image [https://i.imgur.com/15eGPa6_d.jpg?maxwidth=520&shape=thumb&fidelity=high]

tramontane – A cold, dry wind blowing in from the north.

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to say with certainty which stymied John more: his conflicting emotions at seeing Benjamin Vhingfrith once more on his vessel—an event the man himself had long sworn would never happen again—or the celestial phenomenon for which they had convened to discuss. Two impossible events in one day, he thought, smiling. Which one goes in my journal first?

The four of them—John Laurier, Benjamin Vhingfrith, Abner Crane, and Euric Jacobson—gave no more formalities or pleasantries than were required by cause, and spoke only of the events of the day. Or night, as it were. There was no talk of the Nuestra or the supplies or slaves they’d obtained from her, nor any congratulatory talk of a plan well executed, nor any admirations for the fighting men on both vessels. There was manic discussion, most of which avoided fears and superstitions, and focused squarely on the charts and rutters. Vhingfrith had brought over charts and maps. They discussed the strangeness of the stars, the oddness of which Laurier himself had only just noticed before Vhingfrith came aboard. And then they discussed the sextant, the science of which only Vhingfrith himself understood, and which he assured all present only added to the horror. He did not use the word “horror,” but John could tell it was at the forefront of his mind.

I know you, Benjamin. I can see your beautiful, tormented, conflicted, gorgeous mind. And you are scared. So am I.

John spoke little. He paced the room holding a copy of The Flower of Battle in his hands, thumbing through Fiore’s depictions of close combat with a dagger. He offered the other men wine, which they accepted—all but Jacobson, that is. Laurier knew Jacobson despised him above all pirates, even though not much separated their two besides a writ from the Governor of Port Royal, hastily scribbled and tossed in Vhingfrith’s direction to get him and his privateer crew out on the seas attacking Spanish ships. Imagine it. They do exactly the same work as we do. A thin piece of parchment is all that keeps them from the gallows.

The four of them ruminated on the possibilities of the phenomenon, but all deferred to the figure at the center of all this debate, the one with superior knowledge of the sea, and the man that John had nothing but the greatest affection for. The man he loved.

Tall and refined, despite his lack of societal station, Benjamin Vhingfrith appeared as a monolith, or a calm dinghy in some turbulent storm. Whatever the crisis, he endured it. Up one wave and back down the other side. The other two men in the room, Abner and Jacobson, certainly disliked the Devil’s Son—indeed, they were likely revolted by him—and yet they said nothing. Not in this moment. This was Captain Vhingfrith’s power, the only thing that kept him from being bound in chains in Antigua or slaving in a sugar field in Nevis.

His mind is so beautiful. And there is even more to it, I suspect, than what he puts on display. There would have to be, wouldn’t there?

The intrigue for John was almost unbearable. He paced around Benjamin, watching his composure, listening to his command over language and mathematics and navigation.

John removed his jacket and skirt, walked bare-chested but with pants on, watching Benjamin take command of the discussion. John let him assume it. And the privateer captain pointedly ignored John Laurier while he looked over Hazard’s rutters, comparing them against his own. As he watched Benjamin, John listened to him try to make sense of this phenomenon. He watched Benjamin’s ring-laden fingers run across charts, and observed his smooth brown face—Is it freshly shaven?—and the evenness of his red coat. The coat was well maintained, like his hair and countenance. Like his thoughts, not much of Benjamin Vhingfrith strayed from a clean pattern. Here was a black panther in the snow, alone and shivering, yet never shedding its grace and cunning.

John had never been so fascinated by a creature in all his life, and knew he never would be again. How could he, when all other wonders, great and wondrous, were made tiny in Vhingfrith’s enigmatic shadow? Mystery kept the Devil’s Son in that lofty spot in John’s heart. Mystery of his goals, his means, and above all else his needs. John craved to help him, to give him succour and stability, like the kitten he’d brought in from the rain when he was a boy, and hidden from his father, because he knew his father would get rid of it. John knew his feelings were inappropriate, for Benjamin was not a kitten, he was a man, and he required no protection that his own cunning mind could not provide.

“It is not a tramontane, I keep telling you,” said Vhingfrith patiently, glancing over at his first mate. “We are too far south for it. And even if it were, I cannot but dismiss the notion it would have anything to do with…this.” He gestured out the window at the rear of the cabin. It was open, and a cold gust ruffled the curtains. Nothing but a sea of black waters reflected the fugue of stars above.

“What’s this?” said Laurier, closing Fiore’s book and returning to the discussion. His mind had been far afield, thinking of a time not too long ago when Benjamin Vhingfrith had almost been his.

Vhingfrith glanced over at John. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Jacobson said coldly, and massaged his wounded arm. “That wind is unseasonably cold. It has to mean something—”

“But it may not mean what you think it means, Mr. Jacobson,” Vhingfrith interrupted brusquely.

Laurier looked over at the window. Yes, he had been noticing the precipitous drop in the temperature. Highly unusual for these latitudes, especially this time of year.

“This wind may have nothing to do with the phenomenon at all, merely a coincider,” Vhingfrith went on.

“A what?” said Jacobson.

“A consequence of this phenomenon on the sea and air. In other words, this phenomenon may be causing it, rather than it causing the phenomenon.”

