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The Brethren – A syndicate of privateers, with ships and letters of marque and reprisal, regulating themselves so as not to have privateers mistaking one another for pirates and to organize themselves into a more efficient fighting force. Based primarily in Haiti and Port Royal, they originated by French Huguenot and British Protestants, but grew to accept Spaniards, Dutch, and, importantly, escaped slaves.
ONE DARK RUMOUR is all it ever took to undo a civilization, be it a town, a city, or a country. We all know this. It could be a small rumour, just talk of a king’s son betraying him, or a prince’s wife cuckolding him, or it could be something wild and egregious, like the tale of a small town near Amesbury, whose entire population somehow became ill and then forgot how to speak. Men might scoff. But give it enough witnesses, and rumour might become lore. A dark rumour, well timed, well attested, by multiple accounts, is all it ever took.
The pools of blood stood long in the autumn heat, and were either partially soaked in the mud or else standing clearly in long streaks that led down to the shore. The people of Port Royal heard the rumours. There were folk that heard screaming in the night, and some folk—mostly late-night drunkards—who claimed to have seen men and women dragged through darkness. Some survivors had marks on their arms and legs, which became infected like the sting of a jellyfish. One man died from fever, which was perhaps unrelated, but he died nonetheless. The survivors all said they had been attacked by something. Something in the dark. The Constable’s Office investigated, and declared it had likely been a wild animal from the jungle. But what animal, they could not say.
And then there was the sunrise. A bit late, wasn’t it? Yes, just a few minutes past the normal seven-thirty-one rise. And the sun was strange, too, wasn’t it? Yes, perfectly yellow, but with a blood-red ring around it, almost imperceptible to the eye. The gossip began that the crews of the Lively and the Hazard had brought some curse with them.
Benjamin was unaware of this rumour at the moment. He watched the bizarre sunrise from the second-story window of The Dashing Inn, while John slept on the bed behind him. And Benjamin wondered, Is it even our sun? For his theory was gathering evidence. Something had gone wrong with the heavens and the cosmos. Something unprecedented. He might be the only one in Port Royal to infer it, but he imagined learned men elsewhere in the world deduced it, too. They must.
But that red ring faded by mid-morning, and now everyone wondered if it had only been some rare illusion. Those happened in the intensely humid air around Port Royal. Triple rainbows and silvery shimmers on the horizon were not uncommon. They will soon put this phenomena behind them, Benjamin thought. Until it returns again. And I think it might.
Elsewhere, folk were wondering about the other phenomena. The blood in the streets, the witnesses that said they’d been attacked in the night. And people were missing. Thirty-two of them. That was the total count handed over to the Governor’s Office. Thirty-two people had vanished in the night. Not terribly unusual for Port Royal. All in one night? Sure, a little peculiar. And the puddles of blood, some of which led to the sea? It could merely be any number of pirate crews seeking retribution from others. It could be a vendetta being repaid. Could be a reckoning made by the Brethren, they’d been known to conduct mass assassination in one night.
But when it came out that none of the thirty-two missing people appeared to have anything in common, fears rose.
But like the tide, fears receded, because the next night came and went without incident, and the sunrise was perfectly normal. As was the one after that, and the one after that. An anomaly, yes, that was all it had been, everyone agreed. It was probably nothing at all. As Vhingfrith walked the streets, and paid his visits to old allies of his father, seeking their favours, he heard the talk. People in the Fish Market remarked on the absence of Rafael, a young boy who once manned a stall there. Utterly gone. And he heard men in drinking halls speak of ghosts rising up out of the briny deep, snatching people that had wronged them in life. These stories were little different than those long told of men facing off against krakens or sirens. So it did not worry Vhingfrith overmuch.
But he was paying attention. He kept close watch on the heavens. Each night he and John met for a tryst, he looked out from their second-story window at the night sky and marked the distance between the constellations. All was in order at the moment.
One evening, Vhingfrith paid visit to Edward Forester, a master-parker of the ordnance wharf, who still owed one or two favours to his father. But Mr. Forester declined to repay them to the son. Letting that go, he checked in with the Lively, to ensure she was getting the care she needed. He was happy to run into Mr. Dawson down by the docks, and even happier to learn he was open to the idea of sailing again with on the Lively. They shook hands and agreed to discuss salary and shares later.
“Did you hear about what happened, Cap’n?” Dawson said.
Vhingfrith nodded, played it down. He left Dawson on the docks and tossed out a benign comment about how this was all just an anomaly.
