James Nelson - The Pirate Round

“Lord Yancy will have guns to sell, if you gots gold to buy them. You’re welcome to make use of the island as you need. I reckon my lord will wish to come out and greet you. You’d do well to have that side party for him, and musicians, if you got ’em. And bunting. He likes bunting.”

“Thank you for that,” Marlowe said, wondering what kind of lunatic this Yancy might be. He knew from personal experience the depravity that power could induce. “I would be delighted to welcome Lord Yancy aboard with all that my humble ship has to offer.”

“Good. That’s good, Captain.” Nagel ran his eyes over Elizabeth one last time. “I’ll bid you good day, then.” With that, he lumbered back to the gangway, dropped easily down into the waiting boat. The boatmen shoved off, pulled for shore.

Marlowe watched them go, thinking, Lord, I have been here for one hour, and already I am desperate to be gone.

DESPERATE HE might have been to leave St. Mary’s, but Marlowe knew that being desperate did not necessarily mean being able to leave. And able he was not.

The Elizabeth Galley had now crossed the Atlantic three times, with never a bit of attention paid to her hull, and he knew that attention must be paid. They were taking on water, and great tendrils of weed could be seen streaming aft under the counter when the tide flowed around the hull. They would have to strip her top-hamper and careen her, run her up on the beach and roll her on her side to get at the weeds and the leaks. It was an onerous task, though not as bad as it might have been, since they had no guns to get off of her and precious little in the way of food or water left to sway out of her hold.

Marlowe was pulled from his consideration of that grim reality by a second hail from the lookout, the report of yet another boat pulling for them. Marlowe fixed the boat with his telescope. It was bigger than the last, sort of an ornamental barge with a canopy and a big ensign that he did not recognize streaming from a staff in the stern.

“This would be Lord Yancy, I’ll wager,” Bickerstaff said, his voice carrying the subtle flavor of irony and amusement.

“I’ll wager you are right. And it will do us well to recall that, crackbrained though he might be, he is nonetheless the crackbrain who commands all of the guns past which we must sail. I think the utmost deference is called for, until such time as we are well beyond long-cannon range. Mr. Honeyman, what have we in the way of bunting?”

They managed to muster quite a bit in the fifteen minutes it took for the barge to make its leisurely way across harbor. Along with that, they rounded up what musicians the Elizabeth Galley could boast-a fore topman who was something of a hand with a fiddle; the cook, who was a master of the recorder; and one of the boys who had been practicing with a drum and found a natural talent with that instrument.

These few, and the men with cutlasses, made their best show as the barge drew alongside and Lord Yancy stepped slowly up and through the gangway.

Given the size of Henry Nagel, Marlowe had expected Yancy to be a hairy giant of a man, and so he was surprised at what stepped onto his deck. A small, thin man, squirrel-like, with a neat mustache and chin beard. He wore a wide hat with a great feather, like a French soldier of a former age. From his shoulders a cape fell nearly to the deck, lined with brilliant red silk. His clothes were immaculate. He wore a jewel-studded rapier on his waist.

“I take it I have the honor of welcoming Lord Yancy aboard the Elizabeth Galley?” Marlowe said, making a shallow bow.

“You do,” Yancy said, never looking at Marlowe but rather darting his eyes around the vessel, not the slow, professional assessment of the seaman but rather a jerky, suspicious motion. He made to speak and then stopped as a coughing fit overcame him, and he bent over, hacking into a blood-spotted handkerchief. Finally he straightened again and said, “You did not salute the fort.”

“Forgive me, my lord, I was unaware of the protocol of the island,” Marlowe said, “and, as you can see, I have no great guns.” He struggled to sound sincere, did not care for that kind of kowtowing. Two sentences, and already he wanted to twist Yancy’s thin neck. He concentrated on the big cannon on the island, which he reckoned were concentrated on him.

“Yes, well, do not forget again,” Yancy said, and met Marlowe’s eyes at last. The man was clearly sick with some ailment, and yet there was an energy about him that seemed out of place. “You wish to buy guns, I understand?”

“Yes, my lord. And powder and shot. And I would hope to careen as well.”

Yancy nodded, and his eyes fell on Elizabeth, and he looked her up and down as only a man used to having supreme authority would dare do. Marlowe gritted his teeth. Yancy shifted his gaze a fraction of a second before Marlowe was about to speak.

“This is your wife?” Yancy asked.

“Yes. Lord Yancy, allow me to present Elizabeth Marlowe.”

Elizabeth gave a shallow bow. Yancy shuffled across the deck with his weak gait, took up her hand, and kissed it as he bowed to her. He continued to hold it, turned to Marlowe. “Not many men would bring their wives on a Red Sea voyage,” Yancy observed, his eyes drifting back to Elizabeth.

“There are not many wives such as Elizabeth,” Marlowe countered.

“No indeed.” Yancy finally eased her hand down, looked at Marlowe. “You will have your guns. We shall discuss price later. And you are welcome to careen as you wish. Plenty of good beach, you can see from here. You will dine with me tonight?” It did not sound like a question.

“I would be honored,” Marlowe said.

“Good. Please bring your wife and whatever officers you see fit.” Then he turned and climbed back down into the waiting barge with never another word.

“Well, he seems disposed to helping us, in any event,” Bickerstaff observed as the barge pulled away.

“Yes, so he does.” But that fact did not ease Marlowe’s anxiety in the slightest measure.

By the time the sails were furled and the ship stood down to an anchor watch, there was not much left of the daylight. Marlowe and Elizabeth dressed for dinner, as did Bickerstaff and Peleg Dinwiddie, got up in the same attire he had worn to Governor Richier’s dinner in Bermuda, so many months before. Fortunately, he had retained the lessons in fashion that Elizabeth had so diplomatically foisted on him, and he looked only a little bit odd as he met the others topside.

Marlowe did not think it would matter much. This was a pirate community, where the odd, the depraved, the bizarre were commonplace, even expected.

They gathered in the waist as the boat crew took their places on the thwarts, and Bickerstaff said, “Thomas, do you think it is entirely safe, bringing Elizabeth into this viper’s nest?”

No, Thomas thought, but he said, “I should think it is safe. There is a sort of a code, you know, with these fellows. They are not wont to meddle with another’s wife. Not when the other is willing and able to fight for her honor, as of course you know I am.” That last he addressed to Elizabeth, with a bow.

“We shall trust your judgment in this, naturally,” said Bickerstaff.

“And even if I am wrong,” Marlowe added, “Elizabeth is now the finest blade in all Madagascar, thanks to your tutelage. I should think we might look to her to protect our persons.”

They climbed down the side, and Marlowe took his place in the boat. He hoped very much that he would still be joking at evening’s end. He did not point out to the others that there really was no choice but to bring Elizabeth ashore, did not point out that there was more danger to all of them, Elizabeth included, in ignoring this Yancy’s wishes than in acquiescing. They could only play along and hope that things broke in their favor.