Phenomenon. That was the word they had been using to describe this event. Laurier had watched the three of them toss the word back and forth, and had even, on occasion, found himself stifling a grin. He did not wish to make light of a dire moment—it was a thing Benjamin had often criticized him for—but watching them all struggle with the “phenomenon” while he had already decided to accept it was entertainment in itself. Yet he did not discount the danger they faced, nor did he deny a trickle of fear in his heart for what it meant. But fear could be exciting. John was able to keep both thoughts in mind at once—the cataclysm they were all potentially facing, and the fact said cataclysm had brought Benjamin back aboard the Hazard, were intwined.

To whomever stole the sun, may I give him my thanks. It was a flight of fancy, a bit of levity to keep his courage from failing, and a moment later his mind returned to reality, to the dangerous connotations of the phenomenon.

Abner chimed in, stroking his beard fiercely, with hands that occasionally shook. “We’ve been searching the rutters and charts for some kind of account of this phenomenon,” he said. “But ought we go back even further?”

“What do you mean?” Jacobson said. “The histories? Are any such accounts on board this vessel?”

“I can assure you,” said Vhingfrith, “if there were any such accounts of this phenomenon in any history book, I would have heard about them.”

But John already knew where Abner was going. “You’ve met my quartermaster before, Captain Vhingfrith. You know that he believes in the literal translation of the Scripture. Men parting seas and walking on water. Are there any accounts of a phenomenon like this in any interpretations you’ve all found? I believe that’s what you’re asking, isn’t it, Abner?”

Abner gave Laurier a look he found unsettling. “Aye. It is, Captain.”

Vhingfrith glanced at Laurier, then at Abner. “Though I respect and appreciate your devotion to the Faith, Mr. Crane, I do not think floating that fancy around at a time like this—”

“Fancy!”

“—shall do us any good. We’ve got two crews filled with superstitious men. Some of them are already losing their grip.”

Laurier cocked his head. “The fire?”

“Yes.”

“What fire?” Abner said. “You mean the one aboard the Lively?”

Laurier nodded. “I thought it was something of the like.”

“What are you two talking about?”

Vhingfrith sighed. “The man that set the fire on my ship, he didn’t just go mad, Mr. Crane. He wanted to bring back the light. He wanted to propitiate God, or someone like Him, to try and bring light back into the world. His mother was Greek, and believed in certain spirits that can only be pacified by flame.” He looked at John. “Have you had anything like that happen on your ship?”

“Not yet,” John shrugged, and sipped some wine. “But I expect it soon.”

“You seem very nonchalant about the idea of mass delusion and panic taking over.”

“The minds of sailors and seamen are filled with delusions, one of their delusions is that they will gain fast wealth with but a few journeys aboard a privateer or pirate ship.” John gave another shrug. “As leaders, we count on their delusions and cultivate them, make them grow in whichever direction we wish, until at last, one day, their delusions collapse in on themselves and they die in a gutter in Port Royal. What matter?”

Vhingfrith lifted an eyebrow. “What matter?” He pointed to the door. “Do you see that door?” They all looked to it. “Notice it has a bar on it, for locking. Now, why would a captain ever need bar his own door? Certainly, every sailor knows to knock before he enters the captain’s cabin, so who would just barge in on him unannounced? No one. And a captain ought to be one available to his senior officers at every hour, so it is not for privacy’s sake. And it cannot be there in case of a ship being taken over, because if a captain has to hide within his own cabin, then the ship is already lost and locking the door cannot do much good. So why then would the shipbuilders deign to place a bar there at all, on that door of all doors?”

No one answered.

“I’ll tell you why, Captain Laurier. It is because of an event no one wants to discuss. That bar exists solely for one purpose, and for one purpose only: mutiny. It is to keep those susceptible to mass delusion from committing the entire ship to total ruin, and perhaps grant the captain a bit of time to formulate a plan or negotiate with the mutineers, or with anyone left that’s loyal to him. So, tell me, how can you be so dismissive of delusion when you know mutiny cannot lag far behind it, when the bar on that door shall surely be put to use?”

“Mutiny is never far behind,” John granted. “It is merely kept behind a façade of order and manners, which both act as a wall to keep enough men in line that they keep the rest in line. This is all order is, Benjamin. Keeping enough men afraid so that they keep the others in line. You know this. Just enough.”

“Captain Vhingfrith, sir,” said Benjamin. “Just because we are joined in this moment by calamity does not mean you can be so familiar.”

A smile touched John’s lips. “Very well. Captain.”

An iciness temporarily blanketed the room, and it rivaled the wind.

Jacobson growled, “So what are we to do?”

Vhingfrith sighed. “Thank you, Mr. Jacobson, for the first actual question of import I’ve heard since this phenomenon began. Because it does not matter now what the cause of this phenomenon is, but rather what course we shall take from here. Now, as you can see here, we are near a series of cays, perhaps half a day’s sail to the first cluster.” He pointed out this cluster on the charts laid across Laurier’s desk. “I’ve careened in two of these cays before, and there are shores close by where the men can fish. Both our ships may conduct repairs while the tide is low, and when it returns, we shall set sail for Port Royal.”

“Port Royal?” John asked.

“Yes.”

“Why there, may I ask? Why not Kitts or somewhere closer?”

“Captain Laurier, we are at sea without a sun, and with men setting fire to their ship in order to summon it back. Ships are like little islands, I’m sure you know, with nowhere for madmen to run to, nowhere to go. The delusions you spoke of so favourably before as a means to use as a kind of…I can only say a tool to guide men’s hearts…those same delusions will become like a tidal wave coming over the railing, swamping us. Do I really have to say the obvious, Captain Laurier?”