Yes, just an anomaly. Perhaps that was all these disappearances amounted to. Even Vhingfrith found it credible. In fact, many of the people that had not seen any of the puddles of blood, nor seen any people being dragged away into the night, were already thinking that the witnesses had just caught on to the common hysteria, and blown everything out of proportion.
But the crews of the Lively and the Hazard all saw similarities in an event they cared never to think about again. Vhingfrith heard some of them gossiping in drinking halls. Some of them colluded by sending a joint letter to the Governor’s Mansion and the island tribunal, demanding this be looked into, demanding the local priests be consulted. The next day, a post was made in the Fish Market that another investigation would be launched into the matter. That was the last anyone heard about Lord Hamilton’s involvement.
Days passed and nothing got done. Men’s bones became soaked in grog and wine, and soon the story of thirty-two missing people passed into the fog of rum and myth. Because here was another murder, a man knifed in the street by two pirates who absconded, and now the King’s Militia were scouring the streets for them. Someone had tried stealing cargo from a felucca parked at the docks, and they were to be hanged soon.
Life moved on.
Then a ship came into port. A merchantman called the Honest. Its captain, a respected man named Howell, claimed news was touching all ports in the Caribbean. The strange, piss-yellow moon some had claimed to see on that night of the mass disappearances had been spotted by at least two ships at sea, and chronicled by people as far away as Horn Bay.
But a month passed. October was here and the weather was more pleasant. It was a good season for fishing, and so far four Spanish galleons had been sunk or taken a prize by privateer forces at sea. It was done by privateers from Hispaniola. The Brethren ships, all. And when those ships came into port there was much celebration. Once more, the story of Port Royal’s thirty-two missing people faded into legend.
Captains Vhingfrith and Laurier continued their casual affair throughout this time. Because they made love almost every night, and while their ships were being repaired—Vhingfrith’s in port, and Laurier’s in the Turtle Crawles—they had nothing but time to speak while lying atop sweaty sheets and watching the candlewick burn away to nothing. And, as they talked, and argued, and fought, and talked some more, and made love, they came to an agreement on how to spend their time together. Vhingfrith agreed that it was fine if they were seen in public together, but only as colleagues, and that there should be no outward sign of affection. Laurier might’ve pouted, but saw the logic.
But there were terms of their relationship, and delineations of boundaries. Vhingfrith would not tell Laurier about the offer from Munt, and so far Laurier had not revealed what he meant to do about Raymond Smith’s sugarcane plantation. But they both knew that each other had plans brewing, and that they could work towards them independently.
“But whatever you’re cooking, John,” Benjamin told him one night before bed, “I cannot know what it is. For both our sakes.” That was where they left it.
And Port Royal was in such rejoicing over the Brethren’s many victories at sea that they came to forget about the two captains of the Molly-house, and their obvious love affair. So, once again, Port Royal had become a ripe place to find men and women to crew a ship.
But a dark rumour may undo any civilization.
____
At any ordinary coffee-house in the modern world, you wouldn’t expect to see the dregs of society sitting at tables beside the upper crust, touching elbows. It would never happen in the Royal Navy, nor the Marines, where one’s social class quite literally determined what sort of rank they would receive and what sort of military work they would be responsible for. Upper-class nobles never spoke to lower-class labourers. But in Port Royal that’s exactly what you saw, everywhere, all the time. The most popular coffee-house was at the southern edge of York Street, and here you would find militiamen shrugging off their coats, pirates guffawing and slapping each other, privateers planning their next venture, noblemen crafting their next business deal, sailors still in their slops drinking alone until their minds were numb, and officers of the Royal Navy wiping filthy seats before they sat down. And they often intermingled, for the navy had use of the information they got from privateers, and noblemen often couldn’t find anyone besides a pirate to do what he needed done.
Up and down the street, Port Royal was lousy with slack-jawed pirates and sun-beaten privateer crews carrying their duffel and walking in huddled, self-aware masses, along with well-dressed officers and even a few well-to-do ladies, all clutching purses and wary of pickpockets. The upper classes had fortunes and appearances to maintain, and so tried to keep to the mud-covered sidewalks while the sailors had unofficial dominion of the street.
John sat across the table from Benjamin, both of them luxuriating in the sun, both of them aware of the looks they were attracting. John was in breeches and a gentleman’s frock coat, but his face was a little painted up, just lipstick and rouge, his wheat-coloured hair braided and draped over his shoulder. Benjamin sat cross-legged like a gentleman, gazing down into his coffee cup, pondering what John had just asked him. Across the street, Handel was wafting out of the Gallery, as the music hall’s musicians were cuing up for the night’s performance.
