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

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

Vandyke dress – A costume dress, worn by women and sometimes even men, in masquerade balls.

bauta – the traditional porcelain-white, beak-like mask worn in masquerade balls.

DOBBS SAW HIS father standing on a hilltop, amid an array of verdant green hills that he’d never seen before, but the dream somehow informed him that it was meant to be his home. His mother was walking up the hill, shouting up at her husband. Mother was mad about something and Dobbs was waiting for the argument to be over so that he could ask Father for permission to go to the fair in—

He was half in this dreamworld, half in the real. Golden bars of sunlight were coming through the slats in the window, having crept along the floor, and were now crawling across his face, prising his eyes open. Part of him knew he was in Port Royal, and another part of him knew he was somehow at the foot of that hill, looking up at both his parents bickering. At some point, they turned and looked at him, their disapproval evident. And the dream somehow conferred to him that they knew he’d slept with a paike, and that he’d sailed with pirates, and that he’d killed Hazard’s quartermaster. How they could know that, when that was still in their future, he didn’t know.

But the sunlight kept at it, and eventually it weaseled its way in through the gap between his eyelids. The dream faded and Dobbs looked down at the tangled sheets around his feet, his exposed prick still in the clutches of the paike Anne had paid for when she’d learned he hadn’t yet lost his cherry. There had been laughter at his expense in the galley, all of them drinking, especially Dobbs, who still didn’t know how to hold his alcohol.

The paike’s breath still smelled of wine. Dobbs pushed her away and peeled her hand away from his prick and searched the floor for his breeches.

Some of it was a blur. He recalled Anne taking him by the hand and leading him away from the Hazard, and he recalled her spitting in the face of a man that tried to grab her, and then her negotiating with the pimp who controlled the paikes at The Heavy Anchor. He remembered being so sick with rum he had almost thrown up from nerves when the big, plump woman waved him into her room. He remembered watching her lift up her skirt. Remembered her unbuttoning his breeches. There was a fog around the memory of him actually penetrating her.

Dobbs stood at the window and looked out onto Lime Street. There was a train of wagons pulled by oxen and laden with straw. The stink of shit came wafting in from the street. A body lay beside the road in naught but a loincloth—dead or only sleeping one off, he didn’t know.

A knock at the door. He answered it. It was Anne, barefoot and in breeches and an untucked tunic. A black, sleepy-eyed paike was behind her, arms wrapped lightly around her waist. She was giving Anne light kisses on the neck. “You ’bout done in there, Dobbs?”

“Yes,” he croaked. Then he cleared his throat and said it more loudly, “Yes.”

“Then get cleaned up. Captain has something he wants us to see.”

“Yes, mum.”

“Don’t call me fucking mum again,” she laughed, and descended the stairs to the main floor.

Dobbs shut the door, and looked back at the paike still sleeping in the bed Anne had rented for the night. He thought he ought to say something. Seemed appropriate. But he decided to leave it, and went to the wash basin and poured water over his head—and used fresh soap around his crotch, he recalled Anne giving him that warning vividly—and then pulled on his belt and holsters, and checked the mirror before he left to make sure his eyepatch was straight, then joined Anne out in the street, where she was still kissing the black woman goodbye. Dobbs squinted in the early morning sun. From the hilltop, he could just see the Hazard out in the Turtle Crawles, still anchored amid two dozen other ships, all unable to afford the wharfage fees of the proper docks.

He looked back at Anne, still saying her goodbyes to the paike.

Dobbs tried to look tough standing there. Pirates, privateers, and officers of the law all went strutting by. Many of the officers were on horseback, and they gave him glares. They knew who he was. The young one-eyed rifleman of the Hazard, somewhat famous for the shots he had made in rough weather and darkness. A friend of the Ladyman. It felt good to know he had a name here, even if somewhere there was a green hill where the spirits of his mother and father stood and looked down at him reproachfully for it.

“If only you both could truly see how far I’ve come,” he murmured.

“What was that?” said Anne, walking up.

Dobbs started. “Nothing. Just…talking to myself.”

“So, how was it, young man?” she said, once they were onto Queen Street, crossing the planks that traversed the muddy ditches being dug for new irrigation.

“It was…I hardly remember. I think it was fine.”

“Did you wash your nethers like I said?”

“I did. You don’t have to ask.”

“I do. Trust me when I say, I do. You men are like pigs when you rut, you don’t think about anything else during or after.”

Dobbs didn’t want to discuss this further. “You mentioned the captain wanted us to see something.”

“Aye, he does.”

“What is it?”

“Something to get us away from these landlubbers and back where we belong.”

Dobbs tensed. “Back out to sea?”

She noted the tone in his voice. “Why, does it worry you?”