John nodded. He was about to say that he saw the merit in that, when Abner suddenly shouted, “We need to go back!” They all looked at him queerly, and Laurier was astonished to see his quartermaster’s cheeks and forehead turning red, and his brow heavy with sweat. “You’re all talking about this sensibly, like it can ever make any sense at all! It can’t! We’ve aggrieved God or the spirits in these seas!”

“Abner, I will have none of this talk.” John found the concept of God almost ridiculous, and the idea that He was forgiving and loving and charitable beyond revolting. He’d seen enough cruelty and injustice in his life to forever negate the idea of a loving Creator. Besides that, belief of such a being weakened men’s minds, made them susceptible to all sorts of superstitious thoughts. “This isn’t God’s work, Abner.”

“It’s the only explanation! We must go back and return the Spaniards their treasure! We have to go back—”

“Abner, calm yourself,” John said. “You are setting a bad example—”

“Beg pardon, Captain, and I know you don’t believe in Him, but this is as clear a sign from the Almighty that we’ve veered too far away from His Scripture.” He backed up against a shelf that contained some of Laurier’s books, and some of them fell off. The ship suddenly rocked a little, and the planks all around them creaked. For a moment, it sounded like something was swimming around, just outside, like when whales break the surface. “This is His sign! His Sign to us—”

“Get control of your man, Captain,” said Vhingfrith.

“I have control, Captain, thank you.”

John and Benjamin eyed one another. For a moment, his love for Benjamin’s fury almost caused John to smile again, but that would only worsen matters. So he walked over to his quartermaster. “Abner, listen to me.”

“No—no—no, no, no, no—”

“Abner—”

“We have to change course, sir! We have to return the treasure! Our deeds have been wicked—”

“Abner, listen to me, I will not countenance the change of course, nor the return of any treasure. In any case, the wind does not favour that course. If we turn back we’ll be in irons. Or haven’t you noticed?” He gestured to the window. “You felt the wind when you were on deck, Abner. You know. The wind has changed—”

“Just as I was saying,” Jacobson said. “It’s the tramontane, and no mistake.”

“I told you, Mr. Jacobson, we are too far south for it,” Vhingfrith said. “It has nothing to do with—”

“Then what is it?”

Abner cried, “Damn the wind! The sun’s not coming up! The sun is absent the sky and you’re all talking winds and mistrals and gregales! Where is the bloody fucking sun?!”

“I thought you said you had control of him, Captain,” Vhingfrith said.

John held up a hand to Abner, patting the air, as he might settle a horse. “It’s all right, Abner. It’s all right. You’ve seen a lot in your time at sea, I’m sure you’ve witnessed strange things on the waters.”

“Nothing like this, Cap’n,” he said, tears falling freely. He looked so pitiful, and John was now concerned for the man’s mind. “Nothing like this.” John witnessed one of his oldest companions wither. Abner Crane had been in Port Royal for ages, John had befriended him many long years when playing fanorona at The Golden Goose, but only in the last two years had they sailed together. He had seen Abner weather many storms, had seen him pick up a pitchfork to help fight off an attempted invasion by the Spanish into Port Royal. Now, in the span of a few breaths, Abner reverted to a frightened child left in the woods at night, each sound he heard making him jump, each motion of the ship making him gasp. “Nothing…no…no…nothing like this.” His voice was a whisper and everyone else in the room went silent as they watched him. They watched what they themselves would become if they did not maintain their composure.

We are seeing what will become of us all, Laurier thought. Thoughts of a world without a sun were terrifying enough. It meant death, surely. But Laurier had always felt ready to meet his end when it came. But to end up like Abner Crane…there was no dignity in it.

“The sun’s been doused, Cap’n,” Abner went on. “The sun…been blown out…like a candle…like someone puffed up their cheeks,” he said, and took in a deep breath, “and blew!” Abner’s eyes bulged as he blew out all his air, directly at them.

The Ladyman noticed his quartermaster’s mangled hand was on his crucifix. He also noticed that Abner was just about to trip over one of the boxes LaCroix had brought down earlier. He did not know what would happen if Abner spilled the contents of that box, nor did he wish to find out.

But Abner had frozen. No one spoke for a time.

Jacobson turned his back on all of them and faced the window, shaking his head and mumbling to himself, occasionally laughing.

“If you believe that, Mr. Crane,” Vhingfrith finally said into the silence, “then you manifestly misunderstand how the heavens work.”

At this, Jacobson whirled around. “Then enlighten us, Captain. How do the heavens work?”

Vhingfrith looked at his first mate. In that moment, Laurier understood the two men were true enemies, not just rivals for the captaincy of the Lively, as he had known for some time. There was true antipathy there, evidently of long standing. And so, in that moment, Jacobson became Laurier’s enemy, too.

I must be ready to kill him, he thought with glacial calmness, as he took another sip of wine.

Vhingfrith looked away from his first mate and gazed back into one of the rutters on Laurier’s desk. “Your first mistake, Mr. Crane, is the same misapprehension that most people have about the sun; that it is merely a ball of flame. Some have said that it is a raging inferno atop a giant piece of coal, that shall burn forever at God’s will. Learned men no longer believe this.”

