"Ah now,
suh
, no need to be
pullin
' such a face. We only come
seekin
' our fortunes to this land, same as you, no different than
yeself
. We do a respectable service
bringin
' honorable and decent families across the waters. Why, if we only had us fine wives as you tucked into our berths instead, there'd—"
A stinging salty breeze flowed down to him and he could sense a summer storm in the air. He wreathed his hand around the chain of silver he wore around his neck, grasping hold of both the silver cross and the stone medallion bearing the face of the Celtic deity
Anu
, mother of the gods. For a moment he almost let himself be swept up in the urge to mount the stairs and beat back the two boys, but it would only serve to cause greater enmity with the others on board. He dreaded there would already be enough blood awaiting him.
"Die and be damned, you scurvy curs."
The guttersnipes sniggered and gestured for him to come up and the sword at his hip was a reassuring pressure, yet with a grunt of shame he turned and returned at once to his cabin.
But far worse than murderers, he feared that even the dead were at his heels.
Three ships had anchored in nine-fathom waters within the past twenty-four hours outside Port of St. Christopher's, making the small harbor a battleground of drunken pirates ramming each other's skiffs as they landed. Every sailor tried to impress and outspend all the others with the plunder he'd accumulated on various recent raids. A crowd of masts cluttered the harbor. Press-gangs, hell-carts, and coaches raised a racket along the streets. The fish-wives went about the wharves and marketplace selling their wares, and the whores did the same.
Neither Neptune nor the lord Jesus of Nazareth held any sway here. Most of the brigands and marauders stuck to the usual ways of losing their money: crooked card games; harlots who'd fill a man with wine and sweet words before lifting a coin purse; dealing with former freebooters who worked all the havens of the Caribbean, rolling the men who'd once been their mates. The dead piled up along the piers while the swindled sought reparation by looting drunkards and the elderly. The cycle had no beginning or ending, it simply continued from day to day and ship to ship. The same gold piece could pass through twenty hands a night.
A few of the larger ports in the Bahamas had some law enforcement, but such courts held no interest in poor men—pirates or not—and could be bought for a few pieces-of-eight.
Certainly none of the officials were going to stop the fight now underway in the Hog's Head Inn.
It was an odd scene to witness, even in a tavern where the bartender frequently used a machete to lop off the hands of thieves reaching for the till. The throng clattered their bowls and tankards of grog. They knocked furniture back as they eased away from the center of the room where the fray progressed and grew ever more waspish. Cheers and hails went up. Two brawlers laughing in each other's faces as they circled and slashed.
"Have at 'em, lass, but you'll likely lose your blade if you peg his overstuffed belly!"
Jessup, a stocky pirate with a graying beard hanging to his huge gut, stabbed with his sword and continued on after the slight woman causing him so much trouble. She pranced around him while he flailed and thrust. He was the new first mate of the
Baranaro
, now that he'd broken the former mate's skull and dumped the body out beyond the reef in full view of the other men.
He tried like hell to pin the girl but she evaded him easily with a mocking flourish. She wore a simple white blouse and calico trousers with bone buttons down the front, her bountiful figure stirring the men around the Hog's Head even as she dodged and attacked. She had a flintlock pistol stuffed in the wide red sash around her waist, but she refused to draw it.
That in itself was another way to scorn Jessup, and it infuriated him until he barked out snarling chortles. She swatted him twice in the ass with the flat of her blade and the crowd around him roared.
Looping curls of her lank red hair coiled across her eyes as she parried with her cutlass. All she knew of this Jessup was that, besides blatantly murdering officers, he'd robbed one of his own mates a while back in Montserrat, a navigator named
Owlstead
. Pirates usually didn't keep grudges for long because it was a loser's game, holding on to such pettiness when there was so much new ill will stacking up each day.
But
Owlstead
was an exception who had nurtured his malice for six months. He didn't care so much for the missing money, there was always more to be plundered and squandered, but Jessup had taken a ruby earring that
Owlstead
had worn for over forty years, since he'd first stepped off land and become a seaman. For that he wanted vengeance. Jessup had to be humiliated, but
Owlstead
was much too old and discreet to beset the man head-on.
Fights of this sort were so common in the Hog's Head that usually it only took a few minutes before many of the patrons turned their attention back to their card games, listening to the naughty ditties played by the blind squeezebox man. But tonight almost all the men remained enraptured by the fluid moves of this lively girl as she hacked and evaded, her laughter urging them to gather around a bit closer. The air had turned quite festive and they elbowed each other in the ribs, buying one another rounds. She was a handsome woman if not a true beauty, and yet there was something else that drew the sailors to her. They realized she was one of their own, and it gave each man a moment of wild resolve to make a claim on her.
Sparks flew as the swords clashed and splintered the stools. Some men took note of her style, intent on remembering certain moves and maneuvers. Crimson lunged and parried almost as if dancing, enjoying herself even more as Jessup began to tire. His paunch jostled and wobbled as he sidestepped and ducked her blade, his beard slick with sweat. He huffed and eyed the doorway.
She taunted him now and played to her audience. "So, you men say I shouldn't poke him in that bulging belly at all?"