“No, it’s just that…well, with what all has happened…what happened out there, it doesn’t seem—”

“If I can shake off a ghost messenger, so can you.”

Dobbs looked up at her. Anne had confided in him what she saw the night of that yellow moon. Abner Crane, standing on the deck of the Hazard just as he had in life, except drenched in seawater and covered in seaweed. She’d confided it while drunk, and made him swear not to tell Captain Laurier, claiming she was now certain it had only been a dream. “I’m not afraid of ghosts or monsters, Miss Anne.”

“No? Well, that’s good. Captain can’t abide cowards at sea.”

Dobbs looked around at Queen Street. There was every reason in the world for a young man to love Port Royal, he figured, there were hardly any rules here, and there were so many places to hide amid the leaning huts and staggered adobe houses and crisscrossing planks and stone steps and crannogs and old forts, that if one did find himself on the wrong end of the law, it was an easy trick to make oneself scarce. And now that he had discovered the wonders of lying with a woman…

But it was nothing compared to the open sea, to the feeling of salty wind in your hair, to the thrill of the chase when a potential prize was spotted on the horizon. More, now that he had earned himself a right to be talked about in the same sentence as John Laurier, he saw himself someday captaining his own crew, aboard his own ship, having his name written into the account with the likes of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd. What a famous thing that would be.

Because it mattered to him that his mother and father saw him succeed where they had failed. Dobbs bore them no ill will, for they had tried and laboured, but neither of them had been able to garner him what the Ladyman had. No one had. And though this morning’s dream had been only that, he believed that, while dreams were not necessarily reality, that also spoke of something taking place in a world beyond this one. No one had taught him to think this way, it was his own private thought, for what else were dreams if not some sort of message from the deepening ether?

Anne led him into a nondescript, one-room adobe hovel at the south corner of Queen Street, where Captain Laurier and a number of the Hazard’s crew had gathered with drinks. They all stood huddled around a long table with a map spread before them. Laurier was in male clothing, just tarpaulin pants and a clean white shirt. Not even his face was painted.

When they saw Dobbs, every man turned to him and clapped their hands, and sang,

“For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow,

For he’s a jolly good fellowwww, and so say all of us!”

Dobbs blushed because he knew why they were applauding. Anne’s smile said it all.

But while he felt embarrassed it also made his heart glad to see Captain Laurier encouraging the men to sing longer and louder. Then Laurier walked over and ruffled Dobbs’s moppy hair and said, “Now, tell me it wasn’t fun!”

And everyone laughed.

Dobbs’s face felt like it was on fire, but he couldn’t help but smile.

“All right, lads, all right! Settle down! We’ve had our fun at the poor boy’s expense, now let us welcome him properly.”

Isaacson handed Dobbs a mug. For Dobbs, that dampened the mood a bit, for he hadn’t forgotten the night Isaacson pinned him down and tried to get his trousers off, and would’ve done, if not for Jenkins and Tomlinson. He could see in Isaacson’s eyes he secretly hoped it never got brought up again.

“Come see, boyos, come see,” said the Ladyman, now poring over the map. Dobbs looked at the map, realizing suddenly this was a meeting meant for planning, and that this was the first time he had ever been allowed into the confidence of these men during the planning stage for anything. “Look here, lads, and behold the route of King Philip’s greatest treasure. The route of the Spanish Silver Train.”

There was hushed awe. Dobbs felt his lips part in an unuttered gasp.

Captain Laurier looked each of them in the face, and grinned. “Don’t worry, lads, the Ladyman hasn’t gone completely off his keel. Not yet. You all know the route changes year round, and that the schedules for each shipment is kept infrequent, random, so as not to be predictable to scallywags and scoundrels.”

“Like us,” Jenkins muttered.

There were a few chuckles.

The captain said, “The ships that are part of this train of treasure carry with them Peruvian silver, but their holds are also loaded down with gifts for governors and tribal leaders all throughout Panamá. Payment for deals made, jewels for bribing local leaders, and chests filled with ingots and pieces of eight, all bound for Philip’s treasury. So you know they have damn good reason to keep these scheduled shipments random, secret, and bloody fucking protected.”

“Captain,” Tomlinson said, scratching the back of his neck nervously. “Have you gotten yourself ahold of their next shipment schedule? Because even if so, those ships travel in twos and threes. We cannot take on that many—”

“I have no such schedule, Tomlinson.”

“Then how are you even planning to find these ships?”

“You’re jumping ahead too far. When did I ever say we were taking these ships?”

“Then, beg pardon, Captain, but what’re we doin’?”

Dobbs listened as the captain told them the plan. And when Laurier was finished, Dobbs looked around at the other astonished faces. All except for Anne Bonny, who smiled knowingly at him. Aren’t you glad you came? her look said.

