image [https://i.imgur.com/15eGPa6.jpg]
image [https://i.imgur.com/DqimdvY.jpg]
briny deep – The ocean.
IT WAS ON the mid-afternoon on the 6th of September that Vhingfrith, while sitting in the ward-room of the Lively and poring over the charts and rutters he had taken from the Nuestra, was paid visit by a messenger. The young man came in full blue coat and tall boots, looking half ready to sail, except for his hands, which were clean of all dirt and callouses. The son of someone important, given a role of far higher station than any pauper’s son could climb, no matter how hard he tried. The boy handed over a small slip of parchment, which Vhingfrith unfolded forthwith. He knew who it was from before he even read it, and handed it back. “Tell Woodes Rogers I will see him and the Admiralty at the appointed time. Tell him also I would be delighted to meet him for dinner afterward, to discuss another matter, if he is open.”
“Yes, sir.” The boy spun smartly and walked away.
Vhingfrith had been thinking on Munt’s words, and their plans. He felt certain they required more resources before they left port to hunt Levasseur’s treasure, such as extra coin and salted meats to use for purchasing information as they roamed island to island. And while he did not believe John was the right partner, perhaps Woodes Rogers would be.
I only hope John doesn’t hate me forever for offering Rogers a partnership in this. But will Rogers even accept? He is well established here, and Levasseur’s treasure is possibly a wild goose chase, no matter what Munt says.
Truly, Vhingfrith was going along because Munt was funding him, and because the rumour mill said Woodes Rogers had more information about the whereabouts of the Santo Domingo and the Coronado. Having the two of them joined with me in enterprise would kill many birds with one stone. I’m sorry, John, but I have licked enough boots and finally kissed the right arses, and I have to make the smart play here.
The messenger boy had left the ship, and no one else was aboard the Lively. Alone once more, Vhingfrith stood by his desk, looming over the charts, checking them against the information in the Nuestra’s rutters. With a parallel rule and divider, he tracked the latitudinal trajectory of both the Santo Domingo de Guzman and the León Coronado. The captain of the Nuestra had been a man named Castillo, and his private log recorded the last rendezvous with both ships, and even the wind speed and direction that day. Vhingfrith calculated. Compared his results with his own logs, and known ocean currents of the Bocas del Dragón. There were cays there where a ship could easily careen, and port towns where it could resupply. Captain Castillo’s log suggested León Coronado’s crew had been short on supply, asking to borrow some of Nuestra’s.
Rogers’s spies may have intelligence that can help me narrow it down. I am very close now, Father, I can feel it. Very close to retribution.
Vhingfrith had to control his emotions, though, and not let them cloud his judgment. He needed to do more calculations, these dealing with his gut. Running his finger across the Bocas del Dragón, he took out a magnifying glass, and, looking at the tiny, almost microscopic etchings that the cartographer had scrawled onto the map, he traced parallels. He noted on the map where known English patrol ships were typically skulking about. He used pen and ink to create a perimeter. They’ll want to keep away from English patrols. That narrows it down to a few choices. Instincts met with hard calculations, forming an educated guess.
His finger touched a wide patch of ocean. Hundreds of miles wide. Several islands with large coves, inside which a ship could hide. A ship may even move into a cove, surrounded by hills, reel in all sails, and fill the bilge to sink her in the water. This would make the ship dip below the hills. Some captains pulled this trick. When they were ready to sail again, they merely worked the pumps to get all the water out of the bilge, then set sail when they thought the seas were clear. They could do this again and again. A child’s game of hide-and-seek on the ocean.
Vhingfrith clasped his hands behind his back and sighed. If Captain Hollinger was telling the truth, then Woodes Rogers would have more information on Morales’s ship. I’ve been avoiding Rogers too long, out of love for John Laurier. That is unacceptable now. Perhaps he has word from the Intelligence Office. Yes, perhaps they know what Morales’s orders are, which would help me be able to guess at her current mission and location.
Time slipped by. The sun’s light crept along the floor, draped his desk, and moved on to his far wall. In his mind’s eye, he saw the Santo Domingo moving swiftly through a fog-draped Caribbean sea. For a moment, the Ladyman trespassed on his thoughts. Benjamin was already afraid to tell John that he would have to leave soon. And he was getting tired of dodging Munt’s questions about why they couldn’t just ask the Ladyman to join their venture.
Eventually he snapped out of his trance and checked his timepiece, and realized he had to leave now if he didn’t want to be late to meet with the Admiralty.
Vhingfrith dawned his red coat and tricorne, checked himself once in the mirror, and headed out. As he crossed the deck, he looked across the way at all the busy-ness of the docks. Across the quay, he saw thirteen ships, all moored. Men shouted as whips from yardarms hoisted their cargo on and off their ships. Behind a webwork of snags and knots and ropes, there was the Turtle Crawles, a smaller, less reputable beach where fishing boats and sometimes pirate ships were allowed in for dock or repair, the latter under cover of night.
The Hazard had been pulled in there, he knew, but Vhingfrith was surprised to now find her gone. Curious. Feeling a pang of worry, he walked quickly down the pier, asking people if they had seen where the Hazard had gone. One man said, “She wasn’t headed out to sea, because she didn’t have all her sheets a-flyin’—even though it was nighttime, I could see that much. Plus she headed that way,” he pointed east. “Round the Hook. Didn’t seem in a hurry. Also, she seemed undermanned to me. Not more’n a dozen men were working her decks, looked to me.”
“Bloody strange,” muttered another dockworker that happened by. “They slipped away in the night. Jes bloody strange.”
Vhingfrith said nothing. It was more than just strange, it was worrisome. Oh, John, what the fuck are you doing?
Checking the time again, he spun on his heels and jogged to the beach, where a horse awaited him. Vhingfrith had purchased it days ago, since Munt had him running all over Royal looking for assets to help them on their journey. As he turned away from the docks, he just barely missed the excitement at the far end of the pier. Two men had been working a cunt-splice between two damaged ropes, when one of the men appeared to slip and fall into the water. His friend was still on the pier, still laughing down at him, not in any hurry to help, for the lad knew how to swim. But then, someone shouted, “Leviathan!” Just then a dark shadow swam underneath him, and the lad was pulled under quickly. His friend screamed for help, and jumped in after him. Neither ever came back up, despite a tumult of men searching.
Vhingfrith never heard or saw of this.
____
Jamaica was about one hundred forty-six miles long, and about fifty-one miles wide, give or take. The Hazard had traveled halfway around the island at night, then coasted out to sea before sunrise, and rested at bare poles, so that they were hiding below the horizon, should anyone happen to look out at the horizon throughout the day.
John’s plan was to let the rumour of Hazard’s disappearance spread all over the island. Or, better yet, make it so that no one on the island had any reason to talk about the pirate ship at all. Let all talk of the Ladyman quiet down. Let no man or woman have reason to believe the Ladyman might pay them a visit, or call in a favour, or have need to return anytime soon.
This part of the plan was his. He and the lads waited at sea, preparing. Dobbs was up in the crow’s nest, his one eye cast about for any ships that might spot them while coming towards Jamaica.
John climbed up the masthead, then hooked an arm through the shrouds and came to rest in the crosstrees. The masthead was almost eight-two feet above the water, giving him a horizon of about ten miles all around. He sat there in the crosstrees, quietly, along with Dobbs, while the rest of their confederates stood below, awaiting orders.
