw what he believed was a yellow moon, a large one, that did not resemble the regular moon at all. But clouds quickly moved in, and the yellow moon vanished. A few others in the street saw it, too, and shouted and pointed. Others were too late in looking up, and missed it.

Rafael turned three times in a circle, and whispered the prayer his mother taught him, the one Spanish sailors used aboard the Jimenez to ward off evil. And then he got back to work. Because that’s what you did. Others were still whispering about it. A few people that had been inside during the phenomenon came out of their houses or inns, wondering what the tumult was. Rafael’s father taught him long ago to keep his head down and do his job. Make friends only with other Spaniards, maybe a trustworthy Dutchman, but never anyone else.

Eventually, everyone started to turn in for the night, closing up shop while muttering about the strange moon-like object that had appeared. Since he worked his stall alone, Rafael usually laboured well into the night, moving aside the crates of fish that had been brought up from the Warren, the fishing boat whose captain favoured Rafael enough to sell him some of his day’s catch. Rafael set the empty crates out for the Warren’s captain to pick up tomorrow, and had just shuttered the window to his shop when he heard a wet, squelching noise. Like a boot stuck in mud. He opened the back door of his shop and stepped out into the street, and saw a most peculiar thing.

A drunken man lay on his stomach in the muddy street, moaning, trying to crawl forwards. Trying, because every time he crawled forward, he actually slid backwards in the mud. He moaned again. Rafael approached him, curious, his knife already in hand in case this was a trick. His father’s murder had taught him to look out for himself in Port Royal.

The drunken man rolled over, and Rafael could see his prick was out. The man’s pants were around his ankles, and the line of disturbed mud left a trail from the man’s body all the way to the latrine at the end of the lane, where presumably he’d been relieving himself. Something tugged at his pants, and the drunken man fought feebly. Rafael reached out a hand to help the fellow, and then saw that some black and green limb wound up the man’s leg, serpentine-like, almost like fingers, or the tiny tentacles of a jellyfish, and they were pressing into his flesh. The dark limb was trying to pull him into the shadows.

“Oh meu Deus—”

“Help,” the man muttered, as he was dragged farther down the street, deeper into darkness. “For God’s sake…I can feel it…inside me…”

Rafael gasped, but he was made of sterner stuff, and he grabbed one of the man’s hands, and pulled. But the dark limb pulled harder and yanked Rafael off his feet, and he face-planted into the mud. They slid together, the man and Rafael, on down the street. Rafael tried to let go of the man’s hand, but the man now grabbed fistfuls of the boy’s shirt and would not let go. Their fates were now bound together.

Rafael thought he heard a scream down another alley, and when he turned to looked, he saw a woman being torn to shreds. First her shirt came off in tatters, and then, by lanternlight, he saw her breasts peeled off neatly like onions. Blood poured like a stuck pig, and Rafael screamed when he saw what was left of her being dragged away by many tentacles.

Rafael screamed louder. And louder.

And then the black limb released the drunken man’s legs and assaulted Rafael’s mouth. The tentacles went down his throat and he gagged, vomiting, choking. Rafael cried in horror, tears running down his cheeks, while he and the fleshless woman were dragged through the mud, down to the shore. Rafael reached out to the drunken man for help, but he was already stumbling away, pulling up his pants, never looking back as Rafael tried calling for him. But I helped you! Why won’t you help me? Rafael tried to crawl away, and was now pulled along the mud. Pulled by something wrapped around his tongue and mouth, something that reeked of ammonia and decay. His head was wrenched and twisted. Something cold grabbed hold of one of his arms, and snapped it in half. His breath was stolen. He bumped into the fleshless woman, whose mouth was also gagged by a green-black limb, the width of a man’s forearm.

Then something ensnared his ankles, and he could feel them. He could feel little fingers inside, beneath his flesh, crawling up his leg, up into his guts, his chest, his brain. Soon, he heard the soughing of waves. He knew he’d been pulled down to the shore. He wasn’t alone. As the cold waters foamed up around him, Rafael saw dozens of people, helpless as he, being pulled inexorably into the dark waters. Some were able to scream. Most were not.

The first thought Rafael had when the water went over his head was, Oh no, I cannot swim! But he needn’t have worried. Because when he turned around, six eyes of glowing amber told him, I’ll do the swimming for you. Many mouths opened, and took their share of Rafael.