“Well?” John said. It usually didn’t bode well when Ben took this long to think.
Ben sighed. “I’m afraid I won’t have occasion to go with you on another venture, John. I’m sorry. Especially since you won’t tell me what it is you’re planning.”
“If you aren’t coming along, better you didn’t know.”
“I don’t doubt it. I cannot help you, in any case. I’ve already made arrangements with Mr. Munt.” He added, “And it wouldn’t look good, John. Not now. Not with all that’s going on.”
“You mean it wouldn’t look good to your friend Woodes Rogers.”
Benjamin straightened his jacket, if only to distract his own thoughts a moment. This was a contentious subject for them, and had come up constantly in the weeks since their return to Royal. “You heard Hollinger. And I’ve received a letter from Rogers confirming everything Hollinger said. There is a real chance to find the León Coronado and the Santo Domingo de Guzman stalking the waters around the Bocas del Dragón.”
“Then off you must go.” John sipped his coffee, wincing at the sugariness. “And so I shall be here, your poor, dear sweetheart, standing at the pier pining for you. I shall cry every night until you return.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“You weep for no one.”
“If you believe that, then you don’t know me.”
“I know you well enough.”
“Then tell me. Read my palm.” John held out a gloved hand.
Ben smiled, reminding John of years gone by when he’d done it often. “I don’t need to read your palm to know why you turned down Rogers’s invitation.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me,” John said.
Ben sipped his coffee, and glanced to his left at four men playing a dice game in the street. Looked like they were playing Hazard. The caster had two dice in his hand and was blowing into his palm before chucking them.
Ben lifted his tricorne hat and fanned himself. Just watching him sweat made John want to tear off his clothes, here and now.
Ben finally said, “You have about you that quality that can only be identified by a close enough friend.”
“And what quality is that?”
“Disliking someone with such severity that you will not take their advice, simply out of not wanting to see them happy that you did as they asked.” Ben set the tricorne back on the table. “You hate Rogers for all that he did to the other pirates in this city, some of whom were your friends, I know.” Ben composed himself, trying not to see the image of John Laurier swinging from a gallows. “It isn’t safe for you here, John. Not anymore. You’ve seen the posters going up. This port is about to see a good many pirates with stretched necks.”
“It’s no safer here for you, Ben,” John said, gesturing to the street, where just now Osterholm happened to be walking with a courtesan on each arm. The Jew tossed a look to the Ladyman and the Devil’s Son, one that John thought was of dark portent. “You see? Even your former crew has nothing but loathing for you. Throw a rock in this place, and you’ll hit someone wants you dead.” He smiled. “So don’t worry about me, they won’t walk me onto any gallows. Not with Spain pushing so hard into these waters now. They’ll need every felucca, sloop, and settee they can throw at Philip’s forces.”
“Or not,” Ben said, looking out at the rising sun. “These phenomena…John, they have me worried. I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night, and if I’m right, and the firmament is real, it could mean a reordering of the whole world.”
“Good. Then perhaps we can get something besides Handel,” John said, gesturing towards the music hall. “All that screeching. That’s music? Baroque style, they call it. Do you know they say King George is an admirer? Makes sense. Bloody German. Can’t get my head around it: how did England wind up with a king who can barely speak English and listens to Handel? No wonder the world is in tatters.”
“I mean it, John. Something otherworldly is happening. Can you not feel it?”
John waved a dismissing hand, one gloved in white satin, and with bejeweled bracelets clattering. “The world will go on apace.”
“You believe that?”
“Faith. The powers that be always adapt. Like a child whose parents are slaughtered. What else is there to do but continue on as before? Spain’s power grows. France’s star, too, is ascendant. England will not abide either.”
“If that is the case, then I am sure she will prevail,” Ben said.
John smiled ruefully at him. “Why do you defend her? England is such a stultifying, oppressive place, one which you’ve never even set foot in, yet you defend her like she’s your mother.”
“England provides order. The world needs order or else it collapses.”
“England provides a simulacrum of order, I don’t disagree. But it is hardly the only means.”
Ben snorted. “You mean to revisit your invitation, to invite me to leave England behind forever and join you and the Republic.”
“You are trying to push me towards Rogers’s invitation to all pirates, to toss aside the Code and become a privateer instead. It’s only fair you listen to my invitation, too.”
Ben shook his head. “No Republic of Pirates will ever be recognized by any formal government, John.”
“Who needs recognition from them? And why should our own government be so formal?”
“Without government there are no laws.”