Benjamin walked slowly over to a chair and took a seat, flinging out the skirts of his coat to clear the sword hanging from his hip. He crossed his legs and rested his hands in his lap, and took on an erudite demeanor that had first caught John’s attention ages ago. This was how they met in Port Royal, when this beautiful man with his beautiful mind had been in rigorous debate with the Governor’s daughter, both seated on a patio overlooking a garden. In this moment, the years peeled back to reveal that simmering hot day, when John had suddenly realized a stark truth about himself, and about who he was meant to love.

“The sun is no candle, gentlemen,” Benjamin said slowly. As he spoke, he played with the rings around his fingers. “It cannot be, if Newton’s thoughts on it are true. Rather, it is another state of matter entirely, with a power Newton himself could not fully comprehend. Its full constitution and origin remain obscure, no doubt. But I assure you, whatever it is, the sun cannot be doused by any cold wind, nor any splash of water.”

“Then what has happened?” Jacobson asked, seething, his tone almost desperately hateful.

“You all see the stars outside. You see how the constellations have shifted. The Earth is a sphere—we’ve known this since Eratosthenes’s experiment two thousand years ago, and I doubt very much it has changed—and so she spins through the Universe like a slow-moving top, as reliable in her rotations as any other of Nature’s works. But for the stars to have moved…” He trailed off. John watched him closely, wondering what his sudden vacant expression was about.

He has a theory. But he won’t share it. Benjamin was a thoughtful and learned man, who prized the knowledge garnered from books above all superstitions, and John knew he had an incredibly high standard for intelligence, and believed himself to still be in pursuit of it. That beautiful mind…

Benjamin looked at him, as though sensing his thought, and then looked away.

Jacobson walked back over to the window and stared out. Abner was shaking in the corner, but at least he wasn’t shouting anymore.

“So,” John said carefully. “The plan. You said we ought to make for these cays, careen for a day or two, and if this phenomenon has not passed, we then make for Royal.”

“Yes,” Benjamin said.

Their eyes lingered on one another. John barely noticed Hazard was rocking a little harder than before, just as he scarcely heard the cries of alarm coming from the main deck.

Abner finally spoke up. “It’s not natural.”

“Of course it isn’t natural, old man,” Jacobson scoffed. “It’s hardly natural for the sun to delay sunrise—”

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“Not that,” he said. “Them.” He gestured at both Vhingfrith and Laurier.

John blinked. It took him a moment to register his quartermaster’s cruel eyes, and realize what he was saying. And so, finally. It was what he had been dreading seeing since their friendship began. The day the man’s religion outpaced his love and loyalty to his captain. It happened like that with John; friendships gained, strengthened, and then lost, tossed over the side like a bucket of waste whenever someone found out about his preference towards men. Otherwise good people turned their backs on him, and often after many years of trusting him. He was used to it. Society said he was a deviant, and he had survived many of society’s lashings for it, and though the scars had healed, the lessons made him only the more reluctant to make friends.

Friendships easily failed these tests. It happened often, yet it never got any easier.

“What do you mean?” asked Jacobson, walking over to Abner.

“I think you know what I mean, Mr. Jacobson,” said the quartermaster. “I’m sure you’ve suspected your own captain of—”

“Abner, this is indecent of you,” John said.

“Indecent! Me?” Abner spat on the floor. “That is a load of shit coming from—”

“Abner!”

“No, no, it’s all right, Captain,” said Vhingfrith, standing up smoothly, his hands out invitationally. “Pray, let the man speak his mind.”

Abner shrank from the man. His mouth formed in a moue of distaste. It was evident to anyone watching he had nothing but the greatest contempt for Vhingfrith. His words only confirmed it. “My stomach turns,” he hissed, and made the sign of the cross in the air. “It turns to look at you!” He looked over at John. “Not only do you consort with a man in an indecent way—ways you’ve had me punish other men for performing—you do so with a man who’s half savage!” He glared daggers back at Vhingfrith. “You shouldn’t even be permitted ownership of anything! How can you be granted a ship when—”

“I was baptized, sir,” Vhingfrith said calmly, shrugging. “Baptized and then allowed to take an oath. By English law that gives me—”

“Baptized!” He spat the word from his mouth like it was poison.

“Indeed, yes, baptized.”

“And you think that makes you any Englishman’s equal?”

“In England, sir, where they still follow laws, it does suffice. It has all the merits of—”

“Where they still follow laws?”

“What?”

“You said, ‘where they still follow laws.’”

“Indeed, I did.”

“And so, you show your true colours. You suggest a higher station for yourself, Captain. As privateers, you reckon yourselves above us! You give yourself airs! Airs you have not earned or even—”

“I give myself no airs, Mr. Crane.”

“The fuck you say!”

“Mr. Crane—”

“You have laws and codes, eh? Well, so do we! Our own code, Captain, and it says—”

“I’m well aware of the pirate code—”

“—it says when two men have umbrage ’tween themselves, they may settle it on shore! With pistols and swords!”

“Abner!” shouted Laurier, surging forth. “You overstep your bounds. And you grieve me, old friend. You grieve me deeply. And you would be mad to cross swords with anyone, half-cripple that you are.”

