Kage Baker: Dark Mondays

John walked on. He caught up with the prince, who’d have marched straight into the sea if John hadn’t caught him by the arm.

“This way, Your Royal Highness,” he said, giving him a shove toward the main road. They trudged along, side by side, toward the city. Flames swept up from most of it now, smelling sweet as incense, for its houses had been made of cedarwood; or maybe that was the churches burning. Women were screaming. There were desperate shouts in English, orders to leave the wine and put the fires out, as Morgan’s officers tried to restore order; but the Brethren were ignoring them, laughing, doing just as they liked.

Blackstone was on the bridge, crawling along on hands and knees. He’d had one foot blown off, by a cannonball seemingly. He’d tied it off himself, but it was still bleeding.

“Good day to you, sir,” he said, as John drew abreast of him. “And to you, Your Highness. I fear we’ll be late to the ball.”

John swore. He tore the shirt from a dead man that lay a little distance off, and wadded it on the stump where Blackstone’s foot had been. Then he was flummoxed, for he couldn’t think how to hold the wadding on.

“You oaf,” said Blackstone, laughing. “Isn’t it obvious? Steal another man’s boot.”

So John helped himself to the dead man’s left boot as well, and when Blackstone’s stump was crammed down in it the bandage stayed in place well enough. John hauled Blackstone up with his arm around John’s shoulders, and they hobbled on.

“You know, there’s six hundred pieces of eight for you if you lose your leg,” said John, with his voice sounding small and funny in his ears. “The articles says so.”

“I don’t recall whether there was payment for losing one’s foot, however,” said Blackstone. “And, you know, that’s just the sort of thing clerks stick at.”

“I reckon so,” said John.

“Do you know Watkin’s inn, hard by St. Paul’s?”

“What, in London?”

“No, you fool, the one in Port Royal.”

“Oh! The Bluebell. No, I never been in there.”

“Well, I’ll thank you to take the prince there, if you get out of this alive and I perish. Ask for Mistress Clarissa Waverly. She’ll pay you for your trouble,” said Blackstone. “Tell her I died singing.”

“Are you likely to do that?”

“It would make a grand gesture, don’t you think?” said Blackstone.

Panama burned to the ground. The Reverend, having left a trail of dismembered enemies in his wake, personally set fire to the cathedral, with its great square tower. One time it had been the tallest building in the New World; and for all the Reverend’s pains, it was still standing after the flames had hollowed it out, though its bells had dropped all the way down the shaft and lay in a molten mass on the stones below. He raved and tried to tear down what was left with his bare hands. His wife and cousin had to get through seven verses of the hymn about the little white lamb before he could be dragged away weeping.

Morgan was by no means pleased with this, for any gold altar plate or cloth-of-gold vestments that might have been left behind were now so many molten lumps and ash. But the Reverend had been the first man into the city, and fought bravely, so he was put down for another fifty pieces of eight, when all the plunder should be counted up.

What with the fires, and the looting, and the fighting that was still going on here and there as some of the townfolk tried to defend themselves, it was hours before Morgan could restore any order; and that only because half the Brethren were too stupefied with wine to cause any more trouble. It was nightfall before John could see Blackstone and the prince squared away, in the hospital that had been left standing. It was another hour before he could persuade himself to walk to Morgan’s headquarters, set up in a plundered convent.

Morgan was in there with his officers, around a table with a map of the city spread out upon it. They were talking over whether it was worth it to blow up any more buildings, or whether the fires were likely to burn themselves out now; and if so, how to organize parties in the morning, to begin searching the wells and gardens, or any other places treasure might have been hidden.

John limped in and sat quiet in a corner, as they went over business. They concluded with talk about who should interrogate the prisoners, and whether any of the Inquisition’s gear had survived the fires, as it should be handy in questioning. Collier agreed to go find that out; whereat they all saluted Morgan, and left him.

Morgan, rolling up the map, looked over at John. John stood and made to say something smart. He choked up instead.

Morgan just went to a cabinet, and got out three bottles of wine. He set them on the table and opened them, one after another.

“Come, boy, and drink for me,” he said. “I don’t believe I could get drunk tonight if I emptied every bottle in this Goddamned city. How do you like my luck, eh?”

John swabbed his face with his sleeve, and said he was sorry. He drank most of a bottle, and only then had the courage to say:

“What was she?”

“A ghost,” said Morgan. “Blood-drinking Revenge, having put on a pleasing shape to accomplish her ends. A man’s sin, come to smile in his face and call him Father. Christ, boy, how should I know?”

They were twenty days in that place before leaving.

Blackstone’s leg mortified, and had to be cut away joint by joint. Each time John stood by him and reminded him how he’d surely get his six hundred pieces of eight now, no clerk in the world could quibble over it; but Blackstone died in the end, so it came to nothing after all. Though he did manage to gasp out a few verses of “The World Turn’d Upside Down” before he went, and so had his grand gesture.

A day or so later, it fell out that some witty fellows decided to crown the prince as ruler of Panama. They made him a crown of twisted vines, with spikes of burnt wood sticking up from it, and an empty sack for a cape, and gave him a cup full of ashes to hold; and they set him on the back of an ass, and led him about carousing, until they all fell down dead drunk.

John was away, running an errand for Morgan. By the time he returned and heard what they’d done, the prince was nowhere to be found. John cursed them, and ran here and there asking who’d seen the prince. At last an Indian prisoner said as how he’d sighted him, still mounted on the ass’ back, riding away on the long road out of the city. A party sent out on horseback failed to find him.

For all John was ever able to learn, the prince is riding still.

The Spaniards, having had plenty of warning that Morgan was coming, and being reasoning men, had emptied what treasure was in the storehouses and sent it away in ships before the Brethren ever got there, as John had feared. So every last ditch and outhouse and cesspool was raked through, and some jewels and candlesticks were found, as well as slaves and prisoners to be ransomed. When it was all packed up on mules and brought back to Chagres, though, when it was counted out and reckoned up according to the number of survivors, it was found that each man’s share amounted to no more than two hundred pieces of eight.

There was some debate whether Lady Phyllida and Mrs. Hackbrace were owed shares, being women. There was no question Mrs. Hackbrace had slain a score of men taking the bastion at San Lorenzo, however, and Lady Phyllida, while not so quick on the kill, had made herself useful in other ways, so in the end the ladies were paid fairly.

Then Hendrik Smeeks started up mutinous talk again, the sense of which was, that Morgan had taken the lion’s share of the plunder for himself. So Morgan had every last coin portioned out publicly, and then had each man searched to be sure he kept nothing back. He let himself be searched too, before them all.