John chuckled. “You know the thing about laws? Taxes follow after them, quick as the cart behind the horse.”
“And so?”
“All these empires want to tax a man, but don’t want to give him any say in how his government is to be run. No representation. England wants the Caribbean to establish a base from which to launch their offences against the Spanish and French, but King George has forgotten who already runs Port Royal. It belongs to us pirates. We won’t stand for their order, their law, nor their tax.”
“And then there will be a war and your side will lose, John. Mark me, England will crush your fledgling Republic and that’ll be the end of it.”
“The end of it? You’re sure? What of the islanders here? The natives? What of the slaves that outnumber their masters on most islands five-to-one? Will they remain subservient to England for all eternity? And what of the discontent growing in the Colonies? I’ve heard some say there are those talking of throwing off the shackles of England altogether.”
Ben shook his head disapprovingly. “They would never. They can’t survive. Not without proper governance.”
“What man needs governance who has his own will?”
Ben laughed. “Oh, John! We cannot all afford to be as misanthropic as you. Some of us have bonds. Bonds that keep us warm at night.”
“My misanthropy is not as misguided as you might think. There are many, many men and women who feel as I do. And what bonds, pray tell? Who is it that is your friend, if not me? Who besides me will burn all of Port Royal to the ground if anyone in it tried to harm so much as a hair on your head? Who besides the Ladyman accepts your love and friendship as currency enough? Who, Benjamin?”
Captain Vhingfrith said nothing. The Ladyman knew how to keep talking until someone else was in a corner, and Vhingfrith knew better than any to stop talking when he was placed in checkmate. His mother had taught him, Better to hold one’s tongue and let others wonder if they’ve pegged you truly as an idiot, than to open your mouth and prove them right. He downed the last of his coffee, stubbornly ignoring John smiling at him the whole time. Then he said, “I have a meeting with Munt.”
They both stood up. John said, “I have a few meetings, as well, as it happens. A raid to plan.”
Vhingfrith put on a look of concern. “Are you going to tell me what you’re up to or not? I would feel better if…if I knew…what happened to you. If…that is…”
John’s smile broadened. “Why, Captain Vhingfrith.”
“Stop it.”
“Are you afraid I might go off and die and you’d never hear from me again? Now who’s the damsel pining at the pier?”
“Stop it, I said.”
“You know how my plans are,” John said, as they started walking down York Street. “They are…like dreams. They come to me in fits and starts, and in my spare time I play with them. The dream-plans come to me especially after I’ve been reading on the campaigns of brilliant tacticians.”
“Such as?”
“Julius Caesar, Ivan Molonotovi, Olga of Kiev.”
“Olga of Kiev. I’m not familiar. What did she do?”
“A very clever ploy with pigeons. And fire. Burned a whole city to the ground.”
“And?”
John shook his head. “And nothing.”
“You’re not planning to burn a city to the ground, I hope.”
“I’m chasing after something grand, Ben. Something I’ve never really had. Something all of us want but never dared imagine it possible.”
Benjamin took on another worried look. “John…don’t go and do anything…unusual. Not now. Not with the eyes of the governor watching. And Woodes Rogers.” He leaned forward earnestly. “I can see it in your eyes. You go from one diabolical scheme to the next, always with increasing stakes. Whatever this is, don’t. Just don’t do it.”
“If you want something you’ve never had, Benjamin, you must do something you’ve never done.”
“You’re making all this sound very romantic. But romance has killed more than one sailor.”
John just smiled and said, “I leave you to Mr. Munt.” They had stepped into an alley, where enough shade and cover provided them momentary shelter from the world. John surprised Ben with a soft kiss on the cheek, and then curtseyed. “Good day, Captain Vhingfrith. I’m afraid I’m too busy to fraternize further, but I’ll see you tomorrow tonight, I should think.”
“No, you won’t. I’ve been invited to the ridotto tomorrow night.”
“How funny, I’m also going to the Masquerade.”
“What…you…but they would never—”
“Never what? Invite a poof? A pirate poof, to boot? Captain Vhingfrith, I weep that you doubt my powers of infiltration.”
“John, you’re not going to the Masquerade Ball! I forbid you!”
John gasped, and laughed. “Forbid me? ‘Forbid me,’ he says!”
“It’s for officers only, and there isn’t any chance of you getting inside without an—how are you planning to get in?”
“Ah-ah, did we not agree to not share our individual plans with one another?”
“But this is—”
“Your night to shine. Rub elbows with the upper class. I know, Ben,” John said seriously. “I wouldn’t dare ruin this for you. That is why you shall never see me.”