Yet again, Vhingfrith halted John with a raised hand. “Mr. Crane, I will forgive your language and dismiss it as the strain from the exigencies of our current predicament, but I will ask that you henceforth tame your tongue—”

“God judges you!” Abner cried. “Both of you! And we are caught in your judgment by proximity. The Hellmouth has opened wide, and we sailed into it because of—”

“Gentlemen,” Laurier said, stepping between them. He was not sure they had noticed, or had meant to do it, but each man had taken one step closer to the other. Laurier’s cabin suddenly felt very small. Smaller, still, when he noticed that Jacobson had so far done nothing to defend his captain. Even if they be enemies, both honour and the laws of the sea demand that he ought to defend the one occupying his ship’s captaincy.

That was when Laurier realized the true volatility of this scene. They were all going to kill each other. Both crews. They would fight each other, blaming one another for this predicament, and for a dozen different reasons, ranging from moral stances to superstitious ones. They would fight and kill one another until only a handful remained to sail the two ships on.

“Gentlemen,” he said again. “Let us get some air.”

But no one moved. Laurier was suddenly glad he had both a pistol and a sword strapped to him. He had a feeling if Abner, his oldest friend on this ship, had truly abandoned him, then once he attacked Benjamin, the Lively’s own first mate would let it happen. Jacobson would pray that Abner conveniently removed the half-Negro for him.

And then I’ll have to kill them both.

Suddenly, there came cries from the deck above them. The note of alarm in those cries could not be missed, and all at once every man was broken from his spell. Laurier, Vhingfrith, and Jacobson all rushed from the room to the main deck, leaving Abner fuming where he stood, clutching his crucifix.

Upon the main deck, they faced the night sky again. Laurier had hoped the shouting was due to the sun returning, but instead it marked only the start of more chaos. Two men were holding a third man back against a stack of barrels. It was Jenkins and Oliver, keeping Isaacson held back from Dobbs, who himself was being protected by a wall of Hazard’s other men, while a crowd had gathered around them from both crews. Anne had a dagger drawn and aimed at the Lively’s crew, who had crossed over the planks and were shouting at some of the Hazard’s people. There was shoving, and someone from the Lively had drawn a sword.

So far, John saw no blood. “What is the meaning of this?” he boomed.

Vhingfrith was right beside him, putting his chest against those of his own men and bellowing in their faces to get back to the Lively.

“Isaacson said you was to blame, sir,” Jenkins claimed. He seemed nearly out of breath, like the fighting had been going on a while. “Young Dobbs there only wanted to defend your honour, but when they started fightin’ the Lively’s men rushed across and egged it on, and, well…”

“All of this over an insult, Mr. Dobbs?”

“That’s not all it’s about, sir,” said Oliver.

“Then what else?”

“The moon, sir!” shouted someone. It was Dobbs. John spun around to look at the boy, whose nose was bloody and his cheeks streaked by tears. He pointed to the sky. “The moon!”

“What about it?”

“It’s split in twain, Captain! Look!”

“Oh…God,” whispered Abner, who now came slowly up the ladder. He had a smile on his face, but it was a species of smile John had never seen before. It was haunted, like how he imagined a man would look when he saw his dead mother coming down from the heavens to tell him everything was going to be all right. He dropped to his knees and wept. “God in Heaven…be merciful! Your Kingdom is shattered and we are to blame!”

“Abner, I’ll say this only once more. Get hold of yourself.”

“Captain Laurier,” said Benjamin. John looked at him, and saw him gazing at the far horizon. His face was lit, and that cat’s-eye of his glimmered brilliantly. More brilliant than ever before.

That was when John noticed the night was unusually bright. There was an extra glow, so bright it illuminated every face without need of a lamp. John looked at all their faces, and felt Hazard swaying unnaturally beneath his feet. What is causing that? The strange motion was finally noted by him consciously.

When he finally turned and looked at the moon, John thought he was seeing things. Like when Kepler had roused him two hours ago to tell him the sun was late, he felt this was some dream, and he experienced an inward, vertiginous lurch. Now he gawked with the others at a pair of moons. A pair of moons. One half as big as the other and with a pinkish hue, just now emerging from behind the moon they had all known forever.

For once, the Ladyman could find no humour in the moment.

____

It was about forty years ago that Isaac Newton declared his discovery that the tides were long-period waves that moved through the seas in response to forces exerted by the moon. Vhingfrith tried explaining this, first to his men, then to Hazard’s. But soon he gave up. He could have told them that much, that the reason the waters around them were suddenly choppier was because of a manifestation brought on by the second moon. This he could have told them. He could also expound on the belief that the sun’s own refracted light was what gave the moon its light, and that da Vinci himself (a name most of them had never heard) had hypothesized on this, so if the moon was still alight, the sun must still exist somewhere, on the other side of the planet. All this he could have told them, if they would only listen.

What he could not tell them was why there were now two moons in the sky and still no sun.

“Whatever’s happening here, must be happening on land, as well,” said Laurier to him at one point. The Ladyman had pulled Benjamin off to one side so they could converse together. They both stood, nearly forgotten, beside half a dozen African slaves that had been freed from the Nuestra, all of whom were now on their knees and muttering something. Akil, their leader, began a song in low, low tones, and the others joined in. Okoa, Laurier’s one-legged African lineman, explained that it was a tribal song about rejoicing in the sun’s rays. They were trying to call the sun back.

