James Nelson - The Pirate Round

“I am not much given to discussing it.”

“So much of your life, a whole world before we met.”

Marlowe pulled her closer. “My life began when we met. Everything that went before was prologue, useless stuff.”

His words were not idle flattery, and Elizabeth knew it.

They anchored with the turning of the tide and twelve hours later were off again, working their way up the river, which grew narrower, more crowded, filthier with each mile made good.

For Thomas and Elizabeth and Francis it was the oddest sensation, watching that familiar shoreline slip by with London springing up around them.

They each had spent considerable time in that city, long before the odd quirks of fate had thrown them together. They all had their own memories, their own feelings that were evoked by seeing ancient, stolid London again. They were familiar with each other, they were familiar with the city, but somehow the two did not fit with one another, like two separate lives pushed together.

“How very foreign it seems,” Elizabeth said in a whisper. “I have become a country girl, I reckon. I cannot fathom why anyone would ever live in such a place.”

She smiled. “In faith, I thought the same thing the first time I saw the wild places in Virginia, six weeks after sailing down this very river.”

They came at last to the heart of London, as far upriver as they could go, where the shipping seemed to accumulate against London Bridge, like detritus caught on a dam. Ships were tied up four and five deep along the docks, a towering jumble of masts, and moored in every open spot of water, leaving only enough room for more ships to work through the narrow channel in center stream. And weaving their way between them, like bustling servants, was a vast fleet of smaller boats under sail or pulled by oars.

As huge as the Thames was, it seemed less impressive now to people who lived alongside the great rivers that cut through Virginia-the James and the York and the Rappahannock-and it seemed that not one more ship could be wedged into that place.

They managed to find room enough to drop anchor, with two cables bent and the second bower ready to go down to moor the Elizabeth Galley and hold her in place in either a flood or ebb tide.

There was a wild rush of activity as the ship was made fast and sails stowed and hatches broken open, and then it was quiet, and Elizabeth and Thomas were able to survey the city from their familiar place on the deck.

Dark and filthy, loud, gritty. Once-familiar smells of sewage and smoke and cooking and blacksmithing and horses and fetid water swirled around them in a now-alien cloud. The excitement their younger selves had once felt when in the midst of all that rush of activity ashore was gone, and now they wanted only to finish their business and sail away again.

Honeyman and Dinwiddie went ashore and arranged a lighter, while Flanders began to break bulk. The next morning the lighter-a wide, flat-bottomed barge, propelled by long sweeps-came alongside, and the Elizabeth Galleys fell to with yard and stay tackles. They hauled and swayed and eased away handsomely, and one by one the casks of tobacco, which had last seen daylight in Virginia, over two thousand miles away, emerged from the gloomy hold and swung over the rail and disappeared into the lighter’s guts.

It took the better part of the day to transfer the tobacco from the Galley to the boat. As that work proceeded, Elizabeth went over the accounts, the bills of lading, the inventory of their and their neighbors’ tobacco.

“Now, recall, there is nothing illegal about our landing this tobacco,” Marlowe lectured. “Permits for sailing unescorted are none of this fellow’s business, and don’t let him tell you otherwise. We are a month at least ahead of the convoy. Our cargo should fetch twice what it did last season. And none of his letters of credit either. Ready money. He’ll have it on hand. Settle for no less.”

Elizabeth slammed her account book shut, looked up at Thomas with her exasperation showing plain. “Damn it, Thomas, if you are so sure I will make a hash of it, then go see the goddamned merchant yourself!”

“Me? What an idea! Elizabeth, I have told you time enough that I cannot show my face around the waterfront, not in London, for the love of God! It is exactly where I would expect to see a familiar face. Would you have me hanged for piracy?”

“If you do not shut up, I shall hang you myself.”

Before he could reply, there was a polite knock on the great cabin door, and Peleg Dinwiddie announced that the lighter was preparing to leave. It was early evening, and a mist was beginning to settle over the river, leaving the far bank obscured in shades of brown and gray.

Elizabeth draped her wool cloak over her shoulders, collected up her account books, and followed Dinwiddie topside, with Marlowe trailing behind. The decks were dark and wet with the falling mist as the three of them crossed to the gangway.

It had been explained to Dinwiddie and Flanders and Honeyman, and word had filtered down to the men, that Marlowe was wanted for piracy. Marlowe told them how he had foolishly become involved in a Red Sea scheme sponsored by powerful men within the government. How, when it all fell apart, the government men tried to put the blame on him, accused him of turning pirate, to save themselves.

It was all a fiction, of course, but believable enough, with shades of the fate that had befallen Captain William Kidd. Dinwiddie and Flanders seemed to accept the story, shocked at such perfidy, but without question. Honeyman nodded, shrugged, as if he needed no explanation and did not care why his captain could not go ashore.

Marlowe paused at the gangway, put his hands on Elizabeth’s shoulders. “You will do brilliantly, I would never doubt it,” he said and kissed her, then handed her down to Dinwiddie, who was already on the lighter’s deck.

He watched the lighter’s hands cast off fore and aft, watched the gentle breeze lift the barge from the Elizabeth Galley’s side, and he felt a deep shame that he should cower thus while his wife went ashore to do his office, a profound regret that he had lived his life in such a way that now he could not show his face on London’s waterfront.

It was almost full dark, an hour and a half later, when a hired boat returned with Elizabeth and Peleg. Marlowe waited at the gangway, eager to hear of Elizabeth’s triumph. But as she climbed up the boarding steps, scowling, her eyebrows held in that attitude of fury that he knew all too well, he realized he would be hearing something quite different.

“Whatever happened?” he asked, even as he held out his hand to help her through the opening in the bulwark.

“That bastard will not allow me to close the deal,” she said. “Bloody stupid man. He says that since the cargo was consigned to you, you must be the one to sign the bills of sale.”

“But I consigned the cargo to you. You are my representative.” This made no sense.

“For the tobacco you own, yes. That was not the problem. It is the crop that our neighbors consigned to us. Apparently you cannot transfer the consignment for that, since it is not your property. Bloody stupid-”

“Did you manage to strike a good deal in any event?” Marlowe was looking for some bright spot while he searched for a way out of this.

“Yes, yes, fine…” Elizabeth said, but Peleg stepped through the gangway next and said, “Ah, she was bloody brilliant, Captain! I’ve never seen the like, not in all my years as a merchant seaman! Had the rutting bastard all twisted around, got half again as much per pound as we done on our best year before the war!” He was beaming, the admiration in his face genuine.

“What good it might do, I do not know. We cannot sell the tobacco that is not ours, and it will be ruined if we try to bring it back to Virginia. We shall make a profit ourselves and ruin our neighbors. They will of course demand indemnity. No, it won’t do. Thomas, I am at a loss.”