George Martin - The Way of the Wizard

The stranger’s laughter rose in pitch with the sound of splashing. He dangled over the water with the tiger swimming beneath him. The beast lunged upward, swiping at him with its huge paw. He pulled his legs up out of the way and then snapped one down to try to kick the animal’s nose.

Esek had approached them and barked out rough laughter at the sight. “Now that’s a man other men would follow to hell,” he said. Then realizing his own words, “Do you think we’re in hell?”

Proctor shook his head in reply.

The madman swung like a monkey over to the shore and hopped down. As soon as he landed, he snatched up a rock and threw it at the tiger. Without waiting to see if it hit, he turned to his guests. “After all this time, you’d be surprised that there are any rocks remaining, wouldn’t you? But every time I come out here I find some more. Oh… that’s too bad.”

“What?” Proctor asked, but then he saw.

Their little boat was adrift. It floated past the shift, picking up speed, and rammed into the island with enough speed to snap the mast. The waves pulled back and then surged, casting it up on the rocks a second time, this time snapping its keel like the spine of a small animal. Proctor reached out to give Deborah’s arm a reassuring squeeze.

The tiger, treading water just offshore, shook the spray off its head and then paddled away.

“Where is it going?” Proctor asked.

“Back where she came from, just as she always does,” the madman said. “Old Scratch, she’s devious, but predictable.” Then he laughed and clapped his hands. “Well now, who wants some tea?”

The madman walked away from them and checked a variety of tins and broken crockery set out on the rocks.

“We’ll find some way out of here,” Proctor said. “I s—”

“Don’t swear to it,” Deborah said.

Ever the Quaker. It almost made him smile. “I wasn’t going to. I was going to say, I sense magic here, but I haven’t seen him use any yet.”

“I do too, and neither have I. But we should be on our guard. Remember how the Widow Nance tricked us.”

“Too well,” he said. The scars on his arms from that misadventure were still pink and healing. “Can you put a binding spell on him if we need to?”

She opened her hand to reveal several knotted strings. She had been tying them as a focus for a spell. “But not before we find a way off the island.”

Nearby, the madman sniffed at a cracked pitcher. “This one’s fresh,” he said, carrying it over to a circle of rocks outside his shack. “Rainwater.” He piled up pieces of driftwood and knelt to strike a fire. The crack of flint on steel sounded several times before the spray of tiny orange sparks caught hold in the tinder.

The steel and flint puzzled Proctor. If the stranger was a wizard why didn’t he just speak a word and start the fire? Everyone had different talents, but anyone who could open this room off the side of world had incredible power. With the fire going, the madman stood and looked around, puzzled. “Now where did I leave those tea leaves?”

Esek blocked his way. “I know who you are,” he said.

“I’m sure you don’t,” the madman said. His grin was weak.

“You’re Henry Every.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Henry Every, Long Ben, Captain of the Fancy .”

“He’s been dead a long time,” the madman said.

“He’s been gone a long time,” Esek corrected. “He disappeared, never to be seen again. And now I know where you went and why you’ve never been seen.”

“I have tea leaves around here, somewhere, I’m sure,” the madman said, as if they hadn’t spoken. He walked away and examined various plates and fragments of bowls that had been left out on the rocks.

Esek turned to Proctor and Deborah. “Henry Every. I bet you’ve never heard of him either, no more than you’ve heard of Captain Esek Hopkins.”

“No… ” Proctor said. As if he should have heard of every pirate who had ever lived.

“Should we have?” Deborah asked.

Esek shook his head in disbelief. He raised one thick arm and pointed it at the shambling wreck of a man who shuffled around the tiny island lifting and sniffing various plates. “Yes, you should have. That man is the greatest pirate who ever lived. He taught Captain Kidd everything he knew, and… you haven’t heard of Captain Kidd either, I suppose?”

“Him, I’ve heard of,” Proctor said. Captain Kidd was a piece of New England history. There wasn’t a boy in Massachusetts who hadn’t heard of him. “Some say he buried his treasure near Boston, and some say in the Thimble Islands.”

“Captain Kidd sailed through the Thimble Islands,” Esek said. “But it wasn’t to bury his own treasure, it was to dig up Henry Every’s.”

Proctor saw the gleam of greed in Esek’s eyes, and he exchanged a worried glance with Deborah. One madman was more than enough to deal with if they hoped to escape. He tried to interrupt the smuggler, but now that he had started, there was no slowing him down. He paced, using his arms in excitement as he spoke.

“Henry Every is the king of the pirates. He sailed the Fancy in the Indian Sea, where he came across the treasure ship of the emperor of Hindoostan. The treasure ship was huge — it had sixty guns and four hundred soldiers onboard. But Long Ben — that’s what his men called him — laid alongside her in the Fancy , crippled her with the cannons, and then boarded her for some of the bloodiest hand-to-hand fighting any man or devil ever seen. The captain of the ship ran down and hid among the whores—”

Proctor flinched at the harsh word, for Deborah’s sake, though she didn’t show any reaction.

“When Every’s men finally took the ship, they found more than a million dollars in gold and jewels aboard that ship. Each and every man who survived the battle got a thousand pounds in coins and a sack full of rubies and emeralds and diamonds.” He pounded his fist in his palm. “They were as rich as any gentleman in England, and that’s where most of them went, where the authorities arrested them because the emperor of Hindoostan complained to the King. But not Henry Every. He had friends in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and he came here, where a free man has always been welcome. Then he disappeared.”

“The women,” Deborah said.

“What?” Esek seemed confused by her interruption.

“The whores,” she said. “What happened to them?”

“What do you think? The pirates took them aboard for their amusement, those that didn’t kill themselves right away and weren’t killed….” Esek realized what he was saying and the sentence stammered to an end. “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to—”

“Didn’t mean to what?” Proctor asked.

“Didn’t mean to speak so freely, I’m sure,” Deborah said. “Though free men should always speak freely, don’t you think?”

Esek was eager to change the subject. “What I’m trying to tell you is this man is the greatest pirate who ever lived. He stole the treasure ship of Hindoostan and captured all the emperor’s wives. And he got away with it.”

Proctor looked over his shoulder at the sad raggedy man walking barefoot over the cold wet rocks. “It doesn’t look like he got away with it to me.”

Esek gestured to Proctor to step aside. “A word between men,” he said.

“Please feel free,” Deborah said. “I know how men can be… delicate sometimes.”

Proctor stepped aside with the privateer. “Distract Every for me if you can,” Esek said in a hushed tone. “I want to explore that larger island. We need a boat, and there may be one hidden on the far side.”

“I can do that,” Proctor said.