By the time darkness returned, the seas were once more in their favour.
There still wasn’t much talk. Laurier climbed down from the masthead and called up LaCroix, and together he and the Frenchman went over every inch of their two new cannons. Again. Particularly the bore of each cannon, and the mid-catch, the cast-iron reinforce that housed the ignition chamber. Twelve-pounders like these were sometimes known to hide residue of gunpowder remains after only a few shots. That could prove disastrous (and which, for their purposes, might ultimately prove useful). The explosive cocktail of sulfur, charcoal, and sodium nitrate was what was used to propel cannon shot down the bore, but if there were any impurities, if the ratio of carbon to iron was not closely maintained, the cannon could cease to be cannon, and instead become a bomb. If a cannon exploded, any man close to it would be dead before they knew anything had gone wrong. The blast wave would travel across the deck, severing limbs, hewing men in half, and the heat of it could liquefy eyeballs. Organs would rupture. Then, the deck would catch fire.
Everything about a cannon had to be maintained. Even a pirate crew had to be fastidious with such devices, and everyone understood there could be no slacking.
“Why are you so worried, Capitaine?” asked LaCroix. “You won’t need the cannons for this mission.”
“No,” Laurier said. “But I want no surprises.”
“May I ask, what are these cannons actually for? That is, I know the overall scheme, but what part do these cannons play in particular?”
“No, you may not ask. And you will not know until you must.” He could not trust anyone with the extra knowledge lest they get themselves captured and be forced by torturer’s touch to confess all that they knew. “Now get back below and work on those other grenadoes.”
“Aye, Capitaine.” With a flourish, the Frenchman bowed like he might do to nobility, and then sashayed belowdecks.
Hours passed. The sun was fully set. The men and Anne Bonny were waiting for the command. At last, Laurier said it. “Away loft.” Calls repeated the order, and every man moved to position. “Trice up and lay out. Anne, see that they do it handsomely.”
“Aye aye, Captain! Come along, you scallywags!” she thundered, just as they were weighing anchor.
The men ran up the ratlines and some that had been up high swung to their positions. Privateers don’t move like that, John thought proudly. Only pirates risk themselves like that. They repeated the orders to one another, then threw off the gaskets, those lines that kept the sails tightly furled. “Let fall!” he barked.
The sails dropped and Hazard puffed up her chest as the wind filled her lungs.
“Sheet home!” a man cried.
Anne called back, “Look alive there in the t’gallant! Hands to the braces!”
“Handsomely there, Tomlinson!” Laurier said as he jogged past the capstan. “Don’t let those men fool you, they aren’t made of porcelain and they won’t break, I promise you! Drive them hard!”
“Aye, sir.”
“Kepler,” John said, bounding up the steps to the helmsman, who was throwing all his weight into spinning the wheel. “I want this bitch’s cut-water moving into Hope Bay within the air. Quietly. And have a care of the lee-latch.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Akil!” he called out.
The war chieftain was just emerging from the forecastle. He and his men were still barefoot, shirts off, their black-as-night flesh making it so that the whites of their eyes made them out like phantoms. Each African wore crisscrossing muskets across their backs, held on by straps, and pistols tucked in their waists. Akil came stomping up the stairs, and John had never felt more like he was facing some tiger that might just choose to eat him rather than go along with him. “Captain call me?”
“Yes. Prepare your men with the boats. Once we’re ashore, it is your party. Even I will follow your lead. If you hold your hand up like this, that will tell us when to stand still and go quiet. If you wave your arm like this, that means it’s clear to move again. Understood?”
Okoa was there to help translate. Akil said, “Yes, Captain.”
“No shooting at all, not on the way to the plantation. But once we’re at the plantation—and you will know it by its big wooden fencing and the red-roofed house at the far end of the property—you can shoot whomever you like, as long as they are white, not a child, or aiming a weapon at you. Some of the slaves may be loyal to Smith. Should any slave attack with only his bare hands, try your best to subdue him and convince him that freedom is best. If he continues to fight, I suggest you do what you must to permanently subdue him. Understood?”
Akil nodded once. Slowly.
Laurier was not sure he had the man’s complete loyalty. But he rarely ever got such loyalty. These were pirates, and they only remained pirates so long as their own particular needs were met. Bound together by their own misfortunes, this was all the family or wealth most of them would ever know. But would Akil realize that soon enough, or would he forever live with infernal hope?
“Captain,” said Kepler. “Have you heard the men talking?”
“Hm?” Laurier was stirred from his reveries. “Sorry, what are you saying, Kepler?”
“The men are talking. Some of them…they say they’ve been seeing things out in the water. Lights, way underneath the surface. Way down deep, they say. Tomlinson said he spied a large fish last night under moonlight, only it didn’t have a fish’s head. Said it looked more like a crab with fins.” The wind blew through Kepler’s jacket and he hugged it close. “I keep wondering, every time the sun goes down, is this our last sunset? Will there come a time when it won’t ever return?”
Laurier did not like this talk. He knew something had changed in the world, but he did not wish to speak on it overlong with anybody but Benjamin. With Benjamin he could be honest about his feelings, but to anyone else he had to project an outward sphere of authority and control. Still…
“We cannot control the heavens, Kepler. We can scarcely control our own destinies. And as for what Tomlinson saw, there are many unknown things lying out here in the briny deep, some the naturalists have only begun to speculate on. So who knows anything for sure?”
“Aye, Captain.”
Laurier nodded towards the wheel. “Mind your steering there, Kepler. Touch the wind and keep her to.”
Kepler spit, and turned the wheel. “Aye, Captain.”
Hazard swayed as she turned, and headed for Hope Bay. John put a foot on the port rail, his black dress fluttering in a ghostly breeze as he watched Jamaica grow larger. Behind him, about two miles out, a large tentacle rose from the sea, and splashed back into the dark water. An unknowable and curious mind watched the strange little wooden ship sail on, and wondered if it should follow.
____
The Admiralty Office was located in the remains of a castle, which was started by a Spanish lord as a place where his wife could stay and feel comfort in a pleasant patina of home, but the poor woman had died not long after arriving in Royal, and before it could be finished. To modern eyes, the area surrounding the castle looked like nothing more than a series of collapsed fortress walls and tackle stalls. The cattle market’s fences that now encompassed the place was more of a suggestion than established boundary. The reek of cow shit and spilled pig’s blood mingled into a unique, gag-inducing cocktail, if you weren’t used to it. Or sometimes even if you were.
Vhingfrith parked his horse at a stable and paid a boy a shilling to make sure it found shade and water. The boy had not had his ears or nose hacked off yet, so Vhingfrith imagined he was at least not a thief. Throngs of farmers huddled in close near the auction booths, their combined stench almost as rancid as that of the cattle. Everyone gave him dubious looks. Here was a Negro, or what appeared to be one, wearing much better clothes than they, and with obviously greater care for hygiene. Some parted for him, others just stopped and stared, and still others attempted to block his path. Vhingfrith paid them no mind, and carried on up the wooden steps, through the awning that still bore the name Iris, for whom the castle was meant to be dedicated.