Vhingfrith looked at all these black-skinned men and saw how they looked back at him. Their ways were alien to him, and his appearance must surely strike them as odd, for more than one reason. But he did recall a similar song that his mother used to sing to him when he was a small boy, the tone was almost exactly the same and she sang it at every sunrise. But while Vhingfrith’s father had made sure he could read, write and speak many different European languages, he put no emphasis on African languages, and Benjamin’s mother made no effort to teach him.

The result was he always felt like a foreigner, no matter where on Earth he stood. The two moons had, at the very least, made every other man feel the same way as he. Like we are all outsiders now.

“We may as well imagine the chaos we are seeing here is going to be happening in every city, in every port,” Laurier was saying.

Benjamin had been trying to forget John was there. He had not been this close and this alone with Captain Laurier in years. It felt odd, like one of them ought to say something about it, but Benjamin wished to avoid the topic altogether.

“Yes, I know,” Vhingfrith said, his eyes set on those two moons, both gibbous, both brilliant and undeniably there. Many things floated through his mind. Every lecture his father had ever given him about celestial navigation and odd goings-on concerning the heavens. He marshalled all his mental powers to try and recall a single incident his father had ever described that could explain something like this. None leapt to mind. What is going on? God in Heaven, what is going on?

Vhingfrith had a theory, but without more information, he could not solidify that theory, and so he kept it to himself and got to the work of executing his plan. “This is what we will do.”

Laurier smiled at him. “Oh, excellent! I was hoping you would say that.”

“Pardon?”

“Whenever you say, ‘This is what we will do,’ it means you have a plan. Usually a good one. I recall that much from our long friendship.”

Vhingfrith would prefer to forget their “friendship,” but he could not deny, in the moment, that it cheered him to have someone calling him friend. It also could not be denied—though he tried to mollify this part of his mind—that it heartened him just to see John’s smile. He’d missed it. In fact, he feared how much he’d missed it. “Perhaps you are right,” Benjamin shrugged. “In any case, you and I will both go over and give our most convincing display of uniformity. We tell each of these men that there has been a mistake, that you and I both found entries in our rutters from captains that have passed through this region before, and that they all report a random anomaly where, upon one night, pockets of gas rose up from the sea and put their crews to sleep. That is all that happened. Am I clear? We all fell asleep for one day, and we merely woke up the following night. Follow?”

John winced, and shuffled uncertainly. “Do you think that will work?”

“It must.”

“So then, today’s date is not the twenty-ninth of August, but in fact the thirtieth of August?”

“Yes, that is exactly what we tell them.”

“And…we slept. Pockets of gas, you say. A gas that puts men to sleep for a whole day.” Laurier almost laughed. “Where did you come up with that?”

“I happen to know of an event in India where something similar happened. A volcano erupted some two hundred years ago, somewhere in the Andaman Islands, but a week before the eruption, people reported cracks in the earth where sulfur-smelling fumes blanketed an entire village. Most of the people died, some of them only slept a day or two.”

Laurier smiled at him again, and Benjamin could not bear it, he looked away. “Very clever as always, Ben—Captain. But what will we do when the sun does not rise in the next few hours?”

“We will head sou’sou’west, and careen in a cay closer to here, taking advantage of this wind change. It should only take us three hours to get there, perhaps four. I am not sure it is safe there, it may be that there are natives on it, some of the Island Caribs.” John gave him a look. Island Caribs were natives that could sometimes be violent to outsiders. Some were cannibals. “I know your reservations, and I share them,” Benjamin said. “But right now, I think we need to get on land. So, make your course change, and follow behind Lively. If you experience mutiny or any other distress along the way, or if you just…find yourself in danger, place a lantern at the fo’c’s’le. I’ll keep an eye out.”

A bead of sweat, pushed from his pores by worry, despite the growing cold wind, slid down his forehead, and before Benjamin could stop him, John had reached up to wipe it away. John’s smile might have grown wider, his blue-painted lips framing his teeth. It would look ridiculous on anyone else. But on him…

“You’re worried about my safety?”

“Do not flatter yourself, Captain,” Benjamin said, straightening his shoulders. “I’m merely worried about mutiny. A mutiny on one ship will likely give cause to embolden a mutiny on the other. That is all.”

“Of course,” John said. “And the two moons? The distortion of the stars? How do we explain those to the men?”

“The gas explains it credibly enough. Gas pockets are known to create illusions. It only appears there are two moons. That is what we tell them. Understood? The lie must buy us enough time to reach the cays. We need only make it to land,” Benjamin urged.

“And from there?”

“What do you mean?”

“Once we’re on land. What do we do?”

“You know my mind, John, you know I wait to see the mood of the men before I make decisions about such things. I must—why are you looking at me like that?”

The Ladyman smiled as wide as ever. “John?”

“What?”

“You called me John.”

“Did I?” Benjamin shrugged, aggravated with the damnable man. “So I did. A mistake, I assure you. It won’t happen again.”

Laurier’s smile evaporated. “If we reach land, you know what must happen.”

“I will not entertain it, J—Captain Laurier. I will not. These are still my men, and they swore an oath to me, and I to them.”

“You know what must happen,” Laurier repeated.

“They took an oath—”

“An oath they have been waiting to toss overboard ever since they had to lower themselves to serve under you, an oath they will forget all about and take your ship because no Admiralty Court in Port Royal will care about a dead Negro captain—”

“Damnable man!” he hissed, turning his back to the crew so none of them could see his frustration. “Do not put me in this position!”