It was a few moments while everyone imbibed the plan. A few of them had questions. Jenkins was laughing to himself in the corner, saying he couldn’t wait to get started. Isaacson was shaking his head uncertainly. Kepler and Okoa were discussing the logistics of it all.

Meanwhile, Dobbs was astonished that he had been allowed in on this plan at all, when typically crew were not told what their final orders were until they were at sea.

That’s when the Ladyman said, “So now you see the significance of our raid at Raymond Smith’s plantation. You see why this must happen. Now. No later than tomorrow. It is just the first step in the wider scheme.” He lifted a finger. “But first.” He turned to Dobbs. “You, young man.”

“Me, sir?”

“Yes, you. Have you ever been to a ball?”

____

The upper class would not tolerate a Masquerade Ball. Though they had become de rigueur by first the French nobility and then the Italians, masquerades had in the most recent century become something of a scandalous thing. The events had a reputation for unseemly behaviour, unescorted women, and hedonistic things happening in secret parlours and dark gardens. But in recent years the Royal Family had been known to use them to entertain visiting delegates and nobility, and governors and high-ranking officers in the Caribbean sometimes used them for their original purpose, that of celebrating some great man’s victory. But one mustn’t call them masquerades, because that name was too tainted. Now, one must call them ridottos. Call them that, and there was no taboo.

So if they were not masquerades, what should one call them? Ridottos. Call them that, and somehow that gave them a new level of prestige and fooled the public into thinking no sexual deviancy or corruption took place within.

A popular rhyme went,

In Lent, if a masquerade displeases the town,

Call them ridottos instead, and they still go down.

This night, as the carriages pulled up to the Governor’s Mansion on the north side of the city, two very different dramas were unfolding. One drama had Captain Benjamin Vhingfrith at its center. He arrived in a red log coat adorned with gold buttons and silver embroidery, a cane meant only for fashion, sailor’s boots, and his cutlass sheathed at his side. His gloves were wide at the cuffs. He’d forgone wearing a Vandyke, but did bring a bauta, which he wore hanging around his neck upon approaching the gate. Here, he was met with a stiff smile from the derisive majordomo standing by the door. But Vhingfrith’s invitation was inviolable, and so he was permitted inside. “As long as you keep your mask up when in the main ball room, sir.”

Vhingfrith obliged, and walked into a place he had not stepped inside since he was a boy, when his father brought him to meet then-Governor Lloyd. Since his father’s death, Vhingfrith hadn’t been invited back, nor even acknowledged by the island’s rulers, all of whom owed his family a debt of gratitude for defending Port Royal from attacks by King Philip’s fleets.

The mansion would not have been called a mansion were it in any civilized place in England. But we’re in Port Royal now, aren’t we? And so it surpassed all other housing. It did have marble floors, and large wooden pillars with carvings depicting England’s ships being dominant on the sea. There were high ceilings and a pair of crystal chandeliers that had been the original governor’s one gift from the king for his diligence in commanding England’s forces in the Caribbean. Candles sat in stone wall sconces, lanterns hung from stanchions in the small courtyard, and a single torch like a long, dark hallway that led secretively away from the main event.

Portraits of long dead governors and a few naval captains adorned the walls in the large foyer. In the ballroom, a well-dressed quartet sat with their violins and harps, setting the mood with Baroque music. Moldering tapestries draped these walls, directly behind pedestals that held up ornate vases and curios captured from Aztec and Mayan civilization ages ago by long-dead English explorers, many of their names forgotten.

Vhingfrith nodded to familiar faces, kissed the hands of masked women, some of whom lacked male escort, and some of whom had with them a slave attendant in fine coat and with a white wig. Vhingfrith and the slaves often locked eyes. They all knew their parts to play. Vhingfrith was trying to navigate English society as some species of freeman, while the slaves were all here to fuck their ladies or their ladies’ friends, and hope that that gave them prestige.

Vhingfrith met with Admirals Tate and Hedley, whose ships his father once served aboard during his brief stint as a lieutenant. Admiral Tate had had some small part in getting Arthur Vhingfrith the Lively, a brigantine built by a wealthy noble who’d wanted to travel the world and have adventures as a privateer, only to die of some disease to his liver, and his widow sold the Lively, barely used, to the highest bidder.

And over here was Lady Katherine Escott, the widow to Major Escott, who came to the Caribbean with a large contingent of Royal Marines a decade ago and was almost immediately killed and eaten by Carib natives. Lady Katherine had made a name for herself by wisely using the small fortune her husband left her to fund privateers, one of whom had been Arthur Vhingfrith. Benjamin recognized her even behind her abnormally large bauta, and kissed her hand and made small talk with her, even going so far as to ask her to dance to Vivaldi. And while they danced, he flattered her with comparisons to her younger daughter, and made her agree, by way of insinuation, to think of him when next she planned to fund a privateer crew.

