Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom

"There was the blood on my punal? You must say this, too."

I nodded. "A lot of it."

"Capitan Burt-you comprehend?"

"Oh, I do indeed, Senora." He favored her with his warmest smile. "Not all beautiful things are treasures, but all treasures are beautiful. You're a treasure."

"Then I, this treasure, ask a question. We come here, not Maracaibo, because they are warned there. Not by me. Did you think that?"

His head bobbed, though so little I might have missed it. "I had to consider it, Senora. I'd have been a fool not to. Would I credit the idea now? Not I, Senora. I wouldn't."

I was starting to relax. It could have been the wine, but I think that what Capt. Burt had just told us had a lot more to do with it. I said, "Let me put another idea to rest before it comes up. We had a prisoner we were holding for ransom, a Spanish lady called Pilar. Her ransom was paid-I'll give you your cut of that and a good deal more before we go. When it was, I handed her over to John Bowen, who'd collected the ransom for us, and I assume he handed her over to her relatives."

"I see." Capt. Burt was watching me, his face expressionless.

"So there are a bunch of questions. Could she have heard about Maracaibo while we had her? Yes, it-"

"That fool?" Novia looked as if she wanted to spit. "She might hear a hundred times and understand nothing."

"It isn't likely," I continued, "but it's possible. I know I didn't spill the beans. But my officers knew-Rombeau and Bouton. I made them swear they'd tell no one, but who knows?"

Capt. Burt nodded.

"I also, Crisoforo."

"Right. Novia here, too. It could have happened. Next question. Could Pilar have gotten to Veracruz in time for her to tell somebody there, who wrote a letter that he put on a ship to Maracaibo-a ship that was taken by Captain Gosling, who told you about the letter? And-oh, yeah, there had to be time for you to have a meeting with your captains and tell them about it, and send off Harker to tell us."

"Right you are, Chris. Was there?"

"Absolutely not. Two days after I turned Pilar over to Bowen, we sailed for Long Bay. We got there the next day. Harker was riding at anchor there when we came into the bay. Say four days tops. I'd bet you a doubloon to a shilling that Pilar was still in Port Royal when we talked to Harker. I'll bet you again-same bet-that Bowen sent her to Spain, not Veracruz. As a gentleman and a friend, I'll warn you before you take my bet that Spain was where he told me he'd send her. It's where her family is."

"Need I say I believe you, Chris? I do. One more question, and we'll leave it. Whom have you told?"

"The people I've already mentioned. Bouton, Rombeau, and Novia here. Nobody else."

"And you, Senora? Whom did you tell?"

"Nadie. No one."

I said, "We should ask you the same question, Captain Burt. Who did you tell?"

He sipped his wine. "Far too many, as is now clear. All my captains. Besides yourself, Gosling, Cox, Lesage, Dobkin, Isham, Ogg, and Harker. All my captains. Add to that Tom Jackson, my mate. You don't have to tell me any one of them may have been indiscreet. I know it already."

"You must indulge me," Novia said, "for I am a woman and we ask many questions. Has someone told them in Portobello? If no, we should act soon, is that not true? If yes, we should not go there at all, I think."

"I agree, Senora. Your Captain Chris has brought us two fine ships. Three more ships would complete our pirate fleet-Isham's, Lesage's, and Harker's."

Capt. Burt drummed his fingers on the table, and his face got hard. "The minute one more arrives, we'll sail. If none in a week, we'll sail anyway with what we have." That night, as Novia and I lay naked and sweating in the larger, longer bunk I had made for us in Port Royal, she said, "There is a certain one you did not speak of today, Crisoforo. One more who might know. I did not say her name to Captain Burt, and now I wish you to know I did not."

"I told him the truth," I said, "he wanted to know who I'd told, not who might have overheard me."

"She was listening, you think? In the wall which once was in the White Castle?"

"Say Castillo Blanco, "I told Novia, and kissed her ear to show I was half kidding. "You don't translate ships' names."

"Was she?"

I do not remember just what I said then. Probably it was that Estrellita might have been. If she had been, and had told, who could blame her?

Two days after I had reported to Capt. Burt, Capt. Isham's Emilia joined us. We sailed the next morning, going wide of Portobello before entering the Gulf of Saint Blaise.

The Native American tribe Capt. Cox had found for us was the Kuna. Nothing I had seen in Veracruz had prepared me for them. The men went naked, or nearly so, and striped their bodies with black paint.

The women touched up their faces and bodies with red paint a lot like ours do. They wore blankets or shawls, draped in various ways and generally slipping in one way or another at any unusual motion. Quite a few were slender, handsome girls, so flirtatious that I wondered if they had learned it from the Spaniards who raided them for slaves. For as long as we were among these women, men disappeared-only to rejoin us, grinning and swaggering, after an hour or two.

Both men and women wore nose rings, and the status of the wearer could be judged by them. The rings of the poor ones were silver and narrow. Wealthier ones wore wider silver rings. For still richer Kunas, the ring was gold. The ring of chief was gold, and so wide he had to lift it with one hand to eat and drink.

There were a number of white women Kunas, blonder women than any American I ever saw. Their eyes were blue, and their hair hardly yellower than ivory. Capt. Cox, who knew the Kuna better, I think, than anyone else, told me once that these white Native Americans could see better in the dark than by day, like owls. They were of all ranks, as far as I could see, some having narrow silver rings, and a few broad gold ones. The women who were better off, both the blondes and the black-haired women, wore necklaces and bracelets of beads.

We gave the chief a good many gifts, which he parceled out among his people. When I heard there was to be an exchange of gifts, I expected junk jewelry, but we did not have any. We gave him steel axes, hatchets, knives and needles, as well as some copper pots that had been polished bright. In return we got gifts of fresh meat, fruit, and cornmeal. That may not sound like much, but you should have seen us eat.

This chief was a tall man, elderly but still strong-looking. He wore a crown of rushes bound with a gold band. We called him the king and said "Your Majesty" when we talked to him. His robe was a loose smock of cotton hardly thicker than cheesecloth that I would think must originally have been a woman's retiring gown. It had been embroidered just about everywhere with red and black thread. The designs were probably significant to him and his people, but to me they were only meaningless shapes of various colors, except for a big red-and-black cross.

He had many wives and what seemed like at least two dozen daughters. Seeing these, Novia informed me in no uncertain terms that she was sticking close to me when we marched. I countered by ordering her to remain on the Sabina, and swore that I would flog her if she disobeyed. She said that I could beat her if I liked-she could not prevent me-but she would come no matter how cruelly I punished the love she bore me.

I countered, of course, by saying that if she truly loved me she would trust me with the chief's daughters or any other woman on earth.

She replied to that one by threatening to kill herself if I left her behind. And so it went.

The next day the chief asked that she be undressed for his inspection, as he had never seen "English woman." That decided me.