"Let us get a whaling crew here first, is all, you'll let loose sixty gallons of blubber oil, I'd bet!"
"We'll all drown for sure!"
Crimson nodded at Jessup's stomach while he drew away, panting. "More air in there than oil, I'd wager! If I let it out we'll all have a strong wind to fill our sails on the morrow."
"Do it now, Lady, I says! And make our journey that much quicker from this island!"
With more of a grunt than a bellow, Jessup reared and flung himself forward. It was the kind of stupid and desperate ploy Crimson had been expecting for the last several minutes. He had no land legs and couldn't keep himself balanced on ground. With his heels clopping, Jessup spun to his left and chopped high as he whirled, hoping to catch the edge of his sword against her neck as he passed.
Crimson waited as the fat bastard twirled about on his toes so slowly that she could have hacked his ears off at any time. How braggarts like him so often tempted her. She drew three breaths and he still hadn't completed his turn. She poised her cutlass up towards his forehead so that when he came about he saw nothing but the tip of her steel aimed between his eyes.
It was a well-articulated move that brought shouts from the other buccaneers who could appreciate such skill and timing—even if she was only battling against an overstuffed ambusher like Jessup.
"I'd guess you win this contest," he said, grinning, still trying to hold on to some dignity.
"If you must still make a guess at it, louse, then this is the time for you to lay down your weapon."
"It's only been a game so far, girl."
"One that'll end much worse for you if you don't do as I say."
Jessup tossed his sword at her feet, hoping to appear contemptuous. "You've taken all the gold I had," he said, hoping to keep himself composed. She could clearly read the fear in his face, beneath the false grin. Lamp light flickered off her blade as she moved her wrist, flitting the point around his heart. "Sixty-six pieces."
"There were only forty-four."
"Forty-four then! I want them all returned."
She'd been paid over twice that already just to satisfy this debt.
Owlstead
, at the back of the tavern, licked his brittle lips, watching her and enjoying this show. "We all face our share of disappointments, you fleshy dullard."
"Here now, wench!"
"Count yourself lucky. You've repaid some of a long-standing arrears, though I suppose
you've
a good deal more to pay out. From what I know, the former first mate of the
Baranaro
was a well-liked chap and competent at his post. You, I reckon, won't last to see Rum Cay."
"You think not?"
"As I say."
Rubbing at his unshapely belly as though he were ready for a good meal, he asked, "So which one of these putrid sons of strumpets put you on to me, eh? I'll have that out of
ya
before I go on."
Crimson tried hard not to sigh but failed. She let out a stream of breath that tousled hair from the corner of her mouth, shaking her head slowly side to side. She often wondered why it was so often forced to come to this—the men unable to admit defeat even when so close to getting their throats cut. What compulsion drove them to such stupidity?
"Answer me now, girl."
"Here, have it." Crimson gave the cur a sizable gash on the side of his neck to remind him of who was in control here. Jessup cringed and squawked like a chicken, finally dropping his arrogant demeanor.
"Blood!"
"You'll get nothing but your heart plucked out if you don't leave now while I'm still in a good mood."
"She bleeds me!"
"The whiskey in this place is thin as pond water so I doubt I'll be quite so benevolent in a short while. You can run back to your ship and face your mates or you can catch board upon some passing vessel. I suggest the latter choice, if you want to live out the week."
"You hussy witch—"
"None of that." She cut him again in the same spot, deepening the wound. Jessup cried out and hit a nice high squalling note that even the squeeze-box musician couldn't reach on his instrument.
It had been a fine spectacle. Almost everyone in the shadowy, lantern-lit tavern applauded and kicked up a ruckus. Especially loud were the other women freebooters, a few of the fishwives and whores. Though they dressed, swore, and even fought like men, it was still easy to see—with a few notable exceptions—that they too were ladies who needed their liberties. No man should be allowed to speak to a woman thusly in these parts. They raised tankards and cups in salute as Jessup stumbled out of the Hog's Head Inn, whimpering and holding his collar tightly closed as the blood pulsed between his fingers.
Owlstead
gave her one brief nod and was gone, possibly to finish off the job, now that Jessup was beaten down and scurrying for cover.
When Crimson was done with the chubby sod, she sheathed her sword and returned to her table to sit over her cold supper. An old bearded man with a wild shock of white hair and a black leather eye patch sat beside her sipping whiskey.
"I thought
ye'd
have a harder time with him," he said.
"He was just an overconfident ass, like most of them."
"True, but he's still a butcher, truth be known. Some time ago I saw him cut the sex off a merchant in
Mayaguana
and stuff it in the dying man's mouth."
"Ah, well, and here I was hoping he'd marry me. Pity my na
ï
ve dreams. I need more grog."
Welsh—he'd never used another name in front of her—grinned with rotted stumps of teeth. His tangled beard smelled of gunpowder. Like Edward Teach, the notorious Blackbeard, Welsh often intimidated foes in battle by wrapping slow-burning lighted coils in his long hair. It was a good trick and kept their minds focused elsewhere. He had trembling hands but they were thick and powerful. "You've a poisonous tongue on ye, ye do."