Scribes were just inside, dealing with their own throngs of pesky customers. Men and women who could neither read nor write required the services of men of letters, to send messages to either family or business associates back home, or around the Caribbean. This small little area was perhaps the nucleus of all the Caribbean, where powerful men and women sent letters and payment, offered jobs to others abroad, and communicated with noblemen and noblewomen back home. Orders were placed here for resupply, for guards, requests for more militia and workers, and updates for investors across the sea. Officers of the Admiralty frequently stepped out of the Office to dictate a letter and expedite it to the West Indies and London, and even France and Spain.
Every truly important piece of parchment passed through here. The rest of the Admiralty Office was closed after dark, but this hall of scribes remained open till almost midnight. Nothing was more important in the Caribbean than communication with the greater world.
“Is he in?” Vhingfrith asked a woman, who he knew had been a companion to of Rogers ever since he came to Port Royal.
Her name was Sally, and she was easily noticeable because of the white skirt and embroidered collar that stuck out in this place like a rose in a pig wallow. Sally was just moving through the hall with two women attendants, and she was reciting her shopping list to them. She pushed back a lock of black hair and said, “Captain Vhingfrith. Captain Rogers was hoping you had not forgotten him.”
“I must owe him my apologies. I’ve been monstrously busy. I hope he forgives me.”
“You know he has never doubted you, Captain. I am sure he is only concerned about your well-being. He is just up in his study.”
“Thank you.”
Vhingfrith went up a short flight of stairs, passing a huge clock in a corridor which was clearly a new and lavish addition, as were the silk curtains and red Oriental carpet. All bespoke a change in Port Royal. No longer did the Crown wish to hear it called “Pirate’s Cove” or “the Wickedest City on Earth” or “the Modern-Day Sodom and Gomorrah.” Vhingfrith had noticed this change a year ago when he left this place to begin his search for the Santo Domingo de Guzman, and was astonished to see the transformation continuing. He had thought surely the transition would fail, as had all other previous attempts to modernize Port Royal. But just look at it all now.
The wooden door groaned on heavy iron hinges, and Vhingfrith doffed his hat upon entry, and smiled when he saw the man sitting at his desk by the window. It was a bit of a forced smile, for Vhingfrith had never known how far his relationship with this man went.
“Ah, Benjamin!” said Woodes Rogers, returning his quill to its bottle and rising to meet him. “Capital! Capital job out there! Think of the celebrity! The Nuestra finally destroyed, and you returned to us, a hero with a harrowing tale.” He seemed to wince when he looked into Benjamin’s cat’s-eye.
The moment passed. They shook hands, and Rogers clapped Vhingfrith on the shoulder companionably.
Benjamin smiled in return. “We had Lady Luck on our side.”
“And the Ladyman, eh?” Rogers tossed his head back and laughed. “And where has Laurier scarpered off to? Yes, I heard of the coordinated effort. Most impressive. More your plan than his, I am sure.”
“Actually,” Vhingfrith said, closing the door behind him. “It was Captain Laurier’s plan, from beginning to end.”
Rogers seemed surprised by that. “I see. And was it also he that thought not to bring back the Nuestra’s captain? You left him there, wounded, did you not?”
Straight to business. All right, then. “That was my first mate’s idea. He didn’t want any further complications, such as having the captain rouse the other prisoners we took with us, such as the slaves, and raise enough of a row to inspire mutiny. Not after what happened on the Corella.” That was a ship where precisely such a thing had happened, not three years prior. The Corella’s captain had taken a Spanish nao a prize, and taken the captain back as a special added bonus. But the Spanish captain sensed malcontents aboard the Corella, and inspired them to bloody mutiny.
“I see, I see. Your first mate has a decent head on his shoulders. Was it Jacobson? I thought I heard a rumour he’d gone with you.”
“Yes, sir, it was Jacobson.”
“And did I not also hear that Jacobson himself attempted to organize a mutiny?”
“He did, sir. But the island tribunal has apparently already set him and his cohorts aright. He is free now. They are somewhere on this island, no doubt slandering me as we speak.”
“Then we are joined in our grief at being scorned, my friend,” Rogers sighed, waving to a seat. “I myself have become the subject of considerable gossip since last we saw one another.”
“My word, I hope it is no scandal. I met Hollinger at sea, he told me you wished to meet. He also said you had made some eager changes to piracy allowances around Royal. Is that the source of your grief?”
“Indeed, it is,” Rogers said. As they both took a seat, he produced a decanter of wine and poured them each a glass. Vhingfrith usually did not like to drink before nightfall, but he always made sure to indulge Rogers while in the man’s presence.
Woodes Rogers was a complicated man. He spent most of his childhood in Poole, England, running part of his father’s estate, along with his mother, while his father was working as a merchant captain. After apprenticing to the Bristol mariner John Yeamans, well celebrated, he graduated to a life of privateering and exploring. Benjamin recalled he married a woman named Sarah Whetstone, or something like it, from good stock, and together they had a son and two daughters, all very bright, to hear the stories, and well on their way to enhancing the family fortune. Rogers’s life could have continued along that trajectory, and had he died at any moment on that path, any man would have called his life a resounding success.
But things took a turn in 1708, and no one quite knew why. He pushed himself into politics, and was known to speak loudly at parties in support of the aristocracy, and donated considerable money towards all ventures that rounded up the growing homeless and fought the escalating crime lords in England. He funded prisons and orphanages, he became an advocate for the press-gangs and insisted—quite loudly in newsprint—that they grab any ne’er-do-well in the streets and force them into service. No one knew why he suddenly seemed to need this done. No idea at all.
Even less idea why he left England four years ago, with a mandate from a cousin of King George to aid Lord Hamilton, Governor of Jamaica, to set aright Port Royal.
Woodes Rogers had commanded two frigates on his trip across the world to the Caribbean, the Duke and the Duchess, and sank three pirate vessels before he even made it to Madagascar. He took all their captains prisoner. Blackbeard himself narrowly escaped Rogers’s wrath. Most of the pirates Rogers brought into Nassau were hanged, but three of them were rescued in a daring prison escape by members of the Republic of Pirates.
And now Vhingfrith sat sipping wine with the pirate-hunter, in a room full of books, a quaint little office-study with finely-crafted settees made in London, and nearby French tables and deerskin rugs. The room smelled nicely of incense and fruit. Not a spot of dust to be found lingering. One could be forgiven for thinking they were in the study of an upper-class erudite, and not a pirate-slayer. Benjamin had only made Rogers’s acquaintance by happenstance, at a ball held in the lower floor of this very castle two years prior.
The circumstances of that meeting were contrived, of course, Rogers merely needing someone to help sail with the Duchess’s new captain, and see to that it arrived safely in Nassau. That done, Benjamin had returned to Port Royal looking for privateering work, and was surprised to find a letter from Woodes Rogers in his morning mail. They began a correspondence, one in which Rogers took a keen interest in all matters of Vhingfrith’s methods at sea. Why he should have attracted the attention of the pirate-hunter, though, Benjamin did not know, and had never asked. But Rogers had been briefly exiled from Port Royal, as the Brethren, that famous collective of privateers, had made it known he was unwelcome, as his attacks against piracy had caught some privateers in the crossfire.
I wonder how he’s managed to return, and in such a prominent station.
“So, if you met Hollinger, then you know why I’ve asked you to come here,” Rogers said, crossing his legs and leaning back.
Vhingfrith nodded and set his glass down on the table. “He mentioned you’ve taken command of the militia, and that you may need for support of your new piracy laws.”