And all the while, Benjamin kept track of Governor Hamilton himself, orbiting the night’s proceedings from the edge of the room, limping on his wooden leg, laughing through his wooden teeth at some joke or anecdote, and, occasionally, casting a glance in Benjamin’s direction.

Tonight was about connections: making them, and trying to determine which ones had already been made behind his back.

Other privateers availed themselves of the Devil’s Son. They wanted to hear his firsthand account of taking out the Nuestra Señora de la Purificación. A retired admiral named Perry was most interested in the tactics employed during the storm, while some of the younger officers wanted to hear all about the fighting during the boarding action. Benjamin had learned how to tell stories in small, exciting snippets that both edified and yet kept the true horrors of combat carefully disguised, so as not to offend the wives on their arms.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“I am reminded of a similar tactic as yours, not eight year ago,” said Perry, red-faced and slurping wine from a goblet. “Captain DeLaney pulled a similar maneuver against the Spaniards at Jutland. It worked for the most part. But I say, dear chap, you went into a squall with minimum sail? While I agree that is the preferred method, you had shoals to your leeward, as well as a distant island, yes?”

Benjamin smiled behind his mask. “It’s true, we could have run out of sea room. But I had conferred with my charts for two days beforehand, readying myself and drilling my crew, if and when the Nuestra showed. Still, the shoals were scraping like the dickens, gentlemen, like little fingernails up and down our hull.”

The other officers all gave a shiver.

Perry’s wife, a round woman in elegant black gown, and who was hanging on his arm, lowered her bauta to say, “Might I ask, what is so dangerous about that?”

Perry chortled. “Forgive the poor girl, I’ve tried edifying her on our trade, lads, and yet she retains nothing. The fairer sex have this weakness, I find.”

Benjamin was more accommodating. “Because, my lady, being caught in a storm with shore to leeward is the nightmare scenario, it gives you nowhere to go, and if the storm suddenly dies down and you have no wind, the waves themselves may carry you crashing into rocks hidden just beneath the water, and rupture the hull. You are powerless to stop it.”

Perry’s wife nodded and smiled like she had just received a lesson to grow on.

All seemed to be going well. Even if it was all artifice, even if they all were only indulging him as a curiosity as queer as a Komodo dragon, it was good to be seen and heard. Privateers could sometimes straddle the line between upper- and lower-class, befriending both pirate and officer. But Vhingfrith was determined to spend more time on this side of the city, to begin to mend his reputation, and reestablish old connections his father once built.

But there were two dramas going on at the Governor’s Mansion, as stated, and the second one involved a woman who arrived on foot in a fetching black-and-gold Vandyke and an ornate, fox-mask bauta, with her young, one-eyed, male attendant, who was dressed in a fine black coat with tails and a matching cocked hat.

She called herself Lady Esmeralda, and said she’d only just arrived from Kingston eight days prior. The invitation, taken from the pocket of a drunken gentleman the night before by the prostitute who’d fallen in love with Anne Bonny, had been altered ever so slightly to admit John Laurier, who entered as Lady Esmeralda.

____

The two dramas played out both separately and together, because while Laurier had told Vhingfrith he would never see him at the party, of course he did see him. How could he not? No one could miss the elegant gown and the young male attendant with the eyepatch. Vhingfrith saw Laurier and knew him by his not-quite-feminine sashay, and had to bite his tongue to keep from yelling at him from across the room. And he would have marched over and whispered something—what, he didn’t know—but something firm and chastising, but at the moment he was captured in the orbit of Lady Rose Durgett, a woman known for handling her dying husband’s affairs and funding privateers, and Benjamin could not find a moment to slip away. So he was forced to half listen, half watch Laurier drift from doorway to doorway, from room to room, face covered by bauta, and attracting the gaze of both men and women.

John Laurier kept the bauta tied firmly to his face. He floated from one conversation to another, sometimes disappearing from Benjamin’s sight, which only worried Benjamin the more. He had always harboured a quiet pride in being able to find John anywhere, no matter the disguise.

Whenever John alighted on a new group of people, Benjamin watched with clenched guts, wondering when they were going to realize the ruse. But it never happened. They have no bloody clue. They’ve no idea they’re talking to the Ladyman. The boldness of the ploy shocked Benjamin perhaps more than John’s ploy against the Nuestra.

Occasionally, their eyes met. Vhingfrith tried to convey a wave of disapproval. Laurier smiled and waved. Whenever Laurier laughed at someone’s joke, he leaned forward, lightly touching their arm with a satin-gloved hand. The women particularly seemed to enjoy whatever he was saying, they couldn’t stop laughing.