____

Jack Weekes thought she heard screams. Many of them. She had left The Golden Goose after getting caught, grateful that the fat man had let her go, and rushed home to try and sleep, hoping the King’s Militia would not be sent after her. She awoke now with a start, listening to those distant screams. She felt a cold chill creep up her legs like icy fingers and pulled her blanket closer to herself. Then she stood up and went to the window facing south into the harbour, saw a strange rippling effect in the sky. It was there and gone, a shimmer like the sky was made out of black water and someone had thrown a stone into it.

The screams all abated, and she assumed it had just been carousers, adults deep in their drunken revelries. She heard a shot, sounded like a pistol, and then someone laughing. A man and a woman were in a heated argument, and their shouted words carried well into the jungle.

Those shouts followed Jack as she laid back down to sleep on the floor. She trembled. Recently her anxiousness followed her into her dreams, where she saw herself lost in a dark harbour, grey mists surrounding her. And she would wake up every so often to clutch her new pistol and point it around at the dark. Once or twice she thought she heard Mother and Father, both whispering to her, asking her to come down to the shore to see them.

Still trembling, she fell back to sleep, occasionally letting loose a tear.

____

For the rest of the night, there were no more screams in Port Royal. The waters around the docks caused the ships to sway, list, and moan. But the tumult soon passed, and many-eyes-as-one watched the city from beneath the water. Curious.

For now, it rested. And went into deeper waters.

____

The Dashing Inn’s name belied its squalid, unclean appearance. It rested on a muddy lane on Queen Street, squeezed in between a drinking hall and a small office for the Admiralty Court. The steps were rotted by the moist sea air. Benjamin knew these three, rotted steps. Ages ago, his father had spent a night or two here while waiting for the Lively to be resupplied. They would play games by lanternlight, and his father always forced him to read at least an hour before bed. To this day, it was a habit Benjamin kept up.

When he entered the common room, Winfred, a woman he knew in passing, and who had run the inn for decades, simply walked her huge round rump down one hall and pointed wordlessly to the staircase. She knew why he was here. Benjamin did, too, and turned and walked straight out. Halfway down the street, he paused. Looking back at The Dashing Inn, he saw a single candle lit in a second-story window.

Benjamin walked back inside, each footfall leaden. His heart was beating, and he was sweating. He wanted nothing more than to leave, and yet an overriding compulsion had hold of him. When he came to the door with light coming out from under it, he decided he wouldn’t knock. He would just leave. But his hand betrayed him, and he knocked anyway. The door opened and Ben gasped. John Laurier stood there in shocking fashion. He wore a yellow-and-red dress that looked like fire. He was barefoot, but wore two white satin gloves. The Ladyman’s makeup was runny, like he’d been crying, but Benjamin could not imagine why. “John…”

The Ladyman just smiled and said, “It’s your choice, Ben. It’s always been your choice.”

Ben turned. Stopped. Turned back and launched himself at John. In one swift move he took John Laurier in his arms and used the back of his foot to kick the door closed behind him. John kissed him once, and Ben pulled back. But then he walked forward, and kept walking forward until John was pressed up against a table beside the window. Breathing heavily, gazing down into those ravenous blue eyes, Ben had the presence of mind to smoothly, and calmly, pick up the candle by the windowsill and move it to a dresser farther down.

And then he kissed John. He didn’t know for how long. The heat of the room somehow intensified his lust, and Ben reached down and lifted the dress and found John’s piece, and worked it. He needn’t have. It was as rigid as stone, and Ben felt seized by wondrous power, for his hand could hold the Ladyman’s whole cock within it. John moaned as Ben worked him in slow, rhythmic strokes, and then he reached down to hastily unbuckle Ben’s belt and pulled out his cock, which landed with a smack on top of his.

They both looked down at it. Ben’s larger manhood dwarfing John’s, both breathing heavily as Ben thrust his hip, grinding their pieces. John slowly laid back on the table, and lifted both his feet into the air. Ben held both of John’s ankles and kept thrusting. They both became loud, their breathing heavy, as well as their grunting. Ben thrusted again. And again. Unable to take it any longer, he pulled off his shirt and let his pants puddle at his feet, and lifted John’s legs so high that his ass presented itself.