“Indeed. I won’t mince words, Benjamin, we’ve been at war. Many wars. While you were gone, a sort of secret war began right here in these very streets.” He nodded to the window. “Out there, villains cut one another’s throat and it’s all my militia can do to keep the peace, never mind investigating each crime on its own. Why, Roche Brasiliano hacked a man’s head off just days ago in The Golden Goose, and neither pirate nor militia has arrested him. My militia are spread thin across the island, we are quite overworked. Quite overworked.”
His militia. He calls the King’s Militia his? What has changed? What power dynamic am I missing? “Hollinger also mentioned you’ve got a lead on the León Coronado and the Santo Domingo de Guzman.”
A smile flickered across Rogers’s face. “Yes, I thought that would catch your attention. Indeed, my friend, our Intelligence Office has been hard at work gathering what information they can from every port. And I am responsible for shoring them all up. This past year, I asked the governor to beg for more support from the Crown, and wouldn’t you know it, they opened the Treasury for us!” He slapped his knee in jubilee.
Benjamin was careful how he showed his appreciation. “How happy for you.”
“Some of it was siphoned off by the damned admirals, but I did manage to secure enough to begin paying informants. Now I’ve got people in Hope Bay, Madagascar, Nassau, all over. I’ve got the ladies in the Code Office burning all their candles throughout the nights, organizing all the reports as they come in.” Rogers nodded in self-satisfaction. “We are certain we at least know the Coronado’s mission.”
Vhingfrith lifted an eyebrow. “Upon my word, please don’t keep me in suspense, sir.”
“Her new captain’s name is Rodriguez. He replaced Captain Casta months ago when he died of yellow jack. What we know of Rodriguez is that he’s a cunning tactician. You remember when the Arbury sank last year? That was him. And in a bloody fog, no less! Our informants on St. Kitts say they overheard conversations between Rodriguez and his crew when last they moored there, and some of them even got a peek at his papers.” Rogers leaned forward conspiratorially. “The León Coronado is here in the Caribbean to recruit English pirates to join the Spaniards in a war against us. And apparently, they’re quite convincing.”
____
The long-accepted method for stealthily infiltrating an island was to find a river that connected to the sea, and then follow that river upstream, either by swimming or walking along the shore. Laurier knew that it had to be a night-time infiltration, no other way would do, and the assault must come from the sea, for if they traveled by land Raymond Smith’s people might receive rumour that the Ladyman was in the area.
However, while traveling upriver was the easiest course, it also happened to be the most dangerous.
With solemn and slow power did the Rio Grande flow past many outlying cotton and sugarcane plantations. It took Laurier and his pirates straight around Port Antonio, a lesser-used port that had kept its name after the Spanish fled Jamaica, and which was so ill-equipped that even pirates hardly frequented it. Rainwater that flowed down from Blue Mountain Peak and a number of hilly ranges could sometimes create quick rapids in the Rio Grande, even dangerous ones. Such a rainfall was coming down now, and had been coming down all day, and while Laurier was glad of the rain’s natural concealment, it made the water rise up the shore rapidly. He, plus twenty of his men, crept along the western shore while carrying five large boats, which they would need for quick escape.
Lightning lanced across the sky, briefly illuminating the jungle.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Three times, Akil held up his hand to halt them, and each time the gesture was passed down the line. Laurier was with the men at the back, holding up a boat on their shoulders, giving their arms a rest. When Akil once again gave them the go-ahead, everyone lifted their boats and moved with soft knees and careful steps.
The rain picked up. As did the wind. Trees swayed and hissed conspiratorially to one another. They could hear animals running all around, seeking shelter. Lightning revealed angry, menacing clouds that would have meant a terrible night were they at sea. Just now, the clouds were ideal for stealth.
Fortune already favours us, Laurier thought. He only hoped it held through the night, and that the information he had on Smith’s plantation was all still true.
Their legs burned from the sustained effort. Twice, men slipped in the mud and fell, and nearly allowed their boats to go tumbling down the incline, where they would have been lost in the river. They gritted their teeth and pushed through another mile before, at last, they crested a final hill, and looked down at a house with a number of windows lit by candles.
Laurier whispered, “Drop the boats, lads.”
Anne came up to each man, handing them small oilskin bags which held their pistols—she had done this so that their pistols did not get wet. They drew their cutlasses and daggers, and each man surveyed the terrain. Fields of sugarcane swayed in heavy wind.
“Remember,” he said to them. “Dead men tell no tales.”
Lightning flashed, and he saw them all give a nod.
Laurier was the first to start down the hill. There were two teams: Akil with his Africans, plus Dobbs and Roche; Kepler, LaCroix and the others were with the captain. As one, they moved into the sugarcane fields, then spread out like infection. Raymond Smith’s house was ahead. The barn, and the house where he kept his slaves, was just fifty yards east of it. There was only a handful of nightwatchmen that they could see—not militiamen, men dressed in pants or overalls. Akil came upon one of them and slit the man’s throat without breaking stride, and that man gargled in the mud as Dobbs nearly tripped over him.
“Are you ready, Dobbs?” Laurier asked.
“Yes, Cap’n.” Dobbs made sure his bayonet was secured to the end of his rifle, then crept along, following Roche.
____
They talked long into the night. One of Rogers’s slaves came in to start a fire in the fireplace, and gave Benjamin an unreadable look as she left. Needles of rain smacked the window. Vhingfrith had now unbuttoned his coat and leaned back on the sofa, one arm draped across its back. He held a pipe in his hand—indulging what he could not indulge at sea—and he listened to Woodes Rogers lay out his plan.
“I don’t just want to keep them at bay, Benjamin,” Rogers said. “I want to destroy them. Only a crushing defeat will send the right message back to Philip. He must see that there is no foothold to be had in Port Royal, none at all, and that the only commerce to be had is through England. If he wants to trade, that is fine, but he gets all the Caribbean’s sugar and cotton by buying from us. That is it. That is the message, and that is the line we must draw.”
“I’ve heard he’s thinking of going around us. To the Colonies. There are rebels there in the Colonies. My father talked about dissenters, men thinking about revolution. The French may be allying themselves with those dissenters, or so I’ve heard.”
Rogers, cheeks red from wine, snorted. “Let them think they have such a foothold. It will come to nothing.” He waved his hands dismissively. Then he sat on the sofa beside Vhingfrith. “Right now, all I need is your promise to help me in this enterprise, Benjamin. I need all the help I can get. The pirates are a problem. If we want to have a bulwark against King Philip, we need order and discipline throughout the Caribbean, and these bloody pirates are a wrinkle in that discipline.”
“You want Lively to become a war vessel for you?”
“Why not? You’ve already proven you can take down a nao on your own. Quite the feat, actually!”
“I feel it necessary to remind you, it was John Laurier’s plan.”
“That poof! You don’t need him, Benjamin. You needn’t stand in his shadow, nor in your father’s.”
“Their shadows, sir?”
“The Ladyman is as awful a human being as those you hear out there right now.” He gestured at the window, through which screaming could be heard, and fighting, even above the torrential downpour. A shot rang out from somewhere in the city, and a constable’s whistle blared. “The Ladyman is a man of no integrity and small imagination, he is soon for the assizes, and you injure your own reputation by allowing him to take credit for your craft and genius.”