Contemptible man! Vhingfrith thought. He’s going to put us both in the stocks. But Vhingfrith had his own airs to maintain, and tried to remember to keep to polite conversation, even as he watched Laurier maneuver through the crowd and speak, in passing, to militia officers and privateer captains. They followed the Ladyman’s sashaying form, long after he left them.

____

“What is this?” Vhingfrith asked, when finally he found a moment to tear himself away. He had seen Laurier and the boy Dobbs walking upstairs, to the balcony overlooking the ballroom, and followed him up. Laurier stood looking down on the quartet playing below, and spoke to Vhingfrith without looking at him.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

Vhingfrith looked around. The balcony had a few other people casually socializing, and while they could not help but occasionally look at visually arresting “Lady Esmeralda” and her dress, they also probably were not close enough to hear anything anyone was saying, for the music and chatter about the ball echoed and carried. Still, Vhingfrith leaned in and whispered, “And I see you’ve roped poor Dobbs in with you.”

“Dobbs is his own man now,” said John. “Made a man just last night. Isn’t that right, Dobbs?”

“Yes, Cap…mum.” Dobbs hung back, just far enough away to hear his “lady’s” commands, like a good and trained servant.

Vhingfrith fumed. “That boy will follow you back into the Hellmouth if you wanted him to. He would throw himself in the water and let you use his body as a raft and his arms as oars, if it meant gaining your approval. And you abuse that love.”

“I asked the young man here if he wanted to join me for an evening at the Governor’s Mansion,” John said.

“And I said yes,” Dobbs said.

Vhingfrith waited until two women had walked past, then said, “What exactly are you doing here?”

“Did you know that the militia officer in charge of security at Raymond Smith’s plantation is here tonight?” said Laurier, finally turning his fox-masked face to look at Vhingfrith. “And did you know that he’s still yet to turn in the keys to the special locks and chains that Smith uses on his slaves? Seems he and Smith have had an argument about the officer’s final compensation, and Smith refuses to pay. So, the officer refuses to turn over a handful of items loaned to him by Smith.”

“What does that have to do with—?”

“Dobbs, you may show him. Go on, it’s all right.”

Vhingfrith was puzzled. Then he looked over at Dobbs, who opened his coat, and pulled a keyring from a pocket. Vhingfrith was incensed. He gripped the balcony rail, and was glad he was wearing a bauta. “God’s wrath, man. What have you done?”

“We’re working here tonight, Ben, same as you.”

“You pickpocketed from a man at the Governor’s Mansion?! At a ridotto, for God’s sakes?! With officers littering the grounds—”

“I see you making friends down below. That’s good, Benjamin. I’m happy for you. I know you don’t believe that, but…I believe that if you ever find a thing you love, and it has been cold to your touch, and then one day it seems receptive to your touch instead, you ought to run towards it. Run towards the chance at love.”

Vhingfrith sighed. “Is this about…?”

Laurier looked at him, his cold blue eyes boring into him. “Us? Honestly, Captain, I don’t know what anything with us is about. I’ve given up trying to figure that out. All I know is that you have affection for me, but that mine is deeper than yours, because yours is split between the liberty the Republic represents and the chastity of England.” Laurier shrugged. “It bedevils me, why you love these sorts. But, as I said, they are receptive to your touch now, so run towards love, Captain Vhingfrith.”

“John—what the hell are you doing with Raymond Smith? What are you going to do with him? How does all this fit into your plans?”

“You said you didn’t want to know, Captain.” Laurier looked down into the ballroom, and that thronging mass of strangely-dressed humans. “Look at them. They do this once or twice a year and it’s fine, but I do it every day, and am vilified. There is scarce a man but what now vexes me.” He stepped away from the balcony, and turned to Dobbs. “Come, young man, let’s see if we can’t find some food.”

“’Bout time, I’m starving,” said Dobbs.

____

Their two dramas continued throughout the night. Benjamin watched John from afar, and always tried never to be seen in the same proximity for too long, lest someone recall having seen them standing too close at the balcony and become suspicious. While he chatted with Lady Katherine and the captain of her ship, a short fellow named Gilmore, Benjamin spotted Dobbs making several return visits to the hors d’oeuvres table and stuffing little sandwiches into his coat pockets. It was almost enough to make him storm out.

The gall of them. Some things should remain sacred. And they’ve already got the keys from the officer, what else could they—

“Captain, do you hear what I said?” asked Lady Katherine.

“I’m sorry, what? Oh, yes, apologies. I thought I saw someone that I—yes, you were saying, the Lilibet may have need of a new sailing master soon.”