“What position?”

“You and your clever schemes.”

“Clever? Schemes? You do me more credit, sir, than I deserve—”

“Do not play coy! You know what you’re doing! You’re letting me make the plan and then drawing a conclusion about what must be done by the end of its success. Just as always. Worse, you seem to be looking for a reason to—” He chose his words carefully. “To be rid of all these men.”

“They are all rid of me, sooner or later. And you the same. I’m used to it”

Vhingfrith snorted. “I had heard your reputation had grown darker. ‘A man who left his last crew marooned,’ they say in Royal. I did not believe it before, but now you make me wonder.”

“I am merely making a statement of fact.”

“Hog’s wallow! You aver as you always have, and are engaged in one of Man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy.”

“Which is?”

“The search for moral justification for selfishness,” he said. “And none other. It has always been your argument, upon my word. Fuck everybody else and run.”

“I never did that with you. You, however, were only too glad to run from me.”

Vhingfrith wanted to slap him. Now was not the time to revisit any of this.

John looked him in the eye. “I once told you that men like you and I have limitations in this world,” he said softly. “Those limitations come at a cost. I am loyal to only one other person in these seas.”

“And who is that?”

John reached out, as if to touch the locket around Benjamin’s neck, but stopped himself. “I see you kept it. I’ve kept mine, as well.”

Benjamin fumed a moment before calming himself. John Laurier had always been capable of rattling his cage, but he would not succumb to his games this time. “Don’t change the subject. I am loyal to these men. Most of them…they will remember their oaths.”

John sighed. “You believe that?” he said, skeptically.

“I know it.”

The Ladyman nodded as though he understood.

But it was clear to Benjamin that John was ready to do whatever it took to survive this madness. If all the crewmen went mad, he would kill them all, or maroon them. If a few kept their heads and remained loyal, he would spare them. It was clear John Laurier had not changed. The only question was, once they reached shore, would he act on his murderous instincts?

“What about these moons?” John said.

“What about them? I’ve already told you, we tell the men they are illusions cast by—”

“Pockets of gas, yes.” John glanced up at them. “You say the moons control the tides, and that is the reason for these choppy waters. My question, Captain Vhingfrith, is what will the tides look like on the islands? Will the beaches still be there? Is careening even possible now?”

Vhingfrith looked back at his men, some of them still arguing. And Hazard’s men were shouting at Lively’s. The mannish-looking woman, Anne Bonny, stood saying nothing while four of Lively’s men stared daggers at her, and one of them was demanding to see her breasts. Jacobson was corralling some of the men back over to the Lively, but some were arguing with him. It was becoming chaotic. “I suppose,” he sighed, “we will figure that out once we come to it. Because if we cannot drop anchor somewhere and get to shore, I may soon be dead. I may as well admit there is some merit in your concerns.”

“I won’t let that happen,” John said. “They will have to go through me first, and there is not a man among them that can do it.”

Benjamin looked at him. “There’s Jacobson.”

John smirked. “On his best day he couldn’t stop me. Besides, the oaf is injured.”

He still boasts like a lion. It gave Benjamin a thrill to feel such fellowship. But it also gave him something more. Benjamin walked away without looking at John. If he looked back, he would have to revisit that shadowy place in his mind where his father forbade him to ever visit again.

John is a good man, deep down, he had said, and his love for you can be a valuable asset at times. But you cannot indulge it the way you want. If you do that, baptism or no, you will have given every Englishman and pirate in these seas the excuse they’ve been looking for to stop seeing you as human.

Cherish your love for him. But abandon all thoughts of ever being with him.

And so he had. For his own safety and John’s.

Benjamin and John enacted their plan, and after nearly half an hour of explaining—most of which Benjamin did on his own, elaborating on some of the science behind the random pockets of sulfuric gas and their inoculative powers on men—they were finally able to mollify and separate their crews and get back to work. Before he crossed the plank, though, Vhingfrith did toss one more worried look back at Laurier, who moved about with a stern gaze, resplendent in his feminine garb and tricorne hat, commanding men with grave faces. John Laurier had never more earned the cognomen of Ladyman than now, with his skirt snapping in a howling wind, and moving with the grace of a cat, his black coat framing his wide shoulders. Benjamin could not but admire the astonishing figure, so masculine and confident in stature, yet soft and delicate.

Vhingfrith did not see any sign of the harsh quartermaster, Abner, and he found himself worrying for John.

Then he turned and left the Hazard.

“At the waist!” he shouted as he walked the plank back across. “Ship capstan bars! Stand by to weigh anchor! Boatswain’s party, ready to let fly! Mr. Dawson, how does she sit?” he said, jogging up the steps to the quarterdeck, from where one received a commanding view of the new night sky and its sister moons.

“Waters are awfully choppy, sir,” the helmsman said. His face, so easy to see in the double moonlight, appeared shaken but it was clear he was made of somewhat sterner stuff than the rest of the lads. The rum on his breath might also have something to do with his courage. “But she’s resting easy enough.”

“Excellent. I’ve got a course change for you.” After describing their new southwesterly course, Vhingfrith checked his timepiece. It was almost nine o’clock in the morning. Nine o’clock and no sunrise. “On deck there!” he shouted to a few stragglers coming back from the Hazard. “On deck there! Make ready for course change! Stand by tacks and braces!”