“Beg your pardon, sir, but I will not have Captain Laurier painted in such injurious light. Beg your pardon,” he repeated. “His ship and crew were instrumental in the operation upon the Nuestra.” Rogers looked surprised by that, and smiled. But the smile did not touch his eyes.
Benjamin swallowed. What am I doing? Why am I defending him before this man of all people—
“Do you disagree Laurier and his kind will soon be brought before the assizes?” said Rogers.
“Beg your pardon again, sir, but the assizes deal with civil and criminal law in recognized counties of England. We are very much outside of all that, I think you’ll agree.” He added, “The Caribbean is like a Second World, outside of the one everyone else lives in.”
Rogers’s fake smile lingered. “You’re speaking in defence of a known pirate, Benjamin. You’re even trying to give him all the credit for your successful assault on the Nuestra.”
Benjamin tried to recover the moment with articulation. “The Germans have a word: fingerspitzengefühl. Do you know what it means?”
Rogers sniffed, flicked something off his boot. “Afraid I’m not up on my German.”
“It means ‘finger tips feeling,’ it is said of a person who can somehow feel out a situation, feel when things are about to go wrong, or when a key opportunity rears its head in combat. They can see crucial turning points when others cannot, and seize upon it. Captain Laurier has that, and he can be a cunning ally when used properly. That’s all I meant,” he said with polite smile. “And as for my father, his shadow and I are not so acquainted as you may think.”
Rogers sighed heavily and slapped his legs as he stood up. “Perhaps I’ve had too much to drink.” Nevertheless, he paced over to the table with the decanter, and poured himself more wine. “You know, Benjamin, I have heard a most distressing rumour about you, too. Most distressing. Men say…ah, forget what they say—”
“No, let’s not forget it. Let us speak it. They say I’m of the Molly-house. They also say I’m the Devil’s Son. Unnatural. And they say that I led men into a fourteen-day darkness, through the Hellmouth and back.”
“Yes, I heard that rumour,” said Rogers, eyeing him over his glass. He took a sip, and stared unblinkingly at Benjamin. “Tell me, what happened out there, Benjamin?”
Vhingfrith splayed his hands, offering his utter lack of evidence. “Nothing that can be explained, sir. Like many of God’s miracles.”
“You think it was a miracle?”
“If it doesn’t qualify, I’d like to know what does.”
Rogers stood up, and signaled Vhingfrith to follow him. Together, they stepped through a door, and began walking about the personal apartments, until at last they came to a balcony with an overhang that protected them from the rain, which had just started in.
“Fourteen days without sunrise.” Rogers shook his head. “I’ve heard strange tales like that coming from the Colonies and elsewhere. I was sure it was just some old sailor’s tale, told in drinking halls to pass the time, stay the monotony. Like the stories of pirate treasure.” He laughed. “Like the stories of French ships looking for Levasseur’s gold.” Lightning briefly lit one half of his face, making him appear half studious, half ominous.
Vhingfrith tried to betray nothing. At first he thought that somehow his and Munt’s secret meetings had been found out, but as he watched Rogers stagger over to the balcony rail, and stare out into the storm, he realized the man had only uttered this minor detail about Levasseur by accident. “I haven’t heard that one. Are the French searching here in the Caribbean?”
Rogers glanced up suddenly. “Hm? No, no, no. It’s happening somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Not sure where. Although some rumours say the search is happening all over. Nothing confirmed. The only reason I know about it is because, apparently, they’ve gotten an English fellow to help them find it. Some traitor. Forget his name. Odd-something. Eh…Oddsummers, that’s it, yes.”
Vhingfrith felt his blood go cold. Oddsummers? He’s involved? And Munt never told me! Does he not know? Oddsummers was a man of strange reputation, a ruthless man whose powers of both seamanship and leadership were damn near held as supernatural, twice now believed dead, only to rise again and gain a new crew, despite all odds, and rally them to aid in raids and at-sea piracy. Does Munt know Oddsummers is involved in the hunt for Levasseur’s treasure? Good God, worse, does Oddsummers know Munt is involved? Benjamin maintained composure while Rogers stumbled over to another rail, and leaned on it. “Well, if it’s in the Indian Ocean, it should not concern you, should it?”
“I do not know, Benjamin. I just do not know anymore. All I know is that I need to protect our assets here in the Caribbean. That means keeping the Spanish at bay, which in turn means getting our pirate problem under control first.”
Vhingfrith tried to be fair-minded. “Might not the pirates keep on being an asset to us, as they long have, as continued attackers against the Spanish?”
Rogers waved his hand again. “As like to attack our ships as the Spaniards’, this new breed.” He looked towards the North Docks, then swept his gaze south towards the Turtle Crawles, where a preponderance of pirate ships were all jammed together like rats seeking shelter from the rain. “No, they have gotten too out of control. They have served their purpose and now must go. Lord Hamilton has been importuning me at no end, he has charged me with this task.” He sighed. “Now come, let’s go meet them.”
Vhingfrith blinked in surprise. “What? Now? But it’s so late. And you’re—”
“Drunk?” Rogers chortled. “They’re used to this from me, Benjamin. And they’ve been waiting all day to hear from you, I’m sure.”
“They?”
“The rest of the Admiralty. I promised them you were coming. So let’s go. Gather your hat. Let’s at least one of us look presentable. And be honest when you answer their questions.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only that dishonesty will not avail you, Benjamin,” Rogers said ominously.
____
The plan had been to set a fire to the crops. That was the primary plan. The fire was meant to rouse Smith and his plantation workers, both the English, Brazilians, and the slaves, into rushing out into the night with buckets to put out the crops. Smith’s people would have effectively opened all the locked doors for John and his people. That was the plan. But the storm made fire impossible.
The secondary plan, which had been concocted back on the Hazard once they saw the storm clouds rolling in, and was carefully worked out between John, Anne, LaCroix, and Akil, was a stealthier approach. Rain had to always be accounted for—it was the very reason sugarcane could grow so well in the Caribbean and few other places, for sugarcane required heavy rains practically year-road, and it despised even a moment’s dryness.
The deluge caused deep puddles to form all over the plantation. A hundred yards from him, John spotted a pair of farmhands walking the perimeter, each man holding a lantern. John was not an erudite like Benjamin, he knew how to read, but most of the books he indulged in dealt with strange alchemy, with military-style tactics and movements, with seamanship, and with wilderness survival. He knew how to cross land, he know how to manage men across it, and what natural and unnatural land formations to take advantage of.
There was a small stream that had been diverted from the Rio Grande, artificially made to feed into a pond stocked with trout. John and his people waded through it. But John gave the signal for them to halt, and he advanced ahead, moving through water that went almost up to his groin.
He knew how to move through water quietly, and could emerge from it almost utterly silent. The trick was not to let any wet point of your body get ahead of any other part, and not to leave any “ledges,” such as your knees, for water to spill from. This meant coming out of the water with the toes pointed straight down, so that water ran down your leg and merged with the water, so that no drops splashed into the water and gave you away. Anne knew this trick, too, but was not as graceful as John, who came up behind one of the farmhands—the one wearing a blue scarf and toboggin—drew his dagger, and plunged it into the man’s neck.
The lantern splashed into the grass, and before the second man could draw the hunting knife from its sheath, John had run him through with his cutlass. The Toledo steel moved smoothly through the man’s guts, and John clapped a hand over the man’s mouth to silence his scream.