“But only after she’s seen repair,” said Captain Gilmore. He lifted his bauta to sip his wine, and his bald pate caught a glare of light. “I daresay, after our last scuffle, we’re lucky her mainmast did not break and fall into the water. It could have dragged us down into the briny deep.”

“Bad bit of bad luck, sir,” Benjamin said, glancing around for Dobbs and John. He had lost them both in the thickening crowd. “But it’s a good thing England trains her sailors better than Philip does.”

“Indeed!” Gilmore guffawed and slapped his thigh, which caused Lady Katherine to blanch. Gilmore’s face was red from drink and Benjamin had learned that the man quite liked flattery. “Indeed, the Spaniards are piss poor at it. I like to say, ‘They are as like to sail up Pluto’s arse as to—’”

“Captain!” the lady gasped.

“Apologies, my lady! Apologies! I’m afraid I get a most foul tongue when I get deep into my cups. Most foul. Perhaps I should take my wife’s advice on moderation.”

“Perhaps you should.” Katherine fanned herself, but smiled at Gilmore in some way that, to Benjamin’s eye, communicated a secret. “But, as it stands, you’ll likely have chance to get your revenge on the bloody Spaniards, Captain. If our host and impresario has anything to say about it. Isn’t that right, Governor?”

Benjamin had been about to sip his drink when he saw Lady Katherine looking over his shoulder. He had not heard anyone approaching, and to see Lord Hamilton limping over, chest puffing up the Vandyke he had changed into at some point in the night, Benjamin remembered the manners of his youth, and bowed courteously. “Governor.”

“Well, well, Lady Katherine, I see you’ve found two rapscallions to entertain you for the night,” Lord Hamilton boomed. “You there. You’re Captain of the Lilibet, are you not? Gilmore, isn’t it?”

“It is, sir, it is! Barclay Gilmore,” he said excitedly.

“I saw her in port yesterday. Why, I was just commenting to Major Ferringer that your poor Lilibet looked like she’d been through the Hellmouth herself!”

Gilmore looked a little chagrined, but recovered. “She gave as good as she took, sir.”

“I jest, Captain, I jest. I am sure she gave as good. And who’s this? Well, what am I saying? No use in pretending, we all know the man behind the owl-mask is the notorious captain of the Lively himself, returned from the Hellmouth. In fact, I believe it was men of your crew that began spreading the word throughout the city of this celestial phenomena.”

Vhingfrith bowed again, and smiled politely. “I hope my men’s overactive imaginations haven’t given the governor any sleepless nights.”

Lord Hamilton threw his head back and laughed, revealing rows of large wooden teeth. “Hear this man! ‘Sleepless nights,’ he says! Now here’s a fellow who knows how to suffer mutiny and craven crewmen the way Daniel walked through the lion’s den, and still keeps his sense of humour. Tell me, do they make more like you? So many captains act in deference to me and only ever wait for me to tell a joke, they never offer one of their own.”

“They build us hard on Antigua, my lord.”

“So I’ve heard, so I’ve heard. Arthur Vhingfrith’s son, as I live and breathe! Do you know, I met him on one or two occasions, back during Lloyd’s stay here in Port Royal.”

That piqued Vhingfrith’s interest. “I had no idea, sir.”

“It was only in passing. The only reason I’m able to recall it was because I thought him passing strange. We were all at Lloyd’s private villa, when your father showed up with the Negress lover, who some said he’d already made his wife by that time. And, my God, dear boy, now that I think of it, she gave birth just a few short months later! Why, she must’ve been pregnant with you and I never even knew it. Why, that makes this the second time you and I have been in the same room together!” the governor laughed.

And Vhingfrith had to laugh, as well, not only because it was polite, but because the governor’s laugh was infectious. He was about to make a joke about how he thought the governor’s voice had sounded familiar, when suddenly he caught sight of John and Dobbs passing through the ballroom, muttering something to the quartet, and then, to his horror, the two of them started dancing together once the song began. An upbeat tune that attracted more people to the floor.

“She has your attention, does she?” said Hamilton, following Vhingfrith’s gaze. “The Lady Esmeralda is a most alluring mystery tonight. Almost all anyone’s talking about, though they dare not look at her overlong.”

“Not while their wives are watching,” Lady Katherine put in, fanning herself.

Vhingfrith recovered. “She is most…unusual.”

“I say, did I not see the two of you conspiring up in the balcony there?”

“You may have seen us exchanging pleasantries.” He had to improvise. “It turns out we know many of the same people, starting with my father.”

Hamilton’s humour was temporarily put aside for a most solemn look, and for a moment Lady Katherine and Captain Gilmore were totally forgotten. “I was very sorry to hear what happened to your father, Captain. A most cunning fighter at sea, so I’m told, and with a loyalty streak in him that stretched from here all the way back to his home in England, where half his heart was truly buried.”

