James Nelson - The Pirate Round

“We think you are the man to lead this thing,” Sir Edmund said. “No one expects you can entirely wipe out the villains in the Indian Ocean. But we want a lesson taught, do you see? Show ’em they ain’t as safe as they reckon. Go after them on the high seas and in their so-called strongholds on the island of Madagascar.”

“And St. Mary’s,” Press interjected. “Hotbed of piracy, St. Mary’s. It cannot be ignored.”

“Yes, yes, St. Mary’s, of course. You’ll receive the same pay as the captain of an East Indiaman, plus a double share of the prize money.”

“Twenty-five percent of the prize money,” Press said.

“Twenty-five… well, now…” Sir Edmund blustered, looking to his fellows for support.

You fat bastards, thought Press. You want to drive the pirates out and get richer still on prize money and plunder. Playing both ends of it, and me in the middle to do the dirty business.

“I don’t see how we can…” Sir Edmund said, in a tone that would admit no argument.

“Twenty-five percent or I shall bid you good day.” He took the silver toothpick between thumb and forefinger, stabbed it into his gum.

More muttering, soft consultation, and then Sir Edmund said, “Very well. Twenty-five percent.”

Press smiled. “You see, gentlemen, it would seem I am a pirate still!”

That joke received only weak smiles, a few uneasy glances. These men, Press knew, did not care to traffic with the likes of him, even if he was now a wealthy and famous privateersman, his clothing almost as fine as theirs. He reckoned they would burn the chair he was sitting in once he left, and toss away the glass he had used.

They despised him, feared him. Five years ago they would have seen him hanged, if he had come before the judges they controlled. But now they needed him.

That did not bother Press in the least. Being despised was nothing new to him.

For that matter, he would have taken their damned two shares if they had been more insistent. He didn’t care about that either. All that really mattered was that these stupid bastards were going to give him two powerful ships and a private army and governmental permission to rampage through the Indian Ocean.

They had specifically said that he was to go to St. Mary’s. That was what mattered.

“So, Captain, you will accept this commission?”

“Yes, Sir Edmund, I do believe I will.”

The Elizabeth Galley rolled along under a perfect sky, taking the sixteen knots of wind on the quarter and plowing an easy course through the blue, blue sea.

Their heading was a little south of east, their destination Bermuda. A lovely island. Thomas had persuaded Elizabeth that they should call there en route to London. The beauty of the place aside, they needed another six able-bodied seamen at least, if they were going to sail or fight their way unescorted through the cordon of pirates and French privateers that patrolled the approaches to the English Channel.

Newport or New York might have been better choices for that, but Marlowe did not care to put in at those places. Too many faces from the sweet trade, he argued, wandering about those waterfronts. Too many ghosts.

The wind had not failed them, and the ship worked as if she had never been laid up. The young black men from Marlowe House had labored at setting up the masts and rigging-the very best possible training-and so terms such as “topsail weather brace” and “fore course clew garnets” were perfectly familiar to them by the time they were under way. Halfway to Bermuda, and they were well advanced in their new careers as sailors.

The lookouts aloft had sighted three sail in the course of the passage, each one a potential enemy, each a potentially grave threat to the unarmed ex-privateer, but they had left each of them below the horizon. The Elizabeth Galley was still a fast ship.

They raised Bermuda a fortnight after getting under way, and the following morning the Elizabeth Galley stood in past Spanish Point. The men crowded the rails, the officers and Elizabeth on the quarterdeck, as Bermuda’s Great Sound opened up before them and they swung off to the east, threading their way into Hamilton Harbor.

One of Honeyman’s sailors was in the chains with the lead, another up in the foretop scouting for coral. They were quiet men and somewhat surly, like Honeyman himself, but they were thoroughgoing sailors, and Marlowe had come to rely on them during the fitting out and the crossing to Bermuda.

“Have you been to Bermuda before, Mr. Dinwiddie?” Marlowe asked the first officer as the ship crept along under fore topsail alone.

“The one time, in ’89. Lovely place. I’ve entertained thoughts often enough of settling here, get some little enterprise or other going.”

They rounded up, and Marlowe gave Honeyman in the bow a wave, and Honeyman ordered the anchor let go. It plunged into the bright blue-green water of the harbor, and the Elizabeth Galley came to rest.

They fired a salute to the governor, Isaac Richier, whom Marlowe knew only by reputation. Dinwiddie sent hands aloft to stow sail. Marlowe sent his compliments to Richier, along with a letter of introduction from Governor Nicholson. The boat brought back an invitation to dinner.

“Mr. Dinwiddie, I do hope you will join us at the governor’s dinner?” Marlowe said. It was an offhand remark, an invitation of no great importance as far as Marlowe was concerned, and so he was surprised to find Peleg somewhat flustered at the thought.

“Dinner, you say? At the governor’s?”

“Yes…”

“Did he… Surely he didn’t specifically ask that I should join you?”

“No, not by name. I fear your fame has not spread this far. But he says ‘any of your officers whom you would please to bring,’ and I would certainly please to bring you.”

“Oh, well…” Peleg smiled, then frowned, and then without another word dove below.

An hour later he knocked on the great cabin door, where Elizabeth and Thomas had just finished dressing for dinner. He was red-faced and sweating under a battered wig, much in need of powder, that did not quite cover all the hair he had tried to stuff under it.

He wore a red wool coat that must have been packed away for special occasions-the creases still stood out boldly where it had been folded. His breeches were a bit tighter than one might wish, and his calves were enveloped in plain wool stockings. He wore his only pair of shoes, battered and misshapen. They had not been improved by his attempt to polish them.

“Good day, Captain. Mrs. Marlowe,” he said, stiff and formal, which was not his way. “I hope my appearance will do the ship credit?”

Marlowe did not know what to say. Peleg was a fine officer, a good man, and Marlowe counted him a friend. He should have guessed that Peleg was just a simple sailor, uncomfortable with formal affairs, with little sense for how to handle them.

He shook his head. Who have I become? Ten years before he would not have been able to muster half the social grace that Peleg was displaying. He’d been a drinking, whoring, fighting pirate; the only intercourse the Marlowe of a decade before would have had with a governor would be to stand before him at the bar and plead not guilty.

And here he was, dressed out in a tailored silk coat and embroidered waistcoat, silk stockings, shoes like polished ebony with silver buckles, giving never a thought to dining with the royal governor of Bermuda.

He did not know what to say to Peleg Dinwiddie.

Elizabeth, fortunately, was the soul of tact. There was nothing she did not understand about putting a man at ease. She breezed across the cabin in a rustle of silk and taffeta, her long blond hair swept behind. In that rough male world of the ship, she was like a shaft of light breaking through a thick cover of clouds.