It was over in moments, and Anne and the others descended on the house. From the heavens, it must have looked like lions surrounding a sleeping target.
Candles still flickered in three separate windows. People were awake in the Smith household. Doubtless, the storm kept them from sleep. John imagined Raymond was telling his children a fun story to dispatch their fears, or else he was sleeping and letting the slave nannies attend to that. John imagined house slaves moving from room to room, checking the roof for leaks and placing buckets underneath any leaks they found. He knew the patterns of such households, he’d grown up in one. Such wealthy men often had cellars, and those were prone to flooding, so Raymond would surely be checking on those hourly.
There were locks on the doors. Simple locks. John had long studied the history of the modern lock. He knew that the Sumerians had used pin tumbler locks since 4000 BCE, and that the Egyptians eventually improved on them. Centuries later, padlocks and warded locks appeared in China and Rome. And then for centuries more, silence from lock inventors. Nothing was done to improve them. Then, finally, came Murdock’s innovations. Modern warded locks were all the rage for wealthy men, and they could be a problem for any thief. Unless you had a skeleton key.
Some called them pick-lock keys. No one pick-lock could open all doors, but a ring of such keys, with a myriad of variations, could often be utilized to at least toggle the latches of the inner mechanism. Sometimes you had to insert one pick-lock, move it around until you felt or heard a click, then slowly turn it. Then, holding it in place with your teeth, you might insert a sliver of bent, sharp metal, to act as a torsion wrench, while a third pick was inserted to push and prod at the tumblers.
This could take minutes, or it could take hours. Unless you had practiced as much as John had. Kneeling at the back door of the house, he clenched a skeleton key between his teeth and held it steady, hardly breathing as he slipped the torsion wrench inside. In three short breaths, the door opened with the softest click, and John waited to see if anyone inside had heard. Instead of kicking it open, he swung the door open fast—opening a door slowly only allowed the hinges to creak louder—and stopped it short of banging against the stove. They had gained entry into the Smith’s kitchen.
John signaled Anne, whose eyes had adjusted enough to the dark to see him, and she signaled back to LaCroix, who fired a single shot in the air.
Across the plantation, Akil and his team heard it, and charged into the house with the white farmhands.
____
They sat him on a stool, while they sat in highbacked chairs behind a long oak table. Torches lit the room, they flickered in the storm’s breeze coming from a single window. He was before them like he was on trial. Vhingfrith wondered if he had allowed himself to walk into some sort of trap, if his talk with Rogers had merely been an interview, a means to discern the degree of his loyalty to England. If it had been a test, had he failed it? Had his love for John Laurier shone through? Ought Vhingfrith have given his full-throated support to Rogers’s plan to fight the Spanish?
Ought he run now?
You will be surrounded by enemies and one day they will come for you, his father had said to him more than once. And you will not see it coming. So you must never be alone with these men. You must never allow yourself to be outnumbered by English officers—
Dear God, he hadn’t even seen it coming until now. Vhingfrith had no pistol, only his sword, and it wouldn’t even get him out the door.
There were four of them, including Lord Hamilton himself and Rogers, who now lounged in a chair, foot up on the table, appraising Vhingfrith.
“We are glad you could finally make time for us,” said Commander Dill. The tall man had a bald pate but a rim of white hair around his head. “I am made to understand you have been here for weeks, and have yet to pay visit. You must have been powerfully busy, indeed.”
“I was, sir,” Vhingfrith said. Hands in his lap, posture erect, he made sure to look each of them in the eye. “Monstrously busy. As I told Captain Rogers, and Lord Hamilton at the ridotto.”
“I had assumed a man of your stature and business would be overeager to get up to speed with old friends.”
“As I said, monstrously busy. I also lean away from gossip, and dare not indulge in island politics, so I’m afraid that also makes me monstrously dull.” It was wit used as a knife, but turned on himself. A disarming tactic his mother taught him. Commander Dill smiled politely, but Vhingfrith noticed the smile did not reach his eyes.
Lord Edmondson, lieutenant-governor of the island, leaned forward eagerly. His bicorne rested on the table in front of him, a reminder of his dual station as a navy man, and his shimmering epaulettes shimmered in candlelight. The mole on his face jumped with each syllable he enunciated. “You were seen walking about with Captain John Laurier.” He left it at that.
Vhingfrith maintained composure, and nodded. “He and I were closely allied at sea, during both our execution of the Nuestra and the unfortunate anomaly that happened to us at sea, and which took half our men from us.”
“And what was that anomaly?”
“The same one Lord Hamilton and I spoke of at the ridotto.”
Lord Hamilton removed his wooden teeth, and chewed on a banana, but scarcely looked at Vhingfrith.
“Describe it,” said Edmondson.
Vhingfrith tried not to let his frustration at being asked that question a thousand times already show. “I cannot say what happened, Lord Edmondson. Nor can I say what happened days ago when the long night ended, and the sun rose as though it was late for only dinner, and with a red ring around it.”
Admiral Stewart, who was leaned way back in his chair, scratched the grey shrubs above his eyes almost irritably, and tapped the table with the stump of his missing finger. He said, “Word has reached us that men aboard both the Lively and the Hazard have said you had some sort of theory about what was going on at sea.”
Benjamin kept his composure. These were all devout men, they believed in the Almighty and likely believed spirits made men see and do things. Strange things. “It is merely speculation. Who can say for certain?”
“Do you have that theory with you now?”
It appeared there was going to be no letting it go. “There was a man aboard Captain Laurier’s ship, named Rothlis, who kept saying that what we were experiencing had something to do with the firmament. I thought this an interesting theory, and simply told others…” He trailed off.
“Told others what?”
“Honestly, Admiral, I cannot say. For I had many theories whilst at sea, and it is a poor scholar who dares to speak extemporaneously on such cosmic matters—”
“And what is your theory now on the matter?” asked Lord Hamilton, speaking through a mouthful of fruit. He looked at Vhingfrith, juices running down his chin. “Was it an anomaly, or merely mass hallucination? Perhaps you and your crew were only sick, poisoned by lead in your food. We’ve all heard it happen.”
Vhingfrith shook his head. “I…am not a scholar, Governor. I would ask the priests and men of letters here on the island, and back in England and elsewhere.”
“We’re asking you, Captain. You were the one who saw it, and you were the most educated man on either of the ships. So tell us. Or regale us. Tell us something we might not already know, something we might have missed.”
Feeling his choler rising, Vhingfrith looked down at the cobblestone floor, laid down by long-dead Spaniards. He thought about time itself, how it rolls on and on, how there is no going back, how the places we built and the homes we live in can never be ours forever, how ownership of land and things continuously changes hands, how the order of things are not necessarily fixed. He ran a hand over his face, and said what had been burdening his mind and heart of late.
“My lords, I would say only to you that I know, from my books, that though the world seems still and sturdy, the state of the world and the Universe itself is not fixed. Our world moves through empty void, and, we believe, so does our sun. We are hurtling through the cosmos at a ridiculous rate, and we may call that black emptiness ‘waters.’ Now, like the waters here on Earth, it may be that they only appear empty. From shore, one cannot see more than a few miles out. Even once at sea, monsters such as whales or sharks do not immediately leap out to be seen. You must get far, far out to sea, and look at those waters closely, be able to readily see what’s there. And even then, naturalists will tell you, one can only see so much unless you swim deep. Very deep.”