“He dearly loved his king and country, sir.”

“No one that I ever heard of doubts it. And, as I understand it, that streak of loyalty runs thick in your veins, as well. It is said that upon returning from your hunt for the Nuestra, you immediately made yourself square with the Admiralty. A great gift for the Crown. I say, a great gift. Too bad you weren’t able to take her a prize.”

Vhingfrith shrugged. “Both our ships were lightly manned, and some had already died. We couldn’t risk taking the Nuestra all the way back to Port Royal. Too many of her crew still lived, they could’ve easily mutinied and retaken the ship, and killed all of us, and then England would be minus both my loyalty and my gift to her.”

“Well said, well said, don’t you agree, Lady Katherine?”

“Truer words never spoken,” said she, fanning herself harder. “I’ve often remarked to Captain Gilmore here that he ought to be just as judicious. I’d rather him return with my ship intact than with—”

“I say, Captain,” said Lord Hamilton, cutting her off, “was it not a pirate vessel that aided you in the raid on the Nuestra?”

Vhingfrith tensed. “It was, my lord.”

“The Ladyman, wasn’t it? John Laurier.”

“It was.”

“An old friend of yours,” said the governor.

“And a most overriding companion, from what I hear others tell,” Lady Katherine put in. “A swaggering brute, who moves preternaturally well in women’s clothes, as if he assumes their form and an appearance. Like a changeling! A fearless one with savage skills at swordplay, and a mean streak as deep as a trench.”

Vhingfrith fought for composure. “He is an old acquaintance. And he can be overriding at times, your ladyship.”

“And do you often coordinate with pirates?” asked Captain Gilmore. Vhingfrith sensed the man was angling to steal back some of his shine.

Three sets of eyes were now on Vhingfrith, who took a sip of his wine to buy some time to think, then said, “A rattlesnake is my enemy because it will bite me if I should go near it. Its venom is toxic to my body, its hatred of everything I stand for is antithetical to my survival. If we are hungry, though, do we not skewer that snake to eat it? And, should we find ourselves in a position to destroy even more dangerous enemies, and win even greater prizes for England, do we not owe it to ourselves to pick that hateful serpent up off the ground and fling it at our enemies, so that they may taste its venom?”

Captain Gilmore arched an eyebrow.

Lady Katherine smirked.

The governor staggered back like he had been struck, and then began to clap so loudly that everyone in the ballroom turned to see what was the fuss. And surely they all wanted in on it, once Lord Hamilton slapped Vhingfrith across the back companionably, and guffawed like never before. “Hear this man! I had heard you were a philosopher and wordsmith! I had heard, but no one prepared me for your gall! Captain Vhingfrith, I’m afraid I must insist you speak to the Admiralty Board posthaste. Woodes Rogers has asked my permission to extend to you an invitation, and I must confess that until now I wasn’t at all certain you would be the right fit. But now I see his instincts could not have been more correct.”

“I’m…only too glad to have your approval, Governor. But, in fact, Rogers himself has already reached out to me—”

“Yes, I had heard, but why have you not taken it upon yourself to pay visit? The poor man seems positively distraught!” Lord Hamilton laughed. “Like a man who’s lost his puppy!”

Because I am terrified of what John Laurier will do if he believes me in league with Rogers, he thought, but did not dare say. “I have only been waiting for the right time to clear up my schedule to meet with him.”

“You should expect another invitation very soon. Very soon, indeed. In the meantime, tell me all about it. And don’t miss a single detail. I want to know how the Nuestra Señora de la Purificación and her captain were defeated.”

____

When the first guests began to depart, Dobbs could tell the party was winding down. Now he stood on the steps behind the Governor’s Mansion, facing a long garden, which extended into an unkempt orchard. In those trees somewhere, men and women were grunting. It sounded like pigs rutting, and though the music from inside masked some of it, occasionally he heard gasping, laughing, the sounds of ecstasy.

“You’ll want to marry, Dobbs,” said the Ladyman.

Dobbs looked around. “Sir?” He realized a moment later he’d slipped up again and called the captain sir.

Captain Laurier was seated cross-legged on a stone bench, all ladylike, his bauta still fastened to his face. A drunken officer had passed out on the floor in front of him. “Someday, you’ll want to marry. A nice, fine farm girl in the Colonies, I should think.”

Dobbs shifted uncomfortably. He looked around to make sure no one could hear them. “You’re not married. Neither is Captain Vhingfrith, nor almost anyone on the Hazard.”

“But you will be different. I’ll see to it. Never mind the game Anne played on you, you’ll have a good woman. I’ll make sure of it. That is why I’m about to do what I’m about to do.”