As Lively set sail, Benjamin looked out from the stern, to where Hazard was falling slightly behind. He closed his right eye and peered through the darkness. The Hazard’s crew performed lively enough, but he also saw a few seamen resting at her rails, leaning over the side, doing nothing, languid from fear and anxiety. He looked across his own deck and found two or three crewmen doing the same.

Vhingfrith looked for Jacobson, and found him climbing down from the mainmast. He, Galbraith and Collins were all conferring about something. Once or twice, he caught them casting a glance in his direction. They probably didn’t think Vhingfrith could see them in the darkness, but they forgot his cat’s-eye made them out clearly enough. McCullough came up from below carrying spare timber, and Gibbons followed quickly with a bucket of treenails to drive them into place. Vhingfrith also caught sight of Hoyt and Gordon Burr, both of them pulling rope taut across the deck and securing it. When they were done, Hoyt whispered something to Gordon, and they went below. Returning to the helm, Vhingfrith looked across the black water. He suddenly felt friendless.

And cold.

The wind was indeed chill, almost like the tramontane Jacobson believed it to be. It whispered to him of Burr’s death, of his action against the Nuestra, of his past deeds, of that shadowy place where he and Laurier met all those years ago—

Vhingfrith shook himself. He would not let his mind go there. Yet he glanced back at Hazard to make sure he still had a friend. The pirate vessel was now a comfort. A small one, to be sure, but a comfort.

“Captain?” said Dawson, turning the wheel half a degree. “Is it true what you said? The story you told? Did we really just sleep a whole day and wake up the next night?”

“I do believe that is what happened, Mr. Dawson.”

Dawson let out a sigh he had likely been holding for hours. “That’s good. That’s good. I thought we had all…I don’t know what I thought, sir. Being honest, I just don’t know.”

“Luff and touch her, Mr. Dawson,” Benjamin said, watching how near they were able to get Lively to the wind. He gazed at the two moons straight ahead. “Steady on.” He spoke no more of it, knowing only his confidence and coolness would convince Lively’s crew of his lie. Which meant he had to stick to it, and be as steady with his nerves as a schooner in calm waters.

The wind seemed to grow colder. Where is the sun?

Vhingfrith dipped belowdecks, to check on Scarecrow and his patients. Tyndall was attending eight badly injured men, all of them suffering from thrusts by Spanish swords. Two of them were not likely to make it. Looking down at their sweating faces and grievous wounds, and listening to their delirious rantings to long-dead relatives, Vhingfrith wondered if these men were in fact being spared a fate more grim than death.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered to each of them. “And open them in a place where the sun still shines.”

One of them slipped free of his mortal coil while holding the captain’s hand, and Benjamin sat beside the soulless corpse for a few moments, looking into those glazed eyes, trying to imagine what they were seeing. And then he closed them and gave Scarecrow the order to send the lad into the water.

Benjamin walked the decks of his brig, checking the bilge, inspecting the cargo, all while watching the faces of his crew. In the darker places, where there were no lanterns, he was glad of his cat’s-eye, glad that he could see the faces of those men around him. They knew that he could see them in the dark. Perhaps that would stave off an ambush. A little less than sixty men were left aboard Lively, and he was confident more than half would be glad of his death.

And he went to visit the slaves. Eight Africans taken from the Nuestra. John Laurier had taken six slaves aboard the Hazard, but whereas the Ladyman had offered them all to become crew, the Devil’s Son had made no such compact. None of the Africans spoke English, and Lively had no one to translate the African tongue, therefore these men sat here, in the hold, chained together but not bolted to the floor or walls. They were fed and given fresh clothes, but they all understood the truth. They were still slaves, and likely to be sold rather than liberated. Benjamin looked upon each of their faces, and saw how they beheld him as a wicked creature, something not African and not English. Benjamin had no friends here. None at all. The Africans just stared at him from their dark corner and wondered what he would do next. He left them alone, surely to plot and scheme in secret.

Let them.

When he returned to the quarterdeck and stood next to Dawson at the helm, Vhingfrith clasped his hands behind his back commandingly and looked ready for another adventure. He kept gazing at the new, pink-hued moon. Then at the stars. He wondered how many others had started to notice that the stars were not just distorted, but they were moving more slowly through the night sky. Vhingfrith himself had been quietly wishing the second moon was an illusion, but if Newton was right, then the slow-moving stars only confirmed it was real.

It also enhanced his theory, which he did not even want to utter into his own mind. Not yet.

And now, for the first time, a needle of ice threaded through his heart. Fear, both acidic and immediate, poured into his belly, just gazing into the unknown horror of a foreign cosmos.

Sometimes that is all it takes to change a man’s mind, and make him see reality. For Ben knew in that moment that if he were this afraid, with feelings of severe doubt encroaching on his good sense, then the milquetoast minds and fearful brutes that he had summoned with coin and lashed together with promises of riches and threats of violence would soon fail. His cat’s-eye caught the sideways glances of crewman, the mistrustful looks, the occasional weeping.

John was right. God damn him, he was right. We cannot travel with these men for long.

“Mr. Dawson?”

“Sir?”

“I am going to tell you something, because I trust you and few others to keep within my confidence.” He looked the helmsman in the eye. “There is going to be a mutiny, and if we are to keep this ship moving east to Royal, you are going to need to do exactly as I say.”

Dawson remained stoic.

They sailed on into the night, with Ben outlining the plan.