“What are you saying, Captain?” asked Edmondson.
“Are you saying it wasn’t lead poisoning?” asked Dill.
“Suppose it wasn’t,” Benjamin said.
“Then what?” Admiral Stewart urged.
He thought, To hell with it, let’s speculate. “Consider this entire world our ship. It has its cargo, its resources, which keep us alive. The sun and the moon affect the tides, so there is a push and a pull from the heavens. A measurable push and pull. But sometimes, there is a storm. There are unseen seamounts—mountains below the water that we cannot see because their peaks do not quite breach the surface. But this ship, my lords, it has no captain, no pilot, and no crew, save God Himself.”
Dill appeared to squeeze his facial muscles in consternation. “This is all very fascinating, but I feel as if I have just sailed into a mist. What are you getting at?”
“We are merely passengers on this ship, my lords. But what happens if God momentarily steps away the steering? Or what happens if he leaves an angel in charge as timoneer, one who steers us a-wrong? And what happens if something deep down swims up to say hello?”
Admiral Stewart said: “You’re saying…God steered us into…?”
“I’m only being poetical, my lords. But I believe something of the like may be possible. I believe we…that is, all of us on this great Earth…we may have passed through some gate. Some…I don’t know…some distortion of the fabric God has woven. Think of a blanket, stretched tightly on all corners. Place small marbles on it, and those marbles will stay as still as though they were on a table. Now, set a melon at the center of that blanket, and watch all the marbles slowly roll towards it. If our world crossed through unknown black waters, it may have left an impression such as that, and it may have attracted something to it, just as the melon attracts the marbles. A pull.”
Admiral Stewart lit a terracotta pipe, took a draft, and pointed it at Benjamin. “The strange moon you saw—?”
“Yes. Again, this is but one man’s speculation. I think it obvious I am not the erudite many of you are, what with my meagre upbringing.” Again with the self-stabbing wit. He was confident that it was key right now. There were times when he must make himself seem like one of them, and times when he must make himself the lesser. This was the latter.
When Vhingfrith had finished speaking, he looked around at their hard, chiseled faces. They were, by turns, skeptical, horrified, amused, and, quite possibly, not a little frightened.
It occurred to him, They have been thinking about this. In their sleep, in their dreams. They have heard the rumours that other sailors across the sea saw this same phenomenon, and they are frightened. He looked over at Rogers, staring at him severely, drinking more wine. God, even he is unnerved.
Vhingfrith shook his head. “I am sorry, my lords, but that is the only way I can account for what I saw, and for these rumours you’ve received from other faraway lands.”
Rogers said, “Is there any reason to believe the Spanish may have caused this?”
“What?” Vhingfrith almost laughed. Almost. He held it in, for fear of being executed.
“Is it possible this is all some clever trick by the Spaniards? Could Philip have—I don’t know—could he have conjured this up?”
“Or those cults in France?” said Dill. They all looked at him. “I am not trying to be fatuous, there are people talking about the rise of strange cults all over.”
“I’ve heard no search rumours, my lords.”
No one said anything for a time. Rogers finally pulled his feet off the table and leaned forward in silent rumination. The others conferred in whispers with one another, and Vhingfrith swallowed sand in his throat, hoping he had not somehow said something that would convince a priest he had blasphemed.
And then the interrogation began. It started out as a light barrage of unrelated questions. Commander Dill wanted to know the nature of Captain Vhingfrith’s relationship with Captain Laurier. Lord Edmondson wanted to ask about the fourteen-day night, and the rumours he’d heard that children had been slain aboard the Hazard in some ritual conducted by the freed slaves. Admiral Stewart wanted a few things made clear as to who exactly owned the Lively. Was it truly Benjamin’s ship to have, or had he absconded with it before his father’s will had been read, as some rumours had it?
The only question he had to carefully dodge was about John, all other questions he answered as truthfully as he knew how, all the while wondering if he was about to be lumped in with Hazard’s pirates and, finally, tossed out of the society he had so carefully manicured his reputation to fit into. Would he be put into chains? He would die first. Right then and there, he decided.
Then, Admiral Stewart said, “Captain Vhingfrith, if you had to guess, where would you say Captain Laurier is? Right this instant?”
Vhingfrith’s right hand twitched reflexively, almost reaching for the locket around his neck. He didn’t know why. But he caught himself and touched the silver ring on his left hand.
“Why do you ask, my lord?”
____
The slaughter began almost as soon as the gunshot rang out. It roused two farmhands from their slumber and they shot up from their beds. Ten of them slept in a single room—Akil counted them, as he counted everything else—their beds all faced each other, with barely enough space to walk between them. And there they found Akil, machete in each hand. Bogoa and the other Africans all had cutlasses, and all they knew was that they must pierce someone with the pointy end. The two farmhands’ lives were ended by two quick swings of Akil’s machete. One of them got out a scream, which alerted the others, all of whom leapt from their beds and reached for knives and pistols when they saw six dark figures moving like Death among their beds.
They are all lined up in rows, Akil mused as he lunged at the next one. This is too easy.
And it was. Like the last raiding party he had done with his uncle on the Ekitti tribe’s supply run. Surrounded at night. The fires having doused their fires. The Ekitti had been left blind. Akil’s footsteps had been masked by the sound of rain pattering against large leaves, filling up the streams. These men were only his enemies because they were John Laurier’s enemies, and because they stood in his way of liberating Smith’s slaves and liberating himself. That was enough.
These men were not warriors. They were plantation workers, they knew how to use shovels to move dirt, and how to get a stubborn mule to pull a cart. War—true war—was utterly beyond them. Akil was a prince, a war chieftain with years of both training and experience. Each death was nothing to him. Even the white boy, Dobbs, appeared to conduct himself as more of a fighter than these men, for he stabbed two of them in the gut with the bayonet at the end of his rifle. And the Brazilian man with the long black hair and clean-shaven face…Akil was disturbed by the reveling he took in gutting each man, even long after they were dead. Roche cut into their throats with his dagger and worked his blade up, down, and sideways, until he broke through the spine and pulled the heads loose. Bogoa and the others exchanged worrisome glances.
Akil had seen men like Roche before, warriors reveling in death. He shrugged at the others and said, “This is war, brothers. Everyone expresses themselves differently in it. You will have to find your own footing. Come.”
The coppery smell of blood filled the room, as did the acrid odour of bowels being emptied as each dead dying man shit himself. One man was hastily trying to prime a pistol when Akil kicked him in his chest, knocking him against a wall, and impaling him to it. The man spat blood and whimpered, then muttered something about a message he needed to send his wife. Akil jerked his machete free and the man fell, spasming, reaching for someone who wasn’t there.
Another man launched himself at Akil, but parried the bayonet and thrust the man in his gut and threw him to one side, barely even exerting himself.
Bogoa said. “Here! I found keys over here!” He held up a large ring of jingling keys.
“Omari,” Akil called, speaking to the youngest of his men. “Take these. Free the men we found outside in the barn. Make sure they understand what I said to them before.” They had discovered African men, women, and children all huddled in that sodden barn, most of them half naked looking starved. “If they want freedom, this is their only chance! This is it! Freedom for their wives and children! And never another chance like this shall they find! Go!”