Again, Dobbs looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. “You mean the plan?” he whispered.

“I mean the plan.”

He laughed. “You’re not doing it for me, s—mum.”

“I am. But not just you, don’t flatter yourself. Each man of the Hazard has a different destiny. I have foreseen it. Do you believe me?”

Dobbs nodded. Looking at the Ladyman’s mask, slightly glowing in moonlight, seeing the glossy, dreamy eyes set inside the narrow eye slits, he suddenly believed everything Laurier said was true. How could it not be? When had he ever faltered? “Yes, I believe you.”

“Good. Because I can see things no one else can. Dangerous things. The firmament isn’t through with us, and we shall use it. I decided it last night.”

“What do you mean?” Dobbs suddenly felt his confidence wane, and was a little frightened. He was not afraid to return to the sea, but he wanted nothing to do with the firmament, no more than he wanted anything to do with krakens or sirens or Neptune’s trident.

“If it returns…imagine if it stays, Mr. Dobbs. Such prolonged darkness. You hear all that secret grunting out there?” He pointed to the orchard. Just then, a man moaned in pleasure. “That’s what they do. That’s what they all do. They pretend at godliness, at Christ-like behaviour, but when the sun sets and darkness falls, they fuck. They fuck their slaves, they fuck their best friend’s husbands and wives, they fuck their dogs and their horses, they even fuck children. Like Mr. Isaacson tried to do to you.”

Dobbs froze.

The milk-white bauta turned to him.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Dobbs, I know all about that. But Isaacson doesn’t know that I know. And he doesn’t know that I have him under a pair of watchful eyes at all times. You have conducted yourself admirably, Dobbs, but you should’ve come to me as soon as it happened.”

“I’m…I’m sorry, sir. Mum. Bloody hell. I didn’t want you to think I was…weak.”

“You’re not weak, Mr. Dobbs. Never weak. Not like these pompous asses here,” he gestured at the mansion and the garden and the orchard. “They are not who they say they are. They lie because if their truths became known, the whole world would have to admit that they are no better than pirates. England would have to confess she is no less a whore than the bitch behind those bushes.” He chuckled, and since the mask could not change expressions, it was unutterably haunting. “Think of it. The whole world going permanently dark. Only weeks ago, I feared it. But now that I’ve had time to think on it…”

The Ladyman sighed, and stood.

“We each have a destiny. Mine is to fuck every country out of its gold, even England. Anne’s is to die fighting. Isaacson’s is to die at your hands. And yours is to live happily somewhere away from all of this shit.”

Dobbs swallowed. “Isaacson…”

“You do it when you’re ready, Mr. Dobbs. I will let you choose the time. Shouldn’t be too hard, you already did it to Abner. And why not enjoy it this time? We all deserve a little vengeance now and again.” He looked around the orchard again. “Let’s go. I’ve had my feel of hypocrisy for one night.”

____

The Ladyman has a hundred reasons for why he does anything, Benjamin had heard it said. The first time he had heard it was from his father. After that, the saying floated through the air of drinking halls all over Port Royal. Now that he saw John Laurier walking out the front door, he had to wonder why he stayed at the party so long. If he had the keys already, why did he remain?

In front of Vhingfrith, Governor Hamilton and a dozen others had gravitated closer, to listen to the story of the Nuestra’s end. He managed to ignore the feeling he had inside that demanded he go and ask John what his other purpose had been, and the other feeling, which told him to follow the Ladyman to The Dashing Inn, pull him close, and tear the dress off.

Insufferable man.

Then, on the heels of that thought, You only wish you had his daring, Benjamin.

The story reached its conclusion, the crowd applauded, and the night wore on. Men and women came in from the garden, some of their clothes looking a little ruffled. Vhingfrith and others all pretended not to notice.

When he stepped back out into the night, Vhingfrith was torn for which way to go. From here, he could just see over the rooftops to the North Docks. He could pick out Lively’s maintop from here. He looked east, thinking about The Dashing Inn, where John waited for him.

Just then, a cascade of light passed overhead. When he looked up, Benjamin’s brow furrowed in consternation at the long, blue, somewhat jagged streaks of light. There and gone. Looked to have gone from northeast to southwest, plummeting towards the sea.

That’s passing strange.

Others saw it, too, and muttered about shooting stars.

They would’ve been straighter. No shooting star makes anything but a straight line. He pulled on his tricorne, thinking he would remark on the phenomenon in his journal tonight. He walked, hands in pockets, to the North Docks. To the Lively.

Meanwhile, out at sea, something swam just beneath the surface. Something large. And it began moving east around the island, searching for a river leading deeper inland.