“You cannot go.”
“Or else what?”
Ben leaned closer. “Or I’ll take effectual means to restrain you. Let that suffice.”
John gave another little curtsey and spun around. “Chat later, Benjamin.”
“Damn you, John. You are constitutionally incapable of not be mysterious and it infuriates me.” And makes me love you, Benjamin thought regrettably, as he watched John walk towards Queen Street.
____
Jack was hungry.
The sun was high when she dropped the rope ladder and descended to the jungle floor, and even as she walked into Port Royal she had no idea what she was going to do for food. Having been caught mid-pickpocket by the fat man at The Golden Goose had shaken her confidence, and more and more her mum’s good sense encroached on her. I am going to have to leave here soon. That thought suddenly struck like a bell inside her mind, even as hunger bore a hole through her belly. Or else serve the men in the warehouses.
The streets were busy as always, and there were plenty of marks, but she was less confident today about her status than she had been yesterday. She looked to the North Docks, at the ships anchored there. One was a naval ship called the Restoration, and all the others belonged to privateers and merchants. One privateer vessel was the Duke, captained by Woodes Rogers, the pirate hunter.
Would he let me sail with him? Then, No. No girls permitted onboard. And eventually he would discover I am no boy.
Again and again, she came back to the conclusion that only a pirate vessel was in her future.
She walked west through the Merchants Exchange, looking for any prime mark. Men in spotless black coats trudged through mud thick with horse dung, as did blue-skirted ladies and their slaves and handmaids. Any of them would do, but Jack’s left hand kept unconsciously touching her right wrist, the wrist the fat man had grabbed hold of. It had terrified her, and in one black instant she’d seen herself swinging from a gallows, or else flung into some dungeon at Marshallsea Prison, where they would discover she was a girl and do things to her.
Fear was growing every moment she lived, in her heart, in her stomach.
She walked on past the Customs House, and looked at the soldiers, some in their red coats, some in their brown jackets. The King’s Militia was disorganized from what she’d been told, sometimes they wore the red coats of marines, and other times whatever they could find at home to wear. She wondered if she could somehow pass as a man forever, buy her own shoddy clothes and join up—
Hunger ate at her belly, stealing her thoughts.
Jack started wondering seriously about food. She could go to Mr. Cowert, he’d given her free meals before, but she knew she could lean on his generosity only so long. She was getting older and already he was saying that Jack needed to find an honest living. But she had no skills. None but shooting and pickpocketing.
She looked west. At the warehouses. Her eternal future may rest there and she was afraid of it.
She kept walking until she came to the Turtle Crawles and saw the more “questionable” vessels anchored there. Ships like the Cunning and the Fare-thee-well, known pirate ships that had changed hands from various crews and various captains. Her eyes drifted across two ships she didn’t know, a brig called the Little Missy, and a sloop-of-war called the—
Hazard.
She was still anchored here? How had Jack missed that? Many times Jack’s father told her about the Hazard and its strange history. Once owned by a privateer of some repute, he and all his crew died of plague and dysentery, and the ship had been cursed, its three or four survivors sailing her into Kingston some years ago before finally dying themselves. The Hazard had sat in a shipbreaking yard for almost a year, no one wanting to buy the doomed vessel, until at last it had found a buyer.
If ever there was a sailing vessel that permitted all sorts, it be the Hazard. It was said she was captained by a man-woman, who had both lady parts and man parts, who was born when a sailor made love to a siren. What was the Ladyman’s real name? John Laurier, that’s it. Jack started walking towards the docks, gazing upon the Hazard. Captain Laurier was said to be a fearsome swordfighter, and a lethal combatant at sea.
Jack walked up to the Hazard and gazed up at its gangplank. She found a man hauling rope on the dock, and asked him, “Can yeh tell me if the Ladyman is home?”
“Home?” The man barked out a laugh. “Ladyman don’t stay on the ship all the time, lad. He’s out and about, cavortin’ and carousin’ like the rest of ’em.”
“Where?”
“Who knows? Ask around.”
“All right. Thankee. Oh, do yeh happen to knows when she’ll be a-settin’ sail again?”
“Not exactly. Word is soon.”
Jack’s eyes traced the Hazard’s long lines. “Thankee,” she said, and left. Hunger bit at her again, and now she was actually feeling a little lightheaded. She decided to return to the Merchants Exchange and find herself a mark, but as miserable as she was with hunger, she at least knew what she wanted now. And if anyone would accept her, it would surely be the Ladyman.