Once Omari was gone, Bogoa and the others followed Akil out the back door, out into the rain, to the servants’ quarters.
A few steps from the door, Akil froze. Something caught his eye. There were figures in the rain, dark shambling shapes, some of them running. And eyes. Sets of purple eyes that shimmered like a dog’s eyes in firelight, there and gone. Some of those eyes appeared in the puddles of water at his feet, and had his heart not been fortified against such astonishing phenomenon during the long night, Akil might have been terrified. As it was, he was only afraid, but still in control of his wits.
“Akil?”
“I see them, Bogoa.”
“What were they, rafiki?”
Roche Brasiliano said, “Captain should know, we all in danger.”
The boy Dobbs stared wide-eyed at the darkness all around, at the roaring river a hundred yards away. “This is an evil,” he whispered.
“What are they, rafiki?” Bogoa repeated.
Akil stood in the storm, searching around for the enemy, but the sets of shimmering eyes had gone. He shook his head. “Let’s keep moving.”
____
The tiny wooden steps Vhingfrith stood on belonged to a small house at the end of a nameless alley just off of Queen Street. He stood in the rain, wine bottle in hand, half drunk, and pounding on the door. A dozen vagrants were in the alley, all huddled under sheets propped up by sticks, all trying to avoid being soaked. He was aware of some of their eyes on him. Vhingfrith touched his cutlass. A gunshot sounded from somewhere in Port Royal. Or was it just thunder? Hard to tell.
The rain fell harder, causing a small but swift creek to form in the alley.
He kept banging until the door finally swung open and Munt stood there in a chemise, tucking it between his legs, while holding up a tall candle. It was the only light source in the entire black alley, and his fat jowls were trembling with rage when he said, “What is the bloody meaning—Benjamin?”
“We need to talk,” he said as he swept inside. He kicked the door shut and pulled out a piece of wet parchment from his inside coat pocket and threw it on the kitchen table. “That was just handed to me by the Admiralty Court, during an extremely late-night session, during which we discussed many things.” He took a swig of wine.
Munt said, “This couldn’t have waited ’til—?”
“Just read it, Munt.”
The round man waddled over to the table. His face darkened as he finally noted Vhingfrith’s queer manner. Besides the occasional flicker of lightning, the candle was the only light source in the whole house. Vhingfrith paced in darkness as he saw Munt pull on his spectacles and go through the letter, line by line, his mouth slightly parted, one finger stroking his lower lip pensively. Then, like a man defeated, he lowered the letter and sighed. “So, they did it, after all. They gave you a letter of marque for both the León Coronado and the Santo Domingo de Guzman.” He removed his spectacles. “They’ve given you everything you want, and so you’ll be off soon. Which means you cannot help me in my endeavour. You will have all the money you need to take on your own crew, no doubt.”
Vhingfrith paced a moment more. “No,” he said. “I will be given no funding.”
Munt looked up in surprise. “What? But how can they expect you to—?”
“Their interrogation of me went long, Munt. During it, they asked me many questions. About the Fourteen-Day Darkness, as it is now called in renown. They asked about rumours that I killed, or had others kill, members of my crew while at sea. They asked if the Lively was indeed mine, and not some stolen ship I rebranded.”
Benjamin took another long draught from his bottle, and wiped his lips.
“And then they asked me about Captain Laurier, and what exactly I knew of his activities this very night.”
“What do you mean?”
He wiped rainwater from his face, and continued pacing. “They say they have it on good authority the Ladyman has been asking about Raymond Smith, specifically about Smith’s protections, or lack thereof, around his plantation. They happen to know that he left the Turtle Crawles late last night, and that he wasn’t fully crewed. So, they asked, ‘Where was he going?’ Their theory is Captain Laurier has found an unusual answer to his crewing problem. They say he’s going to go to Raymond Smith’s plantation tonight, he’s going to kill Smith and all his people, all except his slaves, which he will take as a new crew.”
Munt’s face twisted in horror. “They can’t mean…”
“They present as evidence that, while I handed over my slaves dutifully, and got the reward for them, the Ladyman held on to his, for reasons that mystify. Selling those slaves would have brought him a handsome prize. So why didn’t he?”
Munt covered his mouth. “My God…”
Benjamin snorted in self-derision. “I should’ve seen it, Munt. I should’ve realized what he was up to the moment I heard from Otis at The Golden Goose that John was asking about Raymond Smith. If this is true…if it is…”
“He’ll be hanged. No trial, no tribunal, no assizes.”
“Straight to the bloody gallows.” Benjamin laughed mirthlessly, then kicked over a chair and screamed. “Bloody fucking fool! What has he done?!”
“Benjamin—you have to separate yourself from this. Surely they know you aren’t like him. Surely you told them.”
“I suppose that is my test. That is why they told me.”
“What do you mean?”
Benjamin paced over to the letter of marque, raised it to Munt’s face. “They handed me this at the end of my interrogation. And then they told me about the ambush.”
“What ambush, Benjamin?”
“The one they have lying in wait for John Laurier at the Smith plantation.” Vhingfrith was thankful for the rainwater still rushing down from his head, cascading over his cheeks, for his tears could masquerade as nothing more than rainwater. “The Ladyman is walking into a trap. He is outnumbered two to one. And there is nothing I can do about it. Because there is a man that followed me from the Admiralty Office. A minder of sorts, I’m sure. I clocked him almost as soon as I left. They are watching me, seeing where I will go and if I will send a runner.”
Munt seemed pressed to keep up. “But I don’t…I cannot see…what does this have to do with your letter of marque and why they won’t give you funding for a crew?”
“Raymond Smith was a known pirate. He was on the account, as they like to say. Until recently, when the Republic cut him loose for dishonesty—I know, I know, pirates holding honesty in high regard and all, it’s all a terrific joke. But it’s true, they do govern themselves in a way, and require integrity amongst themselves. And the Republic of Pirates has long intimidated the authorities here in Royal, keeping Raymond Smith safe.” Vhingfrith swallowed a lump in his throat. Images of John’s death flitted through his mind and it was all he could do not to run from the room. He gripped the back of a highbacked chair to control his trembling. The thunder outside mirrored the turmoil within him. “But Smith is no longer protected. He is no longer on the account. And so, knowing this, Smith has surrounded himself with personal guards. They live inside his house with him. And Smith’s own farmhands are known to have helped in his illegal enterprises, so the militia sees no harm in their demise.”
Munt’s eyes widened. “My God, Benjamin. Two birds, one stone’s throw.”
“The militia will allow Laurier’s people to slay who they please, then descend on the house and take Laurier and his people prisoner. Woodes Rogers means to drag the Ladyman through Port Royal in his finest dress, and let all see him hanged for killing a plantation owner. Smith’s plantation will go to the government—they did not say to who, but if I had to guess, it would go to Hamilton, or perhaps to Rogers as a reward for orchestrating all this. And as for Smith’s hundred or so slaves, some of them will be my new crew. My reward for many years of leal service.”
Munt shook his head at the horror. “The bastards. But you have to hand it to him, Rogers has really outdone himself. Benjamin—what will you do? I know you and Captain Laurier were…close.”
“What can I do? I’m seventy miles away from the Smith plantation with a minder from the Office on my tail and not one loyal fighting man to help me. By now, Munt, it’s already done. John Laurier is either dead or captured, and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do.”