Ben stopped himself just short of entering him. But when he looked at John, he saw a fragile smile, and a desperate nod. He wanted it. In fact, he was prepared, and handed Ben a bottle. Ben knew what it was, and slowly dripped the oil onto his own piece, then John’s. And when he slid into John, Ben gasped. It had been ages since they’d done the act this way, and Ben had sworn it would never happen again. Forbade himself to even think of it. And now that it was happening and John was reaching up to touch Ben’s face, Ben indulged his other fantasy and gripped John’s oiled cock and began stroking lightly, timing it with each thrust.

“I’m yours!” John moaned. “I’m completely…and utterly…yours!” A tear fell from his eyes and Ben had never been so thrilled, so happy, so…

In love.

The feeling might soon fade, he knew. It might evaporate like rain on hot stone, come and go and seem like a dream, just like the fourteen-day darkness. But for now, in this moment, pure physical ecstasy was all that mattered. He couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried. Only John could stop him, and John clawed at him hungrily.

There was no stopping them. Not for an hour or more, there was no stopping them. Not even after Ben was spent, he merely rested a moment before flipping John over and taking him from behind. Surely people heard them through the floorboards, and down the hall. Surely this put both their lives at risk. But what matter, when there was no place on Earth for them? Not anywhere, perhaps not even in that long night. Let them make this their place, Benjamin figured, justifying anything in his lust—any danger, any threat.

A gunshot pierced the night. Someone was shouting down the street. Port Royal was loud and vulgar and neither the Devil’s Son nor the Ladyman gave any of it a care. Let a tidal wave come and take it all while they enjoyed one another’s embrace, in a room where nothing but their love and pleasure existed.

____

After midnight, they lay awake. The candle had nearly guttered out. They both lay in bed, on their sides, facing each other. John’s fingers ran through Ben’s chest hair, then found the locket hanging from his neck. “You never took this off,” he said.

“How could I?”

“Easily. You just take it off.”

“And risk your wrath?”

“You don’t know my mind.”

“As easily count the stars as know your mind, John,” Ben said.

John touched his own locket. “When we cut our hands and spilled our blood on these lockets, we swore we would never part. We swore it on a night just like tonight, in post-coital bliss. But then you left.”

“I had a job to do—”

“But you left. After you said you wouldn’t. I wonder, will you do so again?”

Ben looked at him. “What are you planning, John?”

The Ladyman kept playing with Ben’s chest hair. “Patience, my love. You must learn patience.”

“I have enough patience for you.”

“Then that’s half what you’ll need for what I’ve got in the works, luv.”

They lay there a while. Benjamin watched as John’s eyes grew heavy. They both started to drift off to sleep. Somewhere down the street, someone was screaming, there were a few raised voices. But Benjamin’s mind was far afield, and suddenly he felt the need to make a confession, something he had been holding in for almost two weeks. “I saw something on the pink moon.”

John slowly opened his eyes. “Hm?”

“When there were two moons, I took out the spyglass and I looked at the pink one. And I saw something on it.”

John propped his head on his hand. “What did you see, luv?” he said, his eyes now focused completely on Benjamin’s furrowed brow.

Benjamin had banished the memory since seeing it, and so now he had to recall those slithering, writhing shapes. “Creatures. Long, sinewy things, with long, flapping wings. They moved slowly. Very slowly. But their movement…they were lumbering creatures, and I thought I saw…great shadows. They cast shadows on the pink moon, John. Do you know what that means? It means they were some strange animals hovering in the sky between us and that new moon. If they were casting shadows against the moon, it means they were on the moon. Which would make them…titanic creatures.”

John shook his head. “How big?”

“Big.”

“As in…the size of a galleon? Twice as big as a galleon?”

“Our moon is estimated to be many thousands of miles across. The pink moon was at least of equal size, John. That means the distance between us and the moons has to be, some reckon, a hundred thousand miles or more. Aristarchus, a Greek astronomer, he did all the maths. Figured it out.”

John frowned. “But if you could see them from that distance…and they were casting shadows on the moon…then they would be…”

“Hundreds of miles in length. Thousands. Each one of them.”

“No animal is that large.”

“No. None on God’s green Earth. None in the sea.”

John laid his head down on the pillow, closed his eyes, and held Ben’s hand tightly. “Otis says the phenomenon may be happening all over the world.” Ben looked at him sharply. John opened his eyes. “We may have new company, Ben. New visitors.”

Ben blinked. “From where, though?”

“From the—what did you call it? The firmament?” He shrugged. “What if this isn’t over, Ben? I’m frightened. I would never say this aloud to any other person. But Ben…I’m very, very